Resources

Music Industry

• RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America: gold and platinum record database)
• Grammy categories (their history, nominees, winners); restructured listing of categories (2012, 213); “Why Do the Grammys Always Get it Wrong“; “A Grammy Primer” (Billboard 4/16/1994;  Beyoncé’s Album of the Year Snub Fits Into the Grammys’ Long History of Overlooking Black Women (Time 2/6/2023)
• IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry)
• Billboard magazine(Weekly chart listings)
  • Billboard chart achievements
  • Billboard year end charts
  • Billboard’s 100 Greatest Music Books
  • Billboard Archives (browse complete issues)
• Rolling Stone magazine
  • 500 Greatest Albums
  • 500 Greatest Songs
  • 100 Greatest Guitarists
  • 100 Best Debut Albums
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum (Cleveland)
  • Inductees
• Music Industry on Wikipedia

Discographies

• All Music Guide (Comprehensive discographies, reviews, chart info)
• Discographies (discogs.com)
• albumlinernotes.com
• Album cover art gallery
• 45-sleeves.com

Educational sites

• teachrock.org (online rock history curriculum)
• Museum of Pop Culture (Seattle)
• Rock Music Timeline
• rocksbackpages.com (Subscription database of full text articles)
• British Pop chronology (through 1970)

Online radio/streaming sites

• Streaming
  • “What Music Streaming Services Pay Per Stream” (6/26/2019, soundcharts.com)
  • Spotify
    • 1 million US paid subscribers (Dec. 2012)
    • Spotify and artist payments (Dec. 6, 2012)
    • Guardian (UK) articles about Spotify
    • David Byrne: “The internet will suck all creative content out of the world” (the guardian, 10/11/2013)
    • “I disagree with David Byrne and his Spotify stance” (north.com)
    • “It’s not just David Byrne and Radiohead” (salon.com, 7/20/2014)
    • Is Spotify the Music Industry’s Friend or Foe? (New Yorker, 11/24/2014)
    • “The Battle of Subscription Business Models” (Billboard, 1/29/2016)
  • Rdio
  • “Why Jay-Z’s Tidal is a Complete Disaster” (bloomberg, May 2015)
  • Beatles Music to Become Available on Streaming Services (WSJ, 12/23/2015)
  • “Apple Music Reveals How Much It Pays When You Stream a Song” (4/16/2021, WSJ)

Online Articles about Music

• Nostalgia Central
• RockCritic’s.com (Rock critics talking to, about, and with each other)
• Black Grooves (music review site of AAAMC at Indiana University)
• Pitchfork
• Carol Cooper
• Jimmy Page’s Dubious Recording Legacy (blues originals covered by the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin.)
• Report on Altamont Murder (Times-UK online investigative report on the murder of Meredith Hunter at Altamont.)

Lyrics

• genius.com
• Leo’s Lyrics (Complete song lyrics)
• Luckymojo.com (southern US African American folklore. Many song references.)
• Blues Lyrics (Blues lyrics, dictionary, and more.)
• Always on the Run (Complete Velvet Underground)

Historical and Population Statistics

• Civil Rights Timeline (1954-2003)
• Civil Rights Timeline (Martin Luther King Institute, Stanford U)
• Vietnam War Timeline
• Vietnam War Casualties
• AIDS Timeline
• List of Economic Recessions in the USA
• US Census Bureau 2010 figures
• List of Economic Recessions in the USA
• African American population growth; Immigrants driving recent growth
• Hispanic population growth in USA (Pew)
• 2020 Presidential Election Voting and Registration Tables (census.gov)

Drugs

• Opium Throughout History (Frontline/PBS timeline)
• “Growth in Heroin Use Ending as City Users Turn to Crack” (NY Times, 1986)
• “How Bad Was Crack Cocaine?”

Music Videos

• Funkytown
• YouTube
• Most viewed YouTube videos of all time
• One-take lip-dubs: Canadian college students (UQAM); The Today Show (read the comments)
• Unsung (documentaries)
  • The O’Jays
  • George Clinton

Dictionaries

• Rap Dictionary
• Urban Dictionary
• NetLingo.com (internet dictionary)

Instruments

• NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art Play it Loud! exhibit
• The evolution of rock drum kits and the drummers who play them
• Organ in progressive rock
• The banjo

Geography

• San Francisco rock (1965-69)
• Texas musicians

Venues

• Irving Plaza Keeps its Maiden Name
• Abbey Road Studios (and live webcam)

