Katherine Turman is a Recording Academy/GRAMMY.com contributor.
Kids are often "shushed" at museums, instructed to quietly observe the exhibits and appreciate creations from a distance. They’re certainly never — ever — permitted to touch a piece of art. The GRAMMY Museum's newly opened Sonic Playground upends that "look don’t touch" approach, encouraging young visitors — with or without their parents — to engage with 17 unique interactive…
Mannequin Pussy’s musical and lyrical charge is raucous, raw, angry and jangly, yet leavened with angelic choruses and delightfully impious asides — and that’s just I Got Heaven’s first song. From its opening track, the Philadelphia quartet's new album is redolent of riot grrrl fervor. The 10 tracks of I Got Heaven, out March 1, are laced with industrial intensity…
Huey Lewis hit a grand slam with 1983's Sports. The third album from Huey Lewis and the News featured the ubiquitous hits "Heart and Soul," "I Want a New Drug," "The Heart of Rock and Roll," "If This is It" and "Walking on a Thin Line." The LP hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in June 1984, charted for…
It would be a near-impossibility to cover all the diverse women making art during Women's History Month — and celebrating creators every day, week and month is the goal — but any opportunity to elevate deserving female musicians is one to jump on. This March, GRAMMY.com shines a spotlight on female-identifying music-makers. This month's 15 releases include entries from the…
Can rock 'n' roll be defined as the loud blues- and guitar-based stylings purveyed by everyone from the Rolling Stones to Greta Van Fleet? Perhaps it's the smart, Brit-punk energy of Idles, or the lush new wave-alt-rock stylings of Phoenix? Or maybe rock is really in the grooves of stoner/doom band Windhand, or classic thunder of NWOBHM icons Iron Maiden?…
With tectonic shifts in the music business — TikTok's domination and virality; the "Taylor effect" of Swift's re-recordings, among other things — contractual procedures can and do change incredibly quickly. It's difficult for an artist to keep track, let alone know what type of record deal to sign… or when. To unpack this topic, the Recording Academy’s Entertainment Law Initiative (ELI), a…
Presented by GRAMMY.com, Living Legends is an editorial series that honors icons in music and celebrates their inimitable legacies and ongoing impact on culture. GRAMMY.com recently caught up with multi-GRAMMY Award winner Herb Alpert, whose work as a bandleader and label head have put him at the forefront of jazz and instrumental music for decades. Herb Alpert is the "A"…
When IDLES began in 2009, singer Joe Talbot recalls that not even their then-manager got the name right. "We were Idols, Ideals, the Idols. We were put on the wrong posters. Everything you can imagine was wrong for about a year and a half." But the Welsh-born singer and his band bided their time. After forming IDLES with bassist Adam…
The multi-room, lovingly curated exhibit Lou Reed: Caught Between The Twisted Stars is a fitting coda to Lewis Allan Reed's vast influence and position in the cultural, literary and music worlds. Titled after a lyric in "Romeo Had Juliette," the show is a comprehensive look at the artist whose 20-LP-strong solo career and work with the seminal Velvet Underground was…
Prolific might be an understatement when it comes to Andrew Bird's work across a myriad of mediums. In addition to his own work, the GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter is a renowned whistler, and was a member of Squirrel Nut Zippers for several years. Bird's 1996 debut album, Music of Hair, was followed by about 16 solo records (some with/as Bowl of Fire),…
Challenging the status quo musically, lyrically, and visually, the pioneering women of punk made sure they were seen and heard. Punk rock didn’t require stellar musicianship or record-company backing; for the powerful women making noise in the genre, it was about overthrowing old tropes of women in music occupying sweet or subservient positions. These pioneers spewed and shared ideas, passion,…
The Producers & Engineers Wing 20th Anniversary Celebration included tears (of joy), lots of laughter plus, as always at P&E Wing Celebrations, great music. The GRAMMY Week fete was jam-packed with the P&E Wing’s highlights and accomplishments from the last two decades, not to mention excitement for the future of the more than 4,400-member-and-growing group of dedicated professionals. The hour-long…
We can all agree that 2020 is a milestone, albeit challenging, year: There's that end-of-the-world-feeling pandemic that's been going on since March. And oh yeah, it's Mastodon's 20-year anniversary, too. Brann Dailor, the band's drummer/singer and founding member, has been quarantined at home in Atlanta for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. His mother, who "smokes like it's her job,…
During his more than quarter-century as frontman for five-time GRAMMY-nominated metal quintet Lamb Of God, singer Randy Blythe has been on the receiving end of questions from journalists ranging from inane to tough. But in the heated spring of 2020, as conversations and actions about systemic racism become omnipresent, he is now asking himself those same "uncomfortable questions." On Instagram,…
It looked like 2020 was going to be a banner year for Death Angel. The quintet were still on a high from their first GRAMMY nod for the title track of their ninth album, Humanicide, and were celebrating their role as progenitors of the Northern California thrash metal scene on the sold-out Bay Strikes Back tour in Europe with Testament…
In early 1992 Ernie Cunnigan visited the Burbank office of Howie Klein. The guitarist (who goes by Ernie C.) and the then-president of Reprise/Warner Bros. Records were listening to the upcoming self-titled debut from Cunnigan’s band, Body Count, fronted by his Crenshaw High School buddy Tracy Marrow, already famous as rapper Ice-T. Ice, with the savvy creative connectivity that guides…
2020 MusiCares Person Of The Year Aerosmith are the best-selling American rock band in history, with reported sales of 150 million records worldwide. But you don't garner 12 multi-platinum albums (not to mention 18 platinum and 25 gold) on stellar songs and performances alone: Formed in Boston in 1970, Aerosmith also lay claim to an enviable, coveted cool. With equal doses…
Death Angel lead guitarist Rob Cavestany was more excited than a kid on Christmas morning when he heard that his band—who've endured impressive highs and commensurate lows—was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Metal Performance for "Humanicide," the title track of the quintet's ninth album. That excitement has only grown for the Northern California-bred metallers as the 62nd GRAMMY Awards show draws…
Coheed and Cambria don't simply make albums, they create musical and lyrical universes. Specifically surrounding the story of The Amory Wars—sci-fi-ish storylines that mesh with comics, books, videos and visuals to create a linear through-line among nearly all the band's albums. If that sounds like a Pink Floyd or RUSH fan's dream, maybe; but it’s also captivating for the everyperson…
He could be an extra on "Game of Thrones." A guitarist in a Viking metal band. A "Duck Dynasty" associate. Or a biker straight out of "Sons of Anarchy." But singer/guitarist Zakk Wylde is most comfortable playing guitar (and piano) for his own Black Label Society…or gigging with the man who first made him famous—Ozzy Osbourne. <iframe width="620" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xoO2hwuRi7Y"…
