title: Polygyny in Islam

text: This began to change when Muslim women realized they could alter their roles in society by rereading the main religious texts that dictated Muslim society and ethics. This return to reinterpretation was not a new practice – male Islamic scholars had been doing it ever since Muhammad's death – but for women, it was unprecedented: this was the first time that women were learning how to read and study the Qur'an and the hadiths in an analytical way. Their new religious knowledge led them to a better understanding of their faith, as well as the ability to make educated interpretations of the texts. Many of these Islamic feminist scholars began to realize that there was no inherent tie between Islam and the patriarchal practices of Islamic society. For example, these feminists studied Muhammad's life and argued that he treated women very progressively for that era. Muhammad included all of his wives in his religious practices and respected them enough to take their advice and grievances seriously. They also even accompanied him to battle. According to Muslim feminists, Islamic polygyny was meant to curtail the practice that was already widespread in pre-Islamic times. Conquering rulers would collect massive harems of women and treat them without any respect; whereas Islam reduced the allowable amount of wives each husband could have and required that he treat them all equally. These feminists place emphasis on the idea that only those men who are capable of loving and financially providing for each wife equally are permitted to have more than one. They also point out the practice of polygyny in Islam was created for the purpose of taking care of fatherless children, or orphans. Thus, polygyny was allowable for charitable and honorable purposes. Islamic feminists point out that "a recognition that gender inequality in the old world was assumed and that perceptions of women in Christian and Jewish texts are not that different from those of Islamic texts" is lacking from common understandings of Islam.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Two leading feminist Muslim scholars who are seeking to increase women's rights through the reinterpretation of religious texts are Amina Wadud and Asma Barlas. Both women embrace Islam as a religion that preaches gender equality. They see societal practices, not Islam, as the main problem. Wadud points out the three reasons that the Qur'an views as acceptable forms of polygyny: if the husband is not sexually satisfied he may take another wife rather than turn to prostitutes or an affair, if the first wife is unable to reproduce or another woman with child needs to be taken care of, and/or if the husband is financially stable enough to care for another woman in the Muslim community. According to Wadud, the form of polygyny that the Qur'an supports focuses on "justice: dealing justly, managing funds justly, justice to the orphans, and justice to the wives." Barlas, who published her theological research several years later, argues a very similar point. Both feminist scholars point out the origin of the Islamic theory of polygyny in Ayah 4:3. This verse of the Qur'an was not meant to utilize polygyny as a way to oppress women, but to ensure that they were taken care of.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: The other form of feminism in the Islamic world is independent or state feminism. The premise behind this movement is that "no reform is possible in an Islamic legal and political system where ‘the very structure of power is male dominated to an absolute degree, back by the Constitution, an all-male clerical system ruling the country.’" They also point out that Islam supports and perpetuates a clear female role that designates women to the margins of society. These Muslim feminists argue that there is only so much that reinterpreting the texts can do and believe that the best – and perhaps only – way to increasing women's rights is outside of the parameters of Islam. Therefore, changing polygynist practices would involve reforming the political and legal systems instead of just trying to reinterpret the Qur’an and the hadiths to determine if they really support the practice and to what extent.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Feminism's effect on polygyny in Islam is different in every Muslim society, depending on the different cultures that are interacting with Islam in each location. For example, in Iran, changes to women's rights occurred in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. During this revolution the Family Protection Law, which had given some power to women and imposed minimal restrictions on polygyny, was overturned. Muslim women were encouraged to return to their traditional roles. This loss of rights led to the movement realizing that they could not necessarily rely on the government alone to protect their rights. This spurred the creation of the personal status laws, which covered many issues relating to marriage and divorce including polygyny. Passed in 1986, the law "effectively reinstates the provision of the 1975 Family Protection Law granting a wife the right to obtain a divorce if her husband marries a second woman without the wife's permission of if…a man does not treat his wives fairly and equally." This offers Iranian Muslim women some legal protection against polygyny, but the enforcement of the law is still up to the interpretation of the courts. Muslim women's movement organizations have begun to gain more power in Iran due to the increasing number of Muslim women who are studying the Qur'an analytically. These new scholars are able to argue for interpretations of Islam that empower rather than oppress women. They also lead organizations like the Association of Muslim Women and Zeynab. Many Muslim women also go jalasehs where they can openly discuss religious texts in a safe environment.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco also began restricting polygynous practices in Islam. Egypt's personal status laws underwent many changes between 1979 and 1985, but in the end they were very restrictive for women and reduced the limits on polygyny. This incentivized Egyptian feminists to create a new marriage contract (approved in 2000) that would give women some rights concerning divorce and what was allowable in marriage. Jordan was able to have more success in 2001 when it amended its Civil Status Law, which requires the consent of the wife before the husband marries again. This change was accompanied by a handful of other progressive decisions on women's rights in the country, greatly improving the status of women. Morocco was also pushed along by its Muslim feminist groups to make entering into a polygynous marriage more difficult.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Islamic communities in Asia, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, have also experienced feminist movements which work to restrict polygynous practices. Indonesian feminists have challenged these practices through the study and reinterpretation of religious texts. Fatayat NU, a voluntary Muslim women's organization, was created in 1950 for middle-aged women who were a part of Nahdlatul Ulama, a Sunni Islam group, and wanted to have a voice. Initially experiencing membership issues due to large percentage of women who were married or uneducated, Fatayat NU began to gain power as institutions outside of Indonesia took notice of it and supported the organizations work. The women in Fatayat NU use Islam and the religious texts to justify their actions and guide their decisions, so women who have extensively studied the religion are crucial. Out of the many controversial issues that Fatayat NU takes a stand on, polygyny is one that has recently come into contention. Although polygyny in Indonesia was never very popular, some Muslim women are worried that it is starting to gain more support. Nahdlatul Ulama is one of the organizations that approves of polygyny as an Islamic practice, but Fatayat NU is taking a contradicting stance; the members believe that polygyny can only be possible if men and women are unequal, which goes against their interpretation of the Qur'an's message on gender status.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: In Malaysia, polygyny has been considered a topic that is not fit to be brought up in public, but recently it has begun to enter public discourse. This change came about through the passage of a new Islamic family law, which supports polygynous practices by making them easier for men to take part in. This has created a "debate between Islamic fundamentalists who dominate the burgeoning Islamic Affairs Department that administers Shariah law and mostly Western-educated Muslim feminists who say the department, in its overzealous interpretation of the Qur’an, has gone overboard in making new laws that discriminate against women and children." The campaign against this law was very popular, but the law was still passed. Muslim women's organizations in Malaysia plan to continue protesting it until it is revoked.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Polygyny has appeared in literature in many different Islamic societies. Indian Muslim literature has traditionally stood divided on its position on polygyny as a justifiable practice. Two Indian authors, Akbari Begum and Bashiruddin Ahmad, revealed in their novels a belief that polygyny is acceptable in certain circumstances; whereas Nazr Sajjad Hyder opposed this notion and completely rejected the practice in her work. "Gudar ka Lal" (The Ruby in Rags), written in 1907 by Akbari Begum, projected the author's beliefs on a wide range of subjects involving the treatment of Muslim women and girls, including polygyny. The story's plotline revolves around the relationships between Yusuf Raza and his two wives, Maqbool and Mehr Jabeen. Yusuf Raza remarries when he realizes that his first wife is so uneducated that she does not know how to properly take care of her children or the household. At first, Maqbool is resentful of Mehr Jabeen, but eventually she recognizes Mehr Jabeen's kind and friendly nature, and the two become friends. This happy outcome reflects Begum's belief that polygyny in Islam can be justified when marriages are seen as incompatible and could benefit from a second wife who could help around the house and thus ease tensions. Bashiruddin Ahmad's novel, "Iqbal Dulham" (The Bride Iqbal), also promotes the ideal polygynous relationship where the wives become friends and find vital companionship instead of competition. Published in 1908, Iqbal Dulham follows a young man, Iqbal Mirza, who marries a second wife after his first wife fails to conceive children. The initial tension between the wives is relieved when the second wife gives birth. Once Iqbal Mirza has children, his relationship with his first wife improves, and the two wives are then able to become friends. Thus, Ahmad portrays how polygyny can be used to ease the pressure on the first wife to produce children. In both stories polygyny is a solution to domestic disharmony.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Nazr Sajjad Hyder, however, shows her disproval of the practice of polygyny in "Ah-e Mazluman" (Sighs of the Oppressed), written around 1912. The two households in "Ah-e Mazluman", both engage in polygynous practices, but Hyder presents the relationships between husband and wives as very negatively affected; the stories "accentuate the cruelty of husbands towards their wives and aim to intensify the exclusion and alienation experienced by the first wife." Hyder perceives polygyny as a practice that is harming Islam and giving it a bad reputation. She recommends its end and pleads that Muslim men act in a more just manner towards their women.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: The complexity of Islamic polygyny is also revealed in Assia Djebar's "Ombre sultane" (Shadow sultana). Written in Algeria in 1987, it is told from the perspective of the first wife, Isma. She thus constructs through her descriptions how the reader perceives the second wife and the husband. The second wife, Hajila, is seen as a rival and is reduced through Isma's portrayals to body parts that are disassociated from Hajila as a whole person. This reveals Isma's lack of respect for Hajila and the process of "othering" that Isma uses to degrade Hajila. Hence, the idea that polygyny creates a sense of solidarity between wives is shown to be flawed. Isma also describes Hajila in unflattering terms that distance her from the attentions of the husband they share and of other men. This is in contrast to Isma's depiction of herself as constantly being the object of male desire, creating a sense that sisterhood between the two women is out of the question. However, Isma's diction also creates a relationship between herself and Hajila in which neither can exist without the other; "they are locked in a sorority created, in a way, in tandem with the patriarchal force that remains a threat to their very existence." Therefore, Djebar's portrayal of polygyny is multifaceted and conflicting: it has the ability to create both rivalry and solidarity.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Polygyny in Islam has surfaced in music around the world and across the decades. For instance, in Malaysia in the 1950s and 60s, the famous entertainer P. Ramlee dealt with many sociopolitical issues in his art. Whereas the rest of the music industry was under the outside influence of Latin America, India, and the United States, Ramlee's music was inspired by what was going on in Malaysian society. He critiqued the practice of polygyny to keep in line with his self-proclaimed role of exposing the weaknesses of his society. These socially critical songs did not necessarily fit into the categories of popular music at the time, but they were still embraced by his audiences.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Hip hop has become increasingly popular across the world, and Islam has had a significant influence in rap music in the United States where hip hop first emerged. Two Muslim hip hop artists who bring up the concept of polygyny in their music are Miss Undastood and Sons of Hagar. "Miss Undastood, a young veiled, African-American lyricist, raps on her CD "Dunya or Deen" (Life or Faith) about war, love, the challenges of being a young Muslim woman in America, and the power of faith." Sons of Hagar is another hip hop group that seeks to positively portray Islam in their lyrics and support Islamic practices in their actions. Their song, "Sisterssss," supports polygynous practices. The members of the group rationalize that even though polygyny is illegal in America, rapping about it is much less offensive than when other artists rap about prostitutes.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: Islamic polygyny has also appeared as a controversial issue in films. For example, "Ayat-ayat Cinta" (Verses of Love) was released in Indonesia in 2008. This movie follows the life of Fahri bin Abdillah, a student in Egypt, and his relationships with four women. The film inspired more open, public discussion on polygyny in Indonesia by calling attention to the conditions of women who enter into polygynous relationships. Another Indonesian movie that tackles the subject of polygyny is "Berbagi Suami" (Husband for Share), which came out in 2006. The director, Nia Dinata, was inspired by her experiences in Indonesia with women who were in polygynous relationships. She acknowledges that every woman reacted in different ways to their marriage but ultimately all felt isolated and saddened by the addition of a new wife. Three stories are told within the movie and all three leading actresses learn to at least outwardly accept their situations, whether they are the first wife finding about the existence of other women or the new addition to the family who has to situate herself in the household hierarchy.


