In arguing to keep Sean Combs in jail until his trial on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, prosecutors have portrayed him as a lavishly wealthy, well-connected music mogul who would be well positioned to flee. In court papers, prosecutors cited media reporting that estimated his wealth at close to …
Read More »Phil Lesh Didn’t Hold Songs Down. He Lifted Them Higher.
Some rock bassists make it their job to hold down the bottom of a song: to hone parts that crisply but unobtrusively stake out a harmonic and rhythmic foundation, that are felt as much as heard. Phil Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead who died on Friday at …
Read More »Phil Lesh’s Life in Pictures
Phil Lesh, the bassist and a charter member of the Grateful Dead who was 84 when he died on Friday, will be remembered as a versatile musician and a pioneer for his instrument of choice. Lesh co-wrote songs and was an occasional lead vocalist across his 30-year career with the …
Read More »Bryan Ferry Enjoys the Kansas City Chiefs’ ‘Outfits’
While Bryan Ferry was picking songs for “Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023,” — a new boxed set recapping his long solo career apart from Roxy Music, the pioneering British art-rock band he led — the singer noticed a recurring theme. “There’s a lot of love songs, a lot of romantic songs,” …
Read More »On ‘The Great Impersonator,’ Halsey Channels Pop’s Past
Pop stars start out as pop fans. Like countless other listeners, they find songs that move them, sounds they enjoy and public personas they identify with. Then, if they are talented and determined and lucky enough, they forge their own artistic identities and inspire new fans. “The Great Impersonator,” the …
Read More »Phil Lesh Made Organ Donation His Personal Cause
The Grateful Dead and its various successors and offshoots were famous for making sure no two concerts were the same, changing their set lists with each performance. But since the late 1990s, at most every show featuring the original bassist Phil Lesh, who died Friday at 84, there was one …
Read More »Philip Glass Quartet to Be Performed at AIDS Memorial as Tribute to Brian Buczak
The night Brian Buczak died, fireworks lit up the sky. It was July 4, 1987, and his bed at New York University’s hospital on the East River overlooked the holiday celebrations. Buczak’s partner, the Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks, a prolific painter of clouds, was struck by the beauty of what …
Read More »Libby Titus, Introspective Singer and Songwriter, Dies at 77
Libby Titus, a singer-songwriter known for her wistful ballad “Love Has No Pride,” covered by Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt, and for her collaborations with Burt Bacharach, Dr. John and her husband, Donald Fagen, of Steely Dan, died on Oct. 13. She was 77. Mr. Fagen announced her death on …
Read More »At 150, Charles Ives Still Reflects the Darkness and Hope of America
Sunday is the 150th anniversary of the composer Charles Ives’s birth, and the most fitting way to celebrate would be to bang your fists on the table and rail against the damned closed-mindedness of classical music, with its lazy dependence on a predictable canon. But honestly, that’s old news; a …
Read More »FKA twigs’s Electro-Pop Enticement, and 8 More New Songs
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs. FKA …
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