Other

• History of Rock.com (Timelines, style surveys, biographies, discographies and more)
• Tim Riley’s Rock Taxonomy
• Wolfgang’s Vault (archive of live recordings)
• Pandora Internet Radio (Music Genome Project)
• US Economy: length of recessions; economic recessions; economic expansions
• FCC regulations on obscene, indecent, and profane broadcasts
• jamglue (for remixes)
• Backmasking
• Sheep Beats
• Second Hand Songs (Database of covers and samples)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Muxtape (platform for launching bands), New Yorker interview with the founder
• Wesleyan stereotypes
• Harlem Globetrotters and Stomp, with basketballs
• Race
  • A Way to Research Race (Vox, 3/16/2015)
  • Airplane:  June Cleaver speaks jive talk, courtroom scene,  the making of jive talk, Barbara Billingsley interview
  • Elaine and race; full episode (19:00)
  • The Office basketball game: Michael picking Stanley (1:20); the game (4:10)
  • Richard Pryor on the N Word (Live on Sunset Strip, 1982); interview with wife Jennifer Pryor
  • “How to tell black people apart” (David Alan Grier)
  • Clapping on and off the beat (Harry Connick, Jr.)
  • Not that there’s anything wrong with that (Seinfeld)
  • Country music and its audience (Celebrity Apprentice, season 11 #3, 19:05)
  • Charles Barkley/Chris Rock quote
  • Justin Timberlake style evolution
  • Nicole Byer Challenges Austin Mahone to a Breakdance Battle (2014 Grammy red carpet)
  • “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black” (SNL Feb. 2016)
  • What is it about tap dance? Chloe Arnold (Syncopated Ladies) on WNPR (6:30-) (4/13/2019)
  • What Makes White People Dance (Dave Chapelle)
  • Bieber
    • crotch grab count
    • body doubles (SNL)
    • Justin Bieber SNL Opening Monologue 2013

    • “What Do You Mean” (clapping on the beat, 2:35)

  • The Safety Pin and the Swastika (Shuja Haider, viewpointmag, 1/4/2017)
  • “How Ta-Nehisi Coates Gives Whiteness Power” (NYT, Thomas Chatterton Williams, 10/6/2017)
  • “The Unmet Promise of Equality” (NYT, Fred Harris, Alan Curtis, 2/28/2018)
  • Review of Black is the Body by Emily Bernard (NPR, 2/6/2019)
  • Transracialism
    • “In Defense of Transracialism” (Rebecca Tuvel, 3/29/2017, Hypatia; Wesleyan login access only)
      • “This is What a Modern-Day Witch Hunt Looks Like” (Jesse Singal, 5/2/2017, NY Mag);  “The Uproar Over Transracialism” (Rogers Brubaker, 5/18/2017, NYT);  “An Open Letter on the Hypatia Controversy” (Julian Vigo and Lorna Garano, 5/25/2017, Feminist Current);  “Changing Identities: Are Race and Gender Analogous?” (Rebecca Tuvel 2021)
  • Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
    • Talking about Race
      • Whiteness
        • Twitter thread on chart
        • Resources (“Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States” has been removed; here is a copy of a 1990 version by Judith Katz)
        • “In Smithsonian Race Guidelines, Rational Thinking and Hard Work are White Values” (Newsweek, 7/17/2020)
        • “African American Museum site removes ‘whiteness’ chart after criticism from Trump Jr. and conservative media” (Washington Post, 7/17/21)
          

    • The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility (John McWhorter, 7/15/2020)
      

    • “Is the Anti-Racism Training Industry Just Peddling White Supremacy?” (Jonathan Chait, New York magazine, 7/16/20)

    • What Is Whiteness? (Nell Irvin Painter, NYT, 6/20//2015)

    • Mitch McConnell: Black people vote at similar rates to ‘Americans’ | ABC7 (January 2022)

  • Antony Blinken’s Rock & Roll Heart (Rolling Stone, 6/8/2021)

  • Stereotypes
    • MTV, Jersey Shore, GTL
    • New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus
  • “On Whoopi Goldberg’s Comments and the Origin of Racism” (Jamelle Bouie, NYT, 2/5/2022) (NYT subscription, Wes students: try using wesemail to get to google login)
  • “The SAT Isn’t What’s Unfair,” (The Atlantic, 4/2/2022)
  • Weekend Update: Italy’s New Prime Minister – SNL (10/1/2022, 1:43)
  • The Making of Black America (Gates on The Reid Out, 10/3/2022, 1:20)
  • Stephen A. Smith on Taylor Swift (Howard Stern show, 2024)
• Scotch Snap
  • “Scotch Snaps: The Big Picture” (Philip Tagg, 7/22/2016)
  • “Les ‘Scotch Snaps’ de Lil Wayne à Purcell” (Pierre Do, 10/22/2018)
  • “The Scotch Snap from Strathspey to Rap” (Wayneandwax, 3/1/2019)
  • “Scotch Snaps in Hip Hop” (Adam Neely, 3/11/2019)
• Women and Rock
  • “Rock’s Not Dead, It’s Ruled by Women” (NYT, 9/1/2017)
  • A New Canon: In Pop Music, Women Belong At The Center Of The Story (NPR, Ann Powers, 7/24/2017)
  • Turning the Tables: The 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women (NPR, 7/24/2017)
  •  Should Women Make Their Own Pop Music Canon? (NY Times Magazine, 10/5/2017)
  • “Joni Mitchell: Fear of a Female Genius” (The Ringer, 10/16/2017)
• 60 rare photos
• Politicians and music
  • Campaign songs that made musicians mad
  • Stop using my music (rollingstone.com)
• Amy Coney Barrett apologizes for ‘sexual preference’ comment (10/18/2020)
  • Why Amy Coney Barrett’s use of the term ‘sexual preference’ at her hearing alarmed so many
• Artistic borrowing
  • Gregory Hines: “We steal each other’s steps“
  • Tap Dance in America: A Short History (Library of Congress)
    • Riverdance Album wins a Grammy 1997
    • Riverdance – Battle by Colin Dunne

