HeyJaredDrop the Needle - Music That Matters
Curated music literature and repertoire, amazing performances, and commentary to keep your ear well-rounded and laser-sharp.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 4
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- Sep 29, 2026
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- Aug 25, 2026
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The Active Past: Part IV (opens the original)
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The Original KlingonUna Chin-Riley is intoxicated, holding a microphone, and committed well beyond prudence. The first officer of the Enterprise is singing karaoke in Klingon, attacking every guttural consonant with the conviction of someone for whom the evening’s last good decision disappeared several songs ago.The language is unfamiliar. The song is very familiar.The melody rises, pauses, and turns back on itself. Una’s voice leans into each phrase as though it must be launched across the room
The Active Past: Part III (opens the original)
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The AccusationIn 1993, several kinds of ground moved beneath my feet.It was my first year marching in The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps Color Guard. I transferred from USL to USM, left home, and became a smaller fish in larger ponds. Music and higher-level performance were rising tides in my life. I was entering an environment more demanding of my body, discipline, expression, musicianship, and attention than any I’d known.The popular mainstream still felt continuous with the musical world I un
The Active Past: Part II (opens the original)
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The Chooser’s ChooserAn old song is playing in a young room. This time, I don’t look at the person nearest the speaker and begin subtracting. I look at the speaker.At the salon in Peachtree City, the music came through an Amazon Echo Dot. That seems to bring the ‘chooser’ into view: Alexa played “It’s Gonna Be Me.” But Alexa didn’t decide that an *NSYNC single from 2000 belonged beneath those exposed roof girders on that particular morning.Someone may have requested it. Someone else may have cho
The Active Past: Part I (opens the original)
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The ArithmeticI was getting my hair cut at an Aveda salon in Peachtree City when an Amazon Echo Dot played an *NSYNC hit.The stylist stood behind me, working around my head with the concentration of someone holding sharp objects near another person’s ears. A neon streak cut through her bangs. She wore a septum ring. Neither detail came with a birth certificate, but I would’ve been surprised if she were much older than twenty-five.Then the tight beat and stacked voices of “It’s Gonna Be Me” fille
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