Everything has its own day nowadays, but some things, such as karaoke, get a whole freakin' week. The third week of April is apparently National Karaoke Week. The event, supposedly not invented by Smule, was celebrated by Smule, which used data from its Sing! Karaoke app to determine the most popular karaoke tracks in existence. The app's more than 150 million users generated this Top 10: Read this

Plans were laid out last night for the annual American Idol Summer Tour. The series will be shorter than usual-probably due to less demand in recent years-but will still find its way around to 41 cities, opening on the East coast and working its way west. As usual, the top ten finalists from the current season will take part in the tour. Read this

After two weeks in the top eight, American Idol is finally down to seven contestants this week and decided to let the remaining singers show their real stuff (yet again) with their own choice of song. Thus, the picks were pretty predictable and everyone performed thusly. It's pretty well established who the stars are on this season of Idol -- Jena Irene, Alex Preston and Caleb Johnson, and those three had the strongest showings. The mediocre singers were mediocre and the boring guys were boring. Read this

Music Times writers share an office area of roughly 45 sq. ft, which makes having face-to-face conversations totally impossible. Junk Mail is these millenials attempt to discuss and review the week's hottest album releases... without needing to look at each other.

This week: Ryan Book, Caitlin Carter, Joey DeGroot and Carolyn Menyes email back and forth about Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty". Read this

The slow sales that plagued the Billboard 200 this week didn't avoid the Digital Downloads chart either, although totals weren't nearly as painful for digital tracks. A new name came into play, but the top four tracks will be familiar to our readers. Read this

The most renowned guitar solos in rock history are soaring and highly melodic, like David Gilmour’s ethereal passages in “Comfortably Numb,” or the epic guitar duel between Don Felder and Joe Walsh at the end of “Hotel California”. These eight solos listed here are way too strange to ever get such recognition, but they’re definitely worth checking out anyway. Read this

Everything has its own day nowadays, but some things, such as karaoke, get a whole freakin' week. The third week of April is apparently National Karaoke Week. The event, supposedly not invented by Smule, was celebrated by Smule, which used data from its Sing! Karaoke app to determine the most popular karaoke tracks in existence. The app's more than 150 million users generated this Top 10: Read this

Musicians have a very unusual relationship with the songs they write. Just like an actor doesn't sit around watching his or her own movies all day (hopefully), a musician doesn't listen to their own albums very often, for various reasons. They could simply be tired of hearing the songs, or maybe they're self-conscious, but sometimes an artist genuinely dislikes their own work. Here are seven albums aren't very well liked by the people who made them. Read this

In an era where My Bloody Valentine takes 20 years to record an album, it’s easy to forget that recording a good album doesn’t need to take a very long time. In fact, some of the greatest albums of all time were recorded in no time at all. Here are seven classic albums that were recorded extremely quickly. Read this

A drummer can either make or break a band. If they can't keep a beat, or if they play in a style that doesn't suit the songs, then the band as a whole will suffer. These six bands understood the importance of percussion, and dared to experiment with what unusual percussion could bring out in their music. Read this

Everything has its own day nowadays, but some things, such as karaoke, get a whole freakin' week. The third week of April is apparently National Karaoke Week. The event, supposedly not invented by Smule, was celebrated by Smule, which used data from its Sing! Karaoke app to determine the most popular karaoke tracks in existence. The app's more than 150 million users generated this Top 10: Read this

Music Times writers share an office area of roughly 45 sq. ft, which makes having face-to-face conversations totally impossible. Junk Mail is these millenials attempt to discuss and review the week's hottest album releases... without needing to look at each other.

