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"As perverse as this seems, it was in keeping with a newly recognised aspect of archæology called %u201Carchæoacoustics%u201D. Archæologists have finally realised that ancient people had ears, and have discovered that various kinds of acoustic effects %u2013 from eerie echoes to resonant frequencies that can affect the brain %u2013 seem to have been an intentionally planned component of a number of prehistoric sites worldwide, from ruined temples to rock art locations. 2, 3 Prehistory is at last gaining its own soundtrack."

"Apple® today announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 250 million songs from the iTunes® Music Store. iTunes users are now downloading one and a quarter million songs per day, which is an annual run rate of almost half a billion songs per year. The iTunes Music Store is now available in fifteen countries, which together represent more than 70 percent of the global music market."

"Podcasting is the syndication of audio files using RSS. Podcasting works the same as a standard RSS feed reader or news aggregator, the only difference is that the feed you subscribe to contains an audio file in it. Instead of reading content in your RSS feed reader or aggregator, you can listen to the contents of your feed using a reader or aggregator that supports podcasting, or you can listen to
them on an iPod or similar device. While podcasting was named for the iPod, you do not have to have an iPod to listen to a podcast. Podcasts can be displayed on websites with clickable links to audio files and many of the standard RSS readers, like FeedDemon%u2019s latest beta, have begun supporting audio enclosures."

The pop world is coming together on Saturday for a huge outdoor Tsunami Relief Concert at the Milenium Staduim in Cardiff.
Brian McFadden will be one of the artists headlining at the concert in Wales. Other acts include Badly Drawn Boy, Charlotte Church, Craig David, Eric Clapton with Jools Holland and The Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, Embrace, Feeder, Keane, Lemar, The Manic Street Preachers and Snow Patrol.

"Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, Hoobastank and Simple Plan are confirmed to play the MTV Asia Aid benefit show on February 3 at the IMPACT Arena in Bangkok. The show will raise funds for UNICEF and other Thailand and India-based charities, reports MTV.com."

Another big show, Tsunami Relief Cardiff, takes place Jan. 22 at Millennium Stadium in Wales, with Eric Clapton, Badly Drawn Boy, Charlotte Church and others performing in the sold-out concert, according to the stadium Web site.
Pop teen queen Hilary Duff will donate a portion of proceeds from her Most Wanted Tour to tsunami relief.

Added to the lengthy line-up for NBC's tsunami telethon on January 15 are Elton John, rapper Nelly and '80s pop sensation Annie Lennox. They join a show that already includes Tim McGraw, Christina Aguilera, and Kenny Chesney. Celine Dion will donate proceeds from her Mother's Day concert on May 8 in Las Vegas. The rockers Incubus is giving $100,000 of the $400,000 that its Make Yourself Foundation raised this year. Paul McCartney and his wife have donated $1.8 million to the International Rescue Committee.
One of the many organizations accepting donations is Music for Relief, set up by Linkin Park.

Other similar news: In Norway alone, dozens of benefit concerts are planned. In its oil capital, Stavanger, groups scheduled a free show Thursday, with cash to be raised through the sale of a single entitled "The Time is Now". Top Finnish rock stars held a fund-raising concert at one of Helsinki's most popular halls, collecting money for the Red Cross crisis fund.
Avril Lavigne, Sum 41 and Sarah McLachlan are among Canadian artists lined up for a brace of charity concerts in Calgary and Vancouver at the end of the month.
And some stars are doing more than raising cash. Belgian pop singer Axel Red, a UNICEF ambassador, traveled with Belgium's air force last week to towns in Sri Lanka and has helped identify victims.

There is virtually no record of the earliest music of the Christian church except a few New Testament fragments of what are probably hymns. Some of these fragments are still sung as hymns today in the Orthodox Church, including "Awake, awake O sleeper" on the occasion of someone's baptism.

The gospels of Matthew (26:30) and Mark (14:26) state that Jesus sang a hymn with his disciples immediately before his betrayal. The apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians (5:19) exhorted the church at Ephesus to speak to each other "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord". In the book of Colossians (3:16) he also encouraged the church at Colossae to teach and admonish each other with "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs".

