Remember her? She gave us "U.N.I.T.Y." and "Rough."

Days go by. The economic climate changes. And now the Queen of hiphop is repping the arctic.
Yes, Latifah is the narrator of Arctic Tale. So sad, so sad.

Re: the new No Age video, the internet has spoken:

(ht yardlie)

Gigwise reports today that Peter Gabriel plans to cover Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" (aka, the song that name-drops Gabriel in its lyrics). What's next, a Lil Jon version of "Oxford Comma"? (Please, please, please let that be next).

And bizarrely impassioned Vampire Weekend hate in 3...2...1...

I know (you know), not another Entertainment Weekly list, right? But this Michel Gondry cutated list of 25 classic music videos is actually worth checking out (Stereogum collects them all on one handy page here) if for no other reason than it includes this fantastic clip for New Order's even more fantastic "Perfect Kiss," which flips the conventions of the studio/performance video to create something more like uncomfortable verité (also: frog noises!), and which I'd somehow never seen before today:

Really, nothing good can come from looking at (or re-posting) a list of Entertainment Weekly's 100 Best Records from 1983-2008. Obviously it's going to be almost completely wrong. And it is. It is so wrong. But that's just the thing - it is soooo wrong. Bafflingly wrong, to the point where it actually becomes worth looking at, if only to wonder what the fuck was going on with the people who compiled it.

Continue reading "There are only 28 albums that are better than Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway" »

Soulja Boy responds to Ice T's hip hop Andy Rooney-isms:

Under the Radar is making a big fuss about their new "Protest Issue." I guess a bunch of artists were tapped to be photographed with signs about their own personal protest ideas or something. Here's the problem:

Under the Radar unleashes 2008’s "Protest Issue", using the time-honored connection between politics and music to promote political dialogue and awareness. The Protest Issue features two alternating collectable covers: one with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, the other with Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, The Decembrists’ Colin Meloy, and Spoon’s Britt Daniel.

Don't see it yet? How about now?

Notice any similarities between their cover models? Like, maybe how they are all white men?

I guess no one protested the lack of diversity in print media for the issue, so I'm taking up the cause. If you are going to go through the trouble of having two collectible covers, couldn't you at least put Chuck D or Beth Ditto on there or someone? There's plenty of room! A little tokenism would even be better than nothing.

Last week, I Slogged about a mystery book that's coming out from Simon and Schuster. There are 300,000 copies coming out, and nobody was told what the book was actually about.

Today, GalleyCat reports that Madonna's brother is writing a memoir about...being Madonna's brother. I'm going to say right now that if they didn't have sex, there's no point to this goddamned book.

The only thing more impressive than Isaac Hayes’ gold-plated El Dorado Cadillac inside The Stax Museum of American Soul Music is an entire authentic, 100-year old Mississippi Delta church. Relocated to the site when it was built around 2001, the church’s front doorway serves as the museum entrance after you leave an introductory film about the label's history. You literally have to walk down the aisle between the aged, wooden pews and “pay your respects” to the roots of Memphis soul as admission to the rest of the exhibits.

I visited the movie theater turned recording studio turned museum/music academy on McLemore Avenue in south Memphis when I traveled down to the capital of the mid-south a few years back. It’s both a dazzling distraction amidst the rough neighborhood that it’s still hoping to revitalize and a first-rate tourist mecca for pilgrims of the Memphis sound. Once unaware, the museum definitely opened the eyes (and ears) of this ignoramus to realize there was more to Booker T. & the M.G.’s than “Green Onions”.

Starting this Sunday and running thru Thursday, the Northwest Film Forum is screening Respect Yourself: The Stax Record Story and Wattstax - the former, a documentary chock-full of archival material put together to mark the 50th Anniversary of the label and the latter, a documentary of the 1972 Stax label memorial concert for the Watts riots, re-released for 35th Anniversary screenings.

