December 2009
33 posts
Your new favorite band: Kaboom Boom! →
From the loins of James Kochalka comes this rock and roll miracle. Check out their first jam, “I got Stuck in Poo Poo”.
—Lucas
'You’re cruel and you are constant'
foreignaffair:
I’m not saying Vic Chesnutt would be alive today if universal health care existed in the United States. But I am saying he could have died with a bit more dignity.
Sure, some scribes, like Chris Riemenschneider of the Minneapolis Star-Triune, captured Vic after his passing as many of us saw him when he wrote:
“… Those first few times, I have to admit it: Vic scared me. I was too...
Somebody's speaking the truth. →
It’s so facile for music pundits and tech triumphalists to look at bands like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, or even indier types like Metric (only $3k promotional budget!) or Amanda Palmer (she has a blog!) and to say IF YOU DO IT THIS WAY THEN YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL. It’s all about the internetz, y’all! During my years in the business, I knew plenty of bands who did everything...
“Stacy Ferguson, known to pop-music fans as Fergie, is Saraghina, the village...”
– Movie Review - Nine - There Will Be Lingerie (Singing, Too) - NYTimes.com
Oh, dear. You know, when I saw that Rob “I Ruined Chicago” Marshall was directing the movie version of Nine, with a ton of stunt casting, I died a little on the inside. The early trailers did nothing to assuage...
Welcome To The New Idolator →
… and there it went. Sick-making, isn’t it? At least they preserved the old content, but I’m pretty sure that the internet wasn’t invented so we could read features called “Pop or Poop”.
xoxo, michaela
ps — sorry i’ve been so quiet this week — i was am sick, and slammed with pre-holiday gunk. blah, blah, blah.
“There are indeed reports Frusciante’s been replaced by Josh Klinghoffer....”
– Stereogum, 12/14/09
Newsflash: I’m old. Stereogum readers are like, teenagers. And possibly young enough to be my hypothetical children. The end.
xoxo, michaela
Apple Plots Reboot of iTunes for Web - WSJ.com... →
Follow-up to last week’s reporting on this from EJ.
I still maintain that in my experience “Exploring an overhaul” = “We bought this competitor to shut it down, but we’re going to pretend that we bought it so that its technology capabilities will augment our existing product offerings.”
I worry for Lala, because I love it so, and if anyone out there connected...
“Dance In The Dark”* from Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster has two additions to the tragic women icons to the pop music pantheon: Sylvia Plath and JonBenet Ramsey. Congratulations, please come over and join Marilyn, Princess Di and Judy at the candle in the wind. What do they talk about for eternity? Also, “Telephone” > “Video Phone.” (I’m not...
WatchFrom the Flagpole article about this unearthed Pylon video:
“Fresh off the DFA re-release of its legendary sophomore record CHOMP, Pylon has unearthed the original video for its single “Beep.” Shot by the band and their crew on Super-8 and VHS in the early ’80s, the video is a trippy a glimpse into the Chomp-era Pylon on the road.”
Is Taylor Swift Being Set Up For A Fall? - Taylor... →
This was brought to my attention (thanks, Shannon!), and there’s really only one thing I can say to all the feminist bloggers bashing Swift: this is not a marketing construct. She really is that wholesome. And the girls who love her, the disparaged teenage girls? Many, many, many of them are that wholesome, too. Taylor Swift (tm) is not an attack on feminism; she’s not enforcing the...
Nick Cave eBook App Wins Award - mediabistro.com:... →
Alas, no comment from Mr. Cave.
xoxo, michaela
Every time a navel-gazing stunt like this happens,... →
My least favorite comedian teams up with a producer that’s really just okay to make a jokey hip-hop mixtape. Can I cry now?
I blame Filter for this. Or Fader. One of those F magazines/PR companies.
—Lucas
Simon Reynolds's Notes on the noughties: The... →
Reynolds ponders the Pitchfork top albums of the decade and wonders What It All Means: namely, why is the top-10 made up of albums almost exclusively from the first half of the decade? He points to that same old bugaboo, the “increasingly fragmented audience internet blah blah blah” and turns it into a discussion about overproduction:
It’s tempting to compare noughties music to...
