I am 27, I am gay, I live in New York City, and I've a sneaking fondness for dinosaurs.
I HAVE TO HAVE THIS. That “Viva La Vida” cover is exceptional; like all the best PSB covers it makes you wonder how any other band could possibly have written a song that was so obviously meant to be a Pet Shop Boys song.
I started my Christmas list today!!!
Yes, please!
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Reblogging this one just to add the “If I Won The Lottery…” tag.
…I’d get on Amazon MP3 and iTunes and purchase every single song that had ever been a Billboard Top 100 #1 hit. Just because. And if it was out of print or unavailable for download, I’d start hitting up EIL.
Weezer with Kenny G
“I’m Your Daddy”
AOL Session 2009
Rivers Cuomo has Lil Wayne guest on his record, jams live in session with Kenny G, and is selling his new album as a bonus gift with a Weezer-branded Snuggie. He exists in a continuum of irony and non-irony so hilarious and confusing that if he’s not the new Andy Warhol, he’s at least rock’s answer to Jeff Koons.
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You guys, this is kind of sublime. I hope it’s the single version.
Bat Forest Lashes (Bat For Lashes: Daniel vs The Cure: A Forest)
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Kind of kicking myself for not hearing the similarities between these two earlier.
Shakira - “Did It Again”
SHAKIRA WINS AGAIN. This video is awesome. Also, I kinda love this album. It’s another one I’ve rearranged the sequencing of, but otherwise, totally enjoyable.
(Thx Idolator)
God, fans of outrageous hairdos and hands-on-faces are soooo predictable.
Holy shit, this is actually pretty much the perfect Janet Jackson best-of tracklisting. Now they just need to make sure they don’t dick up the mastering like they did on Madonna’s CELEBRATION. Yes, I am perversely fascinated by best-ofs.
No. 44: Aaron Carter, “America A O” « Idolator: Music News, Reviews, And Gossip
Uh, you should be reading Idolator’s “Worst Of The ’00s” feature.
ATTENTION MUSIC CONSUMERS: It has come to my attention that a new version of Annie’s album DON’T STOP has begun circulating on the Internet in advance of its long-delayed physical release date. Unfortunately, it seems that there was once again a miscommunication at corporate headquarters or an error at the pressing plant, as the album still sucks, despite the fact that Annie did in fact record an awesome twelve-song album over the course of the last couple of years.
The obviously correct tracklisting for this album is as follows; everybody please revise their iTunes playlists accordingly.
Thank you for your patience during this confusing time.
Seriously though, the new version of DON’T STOP has all the wrong songs on it, even though all three of the added new songs are quite good. It’s unconscionable that “I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me” has been dropped, obviously, among other things. I’ve deleted five songs from the various DON’T STOP sessions — “Loco,” “Sweet,” “Bad Times,” “Heaven And Hell,” and “Marie Cherie” — from this tracklist. Most of those songs are fine, but they lack hooks or clear purposes — some are just exercises in sound/style, some are just repetitive or wear out their welcome, and some are just a mismatch of style and performer. If you really like one or two of them, feel free to sub them into the above tracklist where “The Breakfast Song” and/or “When The Night” currently reside, but I wouldn’t recommend dicking around with it too much past that. I know “Loco” and “Sweet” have their partisans, but I just feel like the Xenomania sound doesn’t really suit Annie, with the exception of “My Love Is Better.” Maybe that’s just me. And sorry, Matthew, but “Heaven And Hell” is just grating. I’m all for Annie doing something girl group-y but that song is just formless and shrill.
Basically this record has turned into the 69 LOVE SONGS of Northern European Internet-era pop: An excuse for everybody to get all A&R-y together, with all of us arriving at a different place but an identical level of satisfaction.
Speaking at a Q&A session on Saturday (October 10) at Bristol Borders, where he was promoting his first book ‘The Haçienda: How Not To Run A Club’, Hook said he was never a fan of his rivals.
“There’s no way I could have liked The Smiths as they were our competition,” he declared, “Morrissey’s a twat anyway! He makes Mark E Smith look popular! He really does.”
