Ongoing History Daily: The origin of the term “hip hop”
Hip-hop continues to be a major force in cultural and an influence on other genres of music. But have you
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Etymology
Ongoing History Daily: “Pop” music
Here’s a question: why do we call it “pop” music? A little research suggests that the world was first used
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Ongoing History Daily: The origin of the word “gig.”
Here’s an odd piece of trivia. When a band plays a show, we say that they’ve got a “gig.” Where
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Ongoing History Daily: The origin of the term “Britpop”
Back in the middle 90s, the big buzzword in the UK was “Britpop.” This became an umbrella term for a
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The English language could use some new musical terms. Can you help?
. [This was my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. – AC] The English language has been evolving for centuries. Each year,
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We need to create a word for this common musical phenomenon. Can you help?
This email arrived from Susan over the holidays. “Is there a word for the sense of immense disappointment that occurs
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The strange origins of the word “punk”
When the word “punk” is thrown about today, chances are the conversations (a) a form of loud, fast alt-rock; or
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The Ongoing History of New Music, Episode 801: 60 Band Name Origins in 60 Minutes
As someone who churns out tens of thousands of words every week–emails, blog posts, business documents, tweets, radio scripts–I’ve developed
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Do We Need to Invent a New Musical Term for This? What Do You Call a Song That Sounds Similar to Another?
Some musical terms worth remembering: Earworm: A clip of a song running through your head on a seemingly endless loop.
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What Do You Call the Study of Band Names?
[This is something I wrote for Nightflight.com. Go there for more interesting music articles from a wide variety of authors.
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Now We Call It “EDM.” That’s Just the Latest Label Given to Un-Label-able Music
In order to make the complex comprehensible, humans are always looking to put things into nice, neat piles. Music, for
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