'Grateful' Symphony Debuts

Composer saw creatures emerging from piano

(NEWSER) - The 19th-century composer Frédéric Chopin suffered frightening hallucinations, ranging from ghosts to creatures coming out of his piano. Now, researchers believe the visions may have been prompted by temporal lobe epilepsy, the Daily Telegraph reports. The disease can cause short, detailed hallucinations, and “could easily have been overlooked by Chopin’s doctors,” researchers note in Medical Humanities . More»

We all love Norah Jones, but she's still on this list

(NEWSER) - You would never guess, but Jimi Hendrix was technically a one-hit wonder. Yep, the definition of the term is “an artist or band who only has one song make the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart,” regardless of album sales or performance on other charts, writes Sam Greenspan. He goes on to list 10 more very surprising one-hit wonders on 11points.com :

• Grateful Dead, “Touch of Grey”: “Go figure—an eternally loyal army of hippies doesn't translate into huge financial returns.”
• Garth Brooks, “Lost in You”: His “only top 40 single was from that rock album he made under the pseudonym ‘Chris Gaines.’ No song actually attributed to Garth Brooks has ever made the top 40. Ouch.”

They brilliantly mix 'accessible' and 'avant-garde'

(NEWSER) - The rise of Animal Collective in 2009 is often attributed to concessions to accessibility, Jonah Weiner writes. “Going by the blurbs alone, you might assume that, in a few years, Animal Collective will complete its career-long metamorphosis into ABBA.” But that’s just not the case. The quirky indie band mixes pop and avant-garde in the same measure as ever; but now, it has “expanded the overtures its music makes to our bodies.” More»

UC offers $70K for job made in hippie heaven

(NEWSER) - Far out. The University of Santa Cruz is seeking an archivist to help handle its horde of Grateful Dead material—for a very un-hippie-like $70,000 salary, plus benefits. The school is seeking a "creative" professional with a master's degree, and preferably "expert knowledge" of the "history and influence of the Grateful Dead." More»

900 authors wrote Twitterdammerung libretto in tweets

(NEWSER) - The first-ever Twitter opera—a melding of high tech and high art with a libretto written in chunks of 140 characters—received an unexpectedly positive reception when it opened pver the weekend, the Washington Post reports. One critic called Twitterdammerung “an accident waiting to happen.” But it “was actually not that bad at all," wrote a Daily Telegraph critic. More»