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If
you've looked at the front page of any major newspaper
in recent weeks, you know that the world looks to be
booked solid with crazies, misfits and dedicated delinquents.
And while it is true that the music world does have
its share of lunatics, for the most part practicioners
of that particular art form help us keep a grip on our
sanity with auditory excursions into worlds that only
exist between our ears. Whether you want the low-down
on the scorching hot Latin music scene or are simply
looking for notes on what acts are currently touring,
Fisher Backstage is a good place to tune-up your musical
sensibilities.
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New tunes head into the Hall of Fame.
In the movie Chinatown, John Huston's character
explains his status and notoriety by explaining
that, "whores, politicians and ugly buildings
all get respectable, if they last long enough."
The same, it seems, can be said of songs. The
National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences
has picked 49 recordings to receive its coveted
Hall of Fame honors. The new selections, which
include The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night",
Frank Sinatra's "May Way", Nat King
Cole's "Unforgettable" and Jimi Hendrix's
"Purple Haze", bring the Hall of Fame
juke box up to 499 titles. Kind of makes you
long for that Sinatra-Hendrix duet that just
never materialized, doesn't it?
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Ba-a-a the way, U2 can
work with sheep!
William
Wallace and all of the blue-faced brave hearts of
Scotland haven't got anything on the Irish rock group
U2. Recently, the city of Dublin presented the Achtung
Baby! brigade with the prestigious Freedom of the
City Award. Dating back to 1454, the civic honor entitles
the recipient(s) to possess a coat of chain-mail armor,
a bow and a sword and (ta-da!) to graze sheep on a
city park. Bono and Edge took full advantage of their
exhaulted privileges; only they had to substitute
lambs borrowed from friends for the sheep. Hope they
didn't try to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.
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I'da thought he would have liked it
Bridging the gap
between pop and Puccini, Elton John has collaborated
with Tim Rice - former writing partner of Andrew
Lloyd Weber - on a new Broadway musical, Aida.
John caused something of a stir when he stormed
out of a preview performance back in February.
It seems he wasn't too pleased with how some
of the music was handled. Someone must have
spoken with someone, because when the singer
popped in to check out the show a few weeks
later, he told reporters afterwards that the
production was, "11 on a scale of 1 to
10." What can you say...he's a little bit
funny.
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¡Cuidado...Latino musica
es muy grande!
Don't
look now, but the most explosive growth area in popular
music is anything Latino. According to the Recording
Industry Association of America, last year the Latin
music market sizzled, growing more than twice as fast
as the market for music in general. The trade association
reports that in 1999, shipments of Latin music - defined
as anything with at least 51% of its lyrics in Spanish
- grew 8% to 51 million units. Over the past three
years, Latin music has grown 30%. Many industry observers
see that figure declining as white-hot Latino acts
like Ricky Martin and Enrique Igelsias begin recording
more and more tunes in English. Anyway you look at
it, la vida loca is very lucrative.
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