Month: January 2023

How Independent Artists Can Maximise Merch Sales in 2023 –

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Legend has it that Elvis started the band merch revolution in 1956 when someone thought to blazon his name across a t-shirt. Fast forward to 2023, band merch is a multibillion-pound cultural phenomenon, with Louis Vuitton incorporating band t-shirts in their catwalks and fulfilling a far less appropriative role in helping artists to put petrol in their tour vans and fund future releases.

If selling more band merch made your band’s list of New Year’s Resolutions, the seven points below on how independent artists can maximise merch sales in 2023 will go a long way in helping you to boost your sales revenue.

How Independent Artists Can Maximise Merch Sales in 2023

  1. Add Merch Lines to your Spotify Profile

If you haven’t made your Spotify profile a digital merch stall yet, put it at the top of your to-do list. After the 2022 installation of Spotify Wrapped, the platform broke its weekly merch sales record after music fans rushed to support their favourite artists.

This year, a part of the yearly phenomenon was Spotify compelling music fans to purchase merch from the artists they listened to the most. The 175% sales boost proves that Spotify’s worth transcends its streaming royalties.

To add your popular and best-selling merch to your Spotify profile, link items from your Shopify profile; there is only space for three pieces – choose carefully.

  1. Don’t Take a Generic Approach to Your Merch

There are countless articles floating around the ether advising which pieces of generic merch to sell your fans based on overall sales. None of these vapid puff pieces can guide you towards the perfect merch store that will leave you adding out-of-stock notices all over the shop.

There are some helpful guides on which pieces of merch work best for bands based on genre based on previous sales, but no one will know your fanbase as you do. And if you’re unsure of what your fans would like to see from your future merch lines, ask them on social media.

  1. Create Limited Runs of Merch for Concerts and Festivals

After the return of live music following the pandemic, financial analysts noticed a drastic rise in interest in concert merch. After analysing the revenue via merch sales from 130,000 gigs, atVenu data indicated a 46% increase in money spent on merch at live shows, which took the average spend from $5.54 a head in 2019 to $8.13 in 2022.

Creating merch for specific gigs, tours, and festival appearances, such as t-shirts, posters, and other date-branded ephemera, is risky, as there is no guarantee that you will sell it all while you’re on the road. If you want to make a memento of a tour, ensure there is a demand for it, and it is an ultra-limited edition.

To play it savvy, reserve particular merch lines to sell on tour. When your fans head out to see you, they will be more likely to purchase your merch table items as they know this will be their only opportunity to buy the merch.

  1. Utilise Fan Data from Previous Sales

Using your fan data can get you closer to your merchandising goals if you spend the time improving your digital advertising strategy. Data-driven insights can help you see which the best-selling and performing items are and, more importantly, why.

When placed onto your website or webstore, the Facebook Pixel code collects data that tracks conversions from Facebook ads. The code also optimises ads, helps to build audiences and remarkets your products more accordingly.

Dynamic Ads is also a handy tool for your marketing arsenal through its ability to show ads for specific products that your site visitors have previously shown interest in. Dynamic Ads also recommends other items that complement their previous purchases.

  1. Build Merch Bundles

Merch bundles create a win-win scenario for both artists and music fans. For artists, the average order value increases, and sale conversions improve. For music fans, there is a sense that they are getting more for their money.

When creating your merch bundles, accommodate the budgets of all your fans. Your die-hard fans with cash to burn won’t flinch at forking out for your highest-ticket premium bundle. Your fans on a budget will appreciate your smaller bundles, which throw in smaller items, such as badges, plectrums, stickers, or patches.

If you are selling tickets to an upcoming show, you can also include your tickets in merch bundles to add an incentive to pick up an extra piece of merch! As a bonus, selling your tickets with merch will limit the number of touts purchasing gigs for your show.