It's a day old, but Stranger columnist Michaelangelo Matos' most recent installment of "Project X" on Idolator is worth a belated look. In the post, Matos gathers his family, following a Mother's Day feast at Red Lobster, to evaluate the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10—it's like the Wire's jukebox jury, only you might know what the hell they're talking about, or Arthur's "Bull Tongue" column, only with no Thurston Moore. In any case, the Matos family's banter makes me think that, if they were so inclined, they could just start their own music criticism concern (The Matos Weekly? Matosfork?) and they'd probably do pretty well (maybe Miguel could handle ad sales, I don't know). A sample:

3. Lil Wayne ft. Static Major, "Lollipop" (Cash Money)
Alex: Oh god.
Lorie: [The Supremes'] "Reflections"—that's what [the beginning] reminds me of.
Alex: "Apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur": I know this song. I don't like this, though. Oh! It's the wrong song. I'm thinking of "Low" [by Flo Rida ft. T-Pain].
Brittany: Is this Lil Wayne?! "Cash Money Records reppin' for the nine-nine and the 2000!" I like Mannie Fresh better. He was a lot funnier to listen to. What's that song, "Get Your Roll On"? Lil Wayne was like 12 years old when Cash Money Records came out—that's what I always think about when I hear him. He was like 12 years old with a kid, and his lonely teardrop.
Lorie: A kid? Wow! I've been outdone!
Brittany: Yeah—nobody thought it was biologically possible, but it's been done, Mom.
Lorie: You know what this reminds me of? Rap.
Alex, Brittany, Michael: It is rap.
Brittany: It's more like a distant relative of rap. What kind of rap did you listen to, Mom, the Sugarhill Gang?
Lorie: No, I listened to that Superman song.
Michael: You mean "Rapper's Delight"?
Lorie: Yes!
Brittany: That's the Sugarhill Gang.
Lorie: Oh.
Michael: Wait—do you mean the song about Superman and Lois Lane, or the one about Supermanning that ho?
Lorie: [confused look]
Michael: OK, never mind.

It's getting so that I'm already sick of bands before I actually hear the bands. If I hear about Santogold being the next M.I.A. one more time, I will vomit. Music blogs have to figure out some way to stagger their coverage. I was cleaning out my RSS Reader today and I think I read the name Santogold some nine hundred and seventy-three times. Enough with the Santogold please, Internet. Thanks in advance.

P.S. Santogold!

No Ghostface cameo = No cred.

So I got an e-mail from a friend yesterday, sent to me and other friends, suggesting that we haven't seen each other in a long time and so we should all go see Shine a Light, the Scorsese-directed Rolling Stones documentary this weekend.

I immediately said no. Actually I think I said:

Fuck, no! Iron Man! Iron Man!

It occurs to me that, in that split second before hitting the 'reply' button and writing my response, I did all kinds of calculus in my head: I pitted my love of Martin Scorsese's films against my hatred of what the Rolling Stones have become. My Stones hatred overwhelmed my love of Scorsese. And I also pushed my hatred of what the Rolling Stones have become against my love of friends who I haven't seen in a month or so. My hatred of the Rolling Stones, again, completely defeated my love of friends. And, by pitting my hatred of what the Rolling Stones have become in direct competition with Iron Man, I have categorically proven that I love Iron man more than the Stones.

In fact, I can't think of any scenario that would get me into that theater. If, somehow, an imaginary threat like "See the Rolling Stones movie or these six random children would die of cancer" were made real, I would of course see the documentary, because while I may be a jackass at times, I am not a monster. But I would hate every minute of the movie.

So it occurred to me today that I should write a note to my friend thanking him for finally giving me a definitive method for expressing my hatred of what the Rolling Stones have become: I don't hate them quite enough to kill, but no reasonable incentive would ever get me to see one of their performances.

15-year-old Miley Cyrus is writing her memoirs, for somewhere between one and nine million dollars. Who wants to review it for me?

Today Idolator linked to James Montgomery's article about what it's like to be a music journalist in the day and age when mainstream music writing is more about chasing down stories about rumored sex tapes and "monitoring baby bumps":

For a solid hour on Tuesday afternoon, I basically should've gotten fired from my job. This is not because I was drinking in the office again or harassing my (sorta) co-worker Heidi Montag or even stealing boxes from the supply closet to complete my awesome fort (that was Monday).