title: Polygyny in Islam

text: The Philippine television series, "Legal Wives", focuses on a Muslim man marrying three women. It is noted as the first Islam-oriented television series in the country.


title: Iris flower data set

text: The "Iris" flower data set or Fisher's "Iris" data set is a multivariate data set used and made famous by the British statistician and biologist Ronald Fisher in his 1936 paper "The use of multiple measurements in taxonomic problems" as an example of linear discriminant analysis. It is sometimes called Anderson's "Iris" data set because Edgar Anderson collected the data to quantify the morphologic variation of "Iris" flowers of three related species. Two of the three species were collected in the Gaspé Peninsula "all from the same pasture, and picked on the same day and measured at the same time by the same person with the same apparatus".


title: Iris flower data set

text: The data set consists of 50 samples from each of three species of "Iris" ("Iris setosa", "Iris virginica" and "Iris versicolor"). Four features were measured from each sample: the length and the width of the sepals and petals, in centimeters. Based on the combination of these four features, Fisher developed a linear discriminant model to distinguish the species from each other. Fisher's paper was published in the Annals of Eugenics and includes discussion of the contained techniques' applications to the field of phrenology.


title: Iris flower data set

text: Originally used as an example data set on which Fisher's linear discriminant analysis was applied, it became a typical test case for many statistical classification techniques in machine learning such as support vector machines.


title: Iris flower data set

text: The use of this data set in cluster analysis however is not common, since the data set only contains two clusters with rather obvious separation. One of the clusters contains "Iris setosa", while the other cluster contains both "Iris virginica" and "Iris versicolor" and is not separable without the species information Fisher used. This makes the data set a good example to explain the difference between supervised and unsupervised techniques in data mining: Fisher's linear discriminant model can only be obtained when the object species are known: class labels and clusters are not necessarily the same.


title: Iris flower data set

text: Nevertheless, all three species of "Iris" are separable in the projection on the nonlinear and branching principal component. The data set is approximated by the closest tree with some penalty for the excessive number of nodes, bending and stretching. Then the so-called "metro map" is constructed. The data points are projected into the closest node. For each node the pie diagram of the projected points is prepared. The area of the pie is proportional to the number of the projected points. It is clear from the diagram (left) that the absolute majority of the samples of the different "Iris" species belong to the different nodes. Only a small fraction of "Iris-virginica" is mixed with "Iris-versicolor" (the mixed blue-green nodes in the diagram). Therefore, the three species of Iris ("Iris setosa", "Iris virginica" and "Iris versicolor") are separable by the unsupervising procedures of nonlinear principal component analysis. To discriminate them, it is sufficient just to select the corresponding nodes on the principal tree.


title: Iris flower data set

text: The dataset contains a set of 150 records under five attributes - sepal length, sepal width, petal length, petal width and species.


title: Iris flower data set

text: The iris data set is widely used as a beginner's dataset for machine learning purposes. The dataset is included in R "base" and Python in the machine learning library scikit-learn, so that users can access it without having to find a source for it.


title: Sulfite

text: Sulfites or sulphites are compounds that contain the sulfite ion (or the sulfate(IV) ion, from its correct systematic name), . The sulfite ion is the conjugate base of bisulfite. Although its acid (sulfurous acid) is elusive, its salts are widely used.


title: Sulfite

text: Sulfites are substances that naturally occur in some foods and the human body. They are also used as regulated food additives. When in food or drink, sulfites are often lumped together with sulfur dioxide.


title: Sulfite

text: The structure of the sulfite anion can be described with three equivalent resonance structures. In each resonance structure, the sulfur atom is double-bonded to one oxygen atom with a formal charge of zero (neutral), and sulfur is singly bonded to the other two oxygen atoms, which each carry a formal charge of −1, together accounting for the −2 charge on the anion. There is also a non-bonded lone pair on the sulfur, so the structure predicted by VSEPR theory is trigonal pyramidal, as in ammonia (NH). In the hybrid resonance structure, the S−O bonds are equivalently of bond order one and one-third.


title: Sulfite

text: Evidence from O NMR spectroscopic data suggests that protonation of the sulfite ion gives a mixture of isomers:


title: Sulfite

text: Sulfites occur naturally in all wines to some extent. Sulfites are commonly introduced to arrest fermentation at a desired time, and may also be added to wine as preservatives to prevent spoilage and oxidation at several stages of the winemaking. Sulfur dioxide (SO) protects wine not only from oxidation, but also from bacteria.


title: Sulfite

text: Organic wines are not necessarily sulfite-free, but generally have lower amounts and regulations stipulate lower maximum sulfite contents for these wines. In general, white wines contain more sulfites than red wines and sweeter wines contain more sulfites than drier ones.


title: Sulfite

text: In the United States, wines bottled after mid-1987 must have a label stating that they contain sulfites if they contain more than 10 parts per million (ppm).


title: Sulfite

text: In the European Union an equivalent regulation came into force in November 2005. This includes sulfur dioxide, and the limit is on the milligrams per kilogram or per litre of sulfur dioxide equivalent. In 2012, a new regulation for organic wines came into force. In the United Kingdom, similar laws apply. Bottles of wine that contain over 10 mg/L (ppm) of "sulfites" (or sulfur dioxide) are required to bear "contains sulphites" on the label. This does not differ if sulfites are naturally occurring or added in the winemaking process.


title: Sulfite

text: Sulfites are often used as preservatives in dried fruits, preserved radish, and dried potato products.


title: Sulfite

text: Most beers no longer contain sulfites, although some alcoholic ciders contain them. Although shrimp are sometimes treated with sulfites on fishing vessels, the chemical may not appear on the label. In 1986, the Food and Drug Administration in the United States banned the addition of sulfites to all fresh fruit and vegetables that are eaten raw.


title: Sulfite

text: Allergic reactions to sulfites appear to be very rare in the general population, but more common in hyperallergic individuals.


title: Sulfite

text: Sulfites are counted among the top nine food allergens, but a reaction to sulfite is not a true allergy. Some people have positive skin allergy tests to sulfites indicating true (IgE-mediated) allergy. Chronic skin conditions in the hands, perineum, and face have been reported in individuals that regularly use cosmetics or medications containing sulfites. Occupational exposure to sulfites has been reported to cause persistent skin symptoms.


title: Sulfite

text: It may cause breathing difficulty within minutes after eating a food containing it. Asthmatics and possibly people with salicylate sensitivity (or aspirin sensitivity) are at an elevated risk for reaction to sulfites. Anaphylaxis and life-threatening reactions are rare. Other potential symptoms include sneezing, swelling of the throat, hives, and migraine.


title: Sulfite

text: In 1986, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the use of sulfites as preservatives on foods intended to be eaten fresh (such as salad ingredients). This has contributed to the increased use of erythorbic acid and its salts as preservatives.


title: Sulfite

text: They also cannot be added to foods high in vitamin B1 such as meats because sulfites can destroy vitamin B1 from foods


title: Sulfite

text: Generally, U.S. labeling regulations do not require products to indicate the presence of sulfites in foods unless it is added specifically as a preservative; still, many companies voluntarily label sulfite-containing foods. Sulfites used in food processing (but not as a preservative) are required to be listed if they are not incidental additives (21 CFR 101.100(a)(3)), and if there are more than 10 ppm in the finished product (21 CFR 101.100(a)(4))


title: Sulfite

text: Sulfites that are allowed to be added in food in the US are sulfur dioxide, sodium sulfite, sodium bisulfite, potassium bisulfite, sodium metabisulfite, and potassium metabisulfite.