  1. Run a Pre-Order Marketing Campaign

While it isn’t immediately obvious why pre-order marketing campaigns can boost merchandising sales in the long run, it is a proven way to add hype around a new piece of merch. In the same way trailers air for films months before their release date, running a pre-release marketing campaign builds anticipation and adds an element of scarcity to the new products.

Furthermore, by selling your merch on pre-sale, you can offer pre-order incentives, such as giving away discounts or only giving access to your pre-release items to people signed up to your mailing list.

Additionally, you will have a longer timeframe to promote your merch on social media by advertising the opening of pre-sales and counting down to when the items will be ready to ship, as opposed to you sharing old news!

  1. Remind Your Fans to Buy Merch on Bandcamp Friday

Bandcamp has announced that it will be continuing Bandcamp Fridays throughout 2023. On the first Friday of every month, 100% of sales will be put into the pockets of artists. This gives artists and bands the chance to remind their fans every month of which items are left for sale in Bandcamp webstores.

For maximum effect, always pair your merch announcements with eye-grabbing images or videos to display your merch and try to drop new items onto your Bandcamp page in line with Bandcamp Fridays!

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For further advice on how to start 2023 with a bang and keep the fire stoked, check out our blog on how independent artists should be running their new releases through 2023.

Article by Amelia Vandergast



Why did U2 channel Martin Luther King in two hits songs?

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The only goal was openness. After producing three hard-hitting albums inspired by post-punk and classic rock, U2 were at the forefront of a politically conscious revolution in rock music. But the Irish rockers were in danger of becoming preachy with their soapboxing, so the solution was simple: strip it all away until there was barely anything there at all.

It might have been criticised at the time, but after nearly 40 years, U2’s fourth studio album, The Unforgettable Fire, looks downright revolutionary. Their first collaboration with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, the album that U2 made was ambient, fuzzy, ephemeral, and completely open to interpretation. Sometimes, there was barely any music there at all, taking Eno’s sonic philosophy and applying it to their own sound in radical ways.

Along those lines, songs like ‘Bad’ and ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ found Bono sketching out basic outlines of lyrics and leaving them as they were. He would be disappointed in the results, causing him to be more serious about his writing approach for the band’s next album, The Joshua Tree. One song that he felt was particularly unfinished was ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’, especially considering the weight and thoughtfulness of the song’s subject.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a figure that Bono only became intimately familiar with after becoming a popular musician. He knew of the man, one of the most famous and influential civil rights activists in American history. However, it took the reading of the biography Let the Trumpet Sound and a mental connection to Bono’s own experience of The Troubles for him to truly find inspiration.

“So now — cut to 1980. Irish rock group, who’ve been through the fire of a certain kind of revival, a Christian-type revival, go to America,” Bono told Rolling Stone. “[Y]ou get to the Black church, and you see that they have similar ideas. But their religion seems to be involved in social justice; the fight for equality. And a Rolling Stone journalist, Jim Henke, who has believed in you more than anyone up to this point, hands you a book called Let the Trumpet Sound — which is the biography of Dr. King. And it just changes your life.”

Bono had already had a theme in mind when U2 were writing ‘Pride’: it was supposed to be a sardonic take on the pride that Ronald Reagan was instilling in America. Bono was going to take the opportunity to throw barbs at Reagan’s increased military presence around the world and the jingoistic sloganeering that he found distasteful. But once he read King’s biography, Bono changed the song’s lyrics and composed an impressionistic take on King’s pride in a country that frequently treated him like a second-class citizen.

Unfortunately, Bono proved to be slightly out of his depth in that regard. It wasn’t quite the right place at the right time either: with U2 and their producers emphasising a less-direct approach to their sound, a full tribute to MLK wouldn’t have fit the feeling of The Unforgettable Fire. As it was, Bono decided to leave ‘Pride’ as an unfinished sketch, with occasional factual errors and loose ends left unresolved.