No, it was because I was furiously Googling photos of Miley Cyrus in her bra.

OK, now before Human Resources contacts me (or my wife leaves me), please know that I was doing said Googling for a story I was working on — a follow-up to a 300-word blurb we ran on Monday that was read by 71,000 people (!) in less than 24 hours. (By comparison, last week's Bigger Than the Sound is currently sitting at just more than 2,400 clicks.) Please know that I am not some sort of crazy pervert and that — to borrow perhaps the most overused excuse of all time — I was just doing my job (honest).

I'm not exactly sure what the rest of you were doing, though. Because for most of Tuesday, "Miley Cyrus Bra" was the most-searched term on Google, ahead of "Pennsylvania Exit Polls," "Kijana Carter" and "Earth Day." Phrases like "Racy Miley Cyrus Photos" and "Miley Cyrus Underwear Pictures" also logged time in Google Trends' Top 100, as did pretty much any possible combination of the words "leaked," "pics" and "Net" you could think of (also, nice to see "Vanessa Hudgens Pics" making a comeback).

Basically, for an entire day, people were more interested in seeking out semi-nude — and possibly fake? — photos of a 15-year-old pop star than they were in reading about the death of soul singer Al Wilson (which is sad), potential Jeep Liberty recalls (which is terrifying) and "Alligator in Kitchen" (which is puzzling). And while all of that should probably make me want to curl up and die — or at least weep for the state of humanity — it doesn't. Because this has basically become my entire life.

Read the funny, thoughtful, sad but true article here.

While our May-June issue will be our last in bimonthly-magazine form, we're very happy to announce that we will be teaming up with University of Texas Press to present a semiannual "bookazine." Envisioned as a sort of hybrid between a book and a magazine, this new No Depression creation will make its debut in the fall. Look for 1 (or "76", as we'll dub it, in deference to the magazine's precedence) in the music-books section of your local bookstore -- and also watch this space for upcoming details about ordering subscriptions. (If you're a current subscriber to the magazine, we'll soon be sending you a note in the mail regarding the transition.

Some of the details will become clearer as we get further into the process of creating the first edition. Generally speaking, what we envision is that the bookazine will continue to provide a home for our long-form pieces which have less chance of transitioning to the website, where the editorial focus will be on more timely elements such as live reviews, record reviews, and news reports.

Read the full letter after the jump.

Continue reading "No Depression Update" »

Via Idolator:

1 Sex Sex 0.132%
2 Lil Wayne Music (Artist) 0.109%
3 Low Music (Artist) 0.100%
4 Chris Brown Music (Artist) 0.091%
5 No Air Music (Song Title) 0.081%
6 Porn Sex 0.078%
7 Family Guy TV 0.077%
8 Soulja Boy Music (Artist) 0.065%
9 Naruto Anime 0.065%
10 Funny Comedy 0.063%
11 Jonas Brothers Music (Artist) 0.063%
12 Usher Music (Artist) 0.053%
13 Hannah Montana Music (Artist) 0.050%
14 Jeff Dunham Comedy 0.050%
15 Miley Cyrus Music (Artist) 0.048%
16 Jabbawockeez TV (Dance Group) 0.047%
17 Touch My Body Music (Song Title) 0.047%
18 Love Song Music (Song Title) 0.045%
19 Fights Sports 0.044%
20 American Idol TV 0.043%
21 Bleeding Love Music (Song Title) 0.042%
22 Mariah Carey Music (Artist) 0.042%
23 With You Music (Song Title) 0.041%
24 Sexy Can I Music (Song Title) 0.039%
25 WWE Sports 0.038%

Huh. Who knew Duluth's slowcore darlings Low were almost as popular as Lil Wayne?

Via Idolator via Brandon Soderbergh: I think I need to start watching egotrip's new reality rap show, Miss Rap Supreme. Pretty much anything egotrip touches, even a VH1 reality show, is guaranteed to be good. So, who's got that TiVo?

