Frustrated by the Internet standing in the way of your Idolator fix? Are the 404 errors that some of you are seeing on the site slowly driving you mad? Turns out that they can be avoided—albeit in a manner that results in a ton of pop-up ads—by visiting an anonymizer site such as the delightfully out-of-date
Borat Proxy. Whether the comment function works using this method remains to be seen (and if you have other suggested proxies, please e-mail them our way), but at the very least, you'll be able to see what we write about Pete Wentz later. [
Borat Proxy]
Sultry Swedish singer Lykke Li gets mixed up with Digitalism, the Field, Hercules & Love Affair, and Gui Boratto on this mini-mixtape by the Hood Internet. [
The Hood Internet]
MTV News' James Montgomery describes how soul-sucking and Google history-killing the life of a music journalist can be in 2008, the year that Miley Cyrus bra shots,
High School Musical nude pictures, and Ashlee Simpson pregnancy rumors line the expressway that leads to the promised land of "music-related click action." (There's also a bonus cameo by me, although I am fully clothed and not in
flagrante whatever.) To cheer yourself up after reading this, please avail yourself of these
pictures of a pug dressed up like Teen Wolf. They worked for me! [
MTV / Photo: AP]
Who could have foreseen that a story about the musical ambitions of one of the women involved in the prostitution scandal that brought down former NY governor Eliot Spitzer would turn into a comments-box gang-bang debating the monetary value of her non-musical services? Oh, that's right. Everyone. But hey, song's at least as good as, I dunno, Ashley Tisdale? One of those
Hills ladies?
Something TV-related that satisfies ever-lowering expectations for radio pop, anyway. [
Daily Swarm]
Dear Stereogum, if you promise to never,
ever write about hip-hop ever again (ever!)—especially with all the overwrought
Wire references, factual errors about samples, misspellings (unless that errant "e" tacked onto Flav
aor Flav is some Quayle-era gag I don't get), fat jokes, and ironic "z's" added to the end of words—then I promise to, I dunno, donate some of my newfound free time to the local ASPCA or a hospice or something for a little public service quid pro quo. [
Stereogum]
Times dining critic Frank Bruni gets Rickrolled in his own comments section. (I kind of saw it coming after he wrote incredulously that he was reminded of the adorable Enlish singer while dining at a Thomas Keller restaurant, but it was still funny, and would have only been better if the culprit had used the
Mario Paint version instead.) (Also, yes, I am serious about the "adorable" thing.) [
Diner's Journal]
Attention readers attending the SXSW festival this year/fans of TV chefs with obnoxious accents and giant teeth: "We are also reaching out to offer Battles a slot as one of the five bands in the 'Feedback' showcase" supposedly hosted by the Food Network's own Rachael Ray. "Battles music has long been enjoyed by Rachael and is a staple of her iPod." Given the blog in question, I suspect Internet prankery at work with this "leaked memo," but would be happy to be proven wrong, especially given how weird the first 31 days of 2008 have been. [
Earl Boykins via
Paper Thin Walls]
Yahoo! and AOL may shut down their Internet-radio services, which have become a pricey proposition for the two online companies because of the 38% royalty increase mandated by SoundExchange. "Yahoo and AOL stopped directing users to their radio sites after SoundExchange, the Washington-based group representing artists and record labels, began collecting the higher fees in July.... As a result, the number of people using Launchcast fell 11 percent to 5.1 million in October, according to ComScore. AOL Radio users declined 10 percent to 2.7 million from 3 million." [
Bloomberg]
Hey, DMS of The Leak Source! It's nice to be proud of your work, but I'm going to hazard a guess that proclaiming, over and over again, that you're responsible for ripping the new Duran Duran album and uploading it to Demonoid isn't the
best course of action in these lawsuit-happy times. Even if you're saying so in an effort to hold on to your leak-blogging honor. Oh well—at least I know that the album's "out there," right? [
The Leak Source]
Idolator
Usually, we use The Last Word to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews, but this week we'd like to focus attention on responses to Ann Powers' recent L.A. Times think piece on "poptimism," a.k.a. critics paying serious attention to mainstream pop music, a.k.a. critics doing (one of) their jobs. In particular, Powers' discussion of covering American Idol as a music-news story has become something of a bloggers' chew toy. Below the jump, a bit from Powers' original piece and some choice blog responses.
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