The tradition of Christian hymns in the English language is closely tied to Protestantism. Protestant hymns can range from the Reformation organ pieces of J. S. Bach to the American folk hymns found in The Sacred Harp. Martin Luther composed a number of hymns in the 16th century, reportedly borrowing some of their melodies from popular tavern drinking songs of that period. Another famous hymn composer is Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley.

In our days: The 1990's saw the dawning of an even broader scope for Christian music. Rock, rap, metal, urban gospel, contemporary country and pop were represented in a big way.
Some of the artists that stepped into the international spotlight of the 90's were:
Carman - Billboard Magazine recognized his influence in Christian music by first naming him the "Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year" in 1990.
DC Talk - Their fourth album, Jesus Freak, achieved the highest first weeks sales of any Christian release in history.
Kirk Franklin - His first release was the first gospel album to sell over one million units.
Steven Curtis Chapman - He had eleven of the top 100 songs on the end-of-decade Christian Adult Contemporary airplay chart.
Rich Mullins - His song Awesome God was voted one of the top three songs of the decade by The Christian Research Report in 1989. The 90's saw a continuance of his popularity.
Amy Grant - This artist truly crossed the boundaries when she crossed over into mainstream music with Christian songs.


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"The digital music industry is now worth £177m in Europe, a figure expected to double this year. Some record companies estimate that the digital market could be worth 25% of total sales by 2009, compared with the present 1.5%.
After being caught out in the late 1990s by the rapid rise in online piracy, record executives said the tide had turned during the last year through a combination of legal action against pirates and the widespread availability of around a million tracks through legal services such as Napster and Apple's iTunes Music Store."

"After three years of massive sales declines, the record industry perked up in 2004 with a 1.6 percent growth in CD sales, fueled by blockbusters from Usher, Norah Jones, Eminem and U2. But is it enough to rally a sluggish industry, still in the throes of layoffs at the major record labels, ongoing battles with illegal file-sharing and the worst summer concert season in a decade?"

"U2, ALICIA KEYS, TIM McGRAW, and GREEN DAY are the first artists confirmed to perform at the 47th Grammy Awards ceremony, to air live February 13th on CBS . . . OUTKAST'S ANDRE 3000 will lend his voice to Elwyn the Crow in the remake of the classic children's movie Charlotte's Web. REBA MCENTIRE, JULIA ROBERTS and OPRAH WINFREY are also signed on. Production on the film will begin January 31st . . . Former ROLLING STONES bassist BILL WYMAN and his band the RHYTHM KINGS will release their fifth album, Just for a Thrill, May 10th . . . BOB MARLEY'S "No Woman No Cry," the ROLLING STONES' "Let It Bleed" album and RAY CHARLES' rendition of "America the Beautiful" are among the new additions to the Recording Academy's Grammy Hall of Fame . . ."

"With the rise in podcasting and the adoption of digital music portables into the mainstream the NFL has decided there is a market there for them. The National Football League has struck a deal with Audible.com to to sell audio coverage of the playoffs and future games."

"Legal music downloads in the U.S. and Europe leaped tenfold in 2004 after demand surged for iPod digital players and thousands of pirate websites were shut down, an industry group said.

Music fans paid for more than 200 million downloads last year, compared with 20 million in 2003, according to the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Anti-piracy campaigns led to the closure of 60,900 illegal music-sharing sites, the group said."

"Pop beauty BRITNEY SPEARS is turning to KYLIE MINOGUE to help her return to the music charts.
Spears recently heard a song called YOU BLOW HOT AND COLD and was desperate to record it for her forthcoming album.
But she had no idea Minogue - who famously rejected Spears' hit Toxic - had penned the disco track until the Australian beauty offered her the single and wished her chart glory, reports British magazine NEW!"

At its best, Hopes and Fears is reminiscent of Bends-era Radiohead and singer Tom Chaplin's voice is closer to Thom Yorke's falsetto than Chris Martin's cracked whine. On tracks such as the hit single "Somewhere Only We Know," they manage to squeeze an epic-sounding poignancy from their stripped-down sound (a lot of this is due to the album's superb production). Across 10 tracks, all this slow-burning melancholy skates a bit close to self-indulgence and you can't help but wish they'd rock out a bit. But Hopes and Fears is still a remarkable and surprisingly mature debut album from a young band with a bright future. --Robert Burrow