In an Academy Awards musical moment that ranks with Elliott Smith’s “Miss Misery” performance or Three 6 Mafia’s unlikely win for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” the 2007 best original song Oscar went to singer-songwriters...

Much of the crowd at last night’s sold-out Swell Season show was lured by one song: “Falling Slowly,” the endearingly modest ballad that the duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova memorably performed during the Academy Awards (and for which they took home an Oscar.) Having to live up to the expectations of that vulnerable, fish-out-of-water performance night after night must surely prove a challenge for the . . .

In an Academy Awards musical moment that ranks with Elliott Smith’s “Miss Misery” performance or Three 6 Mafia’s unlikely win for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” this year’s Best Original Song award went to singer-songwriters Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, collectively known as The Swell Season. Their . . .

Most films about musicians have such overly determined narratives that they might as well be episodes of VH-1’s “Behind the Music.” And when the actual craft of making music enters the story, viewers often get the dubiously valuable experience of, say, Jamie Foxx imitating Ray Charles . . .