No Song Unsung Blog

I just started reading a book, Best Music Writing 2007, a compilation of articles/essays on music and musical artists.  One of the articles included is written by Sasha Frere-Jones titled, “On Top: Mariah Carey’s Record Breaking Career“.

Mariah Carey has long been a favorite singer of mine - ever since her first self-titled album, Mariah Carey, came out back in 1990.  Her voice could easily be named the 11th wonder of the world.  However, it’s no wonder she has the most #1 songs.   Sasha Frere-Jones says it best:

“Carey’s freakish vocal ability explains part of her appeal. In the same
way that people went to a San Francisco Giants game in order to see
Barry Bonds hit a home run, people buy Carey’s records in order to hear
her do things with her voice that no one else can do.”

I was trying to think of a Mariah Carey song that I didn’t like and I couldn’t think of one.  Nada.  Zip. Zilch. 

Recently Carey has forayed into another venture, the business of perfume.  Her “M by Mariah Carey” perfume was just launched a few days ago at Macy’s stores…

Joy to your wallet. Save 10-40% at macys.com.

It has been awhile since I’ve watched the American Music Awards, but I did tune in last week by accident. Had no idea they were coming on, but I’m glad I didn’t miss it because there was some spectacular performances.

For me the big surprise of the night was the Sugarland/Beyonce duet. I was caught off guard with that one. At first, I was thinking, “Huh?!?”, but halfway into it I started to really like it. I think it’s a step in the right direction when artists of different genres can get together and open up our horizons to something different.

Another favorite performance was Alicia Keys and Beenie Man. I even had to get up and shake my groove thang to the reggae music. You don’t see too many reggae shows nowadays, so it spiced things up a little.

As you may or may not know, I currently write for a blog network called Know More Media. Since Know More Media’s announcement about the partnership with b5Media, I’ve been spending some time checking out the different blogs in the b5Media network - especially the music blogs - and there are many of them!

I already have one blog of theirs in my blogroll (a.k.a “The Associates” in the sidebar), Hippie Sounds. However, one blog in particular has caught my attention today: New Age Vibe.

It wasn’t until this year that I really paid any attention to New Age music. I couldn’t tell you names of artists in the genre, but all I know is that it’s great music to listen to when I’m meditating or just want to relax. Well, the only artist name that comes to mind now is Enya who sang that song, Only Time. Watch the video below…

The Country Music Awards has come and gone and despite all the commercials that told me it would come on tonight I seemed to have missed it. It wasn’t until I logged into Amazon and was reading this post over at the Amazon Earworm’s Blog did I realize that the awards had indeed come on tonight.

Well, Carrie Underwood has seen some great success since her American Idol win. Tonight she won the award for Single of the Year. Here she is accepting her award…

And here she is performing…I absolutely adore that yellow dress!

It was interesting to see that Jamie Foxx had performed. Had no idea that he was into country music!

Download Carrie Underwood mp3’s and albums at Amazon

Read more commentary about the CMA’s over at BizofShowBiz…

The other day I bought a CD that has a mix of classical piano music and listened to it while I did my work. Usually it’s hard for me to write while music is playing, but this piano music actually helped my writing instead of hindering it. It was as if I was writing the words to the music and I could just feel the creative energy flowing through me.

I came across this interesting study on first graders in a New York City school. They wanted to know the effects of listening to slow tempo classical music on the children’s on-task performance. What they found was that when the music was played during writing time, the children’s on-task behavior increased by 7.7%. There was also a decrease in the overall classroom noise level. Read the document from the study here.

I noticed that I, too, am able to stay on-task while I listened to this piano music. I tend to get ADD while I’m writing — stopping to take a break every ten minutes to check my website stats or email. However, I’m more focused now during writing because I listen to this classical piano music.

Read about another writer, J.L. Murphey, who uses music to help her be more productive during writing…

Related Post:
Listen to Music to Increase Productivity
>>>Buy classical mp3 music at Amazon.com