Valleywag reports:

Is Nick Denton going soft? Even his cutbacks are sentimental these days. In the old days, Denton, the publisher of Valleywag and 14 other Gawker Media blogs, would simply shutter blogs. These days, he worries first about finding them nice homes. Such is the velvet-glove treatment he's giving Gridskipper, Wonkette, and Idolator, his blogs about, respectively, travel, politics, and music. The three blogs amount to less than 3 percent of Gawker Media's traffic, he says. Fine, so why keep them around in any form? Silicon Alley Insider has the details on their new owners. More evidence of Denton's increasing namby-pambosity: Instead of threatening to fire leakers, he's encouraging us to post the internal memo announcing the move. Darling bossman, that's no fun. But also no reason to keep the memo from you, dear readers:

Nick Denton Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 7:26 AM I'm amazed we've managed to keep a lid on this news; that, given your naturally gossipy natures, must be a first! We're spinning off three sites: Idolator, Gridskipper and—this one may be a surprise—Wonkette. There were indeed some rumors about Maura Johnston's music blog late last year; they were true of course. For reasons that I'll explain below, both it and our travel and politics sites have better commercial futures outside Gawker than within. (Excuse the corporate lingo: some of it is unavoidable.) But, first, the facts, which will be hitting the wires later this morning, or as soon as you leak this email. Go ahead!

* IDOLATOR is going to Buzznet, a music-focused web and social network. Buzznet recently acquired Idolator's chief rival, Stereogum, and received a big investment from Universal Music Group. * GRIDSKIPPER isn't going far: it's being taken over by Curbed, the network founded by Lockhart Steele, in which Gawker Media is a shareholder. * WONKETTE is being spun off to the managing editor, Ken Layne, former founder of one of the web's very first news sites, Tabloid.net. The title will become part of the Blogads network of political sites, which includes Daily Kos, among others.

Why these three sites? To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.

From the old press-release inbox comes this little gem:

9 April, 2008 (Berkeley, CA) - This July the ever-growing relationship between comics and music reaches new heights as Tori Amos and Image Comics release COMIC BOOK TATTOO, a 480-page, full color anthology adapting the themes and ideas behind her songs into a lush volume of sequential art. “I have been surprised, excited and pleasantly shocked by these comics that are extensions of the songs that I have loved and therefore welcome these amazing stories of pictures and words because they are uncompromisingly inspiring,” says Amos. “It shows you thought is a powerful formidable essence and can have a breathtaking domino effect."

...

[COMIC BOOK TATTOO's Editor Rantz] Hoseley added, "While the connections between comics and music have been long established by generations of creators, Comic Book Tattoo is the pure distillation of how these two art forms inspire and feed off of each other across all the classifications, genres and styles of comic storytelling. Like Tori’s music, these stories run the gamut of human experience, emotion and imagination brought to life by some of the most compelling and innovative creators in the field of comics."

COMIC BOOK TATTOO, a 12” x 12” 480-page anthology, will be in stores July 23rd.

I went to a Tori Amos show once. I was young, and in love, and painfully stupid. Never again, not even in comic book form.

I know it's old news, but I still can't get over Common's endorsement of the Lincoln Navigator...

One of the best and smartest rappers in the history of hiphop. One of the few rappers to shape the music into comprehensive philosophical and intellectual project. Indeed, Common was at one point (between 95 and 01) the mind of hiphop. For him to support this type of car in our times constitutes not only a betrayal but also exposes the fatal hole in his project: it could not connect the truths of the street with global truths. And street truths are useless if they are limited to the streets.

Says one commentator on this post:

The new Lincoln Navigator gets 12 miles to the gallon, consumes 24.5 barrels of petroleum and emits 13.1 tons of CO2 each year, successfully contributing to the genocide of Middle Eastern people, and the relentless destruction of our ecosystem. What will become of the children's hopes and dreams in the wake of these crises?

Common, open your eyes and see that the world is a ghetto.

