2009 was an interesting year in many ways, especially in the worlds of politics and entertainment (my two favorite subjects). We witnessed the passing of entertainment legends like Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze and Les Paul; the resurgence of Jay-Z and dance music; the rise of Lady Gaga and the fall of Tiger Woods; iPhone, Facebook and Twitter mania; the rise of the internet as a primary news source coinciding with the rapid decline of newspapers and print publications. America witnessed it’s first year with a black president, followed by an unprecedented effort to discredit, demean and delegitimize him from the political right-wing. Revolution in Iran, pirates in Somalia, diplomacy at work in North Korea, a global recession and an escalation of war in Afghanistan all laid the foundation for what could be coming in 2010. The question is: what have we learned from 2009?. Here’s a list of things I learned in the past year, and what I hope to achieve in 2010.
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Regardless of what they actually say their reasons for making music are for, All aspiring musicians want to be stars. The dream of stardom has been the fuel for many a music career for hundreds of years; Mozart and Michael Jackson are in that respect not as different as one would think, issues of respective talent and taste aside. All current and past pop music stars have one thing in common, though: a hit song that propelled them into pop stardom. The question that has haunted many songwriters and musicians since the dawn of popular music is: what makes a song a hit?
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Thursday night at the King Kamehameha Club. We just finished our first set, and I was surfing the Net on my iPhone, reading my favorite news blog, the Huffington Post. The first headline in the Breaking News caption: Michael Jackson Suffers Cardiac Arrest. The news was shocking, but I was hopeful that he would eventually be OK. I went to the bar to get a drink, then I returned to my seat to continue reading. I hit the refresh button, and in an instant, my heart dropped into my stomach; Michael Jackson had died.
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