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Listening to new music is hard. Not hard compared to going to space or war, but hard compared to listening to music we already know. [...] Eventually, we bow our heads and cross a threshold where most music becomes something to remember rather than something to experience. And now, on top of everything else, here we all are, crawling through this tar pit of panic and dread, trying to heft some new music through historic gravity into our lives. It feels like lifting a couch. Why Do We Even Listen to New Music? -- Our brains reward us for seeking out what we already know. So why should we reach to listen to something we don’t? (Pitchfork long read) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:06 PM PST - 83 comments

WHAT'LL YOU BOYS HAVE? SHE ASKED. RAW MEAT, THEY ANSWERED. A remarkable review of a concert featuring The Youngbloods, Crome Syrcus, Steve Miller Band, The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Jefferson Airplane. Written by a guy named Sandy Darlington, author of "Buzz River Letters." It appeared in the San Francisco Express Times, an underground paper formed by Berkeley Free Speech vet Marvin Garson with help from Todd Gitlin, Greil Marcus, Paul Williams, chef Alice Waters, and Marjorie Heins. [more inside]
posted by msalt at 11:06 PM PST - 11 comments

What is the difference, conceptually, between a state deploying its power to protect its population’s health and a state using it to protect its population’s democratic rights? This is not the first time Gavin Newsom has referred to California as a "nation-state". [more inside]
posted by toastyk at 10:41 PM PST - 117 comments

Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3 is a song by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, released in the summer of 1979. It did pretty good, hitting the 3rd spot on the UK charts. It's considered to be a list song. [more inside]
posted by ashbury at 9:20 PM PST - 18 comments

Fossilised remains of 90-million-year-old rainforest discovered under Antarctic ice. Interesting article about the discovery of a forest only 500 miles from the South Pole. How did a forest exist in a continent that is dark 6 months of the year ? Story contains interesting map of the original Antarctic supercontinent when it was attached to India and Australia. [more inside]
posted by Narrative_Historian at 7:27 PM PST - 12 comments

Who said you can't fight while in isolation? [slyt]
posted by ladyriffraff at 4:33 PM PST - 10 comments

An infectious-disease expert’s long crusade against some of humanity’s most virulent threats. (SL The New Yorker) Since his days of advising Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Fauci has maintained a simple credo: “You stay completely apolitical and non-ideological, and you stick to what it is that you do. I’m a scientist and I’m a physician. And that’s it.”
posted by bluesky43 at 4:25 PM PST - 54 comments

1985 was a ridiculously strong year for music releases, and we're far behind with celebrating releases. Jan 25th 35 years ago was the release of Phil Collins' third solo album No Jacket Required. It's hard to provide commentary on an album this mammoth. So many hits, so many units sold, so many awards... Truly a legendary album [full album, 46m]. Side A: Sussudio [video], Only You Know And I Know, Long Long Way To Go, I Don't Wanna Know, One More Night [video] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:15 PM PST - 46 comments

Last year Sveriges Television, the national broadcasting service supported by taxpayers, introduced The big moose migration (Den stora älgvandringen), a multi-day, 24-hour broadcast of a beautiful landscape along with any animals that pass by its cameras. Slow TV day 5 of the second broadcast begins tomorrow. Feel free to enjoy the first four days starting now. “For several thousand years the moose have walked the same path to get to the rich pastures of summer. Follow the walk by from Kullburg in the north of Sweden,” encourages SVT.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:35 AM PST - 8 comments

In case you missed it earlier, Andrea Bocelli concert On Easter Sunday (April 12, 2020), by invitation of the City and of the Duomo cathedral of Milan, Italian global music icon Andrea Bocelli gave a solo performance representing a message of love, healing and hope to Italy and the world. [more inside]
posted by cyndigo at 11:17 AM PST - 7 comments

Which Is The Best Thing?
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 9:33 AM PST - 88 comments

“This is a song for those of you in the audience who have trouble getting up on Sunday morning and going to church.” [YouTube]
posted by Fizz at 9:21 AM PST - 10 comments

Anybody want to hear about how a Catholic church had me, a nice Jewish kid, re-write their Passion Week play and I inadvertently got the parish hooked on 3rd century Gnostic heresies?

Afikomen Valentín @ai_valentin from Twitter
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:31 AM PST - 26 comments

Tim Brooke-Taylor, one third of the legendary comedy trio The Goodies, has died of Covid-19. [more inside]
posted by rory at 8:29 AM PST - 58 comments

John Horton Conway, Princeton Mathematician, best know for his Game of Life, has died at 82 from COVID-19. (previously)
posted by Obscure Reference at 7:41 AM PST - 74 comments

The USDA's CropScape shows exactly which crops are being grown anywhere in the US. Because in these very weird and awful times, when nobody can leave their own property, it can be nice to look at some maps.
posted by gueneverey at 7:21 AM PST - 5 comments

Ten Years of ‘Miracles’ [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 4:41 AM PST - 33 comments