Liz Phair, just starting out as a book reviewer, is writing her first novel. I think this could actually be good. Or at least, it has to be better than her last two albums. This won't be the first time Phair has appeared in fiction, though: Camden Joy's The Last Rock Star Book: or Liz Phair, A Rant is a pretty enjoyable novel.

It's April Fools day, and you know what that means: Rickrolling!

Yes, Rickrolling, which Urban Dictionary defines as:

To post a misleading link with a subject that promises to be exciting or interesting, e.g. "World of Starcraft in-game footage!" or "Paris Hilton blows Busta Rhymes' dick" but actually turns out to be the video for Rick Astley's debut single, "Never Gonna Give You Up". A variant on the duckroll. Allegedly hilarious.

...so instead of getting to beat off to footage of Ann Coulter getting raped by hyenas, I got rickrolled. What a day!

There's been some Rickrolling in Line Out's comments section today, and anecdotal evidence suggests other blogs (Status Ain't Hood, for instance) are suffering similar April Fools. So, have you been Rickrolled today?

You'll be able to see it on the following channels: MTV, MTV2, mtvU, VH1, CMT, Spike, Comedy Central, TVLand, BET.

It's been a hell of a week for reporter Chuck Philips and the LA Times.

First the LA Times published his story linking Diddy to Tupac's 1994 shooting.

Then Sean "Diddy" Combs said the story is a lie, lashing out against the paper for running it.

Next the Smoking Gun discovered that the FBI reports that reporter Philips cited throughout the story were possibly fake.

After that, the LA Times claimed they would launch their own investigation.

And now... the LA Times has apologized and Chuck Philips says he now believes those documents are indeed fake.

Reporter Chuck Philips and his supervisor, Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin, issued statements of apology Wednesday afternoon. The statements came after The Times took withering criticism for the Shakur article, which appeared on latimes.com last week and two days later in the paper's Calendar section.

The criticism came first from The Smoking Gun website, which said the newspaper had been the victim of a hoax, and then from subjects of the story, who said they had been defamed.

"In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job," Philips said in a statement Wednesday. "I'm sorry."

In his statement, Duvoisin added: "We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck's. I deeply regret that we let our readers down."

That's a big whoops.

Guh. Music genre themed photoshoot on ANTM tonight (at McCarren Park Pool? EDGY): The plus sized "grunge" model looked just like Tad. The "house" model held DJ headphones up to her ear, only with the headphones cupped together rather than actually open. Some judge called the "pop" model Britney when she was so clearly Kylie. But the kicker, by far, was the "emo" shoot, just some standard Urban Otufitters blacks and stripes, to which J Alexander responded with this post's headline, "So, This is White Music?" Oh, hell yes! Pitchfork gives this episode an 8.8.

This has been buzzing around the blogs for a few days now, but should you have missed it... R.E.M. will be on the cover of Spin next week. In the story, written by Michael Azerrad, frontman Michael Stipe speaks publicly and on record about his sexuality for the first time, like, ever:

The only time Stipe really takes a break is when he head to Europe most summers with his boyfriend. Following a long period of speculation about his sexuality, during which he was stubbornly coy and ambiguous, Stipe has been out for years but has rarely publicly discussed the topic in any depth. "It was supercomplicated for me in the '80s," he says. "I was totally open with the band and my family and my friends and certainly the people I was sleeping with. I thought it was pretty obvious."

Going public was a little easier when he realized it might inspire people to change their views about homosexuality. "I didn't always see that," he says. "But I see now, of course that's the case, of course that's needed. I'd just never felt strongly enough about a particular relationship to say, 'Yeah, he's my boyfriend, that is what it is.' Now I recognize that to have public figures be very open about their sexuality helps some kid somewhere out there."

The magazine is previewing the story here.