title: Sulfite

text: Products likely to contain sulfites at less than 10 ppm (fruits and alcoholic beverages) do not require ingredients labels, and the presence of sulfites usually is undisclosed.


title: Sulfite

text: In Australia and New Zealand, sulfites must be declared in the statement of ingredients when present in packaged foods in concentrations of 10 mg/kg (ppm) or more as an ingredient; or as an ingredient of a compound ingredient; or as a food additive or component of a food additive; or as a processing aid or component of a processing aid.


title: Sulfite

text: Sulfites that can be added to foods in Canada are potassium bisulfite, potassium metabisulfite, sodium bisulfite, sodium dithionite, sodium metabisulfite, sodium sulfite, sulfur dioxide and sulfurous acid. These can also be declared using the common names sulfites, sulfates, sulfiting agents.


title: Sulfite

text: In the European Union, "EU law requires food labels to indicate “contains sulfites” (when exceeding 10 milligrams per kilogram or per litre) without specifying the amount".


title: Sulfite

text: High sulfite content in the blood and urine of babies can be caused by molybdenum cofactor deficiency disease which leads to neurological damage and early death unless treated. Treatment, requiring daily injections, became available in 2009.


title: Sulfite

text: "Allergies: Sulfite Sensitivity". WebMD., 1 February 2007. What Is Sulfite Sensitivity? Foods and Ingredients To Avoid (webmd.com)


title: Aasif Sheikh

text: Aasif Sheikh (born 11 November 1964) is an Indian film, stage, and television artist. He played the role of Prince Ajay Singh in "Hum Log". He has appeared in numerous Bollywood films and TV serials. He acted in the TV series Yes Boss which ran from 1999 to 2009 and sitcom "Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain!".


title: Aasif Sheikh

text: He has been acknowledged by World Book of Records London for Performing More than 300 Different Characters in a single running Television show - "Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain!" An Indian Hindi Sitcom on 19 October 2021.


title: Aasif Sheikh

text: Sheikh was born on 11 November 1964 in New Delhi, India. He attended Saint Anthony's School. He spent his childhood school breaks in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. He then initially enrolled in Khalsa College, Delhi for a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Honours, then turned to Hotel Management, but soon dropped to pursue theatre. He is married to Zeba Sheikh in 1989 with whom he has two children, daughter Maryam Nastasia, born 1990, and son Alyjah Iman, born 1995.


title: Aasif Sheikh

text: He is associated with Indian People's Theatre Association(IPTA), Mumbai. He has acted in plays like "Kabuliwala", "Aakhri Shama", "Simla Coffee House", "Hum Deewane Hum Parwane", "Ek Baar Phir" and "Aaall izz Well with Shuturmurgh" "Ek Baar Phir", "Oye Ki Gal Hain", "Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi". One of his popular plays is "U-Turn" co-starring Poonam Dhillon.


title: All Them Witches

text: All Them Witches is an American rock band from Nashville, Tennessee. The band consists of drummer Robby Staebler, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Charles Michael Parks Jr., guitarist Ben McLeod, and keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Allan Van Cleave.


title: All Them Witches

text: All Them Witches formed on January 6, 2012. Drummer Robby Staebler, having lost all of his money, had recently sold many of his possessions and moved to Nashville from Portland, at which time he was living in his car. The intention of the move had been for Staebler to play in another person's band; however, he left the project upon finding the other party difficult to work with. Staebler had created a rough collection of eight tracks – on which he played all instruments – and, being "in love with the sound," was looking for musicians to turn that project into a band.


title: All Them Witches

text: Staebler recruited guitarist Ben McLeod after seeing him playing slide guitar at a bar. The pair originally attempted creating jazz music, but abandoned this in favor of a heavier sound. This was followed several months later by Staebler meeting frontman and bassist Charles Michael Parks Jr. while they were both working for "a corporate hippie store." Parks was shown a collection of demo songs created by Staebler and McLeod, which persuaded him to join.


title: All Them Witches

text: The band's name is taken from a book of witchcraft, "All of Them Witches", featured in the 1968 film "Rosemary's Baby".


title: All Them Witches

text: The band self-released their first, self-titled four-track EP in the same year as their formation. They then became the first American band to be signed to the German heavy psych record label, Elektrohasch Schallplatten. Their debut album, "Our Mother Electricity" (which had previously been self-released by the band in summer 2012), was released on Elektrohasch with new mastering and new artwork (by Mat Bethancourt) in February 2013. Soon after came their second EP, "Extra Pleasant", which was recorded with two microphones directly to a four-track cassette tape recorder.


title: All Them Witches

text: In 2013, the band's second studio album, "Lightning at the Door", was self-released via their own Bandcamp page; however, it was later marketed by Tone Tree Music. Their next self-released album was the official live album "At The Garage" in February 2015.


title: All Them Witches

text: In summer 2015, the band signed to New West Records. Later in the year, they released their third studio album (and their first with New West), "Dying Surfer Meets His Maker", which was recorded in six days in a remote mountainside cabin, overlooking Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The album's name was originally used by McLeod for a song in his solo project, Woodsplitter, inspired by a real-life incident where he almost died when surfing.


title: All Them Witches

text: The band's previously self-released album, "Lightning at the Door", was then re-released by New West in 2016. This was followed first by "Live in Brussels" (recorded live in Brussels, Belgium, in March 2016) in September 2016, then by the band's fourth studio album, "Sleeping Through the War", in February 2017. "Sleeping Through the War" was produced by Nashville's Dave Cobb, who had worked previously with artists such as Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton. The album featured guest vocals from three Nashville-based female vocalists: Caitlin Rose, Erin Rae, and Tristen, in addition to harmonica contributions from Mickey Raphael.


title: All Them Witches

text: In mid-2018, it was announced that Jonathan Draper was replacing Allan Van Cleave on keyboards. In an interview at Download Festival 2018, Parks and Staebler made clear that the change was permanent, and that Van Cleave had left the band. Their next album, "ATW", was released in September of that year; however, the following month, Parks announced that the band would be continuing as a three-piece, without Draper. "ATW" was produced by the band's guitarist, Ben McLeod, and mixed by producer Rob Schnapf, featuring a more simplified, naturalistic sound than their previous albums.


title: All Them Witches

text: The band's first music as a three-piece was the non-album single "1X1," which was released on Halloween 2019. This was followed by their sixth studio album, "Nothing as the Ideal", in September 2020. The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios (in Studio Two, as previously used by The Beatles and Pink Floyd) and produced by Mikey Allred, who had also produced their earlier album, "Dying Surfer Meets His Maker". In mid-August, shortly before the album's release, a video was released for the track "The Children of Coyote Woman." The video was directed by Staebler and starred himself alongside professional skateboarder Evan Smith. "Metal Hammer" named "Nothing as the Ideal" as the 46th best metal album of 2020.


title: All Them Witches

text: In April 2021, the band announced via Facebook and Twitter that Van Cleave had rejoined the band as its keyboard player. Their first new release following Van Cleave's return was a cover of "Black Snake" by John Lee Hooker in January 2022. When announcing this new track, the band confirmed that it would be the first of a "Baker's Dozen" of tracks, which would be released on a monthly basis throughout 2022, along with one extra, for a total of 13. In March 2022, the band released digital audio and CD versions of their "Live on the Internet" livestream show, which had originally been broadcast in 2020 and made available on vinyl for Record Store Day in 2021.


title: All Them Witches

text: The band's musical style incorporates elements from multiple genres, such as hard rock, stoner rock, psychedelia, neo-psychedelia, blues, folk, and southern rock; however, Julian Marszalek of The Quietus noted that:"...this isn't blues of the "woke-up-this-morning" variety but one of malaise, anxiety and fear brought on a by world seemingly dead set on destruction; nor is this an escapist variant of psychedelia wherein one form of reality is jettisoned in favour of another for reasons of cheap thrills."Nick Pipitone of Monster Riff described how the band are "influenced just as much by Dr. John and Mississippi bluesman Junior Kimbrough as they are by Black Sabbath and progressive metal" and that their music can "venture from bluesy riffs and folk tales to spacey neo-psychedelic to punishing doom rock." Similarly, Rob Hughes of Classic Rock Magazine noted how "[All Them Witches are] as likely to create boiling riptides of bluesy psychedelia as they are pools of mystic folk and doomy ambience."


title: All Them Witches

text: Vocalist and bassist Charles Michael Parks Jr., who is also the band's lyricist, has described international folk music as one of his biggest influences, and cited Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, early Fleetwood Mac, and Roy Buchanan as artists of which all band members are fans. Guitarist Ben McLeod additionally cites Jerry Garcia and The Doors as significant influences, beginning in his childhood. Drummer Robby Stabler cites Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Santana, Neil Young, and Nick Drake.