“I looked at how glorious that song was and thought: ‘What the fuck is that all about?’” Bono asked in the book U2 on U2. “It’s just a load of vowel sounds ganging up on a great man. It is emotionally very articulate – if you didn’t speak English.”

The unfinished nature of ‘Pride’ might have caused Bono to compose another song about King. This time, he looked to create a more straightforward and earnest eulogy for King, one that resonated poetically with the kind of rhetoric and preaching style that King himself employed. The result was ‘MLK’, the second song from The Unforgettable Fire, focused on King and the album cut with the most direct line to Bono’s appreciation for the civil rights leader.

‘MLK’ makes direct allusions to King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in its minimalist lyrics. However, ‘MLK’ says more about King and his impact on Bono than the somewhat random and confused thoughts that make up ‘Pride’. But while ‘Pride’ had a major hook that made it an MTV hit, ‘MLK’ was an ambient track that acted as a delicate closing hymn to The Unforgettable Fire. With just a droning keyboard note backing him up, Bono eulogises King in ways that help resolve the open-ended jumble of ‘Pride’.

The two songs work well in tandem, but ‘Pride’ began to take on a life of its own. As the band’s first top 40 hit in America, U2 found themselves having to dust off the song at nearly every live performance. Clips of MLK were often projected during shows, helping to flesh out the message and character that Bono left out of the lyrics.

Although he was disappointed with the results, audiences clung to the abstract message that Bono laid out in ‘Pride’. Along with his frequent explanations and the acknowledgements that the band made to King, ‘Pride’ became heavily associated with King and his legacy, so much so that Bono was eventually honoured by the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, a non-profit founded by King’s widow, Coretta Scott King.

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Model train plays 2,840 notes of classical music to set Guinness World Record | Trending

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Guinness World Records (GWR) regularly share photos and videos related to different kinds of world records on their social media pages. In their recent post, they shared a world record set by a model train. According to the record-keeping organisation, Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg GmbH played over 2,840 notes over a 211-metre track to set the Guinness World Record.

“Longest melody played by a model train 2,840 notes by @miniaturwunderland,” read the caption of the video shared on Instagram by Guinness World Records. They also posted several hashtags, including #melodysongs and #guinnessworldrecords. The video shared by Guinness World Records shows the model train playing 20 classical melodies using 2,840 glasses filled with varying amounts of water, and it is soothing to the ears. The record was attempted in Germany at the company’s exhibition centre on 17 March 2021.

Watch the video below:

Since being shared a day ago, the video has accumulated more than 1.1 million views, and the numbers are still increasing. The video has also received several comments.

Here’s how people reacted to the video:

“Ok, this one is kinda cool!” posted an individual. Another shared, “Evaporation has entered the chat.” “That’s so amazing how they synchronised it using the moving model train on the railtrack and pinging the glasses together as it went along it was so beautiful done I was so well composed by then i love to hear full version of each composed classic melody music of Mozart-rondo alla turca and beethoven-fur elise PING TING!!!!!” commented a third.



  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Arfa Javaid is a journalist working with the Hindustan Times’ Delhi team. She covers trending topics, human interest stories, and viral content online.
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Jimi Hendrix Honored In Country Music Hall of Fame R&B Exhibit

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The Country Music Hall of Fame (CMHOF) is honoring the connection between country and R&B music in an online exhibit.

Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970 examines the impact of R&B music on Nashville and how it helps define it as Music City. The exhibit begins in the late 1940s and ’50s, chronicling the legendary R&B artists who performed in the city, including Jimi Hendrix, Etta James, Little Richard, and Ray Charles, who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022.

Videos, photos, and audio recordings capture this illustrious time and are rooted in a series of themes exploring the roots of R&B music, famous live music clubs that were on historic Jefferson Street, a hub of Black culture and music, including New Era Club, Club Del Morocco, and Club Baron. Clips from James’ live album, Etta James Rocks the House, recorded at New Era Club, and Arthur Gunter’s rendition of his self-penned song, “Baby Let’s Play House,” that he recorded for former Nashville indie blues label, Excello Records, and was later cut and made a hit by Elvis Presley.