• University yoga class canceled because of ‘oppression, cultural genocide’ (Washington Post, 2015)

College (growing up)

• Saints lineman Carl Nicks apologizes to Nebraska (4/14/2010)
• Chunk Dirty with RZA
• Honor Code
  • Plagiarism
  • 64 Dartmouth students face discipline
  • Credibility (USA Today, 1/22/2015); Brady tale (ESPN, 1/23/2015)
• Cellphones in class: Thailand; Brazil/Portugal?
• Brilliant project comments (Wesleying)
• How not to finish: Lionel (start at 15:30); How to finish 1 (goalkeeper Huigita); How to finish 2 (fastest goalie, Joe Hart)
• Staind calling out creeps
• Hollywood fantasy and real life
• “Why Drinking on a Weekend After 22“
• The Coddling of the American Mind (theatlantic.com, 9/2015)
• “No, Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ is Not Transphobic” (5/23/2017, indpendent.uk)
• Apollos Hester, Patriots
• Laptops
  • Scientific American: “Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop” (6/2014)
  • NPR: “Attention Students: Put Your Laptops Away” (4/17/2016)

News

• Review of VH1 documentary Soundtrack to War
• Rick Rubin’s track record as head of Columbia Records
• Towards a Theory of NPR’s Taste in Black Music (slate.com)
• UK record companies released 31,291 albums in 2005
• The Record Industry’s Decline, Part 1, Part 2 (Rolling Stone mag, 7/28/07)
• “A Change of Tune: Faced with Shrinking Profits, Record Labels Try a New Approach” (The Economist, 2007)
• Digital sales surpass CDs at Atlantic Records (11/26/08)
• Can He Save Rock ‘n’ Roll? (merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation) (Wall St. Journal, 2/21/09)
• Single mom can’t pay $1.5 million fine; request to put it to the Supreme Court
• “The Real Death of the Music Industry” (US record sales)
• Top ten youtube videos of all time (May 2012)
• People still buy albums (March 2013)
• 40 Years of Music Industry History in Less Than a Minute (Time Tech)
• “Virtual Gold: Recording Association Adds Streams in Handing Out Awards” (NY Times 5/10/13)
• Black artists on pop charts
  • Black artists take Billboard’s top ten (Foxnews, October 2003); Billboard Hot 100 chart (Oct. 11, 2003); Billboard Hot 100 chart with 8 of the top 10 pop singles by black artists (May 13, 1972)
  • “Where are the Black Acts the Year,” (Slate, 12/18/2013)
• No Breakout Stars on The Voice (the power of marketing)
• Album Sales Hit an All Time Low (Business Insider, 8/31/2014)
• The Shazam Effect (The Atlantic, Dec. 2014)
• Popular Music Gets its Fossil Record Analyzed (Scientific American, May 2015)
• Hip Hop is the Most Listened to Genre in the World (XXL, July 2015)
• “Why Do All Records Sound the Same“
• “The Devaluation of Music” (medium.com, 10/2015)
• “Hit Charade” (theatlantic, 10/2015)
• 2014 RIAA Gold and Platinum awards (“New Music Industry Revenue Figures Show an Illusion of Stability” [Forbes, 3/21/2015])
• 2014 Nielsen US Music Report by Genre (in pie chart graphics)
• Old Music is outselling new music for the first time (chartattack.com 1/20/2016)
• “Beyonce’s ‘Formation’ Exploits New Orleans Trauma” (slate.com 2/10/216)
• “Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive“? (Colin Morris, 2017)
• “Why My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Slow Secret Death of the Electric Guitar” (washingtonpost.com, 6/22/2017)
• US Music Consumption
  • US Music Sales by Genre (1989-2008)
  • Hip-Hop/R&B is the Most Dominant Genre in the US for the First Time (Forbes, 7/17/2017)
  • 2017: R&B/Hip Hop 24.5%; Rock 20.8% (billboard.com, 1/3/2018)
• Top 15 Most Viewed YouTube Videos of All Time
• “The End of Owning Music: How CDs and Downloads Died” (Rolling Stone, 6/14/2018)
• How Billboard tallies its top slots: “Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber refute Tekashi 6ix9ine’s claim that they bought their No. 1 chart spot” (5/19/2020)
• “New Protest Anthems: Songs of the Uprising for George Floyd” (6/4/2020, Rolling Stone)

WGBH/BBC History of Rock ‘n’ Roll documentary series (BBC version, called Dancing in the Street, w/British narrator)

• current.org article reviewing the series