November 2009
64 posts
New Blogger in Action for hipsterrunoff. Mike is... →
In case you missed this buried in a comment thread (thx NedRaggett!) — this is so meta and relevant to your interests, it is literally painful. Like a hole in the head or a spork in the eye.
xoxo, michaela
Doherty Über Alles: Rocker Offends Germans with... →
This almost isn’t really news — Pete Doherty mucks things up? Really?!? — but it’s pretty amusing (entertaining? telling?) to read the Spiegel story in juxtaposition with the one from NME.
It totally makes me want to use the cheap blogger comment ploy: What do you think? Was Doherty trying to make a political statement, or did he really have no clue what he was doing? Or,...
Chillwave.
I mean, really, folks, listen to yourselves!
Chillwave.
Is this even a real thing? Do its practitioners even now that they are practitioners of Chillwave? What in the heck is the Chillwave Sound? Does one simply need to dual-wield a bong and Garageband to chill their waves?
Chillwave.
Does the world need another Horrorcore, Bloghouse, or Ghettotech on its hands? Haven’t we already...
And F2K returns! →
And what a choice piece of dreck they picked. Anyway, bookmark this link for the overall page of entries as they are uploaded — and spread the word!
— Ned Raggett
Glenn Branca says music has died.
We seem to be on the edge of a paradigm shift. Orchestras are struggling to stay alive, rock has been relegated to the underground, jazz has stopped evolving and become a dead art, the music industry itself has been subsumed by corporate culture and composers are at their wit’s end trying to find something that’s hip but still appeals to an audience mired in a 19th-century sensibility.
For more...
Arbitrary or what?
This has been bugging me for a few days: Can anyone explain why the words “Russian roulette is not the same without a gun” are bleeped out whenever Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” video airs on MTV (MTV Hits, that is) — but the network seemingly has no problem airing the video for Rihanna’s “Russian Roulette” unaltered? Am I missing something?
xoxo, michaela
Announcement: F2K, Wherein The 50 Worst Songs Of... →
Great news for all former Idolator readers. The Village Voice’s music blog, Sound of the City, says this morning:
Dewey eats Truman! SOTC is happy to announce that starting Monday, November 30, we’ll be running the remaining 30 entries in F2K: The 50 Worst Songs of the ’00s, a profoundly hostile symposium/firing squad presented by former Idolator overlord Maura Johnston and...
“An ABC spokesman said the Walt Disney network “did receive a number of...”
– Adam Lambert Gives ABC a Headache - Advertising Age
This is such a non-story, the Ad Age blogger can’t even muster the energy to really look into why the show’s ratings were up 2 million from last year — its largest audience since 2002. Clearly, everyone wanted to see what Lady...
SXSW Music Announces 230 Showcasing Artists |... →
Let the recommendations, complaints and debates begin … NOW. (BTW, this is obviously the get-your-visa-now list for the smaller foreign acts — though, please note the lack of blog hype acts — at least as far as I can see.) Also, is that a Sixteen Deluxe reunion I spy? IT IS.
xoxo, michaela
Optimo to do a Fabric mix disc next year →
This is VERY good news. (Read a good reason as to why from Jess H. via the Idolator archives.) A bit of a stab in the dark here but has anyone thought a bit further as well on the distinction between the mixtape and the mix CD in terms of what they mean to — making a very broad categorization here — the US and the UK/European music scenes? There’s something there to be teased...
Kid Sister — Big N Bad
Kid Sister’s...
“Though the commanding Ms. Angela, as Effie, is certainly the loudest of the...”
– ‘Dreamgirls’ - At the Apollo, Hopeful Divas Back Where It All Began (via The New York Times)
This reminds me of something I’m now convinced is apocryphal because I can’t find a link to the story I remember reading this in — Stephen Sondheim’s complaint (and...
F2K
Hey, are we ever going to get that F2K list going again or will it be stuck at number 31 for eternity?
Btw, does F2K remind anybody of a song about the turn of a decade…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWnFak7Lw3s
WatchWhy in the holy heck am I just now seeing this? Is Bill coming out of retirement? Everything he says is so casually profound that I almost starting crying right in the middle of watching it.
A selection of user reviews of John Mayer's...
Executive summary: John Mayer fans do not like: a) Taylor Swift, b) overproduced pop songs, c) touchy-feely covers of “Crossroads”, d) Los Angeles, e) Jews, f) Battle Studies.
I was a huge fan of John until I heard this album. I prefer his blues-y stuff and I believe he should show off his guitar skills. This album just didn’t do it for me. He completely destroyed...
100 and Single by Chris Molanphy » Chart Update:... →
Oh! That’s the song in that Cadillac commericial! Phoenix’s “1901”! I live under a rock, apparently. It’s fun being a target demographic, isn’t it? Every time that ad comes on, I irrationally want to buy a giant prestige car. It would make me rather popular in my neighborhood, no doubt.
luff, michaela
'Needles, Pliers, a Blunt Saw': Rammstein Album... →
Oh, Rammstein! Don’t ever change! Apparently the band’s new album has finally peeved the German government censors enough for it to be removed from shelves — a first for the band, suprisingly. The great thing about this article is that it provides a very interesting (and educational) perspective on band’s career within the context of the topsy turvy cultural climate of the...