“The multimedia exhibit explores the significant story of Nashville’s vibrant and pioneering R&B scene and its important role in helping the city to become a world-renowned music center,” reads the press release. This is a digitized version of the exhibit of the same name that was on display at the Hall of Fame in 2004 and 2005. It’s available for free on the museum’s official website.

As the introduction to the online display adds: “During the years when Nashville grew into its title of Music City USA, Black artists such as Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix spent hours of bandstand apprenticeship in Nashvile’s Black nightclubs. At the same time, Nashville station WLAC blasted rhythm and blues across half the United States when most radio considered the music taboo, and Black and white musicians made hit records together in Nashville studios, in tacit disregard of segregation. As this online exhibit reveals, their music continues to reverberate through American Culture and Music City to this day.”

The exhibit is divided into eight online chapters, starting with City Sounds, which examines the origins of Nashville R&B. There are dedicated chapters on R&B’s live, radio and TV scenes, as well as artists, labels, and producers; the connections with country music; R&B’s “legacy and lament,” and a closing Public Program Archive of videos, interviews, and more. These include panels such as “Sunny” Days: Nashville’s Bobby Hebb and the Hebb Family, Jimi Hendrix in Nashville, and Let’s Trade a Little: The Country-R&B Connection.

The Country Music Hall Of Fame is adding an in-person component with a conversation between the Hall of Fame and the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville along with performances by R&B artists, the Fairfield Four’s Levert Allison, Jimmy Church, Peggy Gaines Walker, Frank Howard, Charles Walker, and others on January 25 at the Hall of Fame’s Ford Theater in Nashville.

Listen to the best of Jimi Hendrix on Apple Music and Spotify.

Interview: A Chat About Music and ‘Women Talking’ With Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir

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Hildur Guðnadóttir has managed not just to be a woman in the male dominated field of film composing (though the entirety of the industry is male dominated, to be unfortunately fair), but she’s also managed to reach the point of having won an Oscar. Her Academy Award for composing the score to Joker was well deserved, to be sure, but the Best Original Score win was also an important message to young women everywhere. So, it’s easy to root for Guðnadóttir, all the more so when she’s one of the best and most exciting composers out there. As she contends for another nomination with Women Talking, she recent hopped on Zoom to discuss the film and the music with me. Today, that chat comes your way.

Below, you can see my conversation with Guðnadóttir. Between TÁR and Women Talking, it has been quite the year for her, with another Oscar nomination very possibly in the offering. One of the things we talk about is when a composer comes on to a project and how the timing impacts the work. Guðnadóttir is lovely and clearly appreciative of the acclaim, so it was a pleasure to talk with her. Plus, she’s just one of the best composers in the business, bar none. Justin listen to her music for TÁR or especially Women Talking and that much will be clear…

This here is some of what I had to say about Women Talking (and Guðnadóttir) back at the Telluride Film Festival:

Sarah Polley has an impeccable touch here. What could have been a chamber piece (the novel suggests a play as much as a film) instead is electrically compelling. Polley’s writing and direction, alongside Hildur Guðnadóttir‘s score and Luc Montpellier‘s cinematography, it all results in an impeccably made picture. There’s even some bold choices that perhaps improbably pay off, including sporadic narration from Hallett’s character. At first, it feels tacked on, but it ultimately results in an incredible final line, one that won’t be soon forgotten about.

Here now is my interview with Oscar winner and Women Talking composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. Enjoy:

Women Talking is in theaters now!

Shakira to Feature in New Bizarrap Music Session

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Shakira will be the next guest artist to feature in Argentine producer Bizarrap’s popular ‘Music Sessions.’ After teasing the track earlier this week, the Colombian singer and Bizarrap both took to social media to announce the collaboration titled “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions 53.”

