2008 saw the words "shamanic" and "cosmic" bandied around more recklessly than at any time since 1973, and it was primarily down to MGMT's bandana-clad frontman, the blissed-out figurehead for a new generation of inner-vision voyagers.

Sure, I get the bandana thing: You can always tell the cool guy by the bandana. (Just look at Bret Michaels!) But wouldn't Andrew's bandmate and fellow Wesleyan grad Ben Goldwasser merit a mention in the top 50, especially on a list that honored Brandon Flowers' moustache last year? I don't even think the Klaxons did anything in 2008 and one of them made the list, and certainly Lethal Bizzle could have been knocked off to make room.

Hey, NME: Why do you hate Ben Goldwasser?

The list in full:
50. Jon McClure, Reverend & The Makers
49. Carl Barat
48. Lethal Bizzle
47. Eva Spence, Rolo Tomassi
46. Matt Bellamy, Muse
45. Brian Fallon, The Gaslight Anthem
44. Gruff Rhys, Neon Neon
43. Karen O, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
42. Tom Vain – S.C.U.M.
41. Shunda K, Yo Majesty
40. Robert Plant
39. Robbie Furze, The Big Pink
38. Jason Pierce, Spiritualized
37. Brandon Flowers, The Killers
36. Frank Carter, Gallows
35. Little Boots
34. DJ Mujava
33. Josh Homme, Queens Of The Stone Age
32. Lovefoxxx, CSS
31. Rivers Cuomo, Weezer
30. Will Roan, Amazing Baby
29. Scarlett Johansson
28. Miles Kane, The Rascals/The Last Shadow Puppets
27. Yannis Philippakis, Foals
26. Nick McCabe, The Verve
25. Peter Gabriel
24. Zack de la Rocha, Rage Against The Machine
23. Jamie Reynolds, Klaxons
22. Jay Reatard
21. Damon Albarn
20. Dev Hynes, Lightspeed Champion
19. Florence Welch, Florence & The Machine
18. Ed MacFarlane, Friendly Fires
17. Santogold
16. Ezra Koenig, Vampire Weekend
15. Johnny Marr
14. Dave Sitek, TV On The Radio
13. Lil Wayne
12. Guy Garvey, Elbow
11. Pink Eyes, Fucked Up
10. Caroline McKay, Glasvegas
9. Liam Gallagher, Oasis
8. M.I.A.
7. Caleb Followill, Kings Of Leon
6. Ladyhawke
5. Sam Dust, Late Of The Pier
4. Alex Turner, Arctic Monkeys/The Last Shadow Puppets
3. Andrew VanWyngarden, MGMT
2. Jay-Z
1. Alice Glass, Crystal Castles

NME Cool List 2008 [NME]

When making a point regarding the blogospheric prominence of a band of recent vintage, it is customary to cite the number of "hits" said band has on Technorati or Google.

Having done so w/r/t the band MGMT in the previous paragraph, Your Correspondent will note that, while accompanying his gal on a shopping jaunt this past weekend, he heard a few of the band’s songs played in a Manhattan Marc Jacobs store and five minutes later in a Juicy Couture shop across the street. Throughout the late summer and early fall, YC heard tunes from Oracular Spectacular in virtually every boutique in Manhattan where he read the paper while his beloved tried on shoes.

Based on such anecdotal data, it would seem that Spin's braintrust chose the cover subjects for the mag's November issue judiciously. MGMT’s music is described therein as “psych-pop” or “psychedelic,” which is balderdash: YC more or less hears wistful, percolating tunes largely made with vintage synthesizers, a genre that has been semi-popular with Spin’s readership ever since the release of Air’s Moon Safari and as such has no connection to "psychedelic" music whatsoever.

But it could just as easily be that many readers have heard and enjoy MGMT’s songs, but have no sense of who the act is and wouldn’t particularly care to learn. What then, Spin powers-that-be?

For the very, very little it’s worth, YC likes Oracular Spectacular better than he likes the current music of the last six months' worth of Spin cover subjects. He also knew absolutely nothing about MGMT previously, and from the evidence of “Head Games,” by Spin contributor Victoria DeSilverio (with whom YC worked for a very short time at Blender), them boys ain’t that interesting. Met at Wesleyan; started duo as lark; never expected to be taken seriously; were taken seriously by two NYU students and a Columbia A&R rep; championed by lots of young folks; have pretty hair; travel the world; get lots of pussy (presumably).

Elsewhere, assistant editor David Marchese receives the dubious honor of attempting a civil conversation with notoriously rude rock and roll legend Lou Reed, who’s promoting a new live recording of his initially misunderstood 1973 album Berlin. YC, who counts the early ‘80s Reed/Fernando Saunders/Robert Quine/Fred Maher quartet as one of his favorite bands of all time, will scream if he reads Reed intoning “I wanted to do what Hubert Selby did, but with guitars,” and then proceeding to belittle an interviewer for asking questions that displease him one more time. Y'all should read it just to witness how utterly contemptuous he is towards Marchese’s reasonable queries, and how candidly Spin presents the conversation.

