Music Reviews

It’s a well-known story: A little over 2 decades ago, a Nashville record executive familiar with aspiring singer/songwriters Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn suggested that the two team up and see what might happen — and the rest was, indeed, history.

Robert Ripps: From your perspective, how has Keeping Score evolved since its 2004 premiere, both artistically and technologically?

“I sometimes think I should’ve been a filmmaker rather than a musician.”

So says Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor and music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

Sad news in the headlines this week. We all mourn the passing of Borders Books, not just one of the last megabooksellers, but one of the last that also sold music. Who’s to blame? I blame my mom.

While Spotify and MOG have been getting the lion's share of the press, Rdio has been running a perfectly useful little subscription streaming music service for almost a year now. Overlooked by many (admittedly, even by S+V) in the glare surrounding the arrival of Spotify in the U.S., Rdio is now poised to be the first streaming service to release an iPad app.

Murray Perahia’s recordings of Bach’s Keyboard Concertos, originally released from 2001 to 2003, have now been reissued in this specially priced Limited Edition three-CD set (with a new essay by Jeremy Siepmann) — and if you missed them the first time around, do not make that mistake again.

District 97 has won over some impressive fans. Bill Bruford and John Wetton have been singing the praises of the band's debut, Hybrid Child. And S+V's editorial staff was equally unable to resist the Chicagoans' progressive pop in selecting the band as our first Breaking Out contest winner.