Adam Lambert Proves a Magnet for Controversy, if... →
Hey, guess what? THIS STILL ISN’T A STORY. Dear media: Stop trying to make it into one. Feh.
Related: so not looking forward to the inevitable chatter before/during/after his appearance on “The View” this week.
xoxo, Michaela
Powel Crosley
Relevant reblog — did you see that article in the Times about the vinyl explosion (yeah, they’re finally getting to that one)? Guess what brand turntables are about the easiest to come across for your average wannabe audiophile shopping at hipster retail (Target, Urban Outfitters, Fred Flare, Insound, et. al.)? Crosley, naturally. Powel Crosley’s legacy lives on. They should...
5 tags
Apple to acquire Lala: the end of cheap DRM-free... →
Money
Story by E.J. Friedman, Loudersoft
In our monopolistic world of online music, it seems bound to happen every time: just as another consumer-friendly strategy begins to take root, that strategy gets swallowed into oblivion through an acquisition. Such may be the confounding case of the little-known (except in circles such as ours, mind you) music retailer Lala, a company whose...
Electrical Audio • Thunderdome: Lady Gaga Vs.... →
Lady Gaga vs. Klaus Nomi in a cage match — who’d win? Best response so far has been from commenter lemur68:
She would deploy her Titty Sparklers to try and melt his plastic body, but he would use German Power to deflect it back on to her and then she would catch on fire and also melt. The end.
Though, because this is a forum almost completely full of straight men, it never occurs...
“A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a...”
– Got this classic correction via Kyle Ryan. Way to go, WaPo!
Usually I don’t give a crap about press releases, but when you get one stating that Peaches will be made an honorary member of the Harvard Lampoon, well. I mean, you can’t just ignore that one, can you?
The members of the Lampoon staff are huge admirers of her career, and will celebrate with her on December 7th at their Annual Canadian Synthpunk/Glam Rock Awards Dinner. The event...
I take it no one has anything particularly provocative to say about the Grammy nominations, then?
xoxo, michaela, who saw the kind of mindboggling sight of John Hodgman and Franklin Bruno chatting at the Mountain Goats show last night and was pretty sure that somewhere an angel was getting its wings, or something like that.
In search of Eva Tanguay, the first rock star →
IOW, the latest piece in Slate from Jody Rosen, one of those music journalists who does the profession very proud. I’ll admit a bit of personal bias since he and I have had chances to briefly chat over the years, most often at the EMP Pop Conference each April, and he’s never been less than friendly and thoughtful. His quality as a writer, however, is beyond any sort of bias,...
Popjustice: Ignition sequence start: Goldfrapp are... →
Oh, and while I’m thinking about it — if you write (or otherwise opine) about music, and you get to hear an advance track before the rest of us, the article linked above is a perfect example of the proper way to go about being an overexcited, blathering fanboy/girl about it. Thank you. [ETA: I’d also like to mention, for perhaps no one in the audience but myself, that...
Ok, I know I pick on NPR Music a lot — probably more than I should, really. But I nearly threw something at the wall listening to this segment about the new Spoon track, “Written in Reverse”. Since when did reporters for trusted media outlets become as intolerably inarticulate as dormroom-mouthbreather-albumleak bloggers? Oh wait, don’t answer that.
xoxo, michaela
My Hilarious Warner Bros. Royalty Statement →
I’ve had a chance to meet Tim Quirk of Too Much Joy a couple of times via the EMP Pop Conference, where he’s consistently been one of the sharper presenters thanks to his grasp of how the industry has changed over time from his perspective as both a bandmember and as a high level worker at Rhapsody. Also, he’s incredibly funny. Thus no surprise that this discussion of digital...
Meet Becca: A New HRO Blogger with a Female... →
After yesterday’s entry, as noted below, HRO completes the one-two punch. And sure this is increasingly inside baseball, but given that Maura was never shy of her love of baseball on old Idolator, it seems appropriate.
— Ned Raggett
WatchEurythmics, Love is a Stranger
Occasionally, we must all find time in our day to reflect on just how ridiculously awesome Annie Lennox once was. This video, which is now 26 years old, still looks like it could’ve been made yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I love Lady Gaga… but I bet Annie Lennox has forgotten more about pop music and the art of music video than Stefani Germanotta...
