A cartoon of Guru Maharaj Ji on the cover of the November 1973 issue of The Rag

The Concert That Promised a Thousand Years of Peace

Guru Maharaj Ji, the teenage leader of the Divine Light Mission, was poised to usher in a new era. His huge Houston gathering proved to do anything but.
Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher’s “Musical Ark”

The first algorithmically generated music came to us in the seventeenth century, courtesy of Kircher and his Arca musarithmica.
Scottish singer and actress Lulu listens to a small portable Rhapsody DeLuxe radio

Music Only for a Woman: The Birth of Easy Listening

A 1970s radio format geared towards the "feminine psyche" featured musical rearrangements with softer and gentler styles of the day's hits.
The Kim Sisters with Dean Martin

Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s The Kim Sisters

The diversification of talent on American variety shows obscured the reality of race relations in the United States during the Cold War.
A couple listening to their hi-fi system in a specially converted music room, 1974.

Making Music Male

How did record collecting and stereophile culture come to exclude women as consumers and experts?
Members of Tjapukai Dance Theatre

Reggae in Australia

In the 1970s, Willie Brim, a member of the Buluwai people, learned about Peter Tosh and Bob Marley from hippies who lived near his community. And the joy began.
A Vocalion Records advertisement, 1929

“It’s Tight Like That”

A "dirty" song recorded by Georgia Tom and Tampa Red in 1928 launched the "hokum" blues.
A Mellotron M400S

Tape Heads

The Mellotron, an electronic keyboard of recorded samples, heralded the digital age, and its use in “Strawberry Fields Forever” changed pop music history.
A cartoon of a woman's hand holding a microphone

Honey Cocaine’s Unexpected Cambodian Canadian Life Story

The Toronto rapper embraces a patois-inflected “bad gal” image to tell a deeply personal story about historical violence.