title: All Them Witches

text: All Them Witches are commonly compared with Black Sabbath; however, Parks has described this as misleading, because none of the band members listen to Sabbath. Other groups against which the band have been compared include Kyuss, Blue Cheer, Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Glitter is the soundtrack to the 2001 film of the same title and the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey. It was released on August 18, 2001, in Japan by Sony Music and in the United States on September 11, 2001, by Virgin Records. Mixing dance-pop, funk, hip hop and R&B, the album was a complete musical departure from any of Carey's previous releases, focusing heavily on recreating a 1980s post-disco era to accompany the film, set in 1983. By covering or heavily sampling several older tunes and songs, Carey created "Glitter" as an album that would help viewers connect with the film, as well as incorporating newly written ballads. The singer collaborated with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and DJ Clue, who co-produced the album. Musically, "Glitter" was structured to be a retro-influenced album and have more of a dance-oriented element. On several songs, critics noted Carey to be more sexually suggestive lyrically than before. "Glitter" featured several musical acts such as Eric Benét, Ludacris, Da Brat, Busta Rhymes, Fabolous, and Ja Rule.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Upon release, both the album and its accompanying film were met with generally negative reviews from critics, who felt it failed in trying to capture a genuine 1980s theme, and there were too many guest appearances. The "Glitter" soundtrack was the first album released under Carey's $80 million five-album deal with Virgin Records, but with the label's expectations not met with the performance of the album, Virgin cancelled Carey's $80 million deal and dropped her from the label. In the US, the album had strong first week sales, debuting at number seven on the US "Billboard" Top 200 Album Chart, but subsequently began to fall quickly in the following weeks. Internationally, it peaked outside the top ten and top twenty in many countries. "Glitter" became Carey's least successful album at the time, selling a total of 1.5 million copies worldwide.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Several singles were released but attained weak charting positions. "Loverboy" served as the lead single from the album and quickly became Carey's lowest-charting lead single globally. As the song stalled on the US charts, Virgin dropped its price to .99 cents to spur sales, which helped the single peak at number two on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. At the time, singles generally sold for approximately $2.99; this would mark the first time that a major label was compelled to drastically drop the price of a single (from a major artist no less) in order to spur sales of that single. Internationally, the song failed to garner much traction. Subsequent singles failed to make much of an impact on prominent international charts, with some singles not charting at all. On May 22, 2020, the album was released to streaming services.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Following the release of Carey's album "Butterfly" in 1997, she began working on a film and soundtrack project titled at that time as "All That Glitters". However, Columbia Records and Carey were also working on a greatest hits album to be released in time for Thanksgiving season in November 1998. Carey put "All That Glitters" on hold and her greatest hits album "#1's" was released in November 1998. Carey put the project on hold again to record her album "Rainbow" (1999). After the album ran its course, Carey wanted to finish the film and soundtrack project. But by this time, Carey and her now ex-husband Tommy Mottola, head of her record company Columbia, did not have a good working or personal relationship. Mottola wanted Carey off the label and Carey wanted to leave; however, she still owed Columbia one more album to fulfill her contract. Virgin Records stepped in and offered to pay Columbia $20 million to let Carey out of her contract early so that they could sign her for a $100 million deal.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Carey signed with Virgin and aimed to complete the film and soundtrack project. As part of her contract on her $100 million five-album record deal with Virgin Records, Carey was given full creative control. She opted to record an album partly mixed with 1980s influenced disco and other similar genres, in order to go with the film's setting. As the release date grew nearer, the film and album title were changed from "All That Glitters" to "Glitter". In early 2001, Carey's relationship with Latin singer Luis Miguel ended, while she was busy filming "Glitter" and recording the soundtrack. Due to the pressure of losing her relationship, being on a new record label, filming a movie, and recording an album, Carey began to have a nervous breakdown. She began posting a series of disturbing messages on her official website, and displayed erratic behavior while on several promotional outings.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Musically, "Glitter" was notably different from anything Carey had ever written or recorded, drawing influence from the 1980s. Due to the parent film taking place in 1983, the soundtrack harbored on recreating an older sound, while incorporating the usual pop-R&B ballads for which Carey was known. While some critics favored the album's retro style, and inclusion of several sampled melodies, many felt that "Glitter" lacked originality, and its excess of guest artists overpowered Carey's artistry. In an interview with MTV News, Carey described the album's content, as well as its influences:


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: There are songs that are definitely going to take people back and make them go, 'Oh, man, this song from the '80s — I loved it growing up'. Or people who never heard the songs before might be like, 'This is cool.' When you see the movie, you're gonna see the uptempo songs and the songs that are remakes in there as they would have sounded in the '80s, but the album is the way that I would make the record now, and the ballads can stand on their own as songs from a Mariah Carey album.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Serving as the project's lead single, "Loverboy" features a sample from "Candy" by American band Cameo, which interpolates the melody into the chorus and instrumental introduction. Additionally, aside from sampling "Candy" as the musical bed for the song, Cameo serves as a featured artist on the song. Sarah Rodman from the "Boston Herald" compared it to Carey's previous lead singles, and described its production as "another in an increasingly long line of glitzy, candy-coated, creatively stunted Carey songs". The song's lyrics and vocals were described as "super-sexed" by Sal Cinquemani from "Slant Magazine" when put into comparison with Carey's previous work. The official remix for "Loverboy" also earned a place on "Glitter", adding rap verses from both Ludacris and Da Brat to the original version. Serving as the second single from "Glitter", "Reflections (Care Enough)" was written by Carey and Philippe Pierre. Lyrically, the song'a protagonist "laments the end of a relationship", while confronting her mother regarding her early abandonment. Additionally, during its bridge, Carey "eerily" refers to abortion, "You could have had the decency / To give me up / Before you gave me life", as an option over abandoning the child. Cinquemani felt the song was reminiscent of Carey's ballads during the earlier lengths of her career, and described the song as a "simple beauty". In a review for the album in "The Free Lance–Star", a writer outed the song's first verse "A displaced little girl / Wept years in silence / And whispers wishes you'd materialize / She pressed on night and day / To keep on living / And tried so many ways / To keep her soul alive" as his favorite lyric from "Glitter", and described it as an "emotional and heart-wrenching ballad". The album's third release, "Never Too Far", was written and produced by Carey and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Described as an "adult-contemporary, slow-jam love song", the song's lyrics read "Too painful to talk about it, so I hold it in / So my heart can mend and be brave enough to love again", speaking of emotions felt by the protagonist in the film. "Never Too Far" features "a bed of synthesized strings, gentle drums and Spanish-style guitar" as its primary instrumentation, and incorporates violin and keyboard notes prior to the first verse. The fourth and final single from "Glitter", "Don't Stop (Funkin' 4 Jamaica)", was composed by Carey and DJ Clue, and interpolates "Funkin' for Jamaica (N.Y.)" by Tom Browne. Featuring guest verses from Mystikal, with the former declaring "Ain't nothin' you could do with the man / Except for shake your ass and clap your hands", while Carey responds "Don't stop bay-beee, its ex-ta-see / Turn me up a little." Conceptualized in 1997, "Lead the Way" was an unused track from "Butterfly" (1997), written and produced by Carey and Walter Afanasieff. The ballad was the last song composed by the pair, as they halted work with one another shortly after its completion, due to their growing creative differences. Though written, the song was recorded during 2000, as Carey began producing "Glitter". Beginning with a classic and simple piano introduction, Carey starts the song with soft and breathy vocals, eventually leading to a vocal climax, in which she belts an 18-second note, the longest from any of her recordings. She described it as one of her "best vocal performances", as well as one of her "favorite songs." In an interview with MTV News, Carey addressed "Glitter" as well as "Lead the Way":


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: To me, "Glitter" is one of my best albums. A lot of people got confused, not knowing whether it was a soundtrack or an album or what. There's a song called 'Lead the Way' which I did on "Ally McBeal", and it's coming out in January. I sang the song on [the show]. It's one of those ballads that basically everybody that's been following my career says reminds them of a 'Vision of Love'-type record, and that's one of my favorite songs from the record. The cool thing for me is to be able to tie in 'Never Too Far' and 'Hero'. Having the Greatest Hits coming out, to be able to tie in both those records is almost like a circle.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Carey's cover of the 1982 Indeep song "Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life" was one of the album's more club-themed songs. It features rappers Fabolous and Busta Rhymes, and was composed and produced by Carey and DJ Clue. Michael Paoletta from "Billboard" called it a "painful low" on "Glitter", and commented how Carey seemed detached and over-powered on the song, due to the inclusion of several male guests. "Twister", another one of the album's ballads, drew strong comparisons to Carey's older work, in light of the very different remainder of the album. Paoletta called it "quietly heartbreaking", in reference to the song's lyrics, which relate to the suicide of Carey's friend and hairstylist, Tonjua Twist. According to Carey, Twist took her own life in the spring of 2000, and was known for her joy of life and her ability to put people at ease. She was "child like and effervescent", but behind her mask of happiness was "a well" of lifelong and deep-rooted pain. In "Twister", Carey described the hidden inner-struggle of her friend, and tried to find "closure"; her "way of saying goodbye". Chris Chuck from "Daily News" described its lyrics as "an airy requiem for a friend lost to suicide" and felt it was "the only memorable song on the album." With lyrics reading "Feelin' kinda fragile and I've got a lot to handle / But I guess this is my way of saying goodbye", David Browne from "Entertainment Weekly" felt that Carey was possibly referring to her own suicide rather than her friends, especially in light of the events that were taking place during the album's release. "Didn't Mean to Turn You On" is a cover of the 1984 Cherelle song of the same title. Aside from the heavy sampling of the hook and lyrics, Carey, who produced the song alongside Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, added keyboard notes and synthesizers to enhance the songs club appeal. In the song, Carey sings "I was only trying to be nice / Only trying to be nice / Sooooooo, I didn't mean to turn you on", indicating a woman who is weakly apologetic over fooling a man over intimacy. On the track "Want You", American singer Eric Benét duets with Carey, while lyrically implying and suggesting the "exploration of bedroom fantasies."


