Articles by Michael Anderson

Every story starts somewhere … this one starts last Friday night after my kids got home from their middle school dance. They both had a great time with friends and overall had fun. The next morning my younger son said he was a bit disappointed, and when we asked why he said it was because he requested a song that didn’t get played. My older son reminded him that it wasn’t exactly ‘mainstream’, but agreed it would have been a great song for the dance. It reminded me of something I’ve written about before – my tastes in music tend…

When Apple introduced variable pricing, the purpose was for music labels to be able charge more for popular songs … and to push people o buy albums. There was supposed to be a huge library of $0.69 songs … but anyone who has browsed the store knows that most everything is either $0.99 or $1.29 – or is the crap on albums that nobody wants! This morning I hit up Amazon.com as usual (for the free Android app of the day), and I find that Amazon has launched a new $0.69 singles store! As the site says: Instantly buy all…

Last year I reviewed Katy Perry’s CD “Teenage Dream “ and said: Let’s just be honest here: I would bet that Katy Perry spend much more time keeping her body in shape than working on her vocal range, breath control, or pitch. But that is pretty much the point – Katy Perry is a pure pop sugar package: an attractive young woman who gets packed into skimpy, tight-fitting clothes (Daisy-Dukes, bikinis on top?), and sings very catchy songs written by others to work around her limited vocal skills and allow her to perform them live without sounding awful while strutting…

The Beastie Boys landed on the scene in the late 80’s with a massive boom, as their ‘Fight for your right’ became an MTV mainstay after it was released in late 1986 and the song remains fresh and popular today. The Beasties have scored loads of hits and stayed on top of the cross-over rap/rock game for the last 25 years with a fresh and light approach. In early May their latest effort – Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 – will be released, marking their first new material in several years, and their first release since MCA underwent surgery for…

As our schedules around the house have jumped to ludicrous speed recently I have heard less and less pop music … which as you might guess is fine with me. And what we have been listening to is more focused – my kids used their Best Buy gift cards over spring break so we have new stuff from Kid Cudi, Rise Against, Panic! at the Disco, and DeadMau5 rolling. Until the other day … when my younger son was using up the remnants of an iTunes gift card. He bought some GrooveMaker packs for his iPod Touch, a few DeadMau5…