From The Situationist, a look at the science of songs stuck in your head. Did Sesame Street have it right? A new study shows music instruction may improve language-processing skills by altering the brain stem. A review of This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession by Daniel J Levitin. Beyong the musical avant-garde: Terry Teachout reviews The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century by Alex Ross (and more and more). The end of music? The top 35 pop artists worldwide now earn most of their money from concerts, not recordings. What’s the future hold for music journalism with commercial sites increasingly providing reviews and interviews? The Sounds of Science: Computer-generated music moves out of the lab. MP3 maniacs go wild for Wagner (as in, Vahg-ner). Lost in music: What we buy affects how statisticians compute price changes.