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: "Loverboy" was released as the lead single from "Glitter" on June 18, 2001. The song received mixed reviews from music critics, with many criticizing the production and Carey's lackluster connection with the material. It became Carey's weakest charting lead single at the time as it was failing to crack the top 40 of the US Hot 100. Virgin Records drastically dropped the price to (a then-unheard of) .99 cents from approximately $2.99 to help spur sales. The song would then reach number two on the Hot 100. Following Carey's publicized breakdown, hospitalization, and various media reports of a suicide attempt, the media began to speculate that Carey's $80 million deal combined with the underperformance of the "Glitter" album per her label's expectations at the time, and the underperformance of the film, caused stress for Carey, which ultimately led to her breakdown. Although the "Loverboy" single was being propelled by higher sales due to the price drop, radio airplay was still weak due to many radio programmers feeling lukewarm towards the song. Accompanied by little promotion from Carey, due to her hospitalization, "Loverboy" quickly descended the Hot 100. Outside the United States, the song attained weak charting on most music charts, but did peak inside the top ten in Australia and Canada, and within the top twenty in the United Kingdom and Italy. The music video for "Loverboy" features Carey dressed in a variation of revealing outfits, while patrolling a large race track as her 'loverboy' wins the race.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: "Never Too Far", the album's second single, was released on August 14, 2001. It failed to impact the Hot 100 and achieved weak international charting as well. Carey was unable to film a music video for the single, as she was still recovering from her breakdown. Instead, a video was created using a scene taken directly from the film "Glitter", where Carey's character sings the song.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: After the poor performance of the second single, "Never Too Far", the album's third and final international single, "Don't Stop (Funkin' 4 Jamaica)", was released less than a month later, on September 11, 2001, mirroring the same weak charting as "Never Too Far". The music video, directed by Sanaa Hamri, features the theme of southern bayous and lifestyles, and presents Carey and rapper Mystikal in "southern style" clothing and hairstyles.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: A fourth single, "Reflections (Care Enough)", released the same month as the previous single (September 27, 2001), was not released globally, but received a release in Japan. The song failed to make much of an impact in that country.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: The website Metacritic, which averages professional reviews into a numerical score, assigned the album a score of 59/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews". AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album one and a half out of five stars, calling it an "utter meltdown -- the pop equivalent of Chernobyl" and wrote "It's an embarrassment, one that might have been easier to gawk at if its creator wasn't so close to emotional destruction at the time of release." Michael Paoletta from "Billboard" was less critical, citing it as a "minor misstep in a stellar career that has earned the singer a few free passes. Editor Sarah Rodman from "The Boston Herald" panned the excessiveness of all the guest artists on the album, alluding that Carey may have just been searching for hits, which had the opposite effect. Criticizing the album's heavy roster of guest appearances, Rodman wrote "the artists contribute mostly distracting, self-promoting jibber jabber..." "Daily News" editor Chuck Campley rated the album two and a half out of five stars, writing "Maybe this was the best Mariah Carey could muster under the circumstances, but 'Glitter' needed more work." David Browne from "Entertainment Weekly" criticized the abundance of rappers and guest artists and described Carey's vocals as "barely there". Concluding his review on a poor note, Browne wrote "'Glitter' is a mess, but its shameless genre hopping (and Carey's crash) makes it an unintentional concept album about the toll of relentless careerism."


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Heather Vaughn from "The Free-Lance Star" complimented both the dance-oriented tracks, as well as the ballads. In reference to their weight as a whole, Vaughn wrote "Sounds like Mariah's other albums, but with more of an 80s twist." "Los Angeles Times" critic and writer Natalie Nichols gave "Glitter" two stars, commenting on the underperformance of Carey's vocals. Nichols called the album's covers "tepid and pointless", while stating that Carey was overwhelmed by the many guest rappers, calling her voice "semi-disguised". Rob Sheffield from "Rolling Stone" gave the album three out of five stars, but criticizing the ballads as "big and goopy, with zero melodic or emotional punch." Aside from the ballads, Sheffield felt "Glitter" failed to deliver the success or quality that Carey needed on her debut film and soundtrack and alluded to that Carey was trying to emulate the massive success singer Whitney Houston had with her album and film "The Bodyguard" from several years earlier. He concluded his review of "Glitter" with a comparison to singers Whitney Houston and Celine Dion stating, "Whitney had her "I Will Always Love You", and Celine had her "My Heart Will Go On", but Mariah still hasn't found her theme song, the one people will remember her voice by." "Slant Magazine" editor Sal Cinquemani gave "Glitter" three out of five stars, critiquing the number of guest performers among other things, writing "Carey's edgier tracks are inundated with so many guest artists that her sound ultimately becomes muddled; her pop tunes are so formulaic that it's difficult to distinguish one from the next." "USA Today"'s Edna Gunderson rated the album one and a half out of four stars, criticizing Carey's overall image for the project, as well as the many guest artists on the record. She described Carey as "cheapening her image" and wrote "The whiff of desperation grows more pungent on 'Glitter' in Carey's gratuitous coloratura and transparent enlistment of street-cred boosters such as rappers Ja Rule and Mystikal.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: "Glitter" became Carey's least commercially successful album to that point. It debuted well, entering the US "Billboard" 200 at number seven with first week sales of 116,000 copies, but began to quickly fall down the chart in subsequent weeks. "Glitter" was Carey's first album release on Virgin Records after signing an $80 million, five-album deal with the label. Virgin would subsequently cancel the deal and drop Carey from the label. The album remained on the Top 200 Album chart for only eight weeks. It was certified platinum on October 16, 2001, denoting shipments of 1 million in the US. As of November 2018, Nielsen SoundScan estimates sales of the "Glitter" album at 650,000 copies in the United States. In Canada, the album peaked at number four on the Canadian Albums Chart. "Glitter" entered the Australian Albums Chart at its peak position of number thirteen, during the week dated September 9, 2001. The album remained on the chart for only three weeks before dropping off completely. Similarly in Austria, "Glitter" peaked at number fourteen, remaining on the albums chart for only four weeks before dropping off completely.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: In both the Flemish and Wallonian territories in Belgium, "Glitter" peaked at numbers ten and eleven, respectively, while charting for a total of four weeks. In France, "Glitter" peaked at number five on the albums chart, during the week dated September 15, 2001. Following seventeen weeks fluctuating in the chart, the album was certified Gold by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP), denoting shipments of 100,000 units. On the Dutch Albums Chart, "Glitter" debuted at number twenty-six, during the week dated September 22, 2001. Reaching its peak position of number twelve the following week, the album remained a total of six weeks in the albums chart. In both New Zealand and Norway, "Glitter" peaked at number eleven, staying within the chart for four and one weeks, respectively. In Switzerland, the album peaked at number seven, and stayed within the chart for ten weeks. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) certified "Glitter" Gold in Switzerland, for shipments of 20,000 copies. On the UK Albums Chart dated September 22, 2001, the album made its debut at number ten. The following week, "Glitter" fell to number twenty-seven, staying in the chart for one more additional week. British sales of the album are at 55,080 units as of July 2014. In Japan, "Glitter" saw particular commercial success, debuting atop the albums chart and selling 450,000 units within a month of release. The album has sold over two million copies worldwide as of 2002.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: In November 2018, the album became the subject of a campaign by Carey fans as part of the build-up to her fifteenth studio album, "Caution". This led to it reaching number one on the iTunes albums charts in several countries including the United States, and top 10 in several countries worldwide.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Throughout 2000, Carey had already been writing and recording material for "Glitter" and during this period, she developed the concept for "Loverboy". Originally, Carey had sampled the melody and hook from the 1978 Yellow Magic Orchestra song "Firecracker", using an interpolation of it throughout the chorus and introduction. In early theatrical trailers for "Glitter", the original version of "Loverboy" was still featured. As Carey had ended her contract with Columbia Records, Jennifer Lopez was signed by Tommy Mottola, and had begun recording material for her album, "J.Lo" (2001). According to record producer Irv Gotti, Mottola knew of Carey's usage of the "Firecracker" sample, and attempted to have Lopez use the same sample before her. At the time, Carey had become increasingly paranoid over outside executives being informed about "Glitter", especially following news of Lopez's "theft" of the song. When the music publishers for "Firecracker" were questioned, they admitted Carey had licensed usage of the sample first (and was in fact the first artist to ever request a license for a sample of that song), and Lopez had signed for it over one month later, under Mottola's arrangement. Ultimately, Carey was unable to use the original sample, as Lopez's album was to be released far earlier than "Glitter". She subsequently changed the composition of "Loverboy", and incorporated a new sample, "Candy" by Cameo. The "Firecracker" sample was eventually used by Lopez on her song "I'm Real" and according to Gotti, Mottola contacted him with instructions to create the Murder Remix of "I'm Real" to sound exactly like another "Glitter" track he produced, titled "If We" featuring rappers Ja Rule and Nate Dogg. The original version of "Loverboy" with the "Firecracker" sample was later included on Carey's 2020 compilation album "The Rarities".


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Following commencement for "Glitter" and the release of the soundtrack's lead single "Loverboy", Carey embarked on a short promotional campaign for the song and its parent album. On July 19, 2001, Carey made a surprise appearance on the MTV program "Total Request Live" ("TRL"). As the show's host Carson Daly began taping following a commercial break, Carey began singing "Loverboy" a cappella from behind a curtain. As he questioned the audience, she came out onto the filming stage, pushing an ice cream cart while wearing a large men's shirt. Seemingly anxious and exhilarated, Carey began delivering individual bars of ice cream to fans and guests on the program, while waving to the crowd down below on Times Square, and joking that the event was her "therapy". Carey then walked to Daly's platform and began a striptease, in which she shed her shirt to reveal a tight yellow and green ensemble, leading him to exclaim "Mariah Carey has lost her mind!" While she later revealed that Daly was aware of her presence in the building prior to her appearance, she admitted that he was meant to act surprised in order to provide a more dramatic effect for the program. Carey's appearance on "TRL" garnered strong media attention, with many critics and newspapers citing her behavior as "troubled" and "erratic".


