January 2012
221 posts
Marc Hogan on SOPA →
Merge co-founder and Superchunk bass player Laura Ballance said she would also like to see piracy addressed, though she acknowledged she doesn’t know exactly how. “Piracy especially hurts our smaller artists,” Ballance observed in an email. “The small releases that used to sell 3,000 copies are now selling less than 1,000. It makes releasing these records not fiscally...
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Talking to a musician on Twitter about piracy
There is no moral defense against piracy. I am certainly not going to argue that. (And did not in this conversation.) But then we talked about Spotify. Musicians, like film studios, seem to have trouble understanding the consumer perspective: Netflix is preferable on almost every level to 1) going to the movies weekly 2) owning dozens of DVDs 3) renting them a la carte from Blockbuster. For the...
I'm not going to read the New Yorker Lana Del Rey...
I’m just not. I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing for everyone involved, Lana especially. It’s like a really awful Season 5 episode of The Office.
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"The Captains"
This was really wonderful: William Shatner interviews everyone who’s ever played a captain on a Star Trek project. It’s basically a gushing love letter to everyone involved (and they’re more eccentric than you might imagine) done with total charm and a reasonable amount of indulgence. There are a pair of scenes, at a Trek convention when we meet a boy trapped in a wheelchair,...
T Magazine's Model-Morphosis column →
Posting less for the models and more for the really cool photo-comparison tech, which I’ve never seen before.
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I did a feature on All-American Rejects for... →
It came out well, I think.
quarterbacks asked: HELLO DAVID GREENWALD I REALLY LIKE YOUR INTERNET CONTENT /// WE JUST RELEASED SOME MEGABYTES OURSELVES /// QUARTERBACKS SORT OF SOUNDS LIKE GO SAILOR IF ROSE MELBERG LET THE BASSIST SING ON MORE THAN ONE SONG [THANKFULLY SHE DID NOT] /// WE ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO GETTING SIGNED BUT WE RECORDED OUR DEMO ON A FOUR TRACK SO I THINK WE SHOULD BE FAMOUS PRETTY SOON... OKAY +++ DEAN
Take “Liberal Arts”, an appropriately languid tribute to mapless post-graduate ennui: “So you found the lock/ But not the key that college brings/ And all the trouble of your B.A. in English literature/ Instead of law, or something more practical,” Papini wryly surmises over a tamped-down electric riff and shuffly drums, showing her hand as the most promising recent...
Alec Baldwin has reminded me about the Dave Matthews solo album, which actually sounds pretty great today!
Moore's law (of hype)
jamiesoncox:
The number of thinkpieces that can be written on a buzzed-about band doubles approximately every two years.
I miss the Best Coast era (which I hated! But now I love her! They call that a “Reverse Klosterman.”)
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In totally unrelated news, I'm interviewing Train...
Send questions!
At least they're handsome →
barelyeducated replied to your link: This hilarious Time.com article about a broke “indie” band that’s spent $100k
The funniest part is that like $70,000 of their expenses are varieties of “Stuff our rich parents bought us that countless successful musicians have gotten started without, but we wanted.” You can’t complain about the cost of stuff you didn’t buy!
I look forward to...
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This hilarious Time.com article about a broke... →
Best parts: an “indie” band going after airplay on “major radio stations”; getting “good reviews” from the “indie press,” the indie press being the Deli; the crushing revelation that going backstage doesn’t mean champagne and caviar; taking voice lessons (do that shit on YouTube, guys); $25,000 in musical instruments, or more than any Sub Pop...
Aw, man, there are so many mean comments about...
Where irony ends and horrific hipster misogyny begins
At what point does Carles’ superficial perpetuation of hate outweigh the impact of its underlying satire? Or are we well past that?
Related
I think I love this Kelly Rowland album
I have no idea what’s happening to me
Was listening to a Skrillex recording (for the first time!) for research just now and realized the YouTube video had nearly 60 million views. Holler at you later, indie rock.
Related: there are virtually no rock songs in the top 100 YouTube music videos this week. Skrillex has two tracks. Avicii, a house producer of adequate merit, has one. (Beyonce and Lady Gaga and Adele and Rihanna have a...
When your Google Alert includes an obituary →
GREENWALD—David, age 87, of Bayside, NY, beloved husband of the late Annette, devoted father of Janet Lassaw (Michael) and Leonard Greenwald, adored grandfather of Casey and Jake Lassaw and loving brother and uncle. Services will be 11am Sunday at Louis Suburban Chapel 13-01 Broadway, Route 4 West, Fair Lawn, NJ.
The crippling embarrassment of finding your Bar...
It’s been a weird day
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Fleet Foxes' 2008 World Cafe session →
“Blue Ridge Mountains” sounds about as good as a song can be.
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Wrote about Azealia Banks for MTV →
Spoiler alert: I’m in love.
This really great Kelly Rowland song →
Recommended if you wish the Weeknd sounded less rape-y. Synthesizers!
