Car accidents, spider bites, and head wounds are just a few of the subjects at the center of the Flaming Lips' 1999 album "The Soft Bulletin." But the album isn't dark, jarring, or the least bit disruptive. In fact, it's nothing if not light. This kind of light might be "chemically derived." Or is it
Radiohead's musical gestures are grand, even spacious, but they are neither airy nor light. Indeed, the space of this music is dense. Beneath the stupendous angst of their songs Radiohead creates a minute, complex texture, a flexible network of distortions and modulations. The band's angst turns in o
Huge face, huge voice, huge presence: the distinguishing characteristics of Fyodor Chaliapin, Russian Basso of the early twentieth century's opera stage. At the same moment that film was gaining momentum as a medium, Chaliapin seemed to anticipate, and set the standard for, artists like Bela Lugos
In 1941 (or so he insists), Plácido Domingo was literally born into Zarzuela, Spain's popular operetta tradition. His father, Plácido Domingo, Sr., and his mother, Pepita Embil -- both Zarzuela stars -- moved the family from Madrid to Mexico to create their own CompañÃa de Opereta y Zarzu