music: all articles

Music breaks through borders. OpenDemocracy delivers a musical feast of great reviews, music-news and new music.
Friday 26th June

Michael Jackson: crossing over

A gifted musician born of black American culture whose work reached beyond. Why did he matter?
Friday 23rd May

Bob Dylan's revolution in the head

The love of millions is invested in Bob Dylan. But can we know too much to see him? (archive)
Thursday 13th December

Cornelius Cardew lives

The inspirational composer, who died on 13 December 1981, remains a rich resource for fellow-musicians
Thursday 22nd February

Mardi Gras, 2007

"The carnival that keeps us sane after all this madness." Listen to Jim Gabour report from New Orleans's big parade.
Wednesday 13th December

Cornelius Cardew: a life unfinished

The modernist English composer Cornelius Cardew's sudden death on 12 December 1981 left an immense body of creative work, a huge vacuum in the lives of hs contemporaries, and a sense of promise unfulfilled. A quarter-century on, David Hayes presents a range of reflections from some - Keith Rowe, Eddie Prevost, Robert Wyatt, and the composer's biographer John Tilbury - who knew and collaborated with this protean figure.

 

Tuesday 5th September
Monday 20th March

Oil and 'gasolina' in Kurdistan

In one part of Iraq, the daily struggle for survival is waged against a pulsating Spanish-Jamaican musical beat celebrating the joys of – well, what, exactly? Spencer Ackerman reports from Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.
Monday 27th February

Rice and beans with collard greens: the America of Ray Barretto, 1929-2006

Ed Morales pays tribute to the "Nuyorican" master of Latin Jazz, Ray Barretto.
Friday 24th February

Listening to Istanbul

Fatih Akin's new film, "Crossing the Bridge", allows Istanbul's music and musicians to reveal the city's fascinating and contradictory character – paradoxically without escaping risks of a Eurocentric perspective.
Friday 3rd February

The making of the Man in Black

James Mangold’s film portrayal of Johnny Cash in "Walk The Line" gives insight into the musician’s transition to artistic maturity, but for Charlie Devereux, the story it omits is just as interesting.
Friday 18th November

Departures

What do you get when you pair a Hungarian writer-photographer with a Pakistani musician? Answer: sublime photographs of the Danube, a narrated short story, set to the sound of the tabla and atmospheric Punjabi vocals, all presented in a multimedia slideshow format. Yep, only on openDemocracy!
Thursday 29th September

How it feels: Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan

“No Direction Home” is a compelling film portrait of Bob Dylan which leaves the great musician as addictively elusive as ever, writes Rob Cawston.
Thursday 7th April

New Tango

Astor Piazzolla is widely regarded as the most important tango musician in the latter half of the twentieth century. His creation "New Tango/ tango nuevo" changed the face of traditional tango music. Tony Staveacre, who recorded Piazzolla's last live session, pays tribute to the man "who took no prisoners".  
Wednesday 9th July

Part 2: 'Pro-gumbo': culture as anarchy

Part 2 of The new information ecosystem: cultures of anarchy and closure
Wednesday 19th February

Hairiness sounds like this: an Arts & Cultures exclusive

openDemocracy presents an exclusive advance audio preview of ‘Lycanthropy’, Patrick Wolf’s debut album. Click below to listen.
Thursday 30th May

God Save the Queen - The Pistols' Jubilee

Twenty-five years ago, punk exploded into Britain’s last royal jubilee. Has that extraordinary moment itself become a subordinate part of the national heritage, or is the radical anger that inspired it still germinating beneath the thrones of power?
Wednesday 19th December

Love's Repair

A prophetic thirty-year old song illuminates a deep truth: that the language of our hearts and our public life is in urgent need of regeneration. And that can only come from within.

Rock of Sages

Monuments have toppled all over the world, but Bob Dylan stays on his feet – indefatigable, protean, transcending his every generation. openDemocracy’s North Americas editor asks whether the source of his endurance lies precisely in the fact that he started old?
Tuesday 7th August

Listening but not hearing: the Ken Burns version

The documentary history of jazz by Ken Burns is the work of a raw enthusiast, unbalanced in judgment, flawed by hero-worship, and tone-deaf to unorthodox streams of the great river. A respected jazz critic acknowledges its merits... and makes its silences audible.
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