This week: Ryan Book, Caitlin Carter, Joey DeGroot and Carolyn Menyes email back and forth about Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty". Read this

The slow sales that plagued the Billboard 200 this week didn't avoid the Digital Downloads chart either, although totals weren't nearly as painful for digital tracks. A new name came into play, but the top four tracks will be familiar to our readers. Read this

Album sales were way, way down this week, which meant another week on top for Frozen: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Read this

Happy tax day! If you feel stressed out and miserable that you waited until the last minute to do your taxes (if that's the case, stop reading this and get back to your taxes), don't feel so bad; even the rich and famous are awful at paying the IRS. Here are seven musicians that have run into trouble with Uncle Sam. Read this

The most renowned guitar solos in rock history are soaring and highly melodic, like David Gilmour’s ethereal passages in “Comfortably Numb,” or the epic guitar duel between Don Felder and Joe Walsh at the end of “Hotel California”. These eight solos listed here are way too strange to ever get such recognition, but they’re definitely worth checking out anyway. Read this

Musicians have a very unusual relationship with the songs they write. Just like an actor doesn't sit around watching his or her own movies all day (hopefully), a musician doesn't listen to their own albums very often, for various reasons. They could simply be tired of hearing the songs, or maybe they're self-conscious, but sometimes an artist genuinely dislikes their own work. Here are seven albums aren't very well liked by the people who made them. Read this

In an era where My Bloody Valentine takes 20 years to record an album, it’s easy to forget that recording a good album doesn’t need to take a very long time. In fact, some of the greatest albums of all time were recorded in no time at all. Here are seven classic albums that were recorded extremely quickly. Read this

A drummer can either make or break a band. If they can't keep a beat, or if they play in a style that doesn't suit the songs, then the band as a whole will suffer. These six bands understood the importance of percussion, and dared to experiment with what unusual percussion could bring out in their music. Read this

Despite what Courtney Love may think, saxophones do, in fact, belong in rock music. Of course they can be used poorly, just like anything else really, but these seven songs prove that saxophone can be integrated brilliantly into rock music. Read this

There are plenty of good reasons for an artist to release a solo album. Maybe their band broke up, or maybe they want to write some songs in a different style. However, sometimes musicians go ahead and release solo music that could have been easily been released with their band. Here are five musicians who didn't need to go solo. Read this

The slow sales that plagued the Billboard 200 this week didn't avoid the Digital Downloads chart either, although totals weren't nearly as painful for digital tracks. A new name came into play, but the top four tracks will be familiar to our readers. Read this

Album sales were way, way down this week, which meant another week on top for Frozen: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Read this

At 5'4", Miranda Lambert may be small, but she's still a powerhouse. Now, at 30, after 10 years of solid touring in the national spotlight, she's decided that it's time to take a break and recharge her batteries. Lambert told Fox News that after this summer, she's going to stop touring for a while and get some much needed rest. Read this

Fans of Kellie Pickler have a lot to be excited about. She has plenty of shows scheduled between now and the end of the summer with tons of festivals on the books. Read this

A Steinway grand, a Model A, 6 feet 2 inches long, which carries the serial number 87592, making it the 87,592nd piano since the company began--making pianos in the family kitchen. The item in question: an 1897 Steinway donated by Rose Gershwin. Read this

I first read about Tona Brown, one of the Beltway's best singing violinists, in my colleague Tim Smith's pitch perfect profile in the May 22, 2011 early edition of the Baltimore Sun. To wit, I've been following Miss Brown's career--performer, pedagogue, activist--for the ensuing three years. Read this

As journalists that may or may not have graduated from Columbia University, we get a little excited when it comes time to hand out the Pulitzers. As a music writer, we can never expect to win one, but at least we can nod knowingly when the committee gives the prize for the Pulitzer's music category. This year's Pulitzer music prize went to composer John Luther Adams for his piece "Become Ocean." The piece was original performed by the Seattle Symphony, and premiered in June of 2013. Read this

Sir Thomas Allen has been named "music adviser" to Scottish Opera. The company has been music directorless since the abrupt resignation of its then-new music director Emmauel Joel-Hornak. Read this

Laura Wright has made the brave decision to run the London Marathon on Sunday in, well, hardly anything--stopping halfway through to sing "Jerusalem" on Tower Bridge. Read this

In the spring of 1930, in a damp and dimly lit studio, on a Wisconsin village off Lake Michigan, Thomas and Wiley recorded a session of songs that for over half a century had been named masterpieces of pre-war Americana. Read this

If you haven't already heard (and since we reported on it, you should have), April is not only Jazz Appreciation Month...it's also National Poetry Month. And to celebrate, the good people at The Lambda Literary Review are clearly excited to share an excerpt from the famous writer James Baldwin. Read this