The new song will be out on Jan. 11 as the follow-up to Bizarrap’s release with Argentina’s Duki (Session 50) and Spanish rapper Quevedo (Session 52) which spent several weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Global 200 chart last summer and currently has over 400 million views on YouTube.

The news of a fresh Shakira song was initially announced on Jan. 9 in a cryptic post that displayed the song’s release date and the line: “Una loba como yo no está pa’ tipos como tú,” or “A wolf [in reference to Shakira’s 2009 hit “She Wolf”] like me is not for guys like you.”

Shakira might be one of the few widely recognizable names in Bizarap’s “Music Sessions” guest book (which also includes Nicky Jam, Residente, Anuel AA, Nathy Peluso) as the artist’s acclaimed series started in dedication to rising Latin trap acts. On YouTube, the sessions boast a view count in the millions thanks to one formula: Bizarap records and films all of his collabs, usually composed of his own backing track with special guest vocals, in his DIY home studio.

“I started in this same room with my speakers and FL Studio software. I want people to identify with the space,” he told Variety late last year. “I’m bringing to people what I’d like to find myself – an artist who releases a new song every month, based on his own taste and criteria.”

Despite not having put out a full studio album since 2017, Shakira has released several successful collaborations in the past year including the Latin Grammy-nominated “Te Felicito,” with Rauw Alejandro, and the Ozuna-featuring “Monotonía.”



Skyzoo & The Other Guys Release Snowfall-Inspired Album, ‘The Mind Of A Saint’

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Over the years, Skyzoo has been known to put together masterful projects. Whether it’s his debut album The Salvation in 2009 or his Ode to Reasonable Doubt in 2013, In Celebration of Us (2018) or A Dream Deferred (2012), there hasn’t been a single year since 2004 where the Brooklyn emcee didn’t release something worth diving into. Do the math, that’s damn near two decades!! And with his latest album, he’s taking it yet another step further with a conceptual piece called The Mind Of A Saint.

Produced entirely by The Other Guys, The Mind Of A Saint delves into the innermost thoughts of one Franklin Saint, the lead character in the hit FX show, Snowall, which follows the infancy stage of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles in the early ’80s.

“When making this album, I wanted to do something that creatively pushed a button. Something that served a purpose while trying to understand both sides of the fence that it represents,” Skyzoo says. “The idea of a fictional character, Franklin Saint, and what his innermost thoughts could be when dealing with the fictional world he’s caught within. What makes it so intriguing is that his character and his world are mirrors of a time and EDA that really happened. The birth of one of the world’s most addictive drugs and how its ripple effect took on a life that may seemingly never die. The crack era was one of the worst chapters in black America’s story.”

“Using the Snowfall series as a vehicle to delve into both sides was truly fascinating as an emcee. It’s a project that is layered beyond measure. If you’ve never seen Snowfall, you’ll think it’s a really great album, but if you’re an avid fan of Snowfall, you’ll truly feel as if Franklin, the conflicted boy genius turned millionaire and career criminal, truly did pick up a pen and pad to write his life story over a bed of beats. It was one of the most intense projects I’ve ever written.”

Equipped with a concise 10 tracks, The Mind Of A Saint can be heard below. Press play and be sure to add the album wherever you get music.



Skyzoo & The Other Guys Release Snowfall-Inspired Album, ‘The Mind Of A Saint’ was last modified: January 13th, 2023 by Shake



Creative Sensemore Air – BT, ANC, earphones (sound review)

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The Creative Sensemore Air is more than a new marketing term. Sensemore technology makes a big difference in hear through details by boosting vocals and selectively dampening background noise.

