When the hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, in April, reactions in the classical-music world ranged from panic to glee. Composers in the classical tradition have effectively monopolized the prize since its inception, in 1943. Not until 1997 did a nominal outsider—the jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis—receive a nod….

Jokes about the iTunes End User License Agreement have been around for almost as long as the media management service itself, but that hasn’t made the 1500-word document any less labyrinthine to the average reader who just wants to listen to some goddamn music. At this point, most of us just accept that the fine…

Paul McCartney achieves his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart in over 36 years, as his new studio effort, Egypt Station, bows atop the list. The set, which was released on Sept. 7 via MPL/Capitol Records, launches with a larger-than-expected 153,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Sept. 13 according…

James Rhodes, a pianist, performed a Bach composition for his Facebook account, but it didn’t go up — Facebook’s copyright filtering system pulled it down and accused him of copyright infringement because Sony Music Global had claimed that they owned 47 seconds’ worth of his personal performance of a song whose composer has been dead…

DANKOSKY: I think our caller Bill, though, from Indiana maybe gets it, one of the points here between vinyl and CD. Bill, go ahead. BILL: Yes. I wanted to agree with the – at least I believe the point that the first lady was talking about, that although the sound of CDs and MP3s and…

According to Rolling Stone magazine, sales of vinyl albums continue to grow, setting a new record in 2010. Does vinyl reproduce sound better, or is it just a trend? Two audio experts join guest host John Dankosky to talk about the science of audio, and how perceptions can shape the sound experience. JOHN DANKOSKY, HOST: Up next:…

A short time ago in a place just a freeway ride away, 18,000 kids, both young and old, were welcomed to the Hollywood Bowl for a theatrical experience like no other. For four nights in August, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor David Newman performed the epic “Star Wars” scores live along with the movie…

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE UK SINGLES CHART. SINCE MINISTRY OF SOUND WAS BOUGHT BY SONY, INDEPENDENT TOP 40 SINGLES ARE ALMOST NON-EXISTENT… EXCEPT FOR DITTO. WHAT’S GOING ON THERE? More people, especially in the hip-hop world, aren’t signing deals. Young Bane goes through Disturbing London, who went through us [before a recently-signed Parlophone JV]. Dave’s…

THAT WAS 2006, BUT BY 2007 YOU’D HAD YOUR FIRST TOP 40 SINGLE… We’d found this band, Koopa, who’d built up a pretty good fanbase. We explained to them that we thought we could get them into the charts. This was around September [2006], and we put them on pre-order from then until the second…

If you got in touch with Ditto Music a decade ago, you might have ended up with a bouncy castle. If you get in touch with Ditto Music today, you might end up with a global hit. The fast-growing music distribution and services company was founded in January 2007 by brothers Lee and Matt Parsons…