January 2011
December 2010
Permanent Records Deal of the Day | Groupon New... →
Here’s a great deal at my favorite record shop in New York City. (I still have a lot of love for Other Music, for what it’s worth.)
“I was looking at a new apartment today and the guy who met me there had on a...”
– Some intel from a friend in Los Angeles. (There’s still a few available, btw.)
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At the End of the World with Gauntlet Hair →
This is a story I wrote for the Awl as part of their The End of the World series of pieces in which it is assumed that the world will end in 2012. This piece is written from the future, around this time next year perhaps. It is in some ways a sequel to the year-end story I wrote for the Awl last year, The Ballad of That Guy From Titus Andronicus. I am happy with how it turned out, and I hope that...
hannahmight:
My brother recorded an absolutely...
WatchJames Blake “The Wilhelm Scream” Live in London, 12/16/2010 Like a lot of people, I’ve fallen hard for this forthcoming James Blake album. This live performance is a bit awkward — apparently this is from only the second concert of his career! — but it’s still quite beautiful. This song is just astonishing.
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“Look, life is unfair. Nietzsche died alone and forgotten in an insane asylum....”
– Rob Sheffield on Kanye West in his Top Ten Albums of the Year Rob makes other good points about other good albums, including a funny observation about Taylor Swift being similar to Morrissey, but I think this bit is the most sharp and true.
“The hardest thing to do in music is create your own sound, innovate, and still...”
– Andy McCluskey from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark on why Robyn is “the best music artist in the world right now” in Pitchfork’s Guest List: Best of 2010. That’s just an excerpt, he says much more!
“Hell Of A Life” is a bizarro inversion of the hundreds of “we love these hoes”...”
– Kanye West Week: “Hell Of A Life” at No Trivia
In this very sharp essay, Brandon Soderberg dissects the most lyrically fascinating song on Kanye’s new album. I had intended to pick at this song myself down the line, but I think Brandon has done a much better job of it than I would have....
Sleigh Bells, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, and the... →
More on Sleigh Bells. This is basically Sean T. Collins making an argument against Tom Ewing’s case in his Pitchfork Top 20 albums of 2010 blurb for Treats that the band is a sort of teenpop act. I think Sean makes a lot of great points in this, though I want to point out that Tom is talking about teenpop as a genre as opposed to something very literal, ie, music that actual teens enjoy in...
thebusstop asked: Is Transference really not one of the top 70 albums of the year? Or is Pitchfork's list just supporting your recent hypothesis that Spoon's consistent brilliance is causing public indifference to the band's work?
thebusstop asked: Is Transference really not one of the top 70 albums of the year? Or is Pitchfork's list just supporting your recent hypothesis that Spoon's consistent brilliance is causing public indifference to the band's work?
““Fiya”, however, a song in part about the difficulty of desire when...”
– Pitchfork: Resonant Frequency: Resonant Frequency #66
I didn’t catch this essay by Mark Richardson comparing Tune-Yards’ “Fiya” and Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” until just now, but it is easily one of my favorite pieces of music criticism that I have...
Mark Richardson on How Soundgarden's "My Wave"... →
It’s a pretty amazing and moving story and not at all what you probably expect.
Two Things I Dislike In Music Writing
I’m not calling out anyone in specific here, but I do not like when a critic feels compelled to change their voice/writing style to discuss a genre of music. Most commonly, this applies to when critics write about rap, but you get it with more academic-leaning genres like art music, modern classical, and jazz. It’s totally fair and appropriate to use terminology specific to the music,...
The 20 Worst Songs of 2010, #6: Salem, "Trap Door" →
Every word of this is hilarious and ruthlessly on-point. This is why I am proud to say that Christopher Weingarten is my friend, and why I am so glad that we’ve got someone this good out there on the front lines calling bullshit on this terrible music.
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OkCupid | Gozalo / 23 / M / Saint Louis, Missouri →
I was Googling for something from my Tumblr archives because the Tumblr search function is basically useless and found this OK Cupid profile in which I am listed along with some seriously amazing company — Nitsuh Abebe, Ta-Nehesi Coates, Sady Doyle, Andrew Sullivan, etc, and that’s before getting to the generalized sites section — in this guy’s favorite blogs. Anyway, I am...
Our Lady Peace Look Back at 'Spiritual Machines' a... →
This article on Pop Matters is very intense and unexpected. You might find yourself laughing at it. For one thing, it seems like it comes from a parallel universe in which Our Lady Peace have the career trajectory of Radiohead. It is written so straight that you could read it as a deadpan parody of reverential, nostalgic music journalism. But it’s so earnest, so totally committed, and I...
“Right now, the public is our only criterion: You can aim for a small public, a...”
– John Lennon on ambition and art school. This is taken from the final interview conducted with Lennon on December 5th, 1980, three nights before he was murdered. It was only just now published in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone.
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WatchThis is my favorite thing that has been on Saturday Night Live in a while. I love how silly it is, I love how much the singer sounds like Dolly, I love how it’s so clear that the genesis of this joke comes from someone not remembering any of the lyrics to “9 to 5” aside from the first line, I love the three different kinds of bears. Also, this is clearly the best thing to happen...
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“After a crucifixion, an ascension: as discussed on the Lollards Of Pop, “Vogue”...”
– Ahhhh! Tom Ewing has arrived at Madonna’s “Vogue” on Popular! There is plenty more great stuff on this song aside from this quoted bit, please go read! If you didn’t know, Popular is a project by Tom Ewing in which he writes about every #1 single in the UK pop charts in...
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openapplev asked: Following up on the Arrested Development talk: Which of today's bands with that level of acclaim will have disappeared by 2030?
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bg5000 asked: Why do you think 3 Years, 2 Months . . . fell so far out of favor? Is it because Zingalamaduni was so poorly received, because it seems dated in all the bad ways, or some other reason?
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“This is my new fave band of ’92 (so far). Reminiscent of The Daisy Peoples. [?]...”
– Review Revue: Arrested Development ‒ 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of…
These are comments left on a college radio station copy of the first Arrested Development album. It was a really big deal back then, it spawned three big hits, and it won the Pazz and Jop poll in 1992, which...