art

New York City is known for being a leader in movies, fashion, food and of course, music.

New York’s position as the musical center of the United States started in the mid-1800′s and continues to present day. It started with groups singing religious hymns, military bands and family groups (those family groups really stood the test of time didn’t they…) and morphed into Opera with the opening of the Metropolitan Opera House in 1882 and Carnegie Hall in 1891,

In the 60′s, Greenwich Village was arguably the biggest musical neighborhood in the United States and in the 70′s and 80′s things really took off with the clubs like CBGB that offered new artists their first stage. (Side note: my good friend Lisa saw one of the first shows the Police ever did in a small club in Greenwich Village with basically a pallet for their stage. I am so jealous).

Each decade has its list of stars that made NYC their own and of course tons of these musicians are NYC natives including Lou Reed, Neil Diamond, Joan Baez, Sammy Davis Jr. and Billy Joel.

NEIL!!

But perhaps no decade can claim a bigger dent on the global music scene than what New York generated in the ’90′s. I know what you are thinking: “the 90′s? Wait, wasn’t that the grunge decade? Didn’t that happen on the West Coast”?
True, grunge did have a huge impact on music, but it wasn’t the only musical genre born in the 90′s — New York City actually was a very big player in the 90′s music scene and introduced some long term rockers and perhaps more well known— birthed most of the pioneers of hip hop and rap. In fact, New York was the only city with a major hip hop scene for many years. Guys like LL Cool J brought hip-hop to the mainstream for the first time while rap reached near perfection here from artists such as Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy Run DMC and Jay Z.

How do I know all of this? Well, aside from the regular research any good writer does and the fact that I am a big ’90′s music fan (yes, there are some exceptions: N’Sync, Backstreet Boys), I recently had the pleasure of leisurely roaming around the newest exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art : Looking at Music 3.0. This exhibit runs through June 6 and displays, through collected art in various forms, the influence NYC artists had on the music we listen to today.

The exhibit focuses mainly hip-hop/raps’ roots, but ample attention is also paid to the NYC Rock scene with videos from Grace Jones and eclectic recordings from David Byrn and Brian Eno.
Other ’90′s topics are also featured with festivals and ad campaigns focusing on the fight against AIDS, the impact of graffiti and MTV’s continuing presence.

In the center of the exhibit, a massive projector rotated music videos from featured artists and the videos emitted a blue and white flash that induced a prominent “head-nod” reaction by this visitor.

Original lp’s, cassettes (ahhh Nostalgia), interactive displays and smaller tv’s complete with wrap-a-round headphones that let you listen to music or watch videos of these NYC artists that kept MTV in the picture (come back MTV, please… no more reality shows…) such as my favorite-the Beastie Boys and their video Sabotage directed by the brilliant Spike Jonze.

Diana rocking out to the Beastie’s

a picture of the Beastie Boys featured in the exhibit

Nirvana and Pearl Jam will always have a place in my heart; grunge is part of my formative years growing up in Seattle, but these NYC artists really brought it and like the grunge heros from the opposite coast, they are music trailblazers that deserve their claim on the 90′s.

Some of the artists featured in the exhibit but not mentioned in this article include:
KRS-One
Slick Rick
Grandmaster Flash
Fab 5 Freddy
the Wu-Tang Clan
Salt and Peppa
Public Enemy

Whoo hoo — check it out!
See my guest post on GotSaga on some things to do in NYC that aren’t technically mainstream, including: the Brooklyn Museum, Prospect Park and the church turned rave club turned boutique shopping center known as the Limelight Marketplace… click here to see what else!

Brooklyn Museum

Prospect Park

Limelight

Read, enjoy and come visit the best city in the world!

Amazingly, I had a day with nothing scheduled on my calendar so I decided to do one of my favorite things: play tourist. My destination this time was Brooklyn–the hip Borough.

view of the bridge

Brooklyn water tower

Brooklyn is known for many things. Some call it the new “Seattle” for its music scene. So many bands are coming out of Brooklyn right now that its hard to keep up (my fave currently: TV on the Radio). The NJ Nets will soon make Brooklyn its new home thanks to a Russian billionaire that has a passion for basketball and this borough. It is the home of stroller pushing mothers that work their mandatory hours at the local, yet uppity co-op; large parks that host pickup games of all types; and, it also seems to be the place to live if you (men) want to sport a throwback mustache, Tom Selleck circa ’84 style. I can’t believe all of the ‘staches I see here and maybe its ’cause I don’t live here but I gotta say big N.O. no on that look making a comeback. The only guys I think look good with a mustache, in this order, are 1) Tom Selleck and 2) my dad. However- seems that I am the minority in this line of thinking since Brooklyn did host the 2009 NYC Beard and Mustache Championship.

But I digress…

Brooklyn street

Aside from roaming the quaint brownstone lined streets and and shopping at the some of the best stores around (such as my favorite bookstore Spoonbill & Sugartown), I enjoy noticing the seemingly acceptable, ample amounts of street art. The street art I am talking about could also be called graffiti, but the photos I am posting here will show that the graffiti stereotype of wall litter and/or tagging wouldn’t be appropriate. Enjoy and let me know where you enjoy browsing street art.

a little live art