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New U2 Record On The “Horizon” (Get It?)
5:30 AM on Thu Dec 18 2008 by Lucas Jensen
Billboard reports that U2’s new record, No Line on the Horizon, is slated for release on March 3— a few months after its original release date, which had been slated for this year—on Interscope Records. U2 fans should be excited that it was recorded with the holy triptych of U2 producers: Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno, and Daniel Lanois. Heck, I’m excited. I admit it; I’m a huge U2 fan. Huge. There was a time where I think I wanted to marry Bono (side note: I typed “bury Mono” first!). Yeah, I know. He’s pompous and arrogant and U2 sucks, etc. etc. I get it. I understand the haters’ complaints and even agree with a lot of them, but I still love U2. Sometimes I just want unbridled anthems and romanticism, okay? Sometimes I want big statements and big recordings. I must admit, however, the 2000s have left me feeling a little “meh” on the band. I liked All That You Can’t Leave Behind for the zing it added to the live shows (that was a good tour), but How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was just crappy.
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Coldplay’s Status As “That iTunes Band” Remains Unchallenged
11:00 AM on Wed Dec 3 2008 by Maura
Yesterday the iTunes Store released its year-end lists, and while its “best of” lists are somewhat intriguing (the albums rundown is topped by Raphael Saadiq, while the “Best Songs” list has both Motley Crue’s “Saints Of Los Angeles” and Hercules & Love Affair’s “Blind” in its top 10), it’s the sales charts, of course, that allow us to place our collective finger somewhere near the pulse of those people who buy albums from the comfort of their cubicles/drunken late-night outings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Coldplay’s Viva La Vida—which was promoted heavily by an ad for the iTunes Store—is the top-selling album of the year. Top 50 is after the jump, but first, a few impressions.
THE GOOD: I don’t know why, but there’s something hilarious about Disturbed’s Indestructible (No. 28) being nestled between Paramore and the soundtrack for Sex And The City.
THE BAD: The overall MOR-ness of the chart—Leona, Amy, Duffy, Colbie, even Counting Crows all the way down at No. 43—shouldn’t be all that surprising, although I did raise my eyebrows at the notion that enough people bought the OneRepublic album that it landed in the top 10. I know digital sales are a fraction of overall album sales even now, but really? Is the power of Timbaland’s “ay”-ing that profound?
THE WHAAA? For all its power as a singles-sales force, there sure were a lot of soundtracks that flew off iTunes’ virtual shelves—10 in the top 50 alone, including the Juno soundtrack, which placed third overall. Also in the upper reaches of the year-end chart: The Across The Universe soundtrack, probably because it brought together Bono and Evan Rachel Wood; and the unkillable Alvin & The Chipmunks soundtrack (No. 24—right ahead of Duffy!). Although if you click through you’ll see that its most popular track by a far, far margin is whatever version of “The Christmas Song” has been included on the disc. For some reason, this comforts me a lot.
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Idolator Live-Blogs The “TRL” Finale: 1-800-DIAL-MTV, We Knew Ye When
7:45 AM on Sun Nov 16 2008 by Maura
Tonight brings us the finale of MTV’s daily countdown show TRL, and MTV is pulling out a few stops to celebrate its end: A few live performances, a few interviews, a return to hosting duties by TRL OG Carson Daly. In some ways, this denouement was inevitable: The fizzy, sheeny, ever-expanding America that was epitomized by the rise of both the first Britney era and TRL some 10 years ago is all but over, what with a seemingly neverending bust ensuing and the concept of “popular music” being less popular than ever. But that doesn’t mean we can’t eulogize it, right? Full coverage begins after the jump.
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Project X By The Book
10:00 AM on Fri Nov 14 2008 by Michaelangelo Matos
I admit it: I have a bias against literary novelists who write about music. It has to do with my appetite for immediacy. That’s what I like about pop, and pop writing, and it’s not a tendency always shared by literary fiction writers. So I see detailed explanations of milieu that I take for granted and I grow impatient. Obviously, this is my fault, but sometimes it’s the writers’ too. Once I showed a friend a piece a long music essay, by a well-known author, that seemed to spend its first page clearing its own throat. My friend summed up my response with hers: “Trying. Too. Hard.”
