For the second year in a row, Los Angeles’ Exposition Park played host to FYF Fest for two days of eclectic beat-making and expensive food-trucking. With a sprinkling of every genre from noise rock to hardcore hip-hop to dance-funk to anything that might remotely fit in between, Saturday and Sunday demonstrated modern-day American music culture at its most multifaceted, though also at its most uncomfortably disconnected. Read more...

Photo: At the Main Stage, solo act Toro y Moi brought funk and dance vibes to the crowd Sunday. (Courtesy of Kelsey Heng)

Electronic musician Josh Legg and his friends frequented the Gold Room, a bar in Echo Park, during their days as USC students. They ordered the bar’s special as they agonized over life’s problems; once they left, they had the answers to their questions. Read more...

Photo: Electronic musician Josh Legg, known on stage as Goldroom, will perform his California-influenced music at FYF Fest Saturday. (Shore Fire Media)

UCLA plans to centralize the departments of ethnomusicology, musicology and music and grant autonomy to the Herb Alpert School of Music, the university announced Wednesday. The final proposal, which was initially approved by the UCLA Academic Senate’s Legislative Assembly in June, aims to establish the independent School of Music as the first of its kind in the UC. Read more...

Photo: Chair of Musicology Raymond Knapp (left) and Chair of Ethnomusicology Steven Loza (right) are two of the three co-directors that, along with executive director Judith Smith, are helping the Herb Alpert School of Music transition to an independent music school pending University of California approval. (Kristen Payne/Daily Bruin)

In 2004, Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino emerged from Brooklyn, New York, as Matt and Kim, an indie dance rock duo they formed after a few months of dating. Read more...

Photo: Indie dance rock duo Matt and Kim will be performing at the Santa Monica Pier Saturday as part of radio station ALT 98.7’s Summer Camp concert line-up. (Courtesy of Matt Miller)

The music videos for both Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” and Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” both broke the 24-hour Vevo viewing record, but only one was nominated for Video of the Year for August’s MTV Video Music Awards. Read more...

Photo: Nicki Minaj’s music video for her song “Anaconda,” was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, while Taylor Swift’s music video for “Bad Blood” garnered a nomination for Video of the Year and Best Collaboration. (Courtesy of Young Money, Big Machine)