Idolator

In a headline-grabbing effort that seems to happen once every five years or so, a pastor in Newport News, Va., is calling for burning music that he deems offensive; to show just how out-of-touch he is, the burning does not involve putting MP3s onto a CD-R, but torching commercially available CDs of what he refers to as "gangsta rap." (Perhaps Wal-Mart can donate the fruits of their imminent shelf-space-cutting for the occasion?) While throwing down the gantlet, he does let loose a somewhat salient point: "Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas—they live in the suburbs somewhere." Ooh, burn! Although, uh, speaking of burning, it's not like the suburbs are exactly crime-free havens. [Daily Press via Wired]

Today's sentence that had me reaching for the Advil comes from Guardian music blogger Owen Adams: "When is indie genuine indie, when is faux-indie indie, and when is genuine indie not indie?" Yes, folks, that's right: It's time once again to debate the semantics of the word "indie," although perhaps after this week's blow-up over This Is Next (52 comments and counting!) maybe it's time to completely just do away with the whole concept of indie-as-genre—or even as adjective, period—once and for all. More »