Your obvious choice for music industry commentary Entertainment Weekly just posted their list of which indie records defined music in the past 25 years. Each year gets one record, here's what they chose:

1984: The Replacements, Let It Be
1985: The Smiths, Meat Is Murder
1986: R.E.M., Life's Rich Pageant
1987: Dinosaur Jr., You're Living All Over Me
1988: Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
1989: The Pixies, Doolittle
1990: Fugazi, Repeater
1991: My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
1992: Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted
1993: Built To Spill, Ultimate Alternative Wavers
1994: Guided By Voices, Bee Thousand
1995: Archers Of Loaf, Vee Vee
1996: Belle And Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister
1997: Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West
1998: Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
1999: Sleater-Kinney, The Hot Rock
2000: Yo La Tengo, And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
2001: The Shins, Oh, Inverted World
2002: Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
2003: The White Stripes, Elephant
2004: Arcade Fire, Funeral
2005: Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
2006: The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
2007: Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
2008: Radiohead, In Rainbows

Here's what Idolator.com has to say about it:

Well-versed in the knowledge that nothing gets people clicking around Web sites like a photo gallery, nothing gets people arguing on the Internet like a slightly specious list, and no demographic has more work-hours time to click on said photo galleries and argue over said lists than the knowledge workers who proclaim themselves lovers of the nebulously defined genre "indie rock," Entertainment Weekly has put together a photo gallery/list called "The Indie Rock 25," which assigns one album to each of the 25 years since 1984, a year that was apparently defined by the Replacements' Let It Be. There are some arbitrary rules (no solo acts, albums that came out on an indie overseas but a major in the U.S. are OK), some arbitrary picks (see: Bright Eyes in 2005), lots of white dudes (cf. 1993: Ultimate Alternative Wavers over Pussy Whipped? Really?), and an obligatory mention of Radiohead, whose stature in "indie" probably wouldn't exist were it not for the major-label machine of 15 years ago but I'll probably be stuck arguing that until I'm blue in the face.

Predictable list, sure (something pointed out in Idolator's comments). I agree with Hold Steady for 2006, but disagree with Bright Eyes for 2005. And sure to Neutral Milk Hotel, but does anyone else think Modest Mouse should've come a little sooner? Maybe that should've been 1995 instead of Belle and Sebastian? But then again, I just really don't like B&S.

What are your thoughts?

The Pharmacy's profile was hacked into and deleted over the weekend, while the band is out on the road.

They lost over 11,000 friends, along with all their tour contacts (the band uses that for a lot of e-mail/message exchange). Whoever did it is a big, stupid jerk.

They've set up a new profile--www.myspace.com/thepharmacyofficial--but still, that sucks.

Punknews.org says:

While precious little has been revealed about Radiohead's success with the donation-suggested model, Nine Inch Nails' recent experiment has proven quite successful. Despite no marketing and no label, the donation-suggested 36-track album netted the artist a stunning $1,619,420 US.

Meanwhile, Maiden is going to release their new "best of" album for free too. Only their release will self-destruct after three listens, in which case you'll have to pay for a download if you want to keep listening to it. NME has the full story.

All week, Line Out has been giving away PotUSA prizes. This is just the beginning of some of the freebies to come, and you want to the be the first to hear about it, right? Right! So if you have a Twitter account, follow Line Out and get all the breaking news before anyone else.

We'll keep you posted when there are heated debates about Rush and Yes and hot polls about Slats, but mostly we'll use it to announce any breaking news and contests.

If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it's a pretty cool application--you sign up (for free) and you can send and receive short updates via your phone or computer. You can let people know what you're up to (if you want). You can choose to follow your friends so you know what they're up to too. The BBC is on it, NPR is on it, I think even Obama has an account. All updates can be sent to you via e-mail or directly to your phone, so you don't even have to be near a computer to know the latest.

Don't worry, if you start following Line Out, you won't be getting spammed constantly with every post to go up throughout the day. It'll be a few updates a week, and used especially if there's breaking or exciting news.

Log on to twitter.com to sign up to get your free Twitter account, or click here if you're already on Twitter and want to start following Line Out (or just want to see more of what it's all about).

So, there's a new-ish tv advertisement running for one of those odious male deoderant body sprays—you know, the kind that unfailingly turns women into unconrtollably aroused animals. Anyway, it's pretty typical body spray boilerplate—it's hot out, girls are in bikinis, dude sprays himself with product, girl makes eyes at dude.

