I like to gripe about Top 40 radio, but I don't have much of a technical music vocabulary. Are there names for the vocal styles of Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift, et al.? [more inside]
posted by Beardman on Mar 9, 2009 - 20 answers

What makes disco disco? In particular, what makes it different from funk, r & b or soul? Is it the arrangement? Is it the beat? Is it the horns? Details please.
posted by wittgenstein on Sep 5, 2007 - 12 answers

I was recently introduced to two songs featuring the harpsichord, and I really liked them a lot. And it got me thinking: is there a lot of this kind of music out there? They're not classical (I think), but they're definitely enjoyable. [more inside]
posted by cybertaur1 on Mar 6, 2007 - 22 answers

We are sending a capsule into deep space to carry a sample of America as it was in the 60's and 70's. We can include 12 CDs (or albums transferred to CD) to reflect popular music of the time (1960 through 1979.) What 12 CDs best represent what was happening then?
posted by leafwoman on Jul 28, 2006 - 26 answers

I enjoy early American popular music (say up until the late 1920s), and especially period recordings of the same. I have about a dozen CDs compiling this music, and have downloaded other songs from alt.binaries.sounds.*. I'm looking for other sources of free mp3s of early American popular music. (Don't fret about copyright issues: the stuff I'm looking for is old enough that it's in the public domain.) I'd also love recommendations for modern(ish) recordings of these old songs. I know Garrison Keillor performs some from time-to-time (and just did on his last broadcast, for example), and I know of Joan Morris/William Bolcome and Jody Dall'Armi.
posted by jdroth on Oct 2, 2005 - 19 answers