In a fit of audio masochism, Daniel Nester, author of How to Be Inappropriate, has compiled on his blog 25 cover versions of the Outfield's "Your Love." See if you can listen to them all and still remain a functioning member of society.

(Here's a remix that doesn't appear in Nester's rundown. I am merciless.)

ht: @dxferris via Twitter

(Apologies if this is old intrawebs news. However, it is possible that not everyone in the world knows about it as of Nov. 17, 2009.)

ht: @Mick_Shrimpton via Twitter

Actually, everyone is blogging. But I'm reading Kathleen Hanna's. It's a lot about art of a feminist persuasion and her penchant for Lifetime movies. Writing is concise and only dates back to this past July, but her trademark analysis comes through in the chosen content: GB Jones, Sarah Maple, Vaginal Creme Davis. She always did have a gift for saying a lot with a little, no? One only need mentally revisit the lyrics to "New Radio" or "Bloody Ice Cream" to know what I mean.

*Come to think of it, it may be time to further update our enemies list. Feel free to nominate some sites in the comments.

Which Britney Spears phase is your fave? Naughty schoolgirl? Snake charmer? Frappuccino-guzzling, umbrella-wielding, British-speaking babymama? (Personally, mine is the under-appreciated trucker-hat-adorning, K-Fed dating era.) Well, today you can celebrate all of Brit’s history with the release of (taking a deep breath) Britney: The Singles Collection (Deluxe Edition) [Remastered] now on sale on iTunes.

(At least when we post press releases, we ID them as such and put them in blockquotes.)

If this keeps up the rest of the week, I predict the site's readers jumping ship en masse. I know I will.

Weighing in early on what academics call “periodization” is a dicey proposition. If you try to locate the moment of a major paradigm shift, in the moment, perhaps by calling your album “Hip Hop Is Dead,” as Nas did in 2006, you’re slipping into weatherman territory. Will it rain tomorrow? Will another great rap album pop up? The life spans of genres and art forms are best perceived from the distance of ten or twenty years, if not more. With that in mind, I still suspect that Nas—along with a thousand bloggers—was not fretting needlessly.

If I had to pick a year for hip-hop’s demise, though, I would choose 2009, not 2006. Jay-Z’s new album, “The Blueprint 3,” and some self-released mixtapes by Freddie Gibbs are demonstrating, in almost opposite ways, that hip-hop is no longer the avant-garde, or even the timekeeper, for pop music.

...and fired back at it with this:

Sasha Frere-Jones opens his article by admitting that “weighing in early on what academics call ‘periodization’ is a dicey proposition,” as a nominal caveat before launching into doing just that. This is a rhetorical approach that he’s used before (namely in “Whiter Shade of Pale”) and is basically just another flavor of the age old “Now, I don’t mean to be racist but [insert something racist here]” Kool-Aid.

SFJ is savvy enough to know that before pulling a “white man speaks authoritatively on black culture” move, he needs to first establish an acceptable precedent for his argument by locating it in the ideology of a credible black artist (in this case Nas’s 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead). But notice how SFJ then immediately undermines that credibility: while he could just say “Nas called it three years ago,” he instead claims that while Nas’s sentiment was correct, the proclamation was three years premature, as if to say “Nice try, Nas, but leave it to the professional (white, college-educated) music journalist to make sweeping statements about (black, ghetto-originated) music.”

Oh, Das Racist, you so crazy educated at Wesleyan!

Klenginem, aka the man who would rap Eminem songs in Klingon. Here's "SuvwI'pu' qan tu'lu'be," better known as "Without Me."

Thanks for the heads-up, Metafilter.

I'm happy to share that I've set up a tracy + the plastics song shop and archive at www.tracyandtheplastics.com (Thank you to Kellie!)

There are a couple really old gems from 1999 when I was playing shows around Olympia as "Tracy" with just this exploded keyboard as my instrument. These are in the "Unreleased Songs" section. I'll also be putting up some of the last songs I wrote as tracy + the plastics, in time. Look out!

Also, www.wynnegreenwood.com also has the beginnings of a music shop. For songs, music, and recordings that have been happening and are happening now, and will happen. Big Candy and Culture Keeper from the unreleased self-titled record "wynne greenwood" are up there now. There's also info about projects I've made in the past couple years, like the large abstract textiles (curtains) called Sweated.

Poking around on the two sites doesn't take you super far, but does give you a fairly comprehensive overview of Wynne's output in the last decade, as well as allowing you to buy hard-to-find material directly from the artist (not that I'm entirely opposed to record labels or illegal downloading, but, you know... that's cool).

Should I also tell you, out of deference to my jet lag, that I keep picturing Lindsay Lohan's clique from Mean Girls in lieu of Nikki and Cola as Wynne's backup? Or, like, Bisphenol A? Heh, sure, it may be Wednesday afternoon for you, but it's Wednesday OH MY GOD I'M READY FOR BED for me. Maybe I should keep that to myself. Oh well, too late.

Multiple sources are reporting that Google is on the verge of launching some sort of "music service."

The rumors began with a TechCrunch story Tuesday night that claimed Google had spent "the last several weeks securing content" from the major record labels in the run-up to this alleged launch. But other sources say this content-acquisition bit is wide of the mark.

Both Wired.com and CNET News paint the service as more of a vertical search engine, offering links where users can purchase songs from music sites such as Lala and iLike, which was recently acquired by MySpace.

