I Heart Pandora

I love Pandora. If the record companies and artists are smart, they will never oppose this type of audio streaming. Here's why:

One of the cool things I get to do is teach the 8th Grade Technology class at John Hancock Charter School. They all get to be on the yearbook staff. Once all the instruction is completed for such topics as photography, graphic design, typography, Photoshop, and Indesign, the class starts designing the yearbook pages. When they do that, we listen to Pandora.

The other day we were listening to my "Psy Trance" station (I seeded the station with Shpongle). A song called Worlds Collide by Apocalyptica came on. K. Way awesome track. So awesome in fact that I went to Amazon and bought it on the spot.

I've done this with a vast majority of my music collection. In fact, that's how I first heard Above & Beyond and Vargo. Because of that, I've purchased just about everything Above & Beyond does (artist releases, remix albums, etc.) and two of Vargo's albums. I heard BT for the first time on the now-defunct MusicMatch (R.I.P. -- Yahoo Music doesn't hold a candle....), and from that service I bought one of his tracks 8 years ago. When BT's album These Hopeful Machines came out in 2010, I bought it, all because I heard and liked one of his tracks on a music streaming service.

And I can't be the only one that does this. I don't have any numbers to hand, but it seems to me services like Pandora would actually drive online music purchases.

Anyway, just another way that technology is affecting music -- and there are so many ways!

Phantastic (or, Sarah Brightman is much better than I thought....)

Okay...we've been on Phantom of the Opera overload for the last two months. Not that that's a bad thing.

At the beginning of February, my daughter was in her high school's production of the aforementioned work (playing violin in the pit orchestra). The first thing to mention about this is that the music was the *original* music from the Broadway production; it wasn't 'dumbed down.' And this is very hard music. Go listen to Masquerade in particular and pay attention to the violin runs. Wow.

The second thing to say is that the Pleasant Grove High School drama and music departments put on a fantastic (or should I say phantastic) show. I have never seen such a good high school production in my many years of life. The singing was amazing, the pit orchestra awesome, the staging, sets, etc. were jaw-dropping. A hearty congratulations to the entire cast, crew, and orchestra.

Last Saturday we took said daughter (who turned 18 on that day...yikes), one of her friends, and our other daughter to see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian in Las Vegas. 4th row seats. Very cool. The opening scene with the flying chandelier never fails to blow my socks off, and I've seen it ten times at least.

You're probably wondering by now what this has to do with Sarah Brightman. Well, I'll tell you.

I've always thought it odd that she was chosen to play the part of Christine Daae in Phantom of the Opera. Despite her impressive vocal range and precise control over her singing, I've always wondered why it was that her tone sounded like she'd dined on large quantities of milk and cookies before performing, particularly in the London cast recording of the soundtrack. Seriously. Go listen to the soundtrack and tell me it doesn't sound like she's got something in her throat.

Earlier that Saturday we went to the Bellagio to check out the singing fountain, and the song we happened to be there for was one called Time to Say Goodbye. I didn't know who the female vocalist was (Charlotte Church? Celine Dion?), but she was superb. Andrea Bocelli was unmistakable though, and was also superb.

Later on I looked up the song to see who the female vocalist was, and MUCH to my surprise, it was Sarah Brightman. In the twenty-odd years since her debut as Christine Daae, she has, in my opinion, improved a hundred fold. Her tone was heavenly.

Anyway, musically, the whole weekend was, as I said, Phantastic.