Michael Jackson Mentionings for March 29, 2009:
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2009/3/prweb2273674.htm
Ann Arbor, Michigan (PRWEB) March 29, 2009 -- The readers of SoulTracks (
www.soultracks.com), America's most popular soul music website, are choosing the greatest soul music albums of all time, one decade at a time. Over ten thousand votes were cast in the first poll, which rated the best albums of the the 1970s, and the winning album was Earth Wind & Fire's "That's The Way of the World," with Marvin Gaye's seminal "What's Goin' On" finishing a close second, less than 1% behind the winner.
Now through April 6th, SoulTrackers will be voting for the best soul music albums of the 1980s, including albums like Michael Jackson's "Thriller," Prince's "Purple Rain" and Anita Baker's "Rapture." Upcoming polls will include the albums of the 1960s, 1990s and 2000s, as well as the best Contemporary Gospel albums. And later this Spring, voting will begin for the greatest soul songs of all time.
"We have been absolutely overwhelmed by the response to our polls by our readers," said SoulTracks publisher Chris Rizik. "Our readers are informed and passionate about their music, and the large numbers that voted and the depth of knowledge shown in the comments we received again demonstrate the special place that soul music holds in American culture in the 21st Century."
The list of winners of the 1970s poll can be found at
http://www.soultracks.com/70s-poll-results.
Votes for the 1980s poll can be cast by visiting
http://www.soultracks.com/80s-poll.
http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/news/Beatles_Covers/35496/p1/
House Of Heroes to release EP of Beatles' songs
AMERICAN pop rock band
House Of Heroes, whose "Mercedes Baby" from their 2006 album 'Say No More' was a Cross Rhythms turntable hit, have recorded an EP of covers of Beatles' songs. Read a band statement, "
Assuming that Michael Jackson doesn't still own the rights to the songs and doesn't want to charge us millions of dollars to release them, we'll be releasing them sometime this year. Our goal with this EP is to gradually start recording more and more Beatles' songs, until eventually people become confused and start to think that we're the Beatles
http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20090329183893
Emotions of music touch universal chord
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By Agency Reporter
Published: Sunday, 29 Mar 2009
Michael Jackson may have been more prescient than he realised when he wrote the lyrics to the global ”feel-good” song, We Are the World.
New research recognizes that people from vastly different cultures and heritages respond to the same happy, sad and scared emotions in unfamiliar music.
This suggests the universality of emotions in music and may help explain why Western music has been adopted so ubiquitously worldwide, said the authors, from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany.
”We know that our auditory system responds in distinctive ways to consonant and dissonant sounds, even when we‘re not actively listening to them,” said Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles professor of communication sciences, neurobiology, physiology and otolaryngology at Northwestern University in Chicago. ”It‘s fascinating how our sensory systems have evolved to respond effectively to sounds that signal what‘s important, such as emotional meaning.”
Kraus was not involved with the study, which is published in the March 19 online issue of Current Biology.
”There are fundamental acoustic features that communicate basic emotions similarly in both speech and music. Much of the meaning we get from music is not so much reliant on musical structure, but rather how it – the music – is performed,” said Dana Strait, a doctoral candidate in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, also at Northwestern University. ”It‘s the same with speech– it‘s not the actual words spoken, but more how they‘re said that communicates emotion.”
”The question of ‘musical universals‘ has triggered intense debate in our field for years,” she continued. ”It intrigues us in part because of its implications for music being ‘built in‘ to the human genome. These outcomes move us yet another step closer toward defining biological mechanisms driving the human music obsession.”
Previous research has determined that babies as young as 5 months old can distinguish between upbeat and gloomy music, providing more evidence that the brain‘s ability to detect emotion develops early.
For this study, researchers trekked to the far reaches of mountainous northern Cameroon and asked members of the Mafa ethnic group to participate.
A group of Mafa listened with headphones to computer-generated piano music with different tempos, pitch range, rhythm, etc. The music was played on a sun-powered CD (the Mafa don‘t have electricity). Meanwhile, a group of Westerners who had not before heard African music listened to a sequence of Mafa music.
Both groups were then asked to rate the music as pleasant or unpleasant.
Africans and Westerners alike recognized the same three emotions in the music: happy, sad, and scared or fearful. And both made their judgments based on timing of the music and on mode.
Mafa participants were more likely to think of faster pieces as happy and slower pieces as scared or fearful.
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net...29-196872/Creative-and-caring-school-for-kids
Classes for the regular school year are starting to wind down at ABS-CBN Children’s Center.
Students are now busy rehearsing their performances for this year’s closing program. Four-year-old Eunice, from the preparatory class, takes the lead despite being the smallest kid and the only girl in a group of Grade 5 boys dancing to a popular Michael Jackson hit. She struts and does her own version of the moonwalk with so much ease and confidence – it’s as if she’s just dancing at home with her kuyas (older male peers)
Michael Jackson HIStory for March 29, 2009:
1985 - The "We Are the World" album was released.
1992 - MTV aired the "My Dinner With Michael" contest. 100 winners were selected to be flown to Los Angeles to have dinner with Michael Jackson. Over 4 million entries were received.
1996 - Michael Jackson won Best Male Artist Album for "HIStory" in the International category at the 11th annual IRMAs Irish Music Awards.
2004 - A grand jury convened, in a secret location, concerning the Michael Jackson child molestation case.
2004 - A media attorney asked an appeals court to overturn an order that prevented access to the grand jury in the Michael Jackson child molestation case.