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Pitchfork's Nada Surf review →
I think this weirdly mischaracterizes the band based on the press bio:
Noting that they’ve “always played faster and a little harder live,” frontman Matthew Caws and crew set out to capture the raw, excited feel of a practice-room jam session with seventh album The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, the followup to the 2010’s If I Had a Hi-Fi.
This may well be, but...
The Hospitality album is on Spotify →
I’ve been listening to it every day. I don’t really know why I would ever stop.
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I suppose any article that gets Carles into the... →
Guess who it’s about
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A kid I was a camp counselor for who notably performed Green Day’s “Time of Your Life” with me at a campfire talent show thing has now grown up, found me on Facebook and plays drums in an emo band. He has those plug earrings but not a swoopy haircut, at least. He was such an adorable little munchkin!
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"Star Wars Uncut" →
This is just the coolest, most celebratory thing
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http://www.soundsupp.ly/ →
I’m intrigued by this. The price is low enough that people might actually pay it to gamble on some new bands. But the price is also low enough that this feels more like another “innovative” startup skimming more band money off the top. Can’t decide if 10 albums at a time feels easier to handle than one album a day.
maura:
“Per the Eliot Glazer ref, what does “the polarizing indie hipstress brought her ‘gangsta Nancy Sinatra’ swagu” mean? Is ‘swagu’ a recognized word? Should we clarify it so that the reader can make sense of it?”
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CAN SOMEONE GET KANYE ON THE LINE HERE?
The worst Yeezy crime of 2011
Surely mass-market pasta sauce was not the image he was looking for there
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Apple said it earned $13.1 billion in its first fiscal quarter as revenue climbed 73 percent to $46.3 billion. On a per-share basis, the company crushed estimates of $10.08 by bringing in $13.87.
Surely this is enough money to pay Chinese workers a living wage and also cure cancer.
"I guess that **** getting eaten"
Whoa, Azealia Banks! Why is she not on every magazine cover?
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Paul McCartney's "Coming Up"
Is this Macca’s Talking Heads homage? Is McCartney II a secret New Wave classic? Did I just force myself to listen all the way through McCartney for the first time?
@ernesthemingway hasn’t tweeted yet.
And then, 13 years later, he suddenly had no idea where to pirate the Lana Del Rey album
If we learn Spotify has a million-dollar D.C. lobbying committee, it will not surprise me one bit
singinginthewire replied to your link: Klosterman on Tune-Yards
So ending up like Cat Power is the good option?
Moon Pix is nothing to fuck with.
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Klosterman on Tune-Yards →
She could end up like James Murphy or Cat Power. But it’s just as possible — in fact, more possible — that this will not happen. She will probably just make a bunch more albums of varying quality, none of which will get the collective adoration of w h o k i l l. And then Garbus will end up with this bizarre 40-year-old life, where her singular claim to fame will be future people saying...
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marathonpacks:
“There is an issue with some aspiring musicians, the ones who continue long into adulthood without steady employment dreaming of a career if only they can expose enough people to their music. I suspect these are the musicians you are referring to in your question. I like to call this ‘friend rock’. Their audiences are friends the band has asked to come, not people who have...
By the way
I’m still running a digital record club! People haven’t abandoned it like rats from a sinking ship! (Yet.) You can read up and sign up here.
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pitchforkreviewsreviews:
bit.ly/wC3h1C
I hope his drug test works out.
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In praise of Pitchfork
It’s come to my attention that some corners are still under the impression that I’m anti-Pitchfork. I’d like to clarify: I find the site as useful and worthwhile now as it’s been in nearly a decade. The news feels reasonably objective, the stable of reviewers includes a number of talented writers, and the columns and interviews are often great. The video content, which is...
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And my review of First Aid Kit's "The Lion's Roar"... →
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My A.V. Club review of Nada Surf's new album, "The... →
I like it (and more than the last one), but I wish they’d stretch more.
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Dispatches from the freelance world
I have two reviews running tomorrow which I’ll be paid actual American dollars for, which I think is a first (or a second, if you count that issue of Entertainment Weekly I wrote three blurbs for during that summer internship). More fun stuff in the pipe in the next couple weeks, too. Feeling very grateful to have work and encouraging editors and readers who like me enough to keep...
A great A.V. Club column on seeing the bands you... →
That singer/band/rapper/DJ you love so much now might go from strength to strength year after year. On the other hand, they might move on. Or the inspiration might fade. This might be the moment to see them before it all goes south.
I will forever treasure seeing the National’s hungry, incredible Alligator tour, Sufjan Stevens’ 2004 ATP show in the Queen Mary, Elliott Smith’s...
The Cloud Nothings album
ARMS album aside, this is probably the first Rock Album in years — since the last Spoon album, maybe? Since Harlem Shakes? — that feels Important.
It’s a good feeling.
I should post the home demo I did a few years back that sounds like a (much less good) “Stay Useless.” At the time, I thought I was imitating Ted Leo.