A few weeks ago, Slate’s Jody Rosen took NPR to task for their coverage of black music, creating what he called the “DORF Matrix” to represent what black music they did cover (Dead, Old, Retro, Foreign). He set the Slate message boards afire when he asked:
NPR’s audience skews white and college-educated; so does Animal Collective’s fan-base. In matters of musical...
Gypsy & The Cat, “Jona Vark”
...
“How do L7 remember which way to put on their underpants? Yellow in the front,...”
– This joke was told during a brief conversation between Nick Cave and a friend of mine at a Wendy’s salad bar during the 1994 Lollapalooza tour.
Duh.
So, I turned on All Things Considered because I’m kind of dozing off over here (it’s pitch dark already!), and I caught the end of the story on NPR Music’s 50 most influential records of the 00s list — and of course, they were talking about “Toxic.” Not the rest of In The Zone. Just “Toxic.”
This song never gets old. I tried like hell to wear...
eMusic Yearbook: 2001 - eMusic Spotlight →
Look, I don’t get nostalgic for much, but occasionally, when I’m in the LES, I can see the ghosts of The Velvets and Television chasing down the ghost of the Interpol-That-Was (er, yes, I realize like, none of those people are actually dead…), and sometimes I have to duck under a shiny condo awning that used to be a rotted old tenement where that mad dog crazy old drug pusher...
MySpace Music Charts: Billboard for a New... →
Too little, too late? Or am I too jaded? It seems nice that MySpace is pouring efforts into becoming a more dedicated music-focused platform — providing better functionality and metrics to users and bands. In reality, however, the kind of users they hope will power a commitment to up-and-coming artists, the ones who will indicate — through their listening preferences —...
More thoughts on the Monitor Mix Roundtable
Just got around to reading Carrie Brownstein’s Monitor Mix major indie label roundtable already discussed here (I got this quote via The L), and this really stuck with me:
Carrie Brownstein: Aside from putting out good music, what’s the single most effective thing a label can do to get people to buy their music? Matador: Not sure what the single most efficient thing would be (other...
NPR: the decade's 50 most important recordings
It seemed like an impossible task, but that didn’t stop us from trying. With the first decade of the new millennium coming to a close, we decided to compile a list of the 50 most important recordings of the past 10 years — a list that covers a wide range of styles and genres, with indelible songs and albums that challenge, inspire and captivate. These are the game-changers: records that...
My thoughts on the end of Idolator →
But I think more importantly tomewing has his own thoughts in response to that, which I find all the more valuable (thus the full reblog here):
At the same time, especially with regard to Stylus and Plan B and now Idolator, one finds a slow limiting of a burst of spirit that had had a good decade-long run, of balancing out the passion of writing and thoughtful debate via the vehicle of music —...
Audio love in the time of economic cholera (old... →
Which may sound flippant — still what I like about this story (which is by default a bit parochial given it’s about a business located not fifteen miles or so from where I type) is its recognition of both the economic superstructure that ‘music’ as such encompasses and the technology it covers. Even in a time of direct downloads and all there’s still a question of...
Oh, kids today. They just don’t know how...
“As an engineer, the only people I’m concerned about are the other people in the...”
– The Daily Swarm interviewed Steve Albini and, even though Albini has been interviewed a gazillion times, there’s always some marvelous new nugget that makes the read worth it. [Of note: dude has recorded 2,000 albums now. Sleep? Ever?!]
Top 5 Things I Am Writing Down Right Now
1. Instant mashed potatoes
2. Pre-moistened lens cloth
3. Checkers Champ Burger
4. Task lists
5. Educational Technology Research & Development
Phew. Great list. What are yours?
Rupert Murdoch is Matter-Eater Lad →
Today in music business news: I-Don’t-Give-A-Crap-Anymore buys I-Couldn’t-Care-Less.
—Lucas
WatchSubmitted for your approval:
Plugs seldom fall out of reach when I’m putting together a playlist, and “All Them Witches” in particular. I’ve kept waiting and waiting (and waiting) in vain all year for this song to catch on, but maybe it never will.
RIYL: TV on the Radio, Hot Chip and “songs that rhyme witches with bitches.”
— Paul Cox
NME releases end-of-decade best-of list; people... →
I invite everyone to use the headline created as needed in Mad Libs fashion, switching out publication/timeframe information where appropriate. (The part after the semicolon has to always remain the same, though — ILM is currently arguing here and there are plenty of other spots going through similar right now.)
Complaining about lists (and complaining about complaining about lists and etc.) =...
As a hat tip to both Maura and NuIdolator...
—Ben
“I feel like full iPods are an illustration that a large part of the population...”
– Carrie Brownstein hosts a roundtable discussion about ‘The Role of the Record Label’ at Monitor Mix. (via MBV)
I must mention that near-favorite band of mine...
Happy 10th Birthday, When The Pawn...
I’m a week or so off, but I felt compelled to give some love to Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn… on the 10th anniversary of its release. “On the Bound” recently came on my iPod and it reminded me just how sublime the album is. There are certainly better pieces of songwriting on the album (cf. “I Know”), but “On the Bound” is a perfect encapsulation...