To position these ‘buds’

  • IPX5 sweat-resistant
  • 5.2g each
  • Ambient Mode
  • ANC
  • BT 5.2 multi-point and fast pair, SBC, AAC codecs
  • Up to 10 hours of play and 2.5 recharges in the case (10 minutes for 2 hours of listening time)
  • USB-C and QI Wireless carry/charge case
  • Two beamforming voice mics and two ANC mics
  • Voice Assistant
  • Touch controls
  • Creative Super X-Fi ready (App)
  • Creative App is fully featured

But the best thing is the price, $134.95 for what you could pay twice as much for.

Australian Review: Creative Sensemore Air

Website Product page and Guide
Price $134.95
From Creative online and CE/IT resellers
Warranty 12 months ACL
Made in China
Company Singapore-based Creative Labs (Est 198it 1) make class-leading PC soundcards and, more recently, speakers and headsets. Its Super X-Fi launched in 2018, is just beginning to take hold to produce spatial sound from stereo technology.
More CyberShack Creative news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Passable (meets low expectations), Pass (meets expectations), Pass+ (near Exceed but not class-leading) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below.  You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First impression – Black Buds – Pass

We should clarify the price/performance equation. These may be BT/ANC, but they are not competitors for far more expensive Bose QC, Sony WF-1000MX5, Sennheiser Momentum 3 etc.

They use an all-in-one chip, 6mm drivers, software ANC, and only have SBC and AAC codecs. They are more competitive with JBL Tune 230NC but offer QI and Sensemore.

The buds are lightweight, moulded plastic with three sizes of silicone ear tips. The case is reasonably standard except for Qi charging – a real bonus.

Setup – No App needed – Pass+

These pair like any BT device to Windows, Mac, Android and iOS – or Linux. The Creative App adds value by being able to customise more and download that to the buds.

Comfort – Pass+

At 5.8g, they are light, and the choice of three silicone tips means good ear fit. These are not ANC earphones that need a jam-tight fit for noise isolation, so they are pretty comfortable even if you experience itchy or hot ears.

Sensemore – Work in progress – Pass

The website says

Designed to improve hearing, our innovative Sensemore technology boosts vocals and amplifies sound waves, ensuring that each sound can be heard louder. In turn, this allows you to communicate and listen to conversations effortlessly, in both quiet and busy environments. As a bonus, when set to a higher intensity, it could even benefit folks with mild hearing deficiencies. Experience a new level of audio clarity and stay connected anytime, anywhere! Simply double-tap your left earbud to activate the Sensemore Mode and invite the vivid sound in!

We understand hearing impairment. What Sensemore does is boost 1-4kHz and reduce background noise. We would not call the sound Vivid – instead, it is a bit ’thin’ as it lacks any bass or treble. Nevertheless, it does deliver clearer speech when you are within a metre or so of the person speaking.

There are five levels. Go about three, and things get too crisp. Don’t use this mode when you are not speaking – it tends to make familiar sounds irritating.

It is better than Ambient Mode when talking. Use that when you are out and about and want to mute your surroundings.

ANC – Pass

ANC is all about filtering out sub-40Hz and above 10kHz sounds. Traditionally there are two parts to effective ANC. First is the physical fit that gives sound noise isolation. Second, the mics help generate anti-noise (cancel out the real noise). These do not have good passive isolation, so they won’t drown out a plane taking off or eliminate a noisy Air Conditioner. They tend to take the edges off and, as such, don’t compress/clip music as much as some. I would rather have better music than the best ANC.

How do they sound? Pass+

Out of the box, they have a fair bit of bass that can overshadow the mid. The EQ does a great job in recessing bass, mid or treble to give you whatever signature you like. We can’t measure in-ear bud’s sound signature, but it is closer to warm and sweet, which is fine for most music genres.

Voice Assistance and Hands-free – Pass

These are fine for Voice Assistance and hands-free calls, but ANC does not do a good job of removing wind noise.

Super X-Fi – not tested

It uses 3D modelling of the user’s head and ears. It digitally processes audio for a sense of spatial multi-channel speakers. Read more.