He went on to joke about his rival’s approach to legal issues.
He said: “What I do love about Mozzer though, is that any time anyone has any legal problem with him, the only person you can speak to about [it] is his mother! That’s true. So if you have a problem you have to deal with Morrissey’s mother. And the first thing she says is, ‘Our Steven wouldn’t do that!’.”
„ Peter Hook calls Morrissey a ‘twat’ | News | NME.COM
Front row center at Gavin Friday at Carnegie Hall. Amazing.
In honor of the final Pitchfork list going up today, I’ve opted to post my own 20 favorite records of the decade. They’re hilariously subjective, and instead of writing up some pretentious twaddle about their aesthetic qualities, I’ve instead chosen to write a pretentious single sentence that evokes, for me and most likely only me, what is it about the album in question that made it such a huge part of my life in this decade.
And speaking of my musical life in this decade: There’s no point in writing a post about music in this decade without acknowledging the debt I owe to one of the greater guys I’ve ever met, Mr. Matthew Perpetua, for all the amazing music and all-around good times he’s brought my way. Thank you for everything, man.
01. Robyn - ROBYN
The sound of my heart exploding every time she sings “I just miss you — that’s all.”
02. Andrew WK - I GET WET
The sound of my heart exploding every time he sings “IIIIIIII GEEEEEET WEEEEEEET.”
03. Scissor Sisters - SCISSOR SISTERS
Losing tickets to one of their early NYC shows in my first big breakup.
04. LCD Soundsystem - SOUND OF SILVER
Someone great was, in fact, gone.
05. Twilight Singers - BLACKBERRY BELLE
The keyboards in “Teenage Wristband” at sunset.
06. M.I.A. - KALA
Stomping my feet to “Boyz” on a gay Williamsburg dancefloor living a total hipster Summer of 2007.
07. Underworld - EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING
A quasi-religious, drug-free experience in my freshman dormroom listening to “Rez” and thinking about THE INVISIBLES.
08. Blur - THINK TANK
Walking along the South Bank on my last night in London in the twilight. Out of time.
09. Kylie Minogue - LIGHT YEARS
Unwrapping it on the subway home from Virgin Times Square, thinking “What if someone sees me with this and can tell that I’m gay?” — and realizing, probably for the first time, that that would be a good thing.
10. Pet Shop Boys - DISCO 3
London teaching me how to truly love the Pet Shop Boys.
11. Cave, Nick & The Bad Seeds - ABBATOIR BLUES / THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS
I can’t lie, this one doesn’t have a “moment”: it’s just the culmination of my love for Nick Cave. Quite frankly it’s all been downhill from here, awesome mustache notwithstanding.
12. The Knife - SILENT SHOUT
Singing on the Pulaski Bridge, no one around, the dead of night.
13. M.I.A. - ARULAR
It’s shallow, but it’s true: that feeling that you were hearing something truly incredible, long before anybody else. Packed in at the Knitting Factory, first New York show, tiny little stage, jumping up and down so hard to “Galang” I could touch the ceiling.
14. Goldfrapp - SUPERNATURE
Dancing my ass off to “Ooh La La” in the basement of a Lower East Side bar.
15. Arcade Fire - NEON BIBLE
My heart exploding every time “No Cars Go” roars to its climax.
16. Annie - ANNIEMAL
Listening to “Heartbeat,” thinking about the ones that got away.
17. Richard X - PRESENTS HIS X-FACTOR VOL. 1
Wishing for a world where the radio sounds like this.
18. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - SHAKE THE SHEETS
Fuck George W. Bush.
19. Nine Inch Nails - THE SLIP
Needing discipline.
20. U2 - ALL THAT YOU CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND
In the pit of the first show in Miami, surrounded by my friends, the lights dropping during “Elevation,” feeling the kind of fanboy love for a band that I’ve since lost and might never have again.
Honorable Mentions:
There were lots of other records I loved in some way or another that aren’t on this list, but these were standouts.