But! The soundtrack to the ad is the swooning, opening guitar and organ riff of the Seeds' "Can't Seem to Make You Mine." It's the same song that Diplo samples on his remix of "Put That Pussy on Me" by Spank Rock. So, even though it's a lame ad for a product in which I have zero interest, I at least enjoy hearing it. And! I can't help but wonder if the dual reference is intentional—like the ad could be saying, "Our product will help you make girls yours," or it could be saying, "Our product will make girls put their pussies on you." It works either way!

Still, I'd rather smell like armpits.

Just kidding.

Pitchfork to Launch Online Music TV Channel

Sasha Frere-Jones new piece in this week's New Yorker about Amy Winehouse is pretty good.

As with most of his writing, he does get some thing right. Like this:

I bought Winehouse’s first album, “Frank,” in 2004 at a Heathrow Airport music kiosk. I listened to it on the plane home and dropped it in a garbage can on the way to baggage claim.

and this last bit at the end (which I think is particularly funny/true):

One effective summing up of her style can be seen in a YouTube video of her performing the album’s title track, labelled “Amy Winehouse performing drunk or high. Your guess!” It may be neither—it is Winehouse’s signature, and if she can detach it from the past and keep writing songs like “Rehab” there will be nothing surprising about having her around for a long time. Other than having her around.

But he also makes some stomach turning comparisons, for example:

The singing style heard on “Frank” started years ago—Lauryn Hill, the dopey singer-songwriter Jewel, and Joni Mitchell are all glossed in this approach—and has filtered down through singers like Nelly Furtado, Winehouse, and a currently rising star, Sia.

Excuse me. I don't want to come off all Christopher Frizzelle or nuthin', but Joni Mitchell deserves more respect and credit than this jab. Comparing Jewel, Hill, Furtado and Sia to Mitchell. Uh-uh. Them's is fighting words, bitch.

Further he goes on to compare Sharon Jones and Winehouse's live performances with the same band, The Dap-Kings. I am one of those folks who think Jones is actually kinda boring and too retro. I prefer Winehouses very modern slap in the face kind of homage to Jones' pastiche. So I suppose it's just a matter of taste.

But I can't help but make a connection to the fact that Jones is a black singer singing black music, and SF-J finds no offense in her "re-creations". But Winehouse, being white, nearly becomes "minstrelsy", and is only saved by her garbled marble-mouthed singing style.

His description:

Listen to the mid-tempo shuffle “You Know I’m No Good” and hear how she elongates and deforms the word “worst.” Is she channelling a little-known blues singer? Is she hammered?

And the caption I assume he wrote for the accompanying photograph of Winehouse on a bed with a ciggie hanging out of her mouth?

Winehouse’s voice can sound like aural blackface, but her range and variety resist definition. Photograph by Harry Benson.

I guess I'd just like to read an intelligent piece by SF-J that didn't in some way entangle his own garbled and marble-mouthed views on race into his critiques. Is it even possible?

If you do, then you can now follow Line Out on Twitter!

We'll keep you posted when there are heated debates about Rush and Yes and hot polls about Slats, but mostly we'll use it to announce any breaking news like if a club shuts down, if a rad band is playing an unannounced show somewhere in the city, or when big shows get announced.

If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it's a pretty cool application--you sign up (for free) and you can send and receive short updates via your phone or computer. You can let people know what you're up to (if you want). You can choose to follow your friends so you know what they're up to too. The BBC is on it, NPR is on it, I think even Obama has an account. All updates can be sent to you via e-mail or directly to your phone, so you don't even have to be near a computer to know the latest.

Don't worry, if you start following Line Out, you won't be getting spammed constantly with every post to go up throughout the day. It'll be a few updates a week, and used especially if there's breaking or exciting news.

Log on to twitter.com to sign up to get your free Twitter account, or click here if you're already on Twitter and want to start following Line Out (or just want to see more of what it's all about).

I don't really read a lot of other music blogs, unless you count this one. Pretty much WFMU's Beware of the Blog and that's it. But every so often I go over to Grandy's desk and borrow CDs to try and figure out what Stereogum or whatever thinks is cool. I figure I'll be self-indulgent and add my unwanted opinion.

