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December 28, 2006
Shorties
Popmatters lists "The Top Ten Films of 2006 That You’ve Never Heard Of."
Singer-songwriter Langhorne Slim talks to goTriad.
"I tend to write love songs no matter what I'm going through," Slim says. "A lot of people maybe write their love songs while they're feeling kind of heartbroken or sad, but I'm just depressed during those times and don't do much of anything."
The Toronto Sun lists the year's best quotes from its musician interviews.
"I don't feel like wearing eyeliner right now. I've been thinking about having kids soon. And, you know, my dad didn't wear eyeliner."
-- The Killers' Brandon Flowers explains his move away from eyeliner, and into western outfits (Oct. 21)
Toronto's NOW lists the "books that bombed" and "literary losers" of 2006.
The Globe and Mail reviews the year in music.
CHUD lists the year's best documentary films.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal lists the year's outstanding children's books, and the Elmira Star-Gazette lists the notable comics. Toronto's NOW takes a broader approach and lists the best books. Me and My Big Mouth lists the best fiction.
Bootie is offering a downloadable "Best of Bootie 2006" collection of the years best mashups.
In possibly my favorite episode of the year from my favorite literary podcast, the Bat Segundo Show interviews author Claire Messud about her acclaimed novel, The Emperor's Children.
LAist lists LA's top ten disappearing acts in 2006, and includes two indie record stores.
2. Aron’s Records and Rhino Records: Both independent record stores announced their shutdowns within a month of each other. My CD collection is stocked with countless gems I managed to find at Aron’s and Rhino’s parking lot sales through the years. Big box retail stores, the Internet and indie powerhouse Amoeba were too much for both institutions, and after decades serving music lovers, both called it quits.
At LA Weekly, all Kate Sullivan wants for Christmas is a new music industry, and she has a plan...
AS ALL-BEING MASTER of Rock and the Universe (AB Master), with unlimited power to reshape the music world, my actions will be swift, sure and brutal.
It may seem cruel and undemocratic, but the first thing I’ll do as AB Master is eliminate 55 percent of all new music currently available (including music on major labels, indies and homemade demos thrown up on MySpace).
I will not force anyone to actually quit making music, recording or playing live. I will merely forbid them from putting it out in accessible, recorded form.
The reason is plain. There are simply too many records being released these days. All of us who love music are overwhelmed by the quantity — and underwhelmed by the quality — of records today.
In the Stranger, members of the Seattle music community list the mistakes they made in 2006.
We, Three Imaginary Girls, regret that we decided to derive our name from the Cure album Three Imaginary Boys. We totally should have chosen Pornography. Our site certainly would have received way more hits, and just think of the T-shirts we could have made! "Your Imaginary friends covering the Seattle music scene," pshaw! We were naive. We now know that pornography rules.
Seattle Weekly recaps the year in music file-sharing.
Since file sharing is permanent enough now that you can buy $19-per-year lawsuit insurance, it's time to acknowledge the bright side. Out-of-print doesn't mean anything anymore. If you can learn about it, you can listen to it, and if the record company doesn't want to reissue it, you can probably find it without even having to stand up. The romance is gone but the music is cheap, accessible, and instant—that's the music industry of the future, brought to you now by Russian MP3 pirates, obsessive genre bloggers, and criminals selling albums off a blanket on the street.
LA Weekly's Psychic Hipster examines the state of music blogging in 2006.
For this we accepted the death of print? When people complain about the power of the blogosphere, I think this is what they’re referring to: a cabal of thought-leaders whose dull, lockstep judgments are now inescapably influential in underground music.
At the Intergalactic Medicine Show, Caroline Pinchefsky examines why people don't read science fiction.
Despite overwhelming evidence that science fiction is a genre of mature ideas and intelligent writing, mainstream society still holds that speculative fiction is for 12-year-olds with overactive imaginations, something that readers grow out of over time. "Nerd cool" and the fortunes of Bill Gates have not reworked that image.
The Harry Crews online bibliography is exhaustively wonderful resource for the author's works.
see also:
Largehearted Boy's favorite albums of 2006
2006 Year-end Music List Compilation
Largehearted 2006 Holiday Gift Guide
this week's CD & DVD releases
