TOP 10 Best Music Hits By Eyes On Stars Fix
Before Rihanna, Billy Joel and Jay-Z became some of the biggest names in music, they were students just like the rest of us. Without some particularly special teachers, they might not be the superstars they are today, and they all remember who first encouraged them.
TOP 10 Best Music Hits by Eyes On Stars
It's just so cool what music can do. I think that's something that all of these artists opened our eyes to. Especially nowadays, we always find ourselves going back to that time period, because music today just does not feel the same.
Juarez: I love that the music we make gives me the same feeling that "Breakaway" gave me when I first listened to it. It's, like, a vibe thing. And also Kelly Clarkson is like, the best person in the world. I think she can do no wrong.
You couldn't tear your eyes away from the screen when Lamar performed "The Blacker the Berry" and "Alright," a performance that opened with his hands in chains and his back-up performers in prison cells before developing into a (literally) fiery background behind him. Though he picked up a televised award for best rap album for "To Pimp a Butterfly," he lost out on song of the year to Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" and album of the year to Swift.
The Broadway cast of "Hamilton" performed the opening number from the show, injecting a much-needed shot of energy into a ceremony that was chock-full of very slow ballads. The soundtrack won best musical theater album, and if you were wondering why it made the televised ceremony, it was because Lin-Manuel Miranda rapped his acceptance speech. Combined, it ensured the smash musical will be sold out for at least the next three years.
Clutching himself to himself, the Matty Healy of Being Funny aims to be earnest, to open up in a way that he insists only love can make him do. In these songs, though, he mostly remains alone inside memories, fantasies, dreamed-up dialogues. This is an album about breakups, equal parts wistful and fatalistic; that part of Healy's current art is apparently autobiographical, since he recently ended a two-years-plus long relationship with his fellow millennial pop protagonist, FKA twigs. But it also articulates an existential stance. There's a name for the kind of guy Healy tells us he is within these deceptively blithe ballads and dance floor burners; it's one that's suited rock stars like him, with their disheveled charisma and well-annotated little black books, for years. Critiquing masculinity while maintaining his position within the enduring hierarchies that put those bad boys on top, he's the one you love to roll your eyes at. He's a dirtbag, baby, in a long line of antiheroes who interrogate the shapes of male privilege from the inside, even as they benefit from its persistence.
"Ricocheting from the war-torn twentieth century to the reality-show-rich present day, the stories in this impressive collection feature characters buffeted by fate--or is it mere happenstance? . . . Our sense of history is probed, too, not without humor." --The New Yorker "It's impossible to resist the spell this collection's 17 stories weave. Wide in range and deep in feeling, Music for Wartime further confirms what The Hundred-Year House made clear: Rebecca Makkai is a writer of the first order, a writer whose name deserves to become well known among all discerning readers of fiction." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "[Makkai's] stories were anthologized in The Best American Short Stories for four years in a row, and Music for Wartime proves these honors were well-deserved, highlighting her poised voice, willingness to experiment, deft hand at structure, and capacity to surprise... Makkai brilliantly demonstrates that art can never be merely tangential to the lives of people who care about it." --Dallas Morning News "[An] excellent debut collection of stories . . . characterized by a striking blend of whimsy and poignancy, elegy and ebullience . . . [that] demonstrate an impressive range. . . . While some stories are straightforwardly realistic and others wildly fantastical, all are witty, rueful and wise. . . . I look forward with great anticipation . . . to anything else this immensely gifted writer produces." --Priscilla Gilman, The Boston Globe "A beautiful book and a must-read . . . Rebecca Makkai is a rising literary star, whose short stories appeared just about everywhere, before she turned to writing novels. So this is an exciting and exceptional return to the short story for Makkai, and for all of us." --Vanity Fair "[Makkai's] writing about music is informed and inquisitive. . . . 'Playful and crisp and strangely elfin' are words I would use to describe my favorite story in this book . . . [which] is about a reality television producer. . . . Ms. Makkai is shrewd about the unpretty manner in which reality TV is made . . . [and] the heartbreak in this story feels particular, grainy: real. . . . It's a gut-punch that lands." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times "Richly imagined." --Chicago Tribune, "Summer's Best New Releases" "Engrossing."--Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "Summer books: 10 novels not to miss -- and so much more" "[An] impressive first volume of stories." --O, The Oprah Magazine, "The Season's Best Literary Fiction" "Exceptional . . . [Makkai] writes with economic precision, excising extraneous details or extra commas; she designs a catalog of unique structures to convey her meanings; and she narrates with unflagging confidence, secure in her experimentations and digressions. . . . Provocative, compelling reading." --Cleveland Plain-Dealer" 'The Briefcase' . . . is a story that displays remarkable compression, force and agility, and is also one of the very few I've read that would fit just as snugly into Kafka's oeuvre as it would into Amy Hempel's or Joy Williams'."