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Why the haters are wrong about Mariah Carey:

But it is unfair to damn Carey for the sins of her lesser imitators or to judge her based on a set of musical values that she explicitly rejects. Emotion is not really the point of Carey's songs—not even when she's singing "Emotions."
Her music is first and foremost an expression of power and technical prowess. There is a place in pop for bombast, especially when it's coupled with virtuosity. I have learned to cherish Carey's singing for its brute force, blinding technique, and, yes, showboatiness—to place Mariah's vocal "runs" in the tradition of John Coltrane's "sheets of sound," the pummeling drumming of Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, and Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" (aka the Magna Carta of shredding 1980s guitar solos).

Up to a point. Would you really want to listen to the melismatic equivalent of "Moby Dick" over and over again, like, forever?

Invisible Jukebox with Carl Craig

Tree of life continues to evolve:

God is just a Type 1 error. What's a type 1 error?

How much progress have pyschiatry and psychology really made?

The Onion: Researchers discover massive asshole in Blogosphere