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: In the days following her appearance on "TRL", Carey began displaying what was described as "erratic behavior". On July 20, Carey held a record signing for the CD single of "Loverboy" at Roosevelt Field shopping mall in Long Island before fans and the media. As a camera crew covered the event, she began rambling on several subjects before finally discussing radio host Howard Stern and how his jokes about herself on his program bothered her greatly and how everything general in life should be positive. At that point, Carey's publicist, Cindi Berger, grabbed the microphone from her hand, and asked the news crew to stop filming. Berger said later, "She was not speaking clearly and not talking about what she had come to talk about: her record." Only days later, Carey began posting irregular voice notes and messages on her official website:


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: I'm trying to understand things in life right now and so I really don't feel that I should be doing music right now. What I'd like to do is just a take a little break or at least get one night of sleep without someone popping up about a video. All I really want is [to] just be me and that's what I should have done in the first place ... I don't say this much but guess what, I don't take care of myself.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Following the quick removal of the messages, Berger commented that Carey had been "obviously exhausted and not thinking clearly" when she posted the letters. Two days later, on July 26, she was hospitalized, citing "extreme exhaustion" and a "physical and emotional breakdown". News websites and programs began reporting how Carey threatened to commit suicide by slitting her wrists the night before, and how Patricia, Carey's mother, hastily called for help. When questioned regarding Carey's suicidal rumor, Berger claimed Carey had broken dishes out of desperation, and as a result, accidentally cut her hands and feet. Following her induction at an un-disclosed hospital in Connecticut, Carey remained hospitalized and under doctor's care for two weeks, followed by an extended absence from the public.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: In April 2018, Carey revealed in a "People" magazine interview that during the hospitalization, she was diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Following the heavy media coverage surrounding Carey's publicized breakdown and hospitalization, Virgin Records and 20th Century Fox delayed the release of "Glitter", as well as its soundtrack of the same name. The announcement was made on August 9, 2001, that both the soundtrack and the film would be postponed three weeks, respectively from August 21 to September 11, and from August 31 to September 21. When asked regarding the motives behind the delay, Nancy Berry, vice chairman of Virgin Music Group Worldwide, addressed Carey's personal and physical condition:


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Mariah is looking forward to being able to participate in both her album and movie projects and we are hopeful that this new soundtrack release date will allow her to do so. She has been making great recovery progress, and continues to grow stronger every day. Virgin Music Worldwide continues to give its absolute commitment and support to Mariah on every level.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: When discussing the project's weak commercial reaction, Carey blamed the terrorist attacks of September 11. Carey made specific remarks regarding the album's commercial failure stating, "I released it on September 11, 2001. The talk shows needed something to distract from 9/11. I became a punching bag. I was so successful that they tore me down because my album was at number 2 instead of number 1. The media was laughing at me and attacked me." "Vulture" writer Matthew Jacobs noted that, "two dynamics were working against [the film] at once: post-9/11, Americans simply weren't going to the movies, and certainly not to see what had been framed as a slice of celebrity fluff".


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: "Glitter" performed poorly at the box office. Following the poor sales of the album as well, Virgin invoked a clause in its contract with Carey that allowed the label to remove itself from the $100 million deal for approximately $28 million. Subsequently, Virgin dismissed Carey from the label roster. These decisions were brought on due to the low sales of the album, as well as the negative publicity surrounding her breakdown. While the two sides were laying out the terms for her exit from Virgin, Carey's team requested that the two parties just use the word "canceled" when asked by the media regarding the failed venture. Less than 24 hours after the settlement was made, Virgin released a statement that they had "terminated" the contract with Carey, and paid her $28 million to do so. Carey's lawyers threatened to sue, with her attorney Marshall Grossman calling their behavior in the matter "deplorable". Virgin replied that in terms of Carey's payout, they only listed the money they gave her for departing, not including the $23.5 million they already had paid while under contract for the first and only album they released by her. Additionally, Virgin stated they would counter-sue Carey for "defamation" following Carey's press release. The matter was resolved outside of court, with Carey and Virgin opting not to take the matter to the judicial system. Soon after, Carey flew to Italy for a period of five months. After several months, Carey signed a new $20 million deal with Island Records, which also included Carey's own vanity label, MonarC Entertainment.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: Almost two decades after its release, "Glitter" began to attract wide rehaprisal and praise from mainstream critics and has developed a cult following. Kara Brown of "Jezebel" praised "Glitter" and cited: "Mariah was ahead of us all and the time is now". Mike Waas of "Idolator" commented that "Glitter" was "a misunderstood [record]" and called it "the biggest pop music injustices of the 21st century". Daniel Welsh of "MSN" gave the album a positive feedback and felt that "the brilliance of "Glitter" has gone unappreciated for too long". In a later article for "Complex", Michael Arceneaux described the album as "the perfect '80s tribute". In a "Vulture" article, Dee Lockett described this record as "undeniably ahead of its time even despite it being an homage to disco."


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: In 2017, Everett Brothers of "Billboard" ranked "Lead the Way" as the second most underappreciated song of Carey's discography, while "There for Me", a B-side track of "Never Too Far/Hero Medley" 2001 single, was picked as the third best song out this rate. Brothers argues that "Lead the Way" shows Carey's "strongest vocal performance of the 2000s." Rich Juzwiak of "Gawker" ranked "Loverboy" as the eighteenth best single of Carey's career. In 2014 article for "MySpace", Steven J. Horowitz praised a remix version of "Loverboy", which was included to "Glitter" tracklist: "Mariah invoked the ‘80s and relatively played the background to satiating verses from hot-right-nows and longtime friends.". He placed this version on the 11th place of Carey's all remixes rating, while Mark Graham of "VH1" ordered this remix as the thirtieth best song of her catalog.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: In October 2020, after 19 years, the original version of "Loverboy", with the "Firecracker" sample, was released as part of the compilation album "The Rarities". In an article celebrating 20 years of "Glitter"s release, "Billboard" writer Jon O'Brien stated that,""Glitter" was heavily criticized at the time for overloading its ten tracks with guest rappers. DJ Clue, Busta Rhymes and Fabolous essentially relegate Carey to supporting player on a perfunctory cover of Indeep's club classic "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life," while Nate Dogg and Ja Rule compete for attention on the anachronistic turn-of-the-century hip-pop of "If We." Yet look at any given top 10 from the last decade and you could argue Carey was simply foreshadowing a time when every other hit has a featuring, vs or x credit".


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: "PopMatters" writer Peter Piatkowski called it one of the "best dance-pop albums of the last 20 years.


title: Glitter (soundtrack)

text: In November 2018, the album became the subject of a campaign by Carey fans as part of the build-up to her fifteenth studio album, "Caution". Promoted on social media with the hashtag , the campaign resulted in the album reaching number one on the iTunes albums charts in several countries including the United States, and top 10 in several countries worldwide. Carey herself acknowledged and praised the campaign through social media and interviews. She eventually added a medley of songs from the album on her Caution World Tour, as a thank you to her fans.


title: Right of asylum

text: The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum; ) is an ancient juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereign authority, like a second country or another entity which in medieval times could offer sanctuary. This right was recognized by the Ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Hebrews, from whom it was adopted into Western tradition. René Descartes fled to the Netherlands, Voltaire to England, and Thomas Hobbes to France, because each state offered protection to persecuted foreigners.


title: Right of asylum

text: The Egyptians, Greeks and Hebrews recognized a religious "right of asylum", protecting people (including those accused of crime) from severe punishments. This principle was later adopted by the established Christian church, and various rules were developed that detailed how to qualify for protection and what degree of protection one would receive.


title: Right of asylum

text: The Council of Orleans decided in 511, in the presence of Clovis I, that asylum could be granted to anyone who took refuge in a church or on church property, or at the home of a bishop. This protection was extended to murderers, thieves and adulterers alike.


title: Right of asylum

text: That "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution" is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and supported by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Under these agreements, a refugee is a person who is outside that person's own country's territory owing to fear of persecution on protected grounds, including race, caste, nationality, religion, political opinions and participation in any particular social group or social activities.


title: Right of asylum

text: In England, King Æthelberht of Kent proclaimed the first Anglo-Saxon laws on sanctuary in about 600 AD. However Geoffrey of Monmouth in his "Historia Regum Britanniae" (c. 1136) says that the legendary pre-Saxon king Dunvallo Molmutius (4th/5th century BC) enacted sanctuary laws among the Molmutine Laws as recorded by Gildas (c. 500–570). The term "grith" was used by the laws of king "Ethelred".


title: Right of asylum

text: By the Norman era that followed 1066, two kinds of sanctuary had evolved: all churches had the lower-level powers and could grant sanctuary within the church proper, but the broader powers of churches licensed by royal charter extended sanctuary to a zone around the church. At least twenty-two churches had charters for this broader sanctuary, including


title: Right of asylum

text: Sometimes the criminal had to get to the chapel itself to be protected, or ring a certain bell, hold a certain ring or door-knocker, or sit on a certain chair ("frith-stool"). Some of these items survive at various churches. Elsewhere, sanctuary held in an area around the church or abbey, sometimes extending in radius to as much as a mile and a half. Stone "sanctuary crosses" marked the boundaries of the area; some crosses still exist as well. Thus it could become a race between the felon and the medieval law officers to the nearest sanctuary boundary. Serving of justice upon the fleet of foot could prove a difficult proposition.


title: Right of asylum

text: Church sanctuaries were regulated by common law. An asylum seeker had to confess his sins, surrender his weapons, and permit supervision by a church or abbey organization with jurisdiction. Seekers then had forty days to decide whether to surrender to secular authorities and stand trial for their alleged crimes, or to confess their guilt, abjure the realm, and go into exile by the shortest route and never return without the king's permission. Those who did return faced execution under the law or excommunication from the Church.


