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05 Nov 2009 09:34

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Music: Can they work it out? EMI sues some site selling the Beatles online

  • Some Web site you’ve never heard of, BlueBeat.com, starts selling Beatles songs for a quarter a piece based on a strange bastardization of copyright law. source
  • The rights holders, EMI, are just like, “nuh uh,” and sued the company. You know, EMI, if you put the Beatles catalogue on iTunes, it could be awesome. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2009 09:06

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Music: Carl Sagan is so cool Jack White covers his hit records

  • Jack White is releasing a cover of “A Glorious Dawn,” a Carl Sagan-meets-autotune-meets-mashup ditty (featuring special guest Stephen Hawking), which is kind of like “Autotune the News” for famous scientists. What’s crazy is that it’s a full-featured pop song with multiple choruses. And now White’s covering it and releasing it as a 7″ vinyl record. Neat. (Note how we completely ignored the other news at the link. There’s a reason for that.)source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

02 Nov 2009 11:39

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Music: We love The Weakerthans. And we hear the singer has a new solo EP.

John K. Samson
  • If we had to create an all-star team of indie rock singer-songwriters, John K. Samson would be playing shortstop. The Weakerthans singer, responsible for one of our favorite albums ever, has a new EP, “City Route 85,” coming out tomorrow. It’s the first in a series analyzing some of the Winnepeg-based singer’s hometown thoroughfares. Awesome.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Nov 2009 11:23

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Music: It’s November. And it’s raining in D.C. Time to pull out this gem.

  • WHEN I LOOK INTO YOUR EYES I CAN FEEL A LOVE RESTRAINED. AND DARLING WHEN I HOLD YOU, DON’T YOU KNOW I FEEL THE SAME. This song is our November 1st jam.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Nov 2009 11:18

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Music: That giddy sound you hear is us freaking out about Spoon

The decade’s most consistently awesome band has another likely solid album, “Transference,” coming out in January. Get ready to swoon over Britt Daniel again. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

31 Oct 2009 16:52

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Music: Our Saturday Mixtape’s decade-in-review lands in 2005

  • 1. Between this and The Walkmen’s “The Rat,” you have two of the three best songs of the decade right here. (The third is coming in the next few weeks.) A surreal, beautiful, simple song, Antony deserves the high praise this song (and album) earned.
    2. The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn is a walking Wikipedia entry on the city of Minneapolis, something that straight-up defines the sound of “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” a four-minute explanation of why this band is so awesome to people not in the know.
    3. Sort of a ying to The Hold Steady’s yang, Art Brut’s Eddie Argos is nearly as self-referential as Finn is. On “Emily Kane,” Argos counts down to the second when his first relationship ended. And not surprisingly, the whole album is this clever.
    4. People seem to give Conor Oberst crap for being too pretentious for his own good, but for one shining moment this decade, he was able to get past all that and create a truly shining piece of work, “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning.” “Land Locked Blues” is our favorite highlight.
    5. Perhaps the best story to come out of 2005 was the long-gestating return of Vashti Bunyan, a former Andrew Loog Oldham protégé who released a spectacular, unheard album, “Just Another Diamond Day,” in 1970, only to disappear for 35 years. Thanks to Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective and other hipster fans, she returned with “Lookaftering,” an amazingly assured victory lap. “Wayward Hum” doesn’t even need words to be a highlight.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

30 Oct 2009 20:40

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Music: Ghostface Killah is officially the spookiest Wu-Tang Clan member

  • Ghostface Killah has never fought Midget Kiss. But based on how he told the story of how he ALMOST did, we’re sure it’d be pretty fracking awesome. It’s easily as scary as any story the dude told on “Fishscale.” Happy early Halloween, guys.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

29 Oct 2009 11:18

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Music: Daily poll: Is a )&!&)% swear word enough to kill a band’s fame?

  • Last year, a band named !)*!&!)# Up released one of the year’s best-reviewed albums, “The Chemistry of Common Life.” This year, another band named @)&! Buttons released “Tarot Sport,” which is also being called one of the year’s best by your dad’s publications. Which leads us to question: Could these bands get past their )@&!!%) names and become popular on their own accord? Vote here.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Oct 2009 10:58

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Music: We’re pulling for you, Morrissey! The dude collapsed onstage.

We hate it when our friends become unconscious. The former Smiths singer collapsed almost immediately onstage. He’s hospitalized in stable condition. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Oct 2009 12:20

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Music: Our Saturday Mixtape: Atlas Sound and Ben Gibbard cohabitate

  • 1. Bradford Cox is really one of a kind. The Deerhunter lead singer, who moonlights as Atlas Sound, really does a great job synthesizing really interesting ideas into his stew. Especially if, as in the case of “Walkabout,” that idea is Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) of Animal Collective. It’s a very Panda Bearish-sound, but built on of of those simple-but-awesome Deerhunter song structures.
    2. We admit to having an affinity for this broken twee sound, which Pens does a pretty good job of replicating on “I Sing Just For You.” It doesn’t really hold up over a whole album, but it’s nice in single-bite form.
    3. Sufjan Stevens went from recording really awesome albums about states to doing his best impression of the compositions from Final Fantasy VI (or Final Fantasy III if you’re a luddite who doesn’t know the series’ Japanese history). That description doesn’t give “The BQE” much credit – really, it’s great – but we hope he gets back to the 50 States Project soon.
    4. Ben Gibbard doesn’t have to do this. He’s already incredibly famous, and Death Cab For Cutie’s an interesting enough outlet that he doesn’t need another Postal Service-style offshoot to keep busy. But we appreciate his album of Jack Kerouac-inspired songs he did with Jay Farrar – it’s very much in the “Mermaid Avenue” mold. In a good way.
    5. It’s good to see our old friends Kings of Convenience showing up with a new album. We thought they were gone for good. A lot of people argue they need to expand their sound, but we think it’s perfect as-is, especially on “Me in You.”source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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