elena razlogova

Hi Robby, amazing! I‘d love to interview you for my book on WFMU. Would you be up for that?

Back in 2014 I made a radio app using the Echo Nest's API that indexes all of the Free Music Archive. I just found out that on 2020 @erazlogo.bsky.social wrote about this in an article published in Radio Journal (sick). However, EN sold to Spotify and killed the API (shocking).

The goal here was..

Realized today that I'm working on the last and final project of the now-defunct Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Which is the official history of US public media, with Allison Perlman (Irvine), and Mike Janssen (Current).

The Forum - The Iranian Coup of 1953: Overthrow of a Prime Minister - BBC Sounds How British and US intelligence agencies helped oust Iran’s leader Mohammad Mossadeq

Some context to the current situation in Iran. On 19 August 1953 Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup led by MI6 and the CIA under the name Operation Boot/Ajax. The aim was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mosaddegh nationalised the country’s oil industry.

U.S. Strikes in Middle East Use Anthropic, Hours After Trump Ban Within hours of declaring that the federal government will end its use of artificial-intelligence tools made by tech company Anthropic, President Trump launched a major air attack in Iran with the hel...

U.S. Strikes in Middle East Use Anthropic, reportedly for "intelligence assessments, including target identification and simulation of combat scenarios" even after the supposed ban

Seriously exciting news. This, from eight years ago, gets at the scope of the book. Honored to have talked with him for it.
www.wired.com/story/invisi...

Congratulations!! Can't wait to read it

microphones at Grateful Dead show

concertgoers hold boomboxes at Polish music festival

tapers sidestage at bluegrass festival

man in t shirt that reads Tape Master

snow day news drop: last week, i turned in a draft of the book i've been working on for the past 6 years! right now, it's called "the invisible hit parade: a taper's history of music" & will be out in 2027 from da capo/hachette. much more to come, obviously!

Among other useful bits - the connection between the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the decline of R&B groups

YouTube video by Eric Weisbard On R&B: Groups, Whitney Houston w/ Amani Roberts, Brandon Tensley, & Emily Lordi (PMBiP 18-02-26)

Listening to a fascinating conversation about R&B history with Amani Roberts, @brandontensley.bsky.social & Emily Lordi & just realized that Whitney Houston grew up in East Orange, NJ, also home to Queen Latifah & WFMU. Part of Popular Music Books in Process Series: www.youtube.com/watch?v=htEX...

aw, peace to a legendary taper/engineer, the link between bob dylan & ESP-disk'.

For you @bourgwick.bsky.social

Richard Alderson on Recording Dylan's Gaslight and 1966 Shows 1962-10-??, The Gaslight Cafe, New York, NY

Sorry to hear reports of the passing of audio engineer Richard Alderson. I interviewed him early in the newsletter's run about recording the Second Gaslight Tape and all the famous 1966 shows. You wouldn't know "Judas" without Alderson.

John Coltrane Live Album Tiberi Tapes Gets First-Ever Release Plus, watch AG Rojas’ new video for “Acknolwedgement,” part of a year-long celebration of Coltrane’s 100th birthday

Be still my beating heart

I love the playlist feature in Live from the Underground. Tim Lawrence’s Love Saves the Day also has playlists but he calls them “discographies.” Any book on DJs should have playlists.

Talk and Book Launch: Nights in Fairland by Will Straw - Milieux Join the Media History Research Centre for the launch of Nights in Fairland, the latest publication by Will Straw. In its time (the 1920s and 1930s), the New York-based periodical […]

milieux.concordia.ca/event/talk-a...

Bad Bunny gives Super Bowl viewers two choices: crash out or tap in The claim that music sung in Spanish will alienate viewers ignores the fact that many people would rather join the fun than risk being left out of it

The brilliant Jessica Swanston Baker is required pregame reading today - on music, language, transmission, power, and the caribbean

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

Super Bowl Spotlight: Bad Bunny and Puerto Rico’s Voice | CNN Author Vanessa Díaz and journalist Segun Oduolowu join Elex Michaelson to break down Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl moment, the backlash surrounding it, and what his global influence means for Puerto Rico and...

Watch Vanessa Díaz, co-author of "P FKN R," talk about Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl halftime show on CNN: www.cnn.com/2026/02/06/w...

“Iyou could shove it in your purse or your pocket...There were, say, a few hundred book stores in the US but there were thousands of little drugstores+ bus stations+so on in small towns.That’s why they’re called mass market. There was a much more robust system for getting these books out there.”

California Introduces Bill to Cap Resale Ticket Prices California lawmakers introduce a bill to cap concert ticket resale prices at 10% above face value, aiming to curb scalping and make events affordable.

Good news for Californians who like affordability and fairness in live music. Another sign of growing momentum.

"Musicians of every stripe are struggling. Re-erecting old hierarchies won’t solve that, but maybe pluralistic, noncommercial ways of valuing music and new solidarities between musicians will." Can we have a noncommercial solidarities turn in music studies too please? www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

Big congrats to @akstuhl.bsky.social for winning the 2026 SCMS dissertation award. For “Unmaking a Medium: Automation and Art in American Radio, 1950–2010,” supervised by Jonathan Sterne (McGill).

Congratulations Andy!! Totally deserved

Headlines for Susan Orlean's New Yorker article "Meet the Shaggs." The original print subheadline reads "Three girls from New Hampshire who became one of music's strangest legends." The AI summary online reads: "From a New Hampshire town hall to a cult following, the Wiggin sisters' awkward pop becomes outsider art--and a family burden."

Why is @newyorker.com denying me a pithy @susanorlean.bsky.social's original subheadline offering AI slop instead? Also, the article was published on September 27, 1999 not September 20. AI-slopped date perhaps?

Riot police in Georgia, photo by by Jack Hubbell Rosene.

“Under the Ivanishvili regime, power is quiet, opaque, and cowardly. It doesn’t need tanks – its atmosphere and aspirations are enough oppression. If the system is choking culture, then culture has to push back with its full body."

Underground Music in Tbilisi, by Nick Hudson

buff.ly/JSfiqBR

404 Media has published the full user guide for ELITE, the tool Palantir made for ICE to bring up addresses for deportation targets. @evystadium.bsky.social has more.

Scoop here by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/here-is-the-...

Kid Rock Testifies Against Live Nation & Ticketmaster's "Cartel" At Senate Hearing MAGA culture warrior Kid Rock is not the first musical artist I’d expect to be out there busting trusts, but credit is due: The man born Bob Ritchie has been a vocal supporter of the Federal Trade Com...

Kid Rock testifies against Live Nation and Ticketmaster's "cartel" at Senate hearing

Tell Congress to Support The Living Wage for Musicians Act! Write a letter to your members of Congress urging them to support the Living Wage for Musicians Act! The bill would create a new streaming royalty paid directly to artists, bypassing powerful pla...

Tell your reps to co-sponsor the LWMA: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

Walker Art Center joins growing list of organizations closing on Jan. 23 "This reflects our institutional values to center our community, support our staff, and to approach our work with care and safety in mind," a representative says.

oh man, the Walker Art Center is going to be closed on Friday

(If you're not from the Twin Cities, this is like MoMA closing in support of a general strike—a very big deal)

Hearing Things Independent music journalism. No algorithms. We promise.

if u want to subscribe to an independent, worker-owned music and culture pub w/great criticism (and features, interviews, blogs etc) from five ppl you know and love, hearing things launched in october 2024 in the wake of conde nast's pitchfork layoffs :)

www.hearingthings.co