title: Right of asylum

text: If the suspects chose to confess their guilt and abjure, they did so in a public ceremony, usually at the church gates. They would surrender their possessions to the church, and any landed property to the crown. The coroner, a medieval official, would then choose a port city from which the fugitive should leave England (though the fugitive sometimes had this privilege). The fugitive would set out barefooted and bareheaded, carrying a wooden cross-staff as a symbol of protection under the church. Theoretically they would stay to the main highway, reach the port and take the first ship out of England. In practice, however, the fugitive could get a safe distance away, abandon the cross-staff and take off and start a new life. However, one can safely assume the friends and relatives of the victim knew of this ploy and would do everything in their power to make sure this did not happen; or indeed that the fugitives never reached their intended port of call, becoming victims of vigilante justice under the pretense of a fugitive who wandered too far off the main highway while trying to "escape".


title: Right of asylum

text: Knowing the grim options, some fugitives rejected both choices and opted for an escape from the asylum before the forty days were up. Others simply made no choice and did nothing. Since it was illegal for the victim's friends to break into an asylum, the church would deprive the fugitive of food and water until a decision was made.


title: Right of asylum

text: In the 14th century, fugitives claiming sanctuary was protected by an Act of 1315. It was stipulated that fugitives should be allowed access outside of the church to urinate and defecate, and also not be allowed to die due to hunger while being protected in church. Sanctuary can only be confirmed under confession to a witness. However, the right of sanctuary is often ignored such as the case of Isabella de Bury, Richard Folville or the peasants during the Peasants Revolt who took shelter, but were eventually beheaded once forcibly removed from church.


title: Right of asylum

text: During the Wars of the Roses, when the Yorkists or Lancastrians would suddenly get the upper hand by winning a battle, some adherents of the losing side might find themselves surrounded by adherents of the other side and not able to get back to their own side. Upon realizing this situation they would rush to sanctuary at the nearest church until it was safe to come out. A prime example is Queen Elizabeth Woodville, consort of Edward IV of England.


title: Right of asylum

text: In 1470, when the Lancastrians briefly restored Henry VI to the throne, Queen Elizabeth was living in London with several young daughters. She moved with them into Westminster for sanctuary, living there in royal comfort until Edward IV was restored to the throne in 1471 and giving birth to their first son Edward V during that time. When King Edward IV died in 1483, Elizabeth (who was highly unpopular with even the Yorkists and probably did need protection) took her five daughters and youngest son (Richard, Duke of York) and again moved into sanctuary at Westminster. To be sure she had all the comforts of home, she brought so much furniture and so many chests that the workmen had to knock holes in some of the walls to get everything in fast enough to suit her.


title: Right of asylum

text: Henry VIII changed the rules of asylum, reducing to a short list the types of crimes for which people were allowed to claim asylum. The medieval system of asylum was finally abolished entirely by James I in 1623.


title: Right of asylum

text: Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution." The United Nations 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees guides national legislation concerning political asylum. Under these agreements, a refugee (or for cases where repressing base means has been applied directly or environmentally to the refugee) is a person who is outside that person's own country's territory (or place of habitual residence if stateless) owing to fear of persecution on protected grounds. Protected grounds include race, caste, nationality, religion, political opinions and membership or participation in any particular social group or social activities. Rendering true victims of persecution to their persecutor is a violation of a principle called non-refoulement, part of the customary and trucial Law of Nations.


title: Right of asylum

text: These are the accepted terms and criteria as principles and a fundamental part in the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees non-refoulement order.


title: Right of asylum

text: Since the 1990s, victims of sexual persecution (which may include domestic violence, or systematic oppression of a gender or sexual minority) have come to be accepted in some countries as a legitimate category for asylum claims, when claimants can prove that the state is unable or unwilling to provide protection.


title: Right of asylum

text: Asylum in European Union member states formed over a half-century by application of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 on the Status of Refugees. Common policies appeared in the 1990s in connection with the Schengen Agreement (which suppressed internal borders) so that asylum seekers unsuccessful in one Member State would not reapply in another. The common policy began with the Dublin Convention in 1990. It continued with the implementation of Eurodac and the Dublin Regulation in 2003, and the October 2009 adoption of two proposals by the European Commission.


title: Right of asylum

text: France was the first country to establish a constitutional right to asylum, in Article 120 of the Constitution of 1793, for "foreigners banished from their fatherland for the cause of liberty". This constitution, however, never entered into force. The Preamble of the Constitution of 1946 similarly guaranteed the right of asylum to "anyone persecuted because of his activities in the cause of freedom". The modern French right of asylum is secured by the Preamble of the Constitution of 1958, via a reference to the Preamble of the 1946 Constitution.


title: Right of asylum

text: In addition to the constitutional right to asylum, the modern French right to asylum ("droit d'asile") is enshrined on a legal and regulatory basis in the "Code de l'Entree et du Sejour des Etrangers et du Droit d'Asile" (CESEDA).


title: Right of asylum

text: France also adheres to international agreements which provide for application modalities for the right of asylum, such as the 1951 United Nations (UN) Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (ratified in 1952), the additional 1967 protocol; articles K1 and K2 of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty as well as the 1985 Schengen Agreement, which defined EU immigration policy. Finally, the right of asylum is defined by article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.


title: Right of asylum

text: Some of the criteria for which an asylum application can be rejected include: i) Passage via “safe" third country, ii) Safe Country of Origin (An asylum seeker can be a prior refused asylum if they are a national of a country considered to be "safe" by the French asylum authority OFPRA), iii) Safety Threat (serious threat to the public order), or iv) Fraudulent Application (abuse of the asylum procedure for other reasons).


title: Right of asylum

text: While restricted, the right of political asylum has been conserved in France amid various anti-immigration laws. Some people claim that, apart from the purely judicial path, the bureaucratic process is used to slow down and ultimately reject what might be considered as valid requests. According to "Le Figaro", France granted 7,000 people the status of political refugee in 2006, out of a total of 35,000 requests; in 2005, the OFPRA in charge of examining the legitimacy of such requests granted less than 10,000 from a total of 50,000 requests. Numerous exiles from South American dictatorships, particularly from Augusto Pinochet's Chile and the Dirty War in Argentina, were received in the 1970s-80s. During the war in Afghanistan (2001–2021), tens of thousands of Afghan refugees were granted asylum in France.


title: Right of asylum

text: In the 19th century, the United Kingdom accorded political asylum to various persecuted people, among whom were many members of the socialist movement (including Karl Marx). With the 1845 attempted bombing of the Greenwich Royal Observatory and the 1911 Siege of Sidney Street in the context of the propaganda of the deed (anarchist) actions, political asylum was restricted.


title: Right of asylum

text: The United States recognizes the right of asylum of individuals as specified by international and federal law. In accordance with international law, the United States considers asylum candidates on the basis of persecution or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion.


title: Right of asylum

text: Every year, the President of the United States specifies a number of legally defined refugees who are granted "refugee status" outside the United States to be admitted to the country under . Of these, many are recommended for firm resettlement by the offices of the UNHCR around the world. The annual number of refugees admitted varies from year to year and is determined by a joint collaboration between the incumbent Presidential administration and Congress. By contrast, the United States does not enforce any such quota for asylum seekers. Rather, the annual number of asylum grants is dependent upon a combination of how many individuals submit applications and how many individuals are able to successfully prove their asylum claim.


title: Right of asylum

text: There are two main types of asylum an applicant can request under US law: affirmative asylum and defensive asylum. To apply for affirmative asylum, applicants must be physically present in the United States, regardless of their current immigration status. In most cases, affirmative asylum applications must be filed within one year of arriving in the United States. Defensive asylum is typically filed by individuals seeking to request a defense against removal or deportation from the United States. The primary distinction between these two processes is whether removal proceedings have been initiated for an applicant. If an individual has been placed in removal proceedings they must seek defensive asylum. If an individual has not been placed in removal proceedings, they are able to seek affirmative asylum.


title: Right of asylum

text: The majority of asylum claims fail or are rejected. Still, since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the United States than any other nation. "Since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980... the United States has admitted more than 3.1 million refugees." During much of the 1990s, the United States accepted over 100,000 refugees per year, though this figure has recently decreased to around 50,000 per year in the first decade of the 21st century, due to greater security concerns. As for asylum seekers, the latest statistics show that 86,400 persons sought sanctuary in the United States in 2001. Before the September 11 attacks in 2001, individual asylum applicants were evaluated in private proceedings by officers of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). In the aftermath of the attacks, the United States established three distinct organizations that each handle a different aspect of US immigration law, including the US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs & Border Protection (CFB). Asylum applications are handled by the USCIS.


title: Right of asylum

text: Despite this, concerns have been raised with the U.S. asylum and refugee determination processes. A recent empirical analysis by three legal scholars described the U.S. asylum process as a game of refugee roulette; that is to say that the outcome of asylum determinations depends in large part on the personality of the particular adjudicator to whom an application is randomly assigned, rather than on the merits of the case. The very low numbers of Iraqi refugees accepted between 2003 and 2007 exemplifies concerns about the United States' refugee processes. The Foreign Policy Association reported that:Perhaps the most perplexing component of the Iraq refugee crisis... has been the inability for the U.S. to absorb more Iraqis following the 2003 invasion of the country. To date, the U.S. has granted fewer than 800 Iraqis refugee status, just 133 in 2007. By contrast, the U.S. granted asylum to more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees during the Vietnam War.Refugee and asylum policy advocates have called for a system based upon the "human interest approach" which seeks to allow asylum applicants be assessed on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to being assessed against other applicants. Under the US asylum structure, applicants' cases are often analyzed based on the strength of their educational/professional qualifications or on the level of danger they face in their country of origin. Amongst the academic community, such an approach is considered to be the narrative of the "gifted or traumatized" refugee. By contrast, the human-interest approach experts advocate for seeks to reframe the application process around the individual and focus on each applicant's unique story and experience.