Since Google runs roughshod over competition in every market it enters, I can't see this boding well for Myspace, whose music tools for artists are really the only thing keeping them relevant, at least in terms of revenue generation. Also, "content acquisition" suggests Google will be selling, not just linking to a third party.

h/t: the Register

How do you all feel about Dirty Projectors (born in Connecticut, attended Yale, plays like Ali Farka Touré)? I'm guessing you must hate him just on principle, even if you haven't heard his music, right?

(PS. Pro tip: You want the Vampire Weekend to stop, quit making them the most commented posts on Line Out.)

Dirty Projectors play Seattle November 4th at Neumos, with Little Wings.

(ht: Matt Hickey)

“First of all, I just wanna say that Wavves was NOT involved in that fight. That faggot didn’t even touch me.

I’ve never “come after” that kid, it wasn’t four a.m., that wasn’t my girlfriend, no one was spitting, and I didn’t attack him. I don’t give a shit about that kid and his music.

What happened was, after we finished our set I went to Daddy’s with some friends and saw that faggot from Wavves talking to a photographer friend of mine. The only thing I did was walk up to him and say “You’re that faggot from Wavves and I don’t like you”. He smiled a bit but didn’t say anything.

After that, I went outside and saw their tour manager hanging around with some guys. They started getting all chuckles with me and so I told them I wasn’t gonna have it. After that, Wavves tour manager hit me square in the face with a bottle. Blood started pouring out and six dudes fucking started kicking me until I blacked out.

All I remember is getting hit with the bottle and my friends dragging me to another bar. They wrapped my head up until I looked like a Confederate soldier.

So yeah, I lost the fight.

I also missed three flights. I’ve been in the airport all day having stewardesses cleaning my head because it kept cracking open. You can’t go on board if you’re bleeding.

Bottom line is that faggot from Wavves didn’t even hit me. Never touched me. And he should’ve, cuz he had a free shot.

He’s coming to Atlanta October 3rd and we’re gonna get ugly on him. We’re gonna destroy their van, we’re gonna destroy their faces, we’re gonna get crazy on em’. Nasty style.

Seriously. Fuck these clowns. Anyone playing in a "punk" band (fuck, let alone a "flower punk" band) who uses insinuations of homosexuality as an insult* (because, you know, being gay is weak and despicable and thank god "that faggot" never touched him, because, eww gross) is either an idiot or a homophobe or both. Dudes sure didn't seem too homophobic when they played hella gay faggot bar Pony in its original incarnation, so maybe Swiley just has the mind and the mouth of an 11-year-old elementary school drop-out. In any case, stay assy, Black Lips.

*This post dedicated to anonymous commenter #2.

You suck. Your article sucks. Why do I have to be informed that N-Type, the biggest dub step dj in the world, is playing the festival by locals but it's mentioned no where in your recommendations to see him? This years Decibel Festival is focused primarily on Dubstep. Dubstep is the "soup de' jour" in Seattle and I don't think your article reflected that relevant fact at all. You're totally out of touch and your writing about OUR scene is garbage. I hope you get canned soon. You need to move on. Take a moment to reflect on what I've said. It's the truth.
Posted by RA KHAN on September 23, 2009 at 2:22 PM · Report

You didn't even mention CASPA! Can somebody wake up and realize that this guy does not keep in touch with this scene?!
Posted by RA KHAN on September 23, 2009 at 2:26 PM · Report

From this week's Decibel Festival-previewing lead, (ahem) Dubstepping into the Spotlight, also written by Dave Segal:

A striking change to this year's bill is the preponderance of dubstep and other bass-centric producers and DJs. Although Decibel director Sean Horton contends that Decibel has been high on low-end-­intensive electronic music since its 2004 inception, it appears that this year marks an increase in attention paid to musicians and DJs prowling around the sound spectrum's lowest realms.
[...]
Decibel 2009 is undeniably stacked with more dubstep artists (Benga, Martyn, Mala, N-Type, Boxcutter, Caspa, Pinch, etc.) and dub-inflected techno producers (Echospace, Voodeux, the Sight Below, etc.) than were previous years' lineups. In addition, outright dub specialist Mad Professor, dub-informed pan-globalist DJ /rupture, and dub/dancehall vocalist DJ Collage will perform (the latter with Monkeytek). To that end, Decibel is hosting two "dB in duB" showcases and a "dB in duB Afterhours: Dub Mutants." And in a real coup, Horton is bringing in BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, who's become perhaps the world's foremost tastemaker and disseminator of dubstep and its myriad mutations. She'll be anchoring the "Bass Lovers Unite" showcase with Megasoid, Daedelus, Nosaj Thing, and others.

Can somebody wake up, indeed.

More here.

For anyone in need of it, this will be a good crash course on the festival's artists with a slant towards the dubstep and broken hip-hop acts. I'll be playing tunes by Benga, Caspa, Boxcutter, Take, Mike Slott, Ana Sia, and many more. As a HUGE bonus, Muti Music artists Heyoka and Mimosa have given me two exclusive minimixes. The two will be appearing at the Muti Music Showcase Sunday night at Sole Repair, which looks to be one of the hottest tickets at the festival.

Mr. Horovitz had the audacity to name his blog after a group responsible for one of the most sampled tracks in the history of music, so he has a lot to live up to. The Fall Collection mix Ad slapped together gets him off to a fine start; love that Odd Couple theme. Bookmark this.

Yesterday the Weezer frontman Twittered:

"Does anyone know of a pickup soccer game I can join in Seattle on Tuesday or Wednesday?"

It seems the band's in town a little early for their Endfest appearance on Thursday (at the White River Amphitheater with Blink-182).

ht: @questlove & @angusbatey via Twitter