Today is...

[IceWizard]

Wednesday 4 Jan 2017

Pop Music Chart Day



If you ever listen to pop music the radio, you’re probably at least familiar with the concept of weekly pop music charts. They often play as a countdown of either the top five or top ten songs on the chart that week and either samples or the entire songs are played.

Pop music is hard to ignore and even if you absolutely hate it, there’s a pretty sure chance that you have heard at least some of the songs on the charts. Pop music is everywhere and it’s a mixed bag of awful racket and some genuinely interesting songs that all somehow reach the zenith of popularity. While some songs may only be on the chart for one week, there are others which remain among the most popular songs for months on end.

This, after all, is how we judge the most influential bands and musicians – if a song remains on the charts for a long period of time, there’s a good chance that your grandchildren will know it too.

It’s no trivial matter that names like The Beatles and Elvis Presley both found their way at the top of the charts for several sustained periods.

History of Pop Music Chart Day

It’s hard to come up with a working definition of pop music without the pop music charts, because it defies classification into a single genre.

While it can be said that there is a “typical” style of pop music in a particular period and country, the songs that top the charts do often defy these bounds.

That being said, pop music songs average about three minutes in length (optimal radio airtime) and are commercially produced.

But ultimately it’s all subjective anyhow.

Pop Music Chart Day has been celebrated for years, and lifts up that most important of music yardsticks, the pop music chart, into the limelight it should be in.

After all, without this innovation, how would we know what the best music out there is?



And



World Braille Day



World Braille Day celebrates the birth of Louis Braille, inventor of the reading and writing system used by millions of blind and partially sighted people all over the globe. Though not a public holiday in any country, World Braille Day provides an opportunity for teachers, charities and non-government organizations to raise awareness about issues facing the blind and the importance of continuing to produce works in Braille, providing the blind with access to the same reading and learning opportunities as the sighted.

The History of World Braille Day

Louis Braille, the inventor of braille, was born in France on January 4th, 1809. Blinded in both eyes in an accident as a child, Braille nevertheless managed to master his disability while still a child.

Despite not being able to see at all, he excelled in his education and received scholarship to France’s Royal Institute for Blind Youth. During his studies, inspired by the military cryptography of Charles Barbier of the French Army, he developed a system of tactile code that could allow the blind to read and write quickly and efficiently.

Braille presented the results of his hard work to his peers for the first time in 1824 when he was just fifteen years of age.

In 1829, he published his first book about the system he had created, called “Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them”.

The braille system works by representing the alphabet letters (and numbers) in a series of 6 dots paired up in 3 rows. The simplicity of his idea allowed books to start being produced on a large scale in a format that thousands of blind people can read by running their fingertips over the dots.

Thanks to this, blind students have the opportunity to be educated alongside their peers as well as read for pleasure just as easily as any seeing person can.

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January 4 Birthdays


Louis Braille - (1809-1852)



Sir Isaac Newton - (1643-1727)



Dyan Cannon - 80






January 4th

2004: Kinks singer and guitarist Ray Davies was shot in the leg in the French Quarter of New Orleans while chasing two men who stole the purse of his female companion.

1986: Thin Lizzy bassist and singer Phil Lynott died of heart failure and pneumonia at Salisbury Hospital in Wiltshire, U.K. He was 36 years old.

1979: The Star Club in Hamburg, Germany re- opened to the public due to renewed interest in The Beatles. No members of The Beatles attended the re-opening.

1977: En route to performing concerts in Holland, the Sex Pistols vomited and spat their way to their flight at London’s Heathrow Airport before boarding their plane to Amsterdam.

1975: Elton John began a two week run on top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with a cover of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. John Lennon provided background vocals and played guitar. This was the only time a Beatles cover ever topped the singles chart in the U.S.

1973: The Allman Brothers Band announced that Lamar Williams would replace the late Berry Oakley on bass.

1970: Who drummer Keith Moon accidentally ran over and killed his bodyguard Neil Boland while trying to escape a gang of skinheads outside of a pub in Hatfield, U.K.

1970: George Harrison, Paul McCartney and George Martin entered EMI Studios in London to re-record vocals and a new guitar solo for “Let it Be”. This would be the final studio appearance for The Beatles as a group.

1969: The Jimi Hendrix Experience performed an impromptu rendition of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” as a tribute due to their recent split on the BBC’s Happening for Lulu.



Birthdays:

Michael Stipe - Singer for R.E.M. born in 1960