title: Right of asylum

text: Article 32 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China states that the People's Republic of China may grant asylum to foreigners who request it on political grounds.


title: Right of asylum

text: In 1979, Hoàng Văn Hoan, the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam, was the last foreigner to be granted political asylum by China. From 1980 to the present, no foreigner has been granted political asylum by China. All foreigners who have been granted political asylum in China are foreign pro-communist political leaders.


title: High fidelity

text: High fidelity (often shortened to Hi-Fi or HiFi) is the high-quality reproduction of sound. It is popular with audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) frequency response within the human hearing range.


title: High fidelity

text: High fidelity contrasts with the lower-quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment, AM radio, or the inferior quality of sound reproduction that can be heard in recordings made until the late 1940s. In lo-fi music, such defects are themselves aspects of the music.


title: High fidelity

text: Bell Laboratories began experimenting with a range of recording techniques in the early 1930s. Performances by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra were recorded in 1931 and 1932 using telephone lines between the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and the Bell labs in New Jersey. Some multitrack recordings were made on optical sound film, which led to new advances used primarily by MGM (as early as 1937) and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (as early as 1941). RCA Victor began recording performances by several orchestras using optical sound around 1941, resulting in higher-fidelity masters for 78-rpm discs. During the 1930s, Avery Fisher, an amateur violinist, began experimenting with audio design and acoustics. He wanted to make a radio that would sound like he was listening to a live orchestra—that would achieve high fidelity to the original sound. After World War II, Harry F. Olson conducted an experiment whereby test subjects listened to a live orchestra through a hidden variable acoustic filter. The results proved that listeners preferred high-fidelity reproduction, once the noise and distortion introduced by early sound equipment was removed.


title: High fidelity

text: Beginning in 1948, several innovations created the conditions that made major improvements of home-audio quality possible:


title: High fidelity

text: In the 1950s, audio manufacturers employed the phrase "high fidelity" as a marketing term to describe records and equipment intended to provide faithful sound reproduction. While some consumers simply interpreted "high fidelity" as fancy and expensive equipment, many found the difference in quality compared to the then-standard AM radios and 78-rpm records readily apparent and bought high-fidelity phonographs and 33⅓ LPs such as RCA's New Orthophonics and London's FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recording, a UK Decca system). Audiophiles paid attention to technical characteristics and bought individual components, such as separate turntables, radio tuners, preamplifiers, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Some enthusiasts even assembled their own loudspeaker systems. In the 1950s, "hi-fi" became a generic term for home sound equipment, to some extent displacing "phonograph" and "record player".


title: High fidelity

text: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the development of stereophonic equipment and recordings led to the next wave of home-audio improvement, and in common parlance "stereo" displaced "hi-fi". Records were now played on "a stereo". In the world of the audiophile, however, the concept of "high fidelity" continued to refer to the goal of highly accurate sound reproduction and to the technological resources available for approaching that goal. This period is regarded as the "Golden Age of Hi-Fi", when vacuum tube equipment manufacturers of the time produced many models considered endearing by modern audiophiles, and just before solid state (transistorized) equipment was introduced to the market, subsequently replacing tube equipment as the mainstream technology.


title: High fidelity

text: In the 1960s, the FTC with the help of the audio manufacturers came up with a definition to identify high fidelity equipment so that the manufacturers could clearly state if they meet the requirements and reduce misleading advertisements.


title: High fidelity

text: The metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) was adapted into a power MOSFET for audio by Jun-ichi Nishizawa at Tohoku University in 1974. Power MOSFETs were soon manufactured by Yamaha for their hi-fi audio amplifiers. JVC, Pioneer Corporation, Sony and Toshiba also began manufacturing amplifiers with power MOSFETs in 1974. In 1977, Hitachi introduced the LDMOS (lateral diffused MOS), a type of power MOSFET. Hitachi was the only LDMOS manufacturer between 1977 and 1983, during which time LDMOS was used in audio power amplifiers from manufacturers such as HH Electronics (V-series) and Ashly Audio, and were used for music and public address systems. Class-D amplifiers became successful in the mid-1980s when low-cost, fast-switching MOSFETs were made available. Many transistor amps use MOSFET devices in their power sections, because their distortion curve is more tube-like.


title: High fidelity

text: A popular type of system for reproducing music beginning in the 1970s was the integrated music centre—which combined a phonograph turntable, AM-FM radio tuner, tape player, preamplifier, and power amplifier in one package, often sold with its own separate, detachable or integrated speakers. These systems advertised their simplicity. The consumer did not have to select and assemble individual components or be familiar with impedance and power ratings. Purists generally avoid referring to these systems as high fidelity, though some are capable of very good quality sound reproduction.


title: High fidelity

text: Audiophiles in the 1970s and 1980s preferred to buy each component separately. That way, they could choose models of each component with the specifications that they desired. In the 1980s, a number of audiophile magazines became available, offering reviews of components and articles on how to choose and test speakers, amplifiers, and other components.


title: High fidelity

text: Listening tests are used by hi-fi manufacturers, audiophile magazines, and audio engineering researchers and scientists. If a listening test is done in such a way that the listener who is assessing the sound quality of a component or recording can see the components that are being used for the test (e.g., the same musical piece listened to through a tube power amplifier and a solid-state amplifier), then it is possible that the listener's pre-existing biases towards or against certain components or brands could affect their judgment. To respond to this issue, researchers began to use blind tests, in which listeners cannot see the components being tested. A commonly used variant of this test is the ABX test. A subject is presented with two known samples (sample "A", the reference, and sample "B", an alternative), and one unknown sample "X," for three samples total. "X" is randomly selected from "A" and "B", and the subject identifies "X" as being either "A" or "B". Although there is no way to prove that a certain methodology is transparent, a properly conducted double-blind test can prove that a method is "not" transparent.


title: High fidelity

text: Blind tests are sometimes used as part of attempts to ascertain whether certain audio components (such as expensive, exotic cables) have any subjectively perceivable effect on sound quality. Data gleaned from these blind tests is not accepted by some audiophile magazines such as "Stereophile" and "The Absolute Sound" in their evaluations of audio equipment. John Atkinson, current editor of "Stereophile", stated that he once purchased a solid-state amplifier, the Quad 405, in 1978 after seeing the results from blind tests, but came to realize months later that "the magic was gone" until he replaced it with a tube amp. Robert Harley of "The Absolute Sound" wrote, in 2008, that: "...blind listening tests fundamentally distort the listening process and are worthless in determining the audibility of a certain phenomenon."


title: High fidelity

text: Doug Schneider, editor of the online Soundstage network, refuted this position with two editorials in 2009. He stated: "Blind tests are at the core of the decades' worth of research into loudspeaker design done at Canada's National Research Council (NRC). The NRC researchers knew that for their result to be credible within the scientific community and to have the most meaningful results, they had to eliminate bias, and blind testing was the only way to do so." Many Canadian companies such as Axiom, Energy, Mirage, Paradigm, PSB, and Revel use blind testing extensively in designing their loudspeakers. Audio professional Dr. Sean Olive of Harman International shares this view.


title: High fidelity

text: Stereophonic sound provided a partial solution to the problem of creating the illusion of live orchestral performers by creating a phantom middle channel when the listener sits exactly in the middle of the two front loudspeakers. When the listener moves to the side, however, this phantom channel disappears or is greatly reduced. An attempt to provide for the reproduction of the reverberation was tried in the 1970s through quadraphonic sound. Consumers did not want to pay the additional costs and space required for the marginal improvements in realism. With the rise in popularity of home theater, however, multi-channel playback systems became popular, and many consumers were willing to tolerate the six to eight channels required in a home theater.


title: High fidelity

text: In addition to spatial realism, the playback of music must be subjectively free from noise, such as hiss or hum, to achieve realism. The compact disc (CD) provides about 90 decibels of dynamic range, which exceeds the 80 dB dynamic range of music as normally perceived in a concert hall. Audio equipment must be able to reproduce frequencies high enough and low enough to be realistic. The human hearing range, for healthy young persons, is 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Most adults can't hear higher than 15,000 Hz. CDs are capable of reproducing frequencies as low as 0 Hz and as high as 22,050 Hz, making them adequate for reproducing the frequency range that most humans can hear. The equipment must also provide no noticeable distortion of the signal or emphasis or de-emphasis of any frequency in this frequency range.


title: High fidelity

text: "Integrated", "mini", or "lifestyle" systems (also known by the older terms "music centre" or "midi system") contain one or more sources such as a CD player, a tuner, or a cassette tape deck together with a preamplifier and a power amplifier in one box. Although some High-end audio manufacturers do produce integrated systems, such products are generally disparaged by audiophiles, who prefer to build a system from "separates" (or "components"), often with each item from a different manufacturer specialising in a particular component. This provides the most flexibility for piece-by-piece upgrades and repairs.


title: High fidelity

text: For slightly less flexibility in upgrades, a preamplifier and a power amplifier in one box is called an "integrated amplifier"; with a tuner added, it is a "receiver". A monophonic power amplifier is called a "monoblock" and is often used for powering a subwoofer. Other modules in the system may include components like cartridges, tonearms, hi-fi turntables, digital media players, DVD players that play a wide variety of discs including CDs, CD recorders, MiniDisc recorders, hi-fi videocassette recorders (VCRs) and reel-to-reel tape recorders. Signal modification equipment can include equalizers and noise-reduction systems.