A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Sometimes the term is applied to albums considered to be of "uniform excellence" rather than an LP with an explicit musical or lyrical motif. There is no consensus among music critics as to the specific criteria for what a "concept album" is.
"New Romantics" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, taken from the deluxe edition of her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). It was written by Swift alongside its producers, Max Martin and Shellback. The song's title is a reference to the New Romantic cultural movement of the late 1970s and 1980s; the new wave musical style of that era influenced the song's synth-pop production. The lyrics find Swift reigniting her hopes and energy after having endured emotional hardships. "New Romantics" was made available for digital download as a promotional single on March 3, 2015, by Big Machine Records. It was released to US radio as the seventh and final single from 1989 on February 23, 2016, by Republic Records in partnership with Big Machine.
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a 1967 musical with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner and Andrew Lippa. It is based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts. The musical has been a popular choice for amateur theatre productions because of its small cast and simple staging.
Robert Thomas Christgau is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became an early proponent of musical movements such as hip hop, riot grrrl, and the import of African popular music in the West. Christgau spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for The Village Voice, during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. He has also covered popular music for Esquire, Creem, Newsday, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Billboard, NPR, Blender, and MSN Music, and was a visiting arts teacher at New York University. CNN senior writer Jamie Allen has called Christgau "the E. F. Hutton of the music world – when he talks, people listen."
A drop or beat drop in music, made popular by electronic dance music (EDM) styles, is a point in a music track where a sudden change of rhythm or bass line occurs, which is preceded by a build-up section and break.
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Outliers: The Story of Success is the non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, how the Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in human history, how two people with exceptional intelligence—Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer—end up with such vastly different fortunes, how Joseph Flom built Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the most successful law firms in the world, and how cultural differences play a large part in perceived intelligence and rational decision making. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill, is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000 hours, though the authors of the original study have disputed Gladwell's usage.
"You Belong with Me" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released as the third single from her second studio album Fearless on April 20, 2009, by Big Machine Records. Swift was inspired to write the song by a phone call between a member of her touring band and his girlfriend that she overheard. Co-written with Liz Rose, the lyrics are about a narrator's unrequited love for a boy unappreciated by his girlfriend. Swift and Nathan Chapman produced "You Belong with Me", a song that has a banjo-led production, country-indebted fiddle and mandolin, and new wave electric guitars. Although the single was promoted to country radio, many critics deemed it a pop song with prominent rock stylings.
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional or "folk" music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of written music, although since the beginning of the recording industry, it is also disseminated through recordings. Traditional music forms such as early blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences.
The album era was a period in English-language popular music from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s in which the album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption. It was primarily driven by three successive music recording formats: the 33⅓ rpm long-playing record (LP), the cassette tape, and the compact disc. Rock musicians from the US and the UK were often at the forefront of the era, which is sometimes called the album-rock era in reference to their sphere of influence and activity. The term "album era" is also used to refer to the marketing and aesthetic period surrounding a recording artist's album release.
"Blank Space" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, taken from her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). The song was released to US radio stations as the second single from 1989 on November 10, 2014, by Republic Records in partnership with Big Machine. Swift co-wrote "Blank Space" with its producers Max Martin and Shellback. For the lyrics, she conceived the song as a satirical self-referential nod to her reputation as a flirtatious woman with a series of romantic attachments, which blemished her once-wholesome girl next door image. Musically, it is an electropop song with minimal hip hop-influenced beats.
Apple Music 1, previously branded as Beats 1, is a 24/7 music radio station owned and operated by Apple Inc. It is accessible through iTunes or the Apple Music app on a computer, smartphone or tablet, smart speaker, and through the Apple Music web browser app.
Lemonade is the sixth studio album by American singer Beyoncé. It was released on April 23, 2016, by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, accompanied by a 65-minute film of the same title. It is Beyoncé's second visual album, following her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), and a concept album with a song cycle that relates Beyoncé's emotional journey after her husband's infidelity in a generational and racial context. Primarily an R&B and art pop album, Lemonade encompasses a variety of genres, including reggae, blues, rock, hip hop, soul, funk, Americana, country, gospel, electronic, and trap. It features guest vocals from James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, the Weeknd, and Jack White, and contains samples and interpolations of a number of hip hop and rock songs.
Code Switch is a race and culture outlet and a weekly podcast from American public radio network NPR. It began in 2013 with a blog as well as contributing stories to NPR radio programs. The Code Switch podcast launched in 2016. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, it became one of NPR's top ranked podcasts.
Lili Pauline Reinhart is an American actress. She is known for portraying Betty Cooper on The CW teen drama series Riverdale (2017–present) and Annabelle in Lorene Scafaria's black comedy crime drama film Hustlers (2019). In 2020, she portrayed Grace Town in Chemical Hearts, a film adaptation of the novel Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland.
Nicholas James Donnelly is a British filmmaker and music video producer. Donnelly first gained national exposure when directing/producing the music video Game Over Female Takeover, an independent release that featured many of the leading female urban artists in England on one video. These artists included Lady leshurr, Mz Bratt, Ruff Diamondz, Cherri Voncelle, and Amplify Dot The video served as the official remix to the record "Game Over".
Breakmaster Cylinder, also known as The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder or by the initials BmC, is a musical composer and producer who has provided title themes and background music for a number of radio shows and podcasts, principally with Gimlet Media's Reply All. Known for their pseudonymity, Breakmaster Cylinder does not make public appearances and has employed stand-ins for interviews, photographs, and other media appearances.
Storybound is a podcast created, produced, and hosted by Jude Brewer, with original music composed for each episode. The show is a collaboration between Lit Hub and The Podglomerate podcast network, featuring household names and Pulitzer Prize winning authors alongside relatively unknown bands, singer-songwriters, and composers. Season 1 debuted on December 3, 2019. Inspired from Brewer's Storytellers Telling Stories, Storybound surpassed a million downloads in its first year, following up with seasons 2 and 3, the latter of which has been recognized for experimental cross-genre music compositions with sampling created and arranged by Brewer.
In music, particularly Western popular music, a post-chorus is a section that appears after the chorus. The term can be used generically for any section that comes after a chorus, but more often refers to a section that has similar character to the chorus, but is distinguishable in close analysis. The concept of a post-chorus has been particularly popularized and analyzed by music theorist Asaf Peres, who is followed in this article.
Potterless is an audio podcast created by Mike Schubert. The podcast follows Schubert as he reads the Harry Potter series for the first time. Each episode covers a section of the book series and later the movies and fan material as Schubert and at least one guest analyze the story, writing, and characters. In the US the podcast charts in the top 40 for Arts and Entertainment podcasts and in the top 60 for comedy podcasts on Spotify.
