The incomparable Annie Lennox.

Join in with your Saturday sounds.

The song in my head today is, in my opinion, one of the best blues-rock pieces ever. Play it loud.

Open Thread: post news, views and especially the song in your head this weekend.

The song in my head today. Enjoy.

Post 'em if you got 'em.

What is your favorite Willie song?

The song in my head today is possibly the greatest of all nerd anthems.

I've got a special treat for y'all this weekend. The complete Pink Floyd "Pulse" live concert. Enjoy.

A great philosopher once wrote: "Naughty naughty very naughty".

The song in my head this morning is the quirky classic by the Shamen. What a fun way to begin the weekend.

Got a song in your head? Post it in comments. Also - open thread.

In a new interview with Dave Mustaine, the metalhead once again says he backs Santorum, who he thinks could be a JFK-like figure (!) and questions Obama's birth in full-on birther style. Start at 7 minutes in for the juicy bit.

I've had this song in my head all morning, it's a great 80s pop ballad with some wicked sax.

So let's try this: we'll call this an open thread and if you've got a song in your head then please post it in comments. We should end up with a pretty eclectic jukebox for weekend listening.

Monkees singer Davy Jones dies in Florida at 66

by WALTER BRASCH

It was a delightful show. All 37 Shakespearean plays, cleverly and humorously abridged to 97 minutes by the Reduced Shakespeare Co. Short of having a set of Cliff’s Notes or a collection of Classic Comics, sources of innumerable student essays for more than a half-century, it was the least painful way to “learn” Shakespeare. The critically-acclaimed show, in addition to being a delightful way to spend part of an evening, is a satiric slap upside the head of the mass media.

The condensation of the media may have begun in 1922 with the founding of Reader’s Digest, the pocket-sized magazine which keeps its 17 million world-wide subscribers happy by a combination of original reporting and mulching articles from other magazines. Books also aren’t safe.

Welcome to Tuesday Muse, the successor to A Poem for Tuesday. Think of it as "A (Poem + Painting + Spoken Word + Music + Performance Art + Sculpture + Noise + Mash + Animation + Story + Photography + Public Art + Multimedia + Theater Performance + Anything Art) for Tuesday." Today: Playing for Change, whose muse builds a song by having a crew travel the world to record one stellar musician after another, sometimes in remote outdoor locations, in such a way that each musician can hear and play to what the others have done while adding his or her own piece. It's like building a choir a person at a time while leapfrogging assumed barriers of geography, genre, and culture. It's also grown to be about more than songs: PFC is now building music schools in impoverished locales and is sponsoring social-change concerts. Founder Mark Johnson explains here how PFC's recording process works. And here is their version of Gimme Shelter:

Down under in New Zealand Megaupload taken down and in retaliation the hacktivist collective tango downs:

USA Justice (sic) Dept)
Motion Picture Assn America
Universal Music
and for old times sake: http://www.riaa.org.

Old Long Syne, by James Watson (1711)

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
on Old long syne.

CHORUS:
On Old long syne my Jo,
in Old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
on Old long syne.
My Heart is ravisht with delight,
when thee I think upon;
All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,
and speedily is gone;
The bright resemblance of thy Face,
so fills this, Heart of mine;
That Force nor Fate can me displease,
for Old long syne.

CHORUS
Since thoughts of thee doth banish grief,
when from thee I am gone;
will not thy presence yield relief,
to this sad Heart of mine:
Why doth thy presence me defeat,
with excellence divine?
Especially when I reflect
on Old long syne

CHORUS

New York Times, Bu James C. McKinley, Jr., September 21

R.E.M., the underground band from Athens, Ga., that helped invent the alternative-rock sound of the 1980s, said on Wednesday that its members were splitting up after 31 years of making music together.

“A wise man once said, ‘The skill in attending a party is knowing when it’s time to leave,’ ” Michael Stipe, the group’s lead singer and lyricist, said in a statement posted on the band’s Web site. “We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we’re going to walk away from it. I hope our fans realize it wasn’t an easy decision, but all things must end.”

It was thirty years ago today, Robert Pittman taught the band not to play.

MTV launched on August 1, 1980 and literally changed the face of music forever, altho you wouldn't know it from the first video Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles, a band composed of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, both later joining Yes. In the video, the lighting and the costuming and set were all designed to be particularly unflattering to a band whose members were not exactly Hollywood star-material.

Dan Peek, a founding member of soft-rock trio America, which shot to the top of the pop charts in the 1970s with bouncy, lightweight hits including "A Horse With No Name," "Ventura Highway" and "Sister Golden Hair," died Sunday at his home in Farmington, Mo., outside St. Louis. He was 60. LA Times

July 23

BBC - Singer Amy Winehouse, 27, has been found dead at her north London home.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed that a 27-year-old woman had died in Camden and that the cause of death was as yet unexplained.

London Ambulance Service said it had been called to the flat at 1554 BST and sent two vehicles but the woman died.

The troubled singer had a long battle with drink and drugs which overshadowed her recent musical career. She pulled out of a comeback tour last month.

Last month, the north Londoner pulled out of the European tour after she was jeered at the first gig in Serbia for appearing too drunk to perform.

. . . of orchestral music, Baroque, Classic and Romantic, but modern orchestral music really does suck: atonal, dissonant and over-intellectualized. That might be one of the reasons that symphonies across the US and even a few in Europe are dying. If you don't make music that reaches people, if the music has become a stale intellectual enterprise, well, what do you expect?