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May 10, 2006
Shorties
Giant Drag's Annie Hardy talks to Boston's Weekly Dig.
Aside from her brief dalliance with the Beatles catalogue, Hardy never really had time for emulation. “I never knew how to rip people off, which maybe benefited me. I know people in bands that can do that really well. It's like, ‘Wow, you sound just like that!’ I found a tape of some songs of the first songs I wrote recently, and I almost sound the same.”
Beirut's "Postcards From Italy" makes the Washington Post's "singles file" this week.
The New York Observer examines authors who love soap operas.
Popmatters reviews one of my favorite books of last year, Charles Burns' graphic novel, Black Hole.
Stylus reconsiders the final Afghan Whigs album, 1965.
Like an unrepentant fallen angel, Dulli trots out failure after failure. Dank R&B-infected rock struts and frets its last hour in the Afghan Whigs shell. Years after its germination date, and countless moons since anyone but the already converted praised it, the tone of the band on 1965 finally strikes the pop heartstring.
Brian Eno and David Byrne are making available all the mutitracks from two of the songs on their recently reissued album, My Life in the Bish of Ghosts for remixes. The album's website is hosting the resulting fan remixes.
On the MP3.com podcast, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs discuss four albums that have influenced their sound.
Jody Rosen discusses rockism and "poptism" for Slate.
The poptimist critique of rockism squares with my sense of musical history and resonates with my taste. I love hip-hop and commercial R&B and Nashville country and teen pop, and have spent much of my professional life listening to and writing about pre-rock Tin Pan Alley pop, a genre that rockists insult by ignoring completely. I'm not so crazy about most indie rock, never cared much for Neil Young, and will listen to the new Pearl Jam album only out of a sense of professional obligation. I think Britney Spears' "Toxic" is one of the greatest songs of the new century, that the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" was one of the great ones of the last, and that R. Kelly's "Ignition (Remix)" is as transcendent as any Holland-Dozier-Holland Motown classic I've ever heard—and what's more, most other critics I know agree.
MC Atzilut responds to the article.
The Onion A.V. Club lists ten actors who should be in every movie.
IGN lists the top 14 "rock opera/concept albums of all time."
"We decided to go into the studio, but we didn't really have any songs," Holm said. "We took two weeks to write two or three songs, and then we'd record them, and we did that over and over again. Some of the songs we never actually played together. We'd write them in the control room and put together bits and pieces."
The Onion A.V. Club interviews singer-songwriter Neko Case.
The A.V. Club: It seems this record is getting a really big publicity push.
Neko Case: Anti- is a much bigger label than any I've ever been on, and they're all really behind the record, and they've been great. I'm very surprised by their enthusiasm, which sounds like an insult, but really it's kind of heartwarming.
Also interviewed by the AVC this week is singer-songwriter and Red House painter Mark Kozelek.
AVC: Are you worried that you're going to start getting pigeonholed as "the covers guy"?
MK: Well, you know, on my tombstone, I'd rather it said, "He was a great songwriter" than "He was a great song interpreter." [Laughs.] But I'm fine if people say that. There's a certain element of truth to it. Like many musicians, it's my roots in music, playing cover songs. Red House Painters were doing cover songs before our first record deal. I remember live shows where we did an AC/DC song; I think we did "Send In The Clowns" by Judy Collins. We did "The Star Spangled Banner," which came out on our third record.
LAist lists their top 5 new CD releases.
The AskMetafilter community offers "laugh out loud-funny classic lit" suggestions.
