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April 10, 2006
Shorties
The New York Sun reviews the new Built to Spill Album, You In Reverse (out tomorrow).
The Toronto Star examines "the new paradigm opened to market music," the internet.
I chatted with Mark Mothersbaugh of rock group Devo on the subject a few weeks ago. He contrasted our current cultural environment with that of the 1970s. Today's music catalogue is far more diverse than what was available to him in his youth. He says file sharing has helped music mature.
"When I was a kid I went to the record store and there was this one little bin with 30 records in it called `alternative,' " says Mothersbaugh. "Now that bin is gigantic. It's bigger than a record store — it's the whole Internet."
Popmatters interviews Ghostface Killah.
So what do you do? Do you go into the studio and just start rapping after hearing the tracks? What's the way you do it these days?
You know, I go to the crib, you know what I mean, and I put the box on, and put the CD in. You know what I mean, just right there. I don't write that much in the studio. I don't like to feel like I'm rushing. Sometimes with me, I'm a slow writer. I don't write as fast as everybody else.
Stylus examines the new millennium's #1 UK singles.
The San Diego Union-Tribune explores the future of the album with musicians and industry experts.
Morrissey's Ringleader of the Tormenters is the #1 album in the UK.
Laliberte, originally a fire-breathing street performer, said that the Beatles "did with words what we do with images". In the theatre he wanted to mix the magic of his acrobats with the "spirit and passion" of the band to create a "single statement of delight".
The Brooklyn Rail interviews French novelist Phillippe Forest.
The Independent profiles "Bob the millionaire media player" Geldof.
Popmatters shops in Beijing's pirate CD stores.
The beginner will freak out over the chaos of unalphabetized collections and the genrefication techniques employed (or, more often than not, not employed), but the experienced CD buyer learns to abandon the desire to find something in particular, and leaves himself open to the Zen of "just looking" (which, in a sickening twist, is the call of the thousands of stall-keepers at the markets of Beijing trying to lure non-Chinese into buying the piles and piles of worthless crap on sale: "DJAH-SI-TA LOO-KING!!" they yell, confident that this is the magic spell that will cast the desire to buy over the multi-millionaire foreigners — all foreigners, after all, are rich — that wander through the city's markets).
The Wall Street Journal examines online CD swapping services.
McGriddle fan fiction is just wrong on so many levels.