So it’s nice to have this bias knocked over, as happened with Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists (Faber & Faber), edited by Angus Cargill. I hadn’t known about the book before Simon Reynolds, who contributed two lists (“Deserving But Denied: Thirty-three No. 2s That Should Have Been No.1” and “The Dirty Dozen: Twelve Great Artists Who Are Terrible Influences”), mentioned the book’s blog on his own. I hadn’t looked beyond a couple of names before my copy arrived; I wanted to be surprised.
News
A Party Affiliation That Pretty Much Anyone Can Get Behind
5:00 AM on Tue Nov 4 2008 by Maura
I went to PS 112 in Astoria to vote this morning, and while the school’s lobby was bake-sale-free, casting my ballot and walking to the subway put me in a good mood. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, and the promise of not being bombarded with election-related speculation was close on the horizon, at least until some idiot commentator utters the word “2012″ while scrambling to fill space on whatever cable-news channel has given him airtime. Which is probably why I had Andrew WK’s “Party Hard” in my head: Sure, it was barely after nine in the morning and I was on my way back to work, instead of heading out for the evening, but my heart felt right–like it was enjoying some wine, canapes, and total fucking raging. And isn’t that what matters? A counterpoint party song, and a rundown of some notable stories that got lost in the Election Day shuffle, after the jump.
“The New York Times” Finds Its Bono Vox Populi
11:00 AM on Thu Oct 23 2008 by Lucas Jensen
Radar reports that The New York Times editorial page will have Bono penning columns for it in 2009; he’ll do six to ten (that’s an oddly vague commitment) pieces for the Gray Lady next year. (Radar also teases the possibility that this could mean the sacking of Sarah Palin fetishist Bill Kristol, which is a deal I would gladly take.)
Biases up front: I’m a huge U2 fan, and I think that Bono, despite his arrogance, is a saint, a musician who puts his money where his mouth is and works really hard for the things he believes in, like the AIDS crisis in Africa and forgiveness of Third World debt. (We need some of that in the First World, come to think of it.) These articles could be thoughtful think pieces about the geopolitical issues. I’ve seen him on the Today shows of the world sounding like he knows what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen him pontificate at awards shows like some godforsaken beat poet-warrior robot that only speaks in bluesy non-sequiturs. Which is why I’m worried that these NYT pieces might end up looking lke this:
News
Which Four Radiohead Albums Did KEXP’s Listeners Vote As Superior To “Daydream Nation” And “Led Zeppelin IV”?
4:30 AM on Mon Oct 13 2008 by Maura
As Matos mentioned earlier this month, the Seattle radio station KEXP decided to mark its annual membership drive by counting down its listeners’ 903 favorite albums–and they’d better realize that however much Radiohead is currently in their playlist, it’s not nearly enough, as four albums by that band are in this list’s top 20. OK Computer tops the list; The Bends is No. 9; Kid A is No. 11; and In Rainbows squeaks into No. 20. Where it’s right behind The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (You know what I love about Internet polling? The perspective all of the people who care enough to vote on these sorts of things seem to have.) Anyway, the top 50–as well as Nos. 900-903–are after the jump. Take notes on it, as this Thom, Win, Kurdt, and Bono-heavy list will surely calcify into The New Classic Rock Orthodoxy sometime within the coming decade.
The Music World As Seen By Doug Morris
11:45 AM on Fri Oct 10 2008 by Dan Gibson
There’s nothing like a glowing profile in Billboard to make a guy look good, and the mag’s “exclusive” interview with Universal Music Group Chairman/CEO Doug Morris is no exception. His office is presented in “modest statements” (if you consider a drawing by Bono “modest”), and he’s too focused and centered to give himself any credit for his accomplishments. Still, despite the series of totally softball questions, Morris dropped a few gems. Or doozies.