Battery – Pass

Creative claim 8/10 hours ANC/Ambient/Sensemore mode On/off. That is at 50% volume, and it’s a tad low for my listening. We got around 6.5 hours of ANC on.

But both USB-C and QI charging is excellent. Overall the case charges in about 3/4 hours.

Controls – Pass

A little touchy with no haptic feedback but fit for purpose.

CyberShack’s view – Creative Sensemore Air are full-featured earphones at a great price.

Every Creative product we have reviewed focuses on as many features for the price as possible. This is no exception. I challenge anyone to find better BT, ANC, Qi, Sensemore earphones for the price.

It gets an unreserved buy recommendation for the price.

Rating Explanation

  • Features: 95 It is the class leader for this bracket
  • Value: 95 – say no more
  • Performance: 90 – again, class leader for sound, battery life etc
  • Ease of Use: 85 – The Creative App adds value and is worth using
  • Design: 80 – more plastic buds

Pro

Qi charge

Con

Creative Sensemore Air – BT, ANC, earphones

$134.95

Pros

  • Warm and Sweet sound signature and an App EQ that works
  • IPX5 sweat resistant
  • Very comfortable
  • Class-leading in every area (for the price)
  • Qi wireless and USB-C charge

Cons

  • Sensemore is a work in progress, but it is easy to adjust in the App.


 

 

Classical Sprouts: Prokofiev’s ‘Cinderella’ | Interlochen Public Radio

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It’s time for the ball!

Classical Sprouts is back with another “Cinderella” story, and this time it’s a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev!

Composer Sergei Prokofiev

Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev lived from 1891 to 1953.

Between two world wars and a totalitarian regime in his home country, his career spanned a tumultuous era.

But several of his pieces were – and still are – enormously popular, like “Peter and the Wolf,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Cinderella.”

Stravinsky’s version of “Cinderella” follows the traditional story, but it does have a few twists.

Think funny stepsister scenes, jazz-inspired music and dances with oranges …

Listen to Classical Sprouts to learn more, and watch the entire ballet below!

CINDERELLA BALLET by S. Prokofiev music / UKRAINIAN THEATER

Be sure to subscribe to Classical Sprouts wherever you get your podcasts and follow @classicalsprouts on Instagram to join our inclusive community.

Support IPR to help Sprouts grow, just tell us in the comments that your donation is for Classical Sprouts.

Classical Sprouts is produced by Emily Duncan Wilson. Kacie Brown is the digital content manager.



Maren Morris apologizes for country music’s treatment of LGBTQ community on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’

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Maren Morris got emotional Friday after fulfilling her “decade-long dream” of appearing as a guest on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and apologized for the way the country music world treated the LGBTQ community, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“I’ve done some cool s–t. #DragRace is rivaling it all. Getting my jacket framed next to my Grammy. It is DONE,” tweeted the star.

In the post-episode “Untucked” clip, Morris, 32, got teary as she spoke to the contestants of the reality show.

“Coming from country music and its relationship with LGBTQ+ members, I just want to say I’m sorry,” said Morris. “And I love you guys for making me feel like a brave voice in country music. So I just thank you guys so much for inspiring me.”

“I’m gonna cry,” Morris continued.

In August, Morris slammed the wife of singer Jason Aldean for spreading anti-trans information on her Instagram account. The “Chasing After You” singer called Aldean an  “Insurrection Barbie” and asked her to “not be a scumbag human.”

In the post-episode “Untucked” clip, Morris, 32, got teary as she spoke to the contestants of the reality show.
Jason Davis/Getty Images
Morris got emotional Friday after fulfilling her “decade-long dream” of appearing as a guest on “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

Morris also spoke out against Candace Cameron Bure and her plans to “keep traditional marriage at the core” after leaving the Hallmark Channel for the Great American Family network. Morris commented on the post saying “Make DJ Gay Again,” referring to Bure’s “Full House” character.