It took a direct immersion in the politics of the Mexican Revolution to give Diego Rivera's art the cause and the audience it needed. Commissioned by the new government to execute huge public murals, Rivera created a new socialist iconography from a mixture of Renaissance, academic, Cubist, and indig

Bright, Composed, Muralists, Political, Round, Social realism, Social revolution

To salsa fans around the world, Cuban-born singer Celia Cruz is one of a kind. In the course of her career, which by now has yielded more than 60 albums, she has been elevated to an icon status on par with Aretha Franklin, Bessie Smith, or Edith Piaf. After decades as the reigning queen of the Latin

Bright, Ebullient, Lush, Salsa music, Sensual

Charlie "Bird" Parker blew the sound of his soul through his alto and tenor sax, and for many musicians, hearing his music was like a religious conversion. He is immortalized as jazz music's "first existential hero," a blazing talent that burned out at age 35 from heroin, alcohol, and racism. The t

Bebop, Bright, Improvised, Loose, Overflowing, Pioneering

Mouse on Mars spins symphonies of wet blips, bleeps, buzzes, and beats into disjointed ditties of electronic joy. Since the early '90s, the D'sseldorf duo of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma has been composing a world within an electronic soundscape that is anything but cold. It's as if these two only fi

Abstract electronica, Bright, Bubblicious, Cartoonish, Kinetic, Pop, Smart