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18 Jul 2009 19:01

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Music: Our Saturday Mixtape mixes cheesy, classic, well-worn and hazy

  • 1. Lots of good memories come from this song – and from the Jayhawks. They’re an iconic band that never got huge, which is too bad. “Blue” is one of the ’90s best acoustic singles.
    2. We’re convinced that Max Tundra has no clue what cheesy is. He sounds like Michael Jackson on acid on “Which Song.”
    3. Ah, the preprogrammed hi-hat – Daedelus stretches and bastardizes it heavily on “Get off Your Hi-Hats,” which is interesting because you don’t know where he’ll take it next.
    4. Kath Bloom is one of those forgotten-era songwriters appreciated by songwriters, none moreso than Red House Painter Mark Kozelek, who breathes new life into “Finally.”
    5. You can feel the tension bleeding through the shoegazey aura of Cass McCombs’ “You Saved My Life,” which begs to be your new favorite love song. (It’s ours for sure.)source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jul 2009 12:41

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Music: *sigh* We’re currently missing the Pitchfork Music Festival

Fortunately, our friends at The Windy Citizen are covering THE social event of the hipster year for us. Thanks guys. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Jul 2009 09:49

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Music: eMusic finally gets a major label – but not without concession

  • What’s up? eMusic is one of those services that we’ve always heavily supported in part because its inexpensive, music-fan-first approach got the experience of downloading music right – even at the cost of major label support. Recently, it convinced one major, Sony, to jump on board. Good for them, right? Well, yes and no. source
  • What’s up? eMusic is one of those services that we’ve always heavily supported in part because its inexpensive, music-fan-first approach got the experience of downloading music right – even at the cost of major label support. Recently, it convinced one major, Sony, to jump on board. Good for them, right? Well, yes and no.
  • The cost It appears eMusic had to give up a lot to convince Sony to let them put Simon & Garfunkel on the site. Longtime users used to paying $20 for 90 tracks will be surprised to see their download numbers cut. And while the selection is killer, the company had to restrict some tracks – the hits – to flat-rate album download only. source
  • What’s up? eMusic is one of those services that we’ve always heavily supported in part because its inexpensive, music-fan-first approach got the experience of downloading music right – even at the cost of major label support. Recently, it convinced one major, Sony, to jump on board. Good for them, right? Well, yes and no.
  • The cost It appears eMusic had to give up a lot to convince Sony to let them put Simon & Garfunkel on the site. Longtime users used to paying $20 for 90 tracks will be surprised to see their download numbers cut. And while the selection is killer, the company had to restrict some tracks – the hits – to flat-rate album download only.
  • Our take We won’t lie. In part because of the sheer novelty, we downloaded Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” ’cause we could. Ultimately, even with the changes, the service is still cheaper than most download sites. Our disappointment is that they bent so much for a major at the cost of the indies. We’re not sure if this is a good long-term approach. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Jul 2009 19:56

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Music: People don’t buy physical CD singles in the U.K. anymore

  • 3,809 midweek physical single sales for JLS’ “Beat Again” – the only single on the U.K. charts to sell more than 500 copies. In other words, the CD is dead dead dead. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Jul 2009 13:11

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Music: D’arcy Wretsky of the Smashing Pumpkins comes out from hiding

Wooooowww. Blast from the past. The bassist chick in the Smashing Pumpkins randomly showed up on a Chicago radio station recently. She sounds BAD. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

13 Jul 2009 20:46

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Music: The Pixies are touring for the 20th anniversary of “Doolittle”! Heck yes!

Here’s how excited we are about this news: “WANT TO GROW UP TO BE … BE A DEBASE … debaser … De-ba-ser … DEBASER!” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Jul 2009 15:47

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Biz, Music: Music in a nutshell: We’re getting it online, in hoards

  • 41.5% increase in digital sales last year. Conversely, physical sales dropped 43.5% in the same time span source
Posted by Nathalie Heiberg • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

11 Jul 2009 17:00

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Music: Our Saturday Mixtape gives into our mopey strummer addiction

  • 1. Before Paul Simon got countermelodies and drum backing, he was a busker in England who happened to find himself in a recording studio, doing lo-fi versions of songs that everyone now knows by heart, such as this ragged version of “Kathy’s Song.”
    2. Jandek will never be as successful as Jeff Tweedy. He spent three decades hiding from the world, releasing rickety avant-strangeness and getting mentioned in the same sentences as Roky Erickson and The Shaggs, only to finally play in public in the last couple of years. Jeff Tweedy, whose band’s most recent album debuted in the Billboard 200’s top five, does us a favor and makes “Crack a Smile” pretty and palatable.
    3. After posting about Leonard Cohen yesterday, it got us to thinking – which song of his would never get covered on “American Idol”? “Chelsea Hotel No. 2” fits the bill: It’s pretty, but about sordid hotel room encounters with famous singers like Janis Joplin.
    4. You can’t have a list of mopey strummers without Elliott Smith. You just can’t. His early albums use their lo-fi setting to focus directly on the darkness in the words. “Condor Ave.,” off “Roman Candle,” set Smith’s template.
    5. The Tallest Man on Earth pretty much kills this song. The Swede wails at his guitar, putting everything he has into being the best Bob Dylan acolyte he can, and gets closer than most, especially on “This Wind.”source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Jul 2009 18:24

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Music: Hallelujah, we agree with Leonard Cohen on this fact

  • I was just reading a review of a movie called Watchmen that uses it, and the reviewer said ‘Can we please have a moratorium on Hallelujah in movies and television shows?’ And I kind of feel the same way. I think it’s a good song, but I think too many people sing it.
  • Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen • On the overdone popularity of his song “Hallelujah,” which he’s famous for by numerous proxies – Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, Kate Voegele, Jason Castro, and the list goes onnnn and onnnnnnnnnn. Someone kill this freaking song already! It’s like a roach. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Jul 2009 18:06

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Music: Update: Sufjan Stevens is (kinda) coming back (but not really)

  • State No. 3? Nope. Try reworked 1st album. Oh, Sufjan, how you tease us. Just a week ago, we were begging – no, pleading! – for your return to indie pop’s most famous serial novel. Well, this week, you showed back up, yeah, but you’re announcing the release of a reworked version of your first album, “Enjoy Your Rabbit.” “Run Rabbit Run,” the reworked album, will be reimagined by Osso, who’s helped Stevens in the past. OK dude, appreciated, but it’s no “Alaska”, which we’re sure will feature that destined classic, “Oh Sarah, You Media Showoff (the Ballad of Wasilla, A Stop on the Bridge to Nowhere).” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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