Entertainment arts

It's a strategy he pursued through the record industry for years. First he worked at Rick Rubin's American label, at a time circa 1992 when the Def Jam co-founder was briefly convinced that techno was the new punk, or the new hip hop: a revolution waiting to take the country by storm. Then Richards ran his own major label imprint 1500 Records. But just like with his stint at American, he struggled to find a way to sell electronic music through the conventional rock channels. By 2005, that was becoming irrelevant, as the industry was struggling to sell records in any genre. So with perfect timing, Richards formed Hard, a live promotions company, catching the rising tide of live performances and festivals. And it's through the live experience – something that can't be shared or bookmarked for later listening, that you have to be present for in real-time – that EDM has really achieved lift-off. Even artists who sell a goodly number of MP3s and make an impression on the … [Read more...] about How rave music conquered America

The two men, seated at the Groucho Club in London, are meant to be discussing their new collaboration, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story The Most Incredible Thing, about a competition to create exactly that. But the collaboration is a pretty remarkable thing in itself: the Pet Shop Boys' first attempt at composing a ballet score, and De Frutos's first full-length narrative dance. It's hard to keep them on topic, though. One minute they're expounding the ballet's underlying theme, the life-changing power of art, the next they're off on a tangent: everything from the fall of dictators to Noël Coward and the potency of cheap music. I'm privately grateful that Chris Lowe, the other Pet Shop Boy, is in bed nursing a cold. These two are handful enough. … [Read more...] about De Frutos and Pet Shop Boys reach for the moon

Certain subjects are hard to keep down in the world of documentary. Year after year they resurface, regardless of whether the world really needs another film about the porn industry, mixed martial arts or Kurt Cobain. Most persistent of all is the Inspirational Recovery Story, in which we follow a buoyant character as they rebuild their life in the wake of a tragic incident, often with the aid of music or some kind of alternative therapy. Premiering yesterday as a highly promoted Netflix Original, My Beautiful Broken Brain is the latest entry in that familiar canon, and its overall structure closely follows the formula established by its predecessors, even as its best moments push beyond the genre’s conventions. … [Read more...] about My Beautiful Broken Brain: a painfully literal addition to the inspirational recovery canon