By: Anna Paula Goncalves
Charlie Puth performing live at the Clive Davis Theater
With pop[ular] culture placing considerable focus on the “marketability” of an artist, most would agree that the misplaced focus has weakened the quality of Pop music and jeopardized the potential of what it can become. It’s no longer solely about the raw “talent” anymore. This can – and to some degree, has – made the music we listen to in mainstream radio more commercialized than ever before. So when someone comes into the scene as a “Pop Artist,” whose attention is on reinventing the pop sound with unlikely melodies and chord progressions using a hint of the formulas by timeless musicians before him, I welcome them with open ears.
Clive Davis Theater
Last night, I got the chance to see multi-Grammy nominated singer, songwriter and producer, Charlie Puth, during his candid sit down with Grammy Museum’s Artistic Director Scott Goldman at The Clive Davis Theater. Chances are you’ve heard some of Charlie’s chart-topping hits, when he first emerged about three years ago with, “See You Again,” “One Call Away,” “Marvin Gaye (feat. Meghan Trainor),” and “We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez).” But believe it or not, these tracks – although successful – were more experimentation for the 26-year-old; tracks that he jokingly referred to as “crap shoots” as he was still discovering himself as an artist.
Charlie Puth and Scott Goldman
The Berklee College of Music alum also graced us with a stripped down performance of three of his tracks, including his latest single (“The Way I Am”) off of Voicenotes – one he credits as his “debut” album since he feels he has fully grasped his artistry this time around. Voicenotes was certified “Gold” only five days after its release, according to Forbes. And has been considered as “one of the year’s best pop albums” by the New York Times.
With the admirable ambition to “write soundtracks to people’s lives,” his musical genius is undeniable. His genuine desire (because it clearly shows) in “making people happy” and believing whole hardly that “what matters to [him] the most is how [people] take the music and apply it to [their] everyday life” is what sets him apart in an age where people are hungry for raw and timeless talent.
Some people are simply born with it and born for it. It has become more than apparent that the self deprecating artist with perfect pitch (he jokingly called out the key to an audience member’s sneeze mid interview) is one of those people.
Thank you to Communications Manager Jasmine Lywen-Dill and her team at the Grammy Museum for inviting me to the show. For more information on the museum and their future events, visit GrammyMuseum.org.
LOS ANGELES — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars people) has invited Kendrick Lamar, J.K. Rowling, and Audra McDonald among the 928 actors, writers, casting directors and others both in front of and behind the camera to join its growing membership. Today’s move comes as the Academy is trying to diversify its ranks.
This year’s record-number of new members invited tops 2017 with a previous record of 774 new members and that of 2016 when 683 new members were invited, according to Variety.
Among those invited to join the Academy today are several with Boston and New England ties including actors Cambridge native Mindy Kaling, who graduated from Buckingham, Browne & Nichols; Medford native Julianne Nicholson; and Sarah Silverman, who hails from New Hampshire. Invitees from the casting branch includes Sheila Jaffe, whose work on the Oscar-winning “The Fighter,” which starred Mark Wahlberg as boxer “Irish” Micky Ward, is among her enviable list of credits.
“The expansion of Academy membership to more than 8,200 stems from an ongoing effort to diversify its ranks following uproar over the lack of African-American nominees in 2015 and 2016, which culminated in 2016’s #OscarsSoWhite controversy,” Variety wrote.
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