It's all change at the top of the UK arts scene as the government's Culture Secretary Maria Miller resigns after becoming embroiled in a scandal over her expenses (she was cleared of the major charges, but still has to pay several thousand pounds of claimed expenses back). Music pros on social... Read this

'I'll Say She Is' established the Marx Brothers as the preeminent jesters of the Jazz Age. Never made into a movie, it hasn't been seen since its 1924-25 Broadway run--until now. Read this

In celebration of the premiere of Mad Men's final season this weekend, we've come up with a list of ten of the coolest TV show theme songs of all time. Let's begin with the song that inspired this list... Read this

A pair of electronic music events have been cancelled in Detroit, although it doesn't seem like too much work was put into getting them off the ground at all. The Detroit Electronic Music Festival and the Federation of Electronic Music Technology, two festivals planned for July 4th weekend in coordination with each other was called off via an alert on the events' mutual website. Read this

The slow sales that plagued the Billboard 200 this week didn't avoid the Digital Downloads chart either, although totals weren't nearly as painful for digital tracks. A new name came into play, but the top four tracks will be familiar to our readers. Read this

Insomniac has polished off the details of its United Kingdom chapter for 2014, and have released an official list of performers for 2014. Avicii and Calvin Harris will be included among the headliners for the two day festival. Read this

If you ask someone what kind of music they listen to, fifty percent of the time their answer will be “everything, except country and rap”. While I’ve written about country songs that would appeal to country-haters, hip-hop is much trickier and more misunderstood. If you’re thinking of getting into hip-hop, here are seven artists that would be excellent entry points. Read this

In celebration of the premiere of Mad Men's final season this weekend, we've come up with a list of ten of the coolest TV show theme songs of all time. Let's begin with the song that inspired this list... Read this

"Unqualified," the single from Perry LaHaie's latest album, Ahead, has a brand new sound courtesy of Sean Moffitt, the engineer whose credits include mixes for Chris Tomlin ("Burning Lights"), Mandisa ("Overcomer"), Natalie Grant ("Hurricane"), and Steven Curtis Chapman ("The Glorious Unfolding"). Read this

On May 6, 2014, Integrity Music will release the 10-track 'The Action Bible Remixed,' a collection of well-known modern worship songs reimagined with the electronic sounds of producer Victor "Liquid" Oquendo and featuring guest appearances by Canton Jones, DJ Maj, KJ-52, L.E.D., Liquid, Milton Young, and Stefan The Scientist. Read this

From May 9th to the 11th, the area between Virginia Beach's 29th and 30th streets will come alive with music. Read this

A snapshot of what's coming up in Christian music next week... Read this

Born in the U.S. Virgin Islands in St. Croix and raised in Houston in the southeast side, Vaughaligan Walwyn made his mark on the world in athletics. A career-ending knee injury led him to music and after a long road, he's ready to share God's grace. Read this

Fans of folk rockers Cadillac Sky were surprised in 2010 when Bryan left the stage in the midst of a tour that found them opening for Mumford and Sons and seemingly disappeared from music altogether. While it seemed sudden, the move had actually been building for two years and now, four years later, Simpson is back with a new chapter in his story. Read this

Apple's iTunes Music Festival is next week and the brand recently made an exciting announcement. It's all going down in Austin as part of this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) music showcase. Read this

Are you a Country, Hip-Hop, Alternative, R&B, Rock or Pop complete artist, group or band who has what it takes to win $10,000? Read this

There's no denying it: 2013 was the year of the viral video music hit. Billboard began incorporating YouTube hits and other streaming video services into its Hot 100 formula this year, leading to some bizarre smash hits. As 2013 comes to a close, it's time to remember the viral videos that had an impact on Internet culture, the charts and out hearts. Read this

Matteo Setti got his "big break" from Luciano Pavarotti. He also sang lead in a Queen cover band. Which is to say the Italian vocalist can handle a wide range of styles. The performer is turning his attention to swing for the Christmas season however, having released his first holiday EP, Home For Christmas. Setti took some time to speak with Music Times prior to his December 10 show at The Cutting Room. Read this