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Music & Culture

Demand Increases For Vinyl Records

7:35am April 17, 2015

Saturday is World Record Day, a celebration of independent record stores. Jay Millar of United Record Pressing, says people have a connection to vinyl that you just can't get with a digital download.

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Music & Culture

Wiz Khalifa's 'See You Again' Breaks Spotify Streaming Record

7:40pm April 16, 2015

by Andrew Limbong

The song by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth broke the record this week for Spotify streams in a single day with 4.2 million plays.

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Sufjan Stevens' album Carrie & Lowell is out this week.

Music & Culture

How To Be Alone: Musicians Confront Solitude

1:15pm April 16, 2015

by Ann Powers

On new albums, Sufjan Stevens, Kendrick Lamar and Laura Marling all hold the world at a distance in order to embrace creation.

Superchunk frontman and Merge Records co-founder Mac McCaughan (left) will put out his first album under his own name next month. Katie Crutchfield just put out her third album as Waxahatchee on Merge.

Music & Culture

A Rational Conversation With Mac McCaughan And Waxahatchee

12:30pm April 16, 2015

by Eric Ducker

Songwriter Katie Crutchfield and her boss, Merge Records' Mac McCaughan (who has a new solo album) talk about motivation, listening to their own music and the differences between DIY in 1994 and 2015.

Soul Singer Percy Sledge Dies

7:06pm April 14, 2015

by Krishnadev Calamur

Sledge is perhaps best known for his hit "When A Man Loves A Woman." He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

"There's always a light at the end of the tunnel" José González says of the songs on his album, Vestiges & Claws, released earlier this year.

Music & Culture

José González On Finding Light In A Comforting Darkness

12:34pm April 14, 2015

by Jonathan Dick

In an interview, the soft-spoken musician says the songs on his latest album, Vestiges & Claws, look outward, with optimism, toward something universal.

Asian music hitmaker Jae Chong, at work in a studio in Seoul. His work is all over Asian charts, but his passport is American.

How Asian-Americans Found A Home In The World Of K-Pop

8:33am April 14, 2015

by Elise Hu

For all the unique "Asian-ness" of K-pop, many of its stars are American-born and raised. And now that K-pop's gone global, Asian-American artists are more at home than ever.

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Salón Los Angeles is the oldest dance hall in Mexico City. It's here that well-dressed couples dance to danzón.

Music & Culture

From Ballrooms To Concert Halls, Mexico Kept This Cuban Style Alive

10:54am April 11, 2015

by Betto Arcos

Born in Cuba in the late 1800s, danzón had couples gliding in a kind of formal square dance a century later.

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Music & Culture

Remembering Ralph Sharon, Tony Bennett's Pianist

9:05am April 09, 2015

by Tom Cole

The longtime piano accompanist and musical director accidentally broke the hit "I Left My Heart In San Francisco." But he was also the driving force behind the style Bennett is best known for.

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Music & Culture

'American Pie' Lyrics Sell At Auction For $1.2 Million

12:20pm April 08, 2015

An anonymous buyer gets the manuscript which is 16 pages of a mix of handwritten and typed drafts — including notes. The papers may give new insight into what Don McLean wanted the song to mean.

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