Amerie - BECAUSE I LOVE IT
Alphabeat - ALPHABEAT
Bat For Lashes - TWO SUNS
Basement Jaxx - ROOTY
Basement Jaxx - KISH KASH
Beyonce - B’DAY
David Bowie - HEATHEN
Cave, Nick & The Bad Seeds - NO MORE SHALL WE PART
Depeche Mode - EXCITER
Siobhan Donaghy - GHOSTS
Doves - LOST SOULS
Elbow - CAST OF THOUSANDS
Franz Ferdinand - FRANZ FERDINAND
Girls Aloud - WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBOURS SAY?
PJ Harvey - STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM THE SEA
HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH (Soundtrack)
Jay-Z - THE BLUEPRINT
The Killers - HOT FUSS
The Knife - DEEP CUTS
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - HEARTS OF OAK
Magnetic Fields - I
Kylie Minogue - FEVER
Kylie Minogue - BODY LANGUAGE
Morrissey - YOU ARE THE QUARRY
My Chemical Romance - THE BLACK PARADE (Yes, really)
New Order - GET READY
Nine Inch Nails - WITH TEETH
Of Montreal - HISSING FAUNA, ARE YOU THE DESTROYER?
Outkast - SPEAKERBOXXX / THE LOVE BELOW
Pipettes - WE ARE THE PIPETTES
Prince - 3121
Pulp - WE LOVE LIFE
Queens Of The Stone Age - RATED R
Radiohead - KID A
Radiohead - AMNESIAC
Radiohead - HAIL TO THE THIEF
Radiohead - IN RAINBOWS
Rapture - PIECES OF THE PEOPLE WE LOVE
Raveonettes - CHAIN GANG OF LOVE
R.E.M. - ACCELERATE
Scissor Sisters - TA-DAH
Solange - SOL-ANGEL AND THE HADLEY ST. DREAMS
Spoon - GIMME FICTION
Rachel Stevens - COME AND GET IT
Twilight Singers - TWILIGHT AS PLAYED BY THE TWILIGHT SINGERS
Twilight Singers - POWDER BURNS
Underworld - A HUNDRED DAYS OFF
U2 - HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC BOMB (Yes, really)
Weezer - WEEZER (2001)
White Stripes - WHITE BLOOD CELLS
White Stripes - ELEPHANT
Andrew WK - THE WOLF
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - YEAH YEAH YEAHS EP
Yelle- POP-UP
I need to thank Idolator commenter Will Hackney for helping me to articulate exactly what it is that Lady Gaga is doing, and why I love her. His comment on Idolator earlier this morning:
“I guess it just seems like all of the crazy stuff Gaga does is completely random, almost thoughtless. I don’t think there’s a method to the madness.”
Lady Gaga’s aesthetic project is to act out celebrity as a form of total impulse-control loss. Her entire raison d’etre is to do literally whatever pops into her head, no matter how ridiculous it is, in front of as many people as possible. She’s acting out the essence of what celebrity has boiled down to: unbridled self-interest with the expectation of a smiling audience who will reward you for it. And is she doing that unironically? HELL TO THE NO. She is 100% aware of how she is embodying current conceptions of what a famous person is or does; she’s just blowing them out to a literally absurd extreme. You show your p***y getting out of a limo? I’m going to get stage blood in my eyeball. You date a dirtbag? I date Kermit The Frog.
The reason Gaga pisses so many people off was best articulated by Morrissey: “You just haven’t earned it yet, baby.” Most people think that it takes a mountain of long-accumulated artistic credibility to be given the permission to act this crazy in public: Salvador Dali walking his anteater, for example, or in the music world, Madonna, who has a legacy of stone-cold classic pop hits. Gaga has four singles, and they’re pretty frothy if entertaining, so most people think she doesn’t have the right to be this baroque. But to those people I say: look around you! How many people in the lens of fame (or should I say The Fame) right now have any right to be there? 5%? 10%? But Gaga’s performance takes it as a given that there are no barriers to entry to celebrity: Act famous, be famous.
Lady Gaga isn’t just another symptom of the problem: she is a piece of art about the problem.