--Kevin Brockmeier in The Arkansas Times"The short story is the ideal venue for Makkai's considerable talent, not only for drawing nuanced characterizations, but for contriving strange and fascinating premises. . . . With Music for Wartime, Makkai takes her place - one she deserves - among the artists with aplomb." --The Guardian "[Makkai's] stories are united by . . . a penetrating streak of psychological acuity and insight. . . . the 17 stories in the volume--a remarkably heterodox group, varied in terms of subject and approach--were written over the course of 13 years, and it shows: Evident patience and care have been taken with these stories to tease out their meaning and emotion while retaining an admirable subtlety and suggestiveness. . . . Makkai is unafraid to inject uncanny or curious elements into her narratives. . . . [She] finds her power in uniqueness and individuality." --Globe and Mail (Canada) "Inventive." --W Magazine "This varied collection of short stories focuses on finding beauty in the darkest times. . . . These tales will delight and haunt you long after you have closed the book."--Woman's Day "The stories are haunting and enchanting, wonderfully strange, and unforgettably gorgeous."--Book Riot (The Best Books of 2015 So Far) "Makkai's Lorrie Moore-esque genius for floating bizarre and often very funny ideas land[s] with gravitas. . . . The lines between fiction and non-fiction feel inconsequential when the subject is the human condition, and when the stories are told so well."--The Winnipeg Free Press"Quintessential Makkai--witty, intelligent, a little irreverent, but not afraid to venture into emotional territory." --Bookpage "An eclectic collection of short stories--each perfect for a quick literary break." --Martha Stewart Living"If any short story writer can be considered a rock star of the genre, it's Rebecca Makkai.... Her greatest strength may be never forgetting that she is a storyteller first." --Kansas City Star "Nearly perfect . . . [Makkai] has penned a collection filled with beauty and heartbreak, surprise and wonder, guilt and innocence. . . . The stories complement one another perfectly, linked not by characters or plot, but by theme and craft. . . . An exceptional book." --The Gazette (Iowa City)"Music for Wartime shows off Rebecca Makkai's surprising range of short-story writing: Stories of war and destruction appear next to those about love and reality television. Yet the collection still manages to feel like a cohesive, stunning whole, tied together with the wit and heart that courses through each and every story." --Buzzfeed, "17 Awesome New Books You Need To Read This Summer" "Makkai proved in her most recent novel, The Hundred-Year House, that she's capable of crafting alluring, interwoven character studies. In Music for Wartime, she's penned a series of short stories--three of which are based on legends from Hungary, where her family hails from. Spanning Berlin, Romania and present-day America, where true love can be found in front of a live audience, her short stories are as moving as they are varied." --The Huffington Post, "18 Brilliant Books You Won't Want To Miss This Summer" "Haunting . . . Seventeen stories with the impact of a quiver of arrows aimed at the heart." --BBC.com, "Ten Books to Read in July" "Stories that stay with you, all of which are good, and some of which are magnificent....The writing is clever and rich with the perceptiveness and human insight that earned Makkai a place (or four) in the Best American Short Stories series." --Los Angeles Magazine, "7 Books You Need to Read This July" "Makkai's first short story collection demonstrates why the already-acclaimed novelist is also a master of this more succinct form. Each of the stories in the collection is vividly wrought and individually compelling, and features a precision and beauty that leaves the reader full of wonder." --The L Magazine, "50 Books You'll Want to Read This Spring and Summer" "After two celebrated novels . . . Makkai returns to the genre that first got her noticed. The stories' settings vary . . . [with the] author's sharp, compassionate writing uniting them all." --Chicago Magazine, "Grab These 10 Great Summer Reads" "Sets the author's pure talent front and center." --Chicago Reader, "28 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2015" "Showcases the author's talent for the short form." --The Millions, "Most Anticipated: The Great First-Half 2015 Book Preview" "Rife with sentences that will stop you in your tracks with their strangeness and profundity....Makkai is a musical writer with a strong voice."--Library Journal, (Starred Review)"[An] outstanding debut story collection . . . Though these stories alternate in time between WWII and the present day, they all are set . . . within 'the borders of the human heart'--a terrain that their author maps uncommonly well." --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "A collection of 17 nuanced short stories which examine conflicts internal and external involving the touchstones of family, artistry, and identity. . . . Makkai's tales offer rich explorations of the key questions and struggles that are part and parcel of the human experience." --Booklist "Funny, haunting short stories . . . More than worth picking up." --Shelf Awareness "Rebecca Makkai is one of our best writers--witty and precise, brilliant and compassionate--and every one of these stories contains all the depth and heartache of a doorstop-sized novel. I've been waiting for years for this book. Music for Wartime isn't simply wonderful--it's essential." --Molly Antopol, author of The Un-Americans, longlisted for the National Book Award 041b061a72