Here's the three I investigated today.

Dengue Fever-Venus on Earth

Indie rock interpretation of Jan Pahechaan Ho. Why would you make lounge music with no horns? This record sounds like the sound track to a really bad romantic thriller starring Sharon Stone somewhere in Asia. This plays during the scene in which she is being creepy to an Asian playboy in a hotel bar that has a taxidermied elephant in it.

Evangelista (Carla Bozulich)--Hello, Voyager

I couldn't find a pic of the cover, sorry. But you should look at it, it's pretty cool.

Carla Bozulich rides the crazy train, but I'm pretty into it. I can tell she's really into Diamanda Galas and Quix*o*tic, but I can't really wrap my head around anything else about it yet. Anyone have any peyote to lend me? I need to find understanding.

Kate Nash--Foundations

Kind of a weird thought, but I find her accent a little over-emphasized. I mean, I know it's real and whatevs, but I feel like she's saying, "Oi'm Brit-ish and it droIves me MEN-TAWL! But Oi'm bloody adorable, don'tcha fink?" This is just straight modern girl pop music and it's got nothing else. It's so easy and so accessible and so bright and so repetitive that you can ignore it just as easily as you can love it. Feist, Lily Allen (at least she's kind of a brat, right?), blah blah blah.

All done! I'll go back to being ignorant now!

First: You simply must read Vanessa Grigoriadis' 9000-word essay on Britney Spears. If there's a Britney-specific Pulitzer for 2008--and there should be--she will win it.

Second: Please enjoy this mind-blowing, Ozzy Osbourne-flavored performance by the Poca, West Virginia show choir Visual Volume. (The first five seconds alone should earn them a spot in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.)

Thank you, Auschglitz.

If you do, then you can now follow Line Out on Twitter! It's what you've all been waiting for, right? I know.

We'll keep you posted when there are heated debates about Rush and Yes and hot polls about Slats, but mostly we'll use it to announce any breaking news like if a club shuts down, if a rad band is playing an unannounced show somewhere in the city, or if a big show gets announced (like Radiohead--book that shit dudes!) or canceled.

If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it's a pretty cool application--you sign up (for free) and you can send and receive short updates via your phone or computer. You can let people know what you're up to (if you want). You can choose to follow your friends so you know what they're up to too. The BBC is on it, NPR is on it, I think even Obama has an account. All updates can be sent to you via e-mail or directly to your phone, so you don't even have to be near a computer to know the latest.

Don't worry, if you start following Line Out, you won't be getting spammed constantly with every post to go up throughout the day. It'll be a few updates a week at most, and used especially if there's breaking or exciting news.

Log on to twitter.com to sign up to get your free Twitter account, or click here if you're already on Twitter and want to start following Line Out (or just want to see more of what it's all about).

Hey kids, Gawker is still up and running! Crazy, right? But they do have an interesting story up here about how Maxim magazine (which is still publishing, too!) ran a review of the latest Black Crowes album (who knew they were still putting out albums?). The fact that Maxim ran a review of a Black Crowes album isn't that surprising, really, but the fact that they reviewed it and gave it two and a half stars without even listening to it is pretty weird.

The Black Crowes' label contacted Maxim, and they said this:

'Of course, we always prefer to (sic) hearing music, but sometimes there are big albums that we don't want to ignore that aren't available to hear, which is what happened with the Crowes. It's either an educated guess preview or no coverage at all, so in this case we chose the former.'

Kudos to Gawker, Maxim, and the Black Crowes for still existing. Way to survive!

Prove it by watching the (dear god even typing the words makes me want to vomit) the just-surfaced Gene Simmons sex tape.

It's NSFW, obviously. It's also one of the more depressing sex acts you'll ever see. Can it be that Gene Simmons has created the world's first effective piece of abstinence education?

Apologies to all, especially that poor hooker who can't bear to kiss Simmons on the mouth.

Thank you, Fleshbot. (Link NSFW)