What was most interesting in the issue to YC was “A Tale of Day-Glo Body Suits, Dogs Chewing Gum, and Surf Music on Dust: Black Rock (An Oral History),” in which frequent Spin contributor David Browne presents an oral history of the Black Rock Coalition, a New York-based confederation premised on promoting African-American rock and roll musicians that included Living Colour and 24/7 Spyz, as well as fellow travelers like Fishbone.

Once signed, these acts were not only pitched to “the one black kid at the Van Halen/Circle Jerks show,” but to white kids who could not understand Public Enemy and were eager to support black artists who, y'know, play “real music, like Hendrix, maaann.”

YC should say that he and his teenage knucklehead pals were knocked off their asses by Bad Brains’ I Against I in 1986, that he bought Vivid the day it was released in 1988 and was one of 25 people to see the band open for the very shitty English band The Godfathers in Louisville that year, and that he saw 24/7 Spyz five times in the early ‘90s. But in hindsight, it seems like Living Colour made one world-class hard-rock single, but otherwise produced very ponderous, overstuffed, didactic, and ill-conceived music. Yet any white kid with an interest in rock music was almost obliged to support the band, lest he or she embody the narrow-minded dirtbag hard rock fans were believed to be.

Browne’s piece is nonetheless enlightening. To wit:

• Spyz guitarist Jimi Hazel and Fishbone singer Angelo Moore express frustration not only with major labels leery of investing on black rock bands, but with the expectations of black audiences at the time. Moore: “When black people hear music that’s past a certain tempo, they have to think too much to dance to it, so they don’t try.” Not only does the mind boggle at the prospect of a white musician trying to make this point, but these words are illustrative of how often many musicians are alienated from their immediate peer group.

• Spyz bassist Rick Skatore: “if you played instruments, they’d say ‘Are you into Prince?’ I would say, ‘That’s not the kind of stuff I’m feeling.’” How odd that in the ‘80s, Prince could be looked at as a pop artist, and not universally acknowledged as both the most Ellingtonian figure of the last 30 years and a consummate rock and roller.

• BRC executive director Earl Douglas: “When we tried to book bands at black clubs uptown, there was flat-out resistance…the biggest battle was that our audience didn’t drink… someone said ‘you don’t understand—the bar is where the club owners make their money.’ I thought, ‘We need some alcoholics in this organization.” YB is reminded of a Bowery Ballroom bartender who once told him that one of the Johns of They Might Be Giants walked up to him after a show, handed him $50, and said, “Sorry our fans are so fuckin’ lame.”

• Douglas again: “Alternative music came in, and suddenly Living Colour was thrown into that old guard. The mainstream thought of them as an ‘80s metal band…” Perhaps the band shouldn’t have tried to be a high-minded glam metal band populated by slumming fusion cats, and focused more on the Homestead/SST/AmRep paradigm guitarist Vernon Reid certainly was aware of.

• Browne also makes the point that the BRC paved the way for younger bands with African-American members like TV on the Radio and Dragons of Zynth to be a justly unremarkable part of modern popular music.

It also bears reminding that the most influential African-American rock and roll band of the last 30 years had no formal connection to the BRC, although the group is mentioned briefly in Browne's piece. That would be the greatest hardcore punk band in the history of the world and one of the best American bands ever, full stop. This group did not try to make a point about how black rock bands should get their due. It was all show and no tell for Bad Brains.

Go ahead and sputter about me not having heard them up until this point; I know, I know. But there are lots of other records out there, and only so much time. And either way, it's kind of funny that the band that spawned said song is lighting up the Hipster Runoff set in the same era of the smooth-jazz format being completely decimated. Removing all the context from "Electric Feel"—the angry comments from the pool partiers, the tizzy that bloggers have gotten into, the remixes by people trying to hitch a wagon to their still-ascendant (?) star—it really does sound like it could nestle right in between "Piano In The Dark" and the extended remix of Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good." Is this the new, smooth sound of young America? And was it inevitable, what with all the coke out there?

To be fair, MGMT does categorize themselves as "easy listening" on their MySpace page, so maybe they're just waiting for all the smooth-jazz stations in the country to fade away, so they can franchise their sound into a low-power-FM empire that fills the need currently being experienced by many a car-service driver. Weirder things have happened, right?

MGMT- Electric Feel [Dailymotion]

First you have, of course, your person in the know who makes you want to erase any knowledge of anything you might have ever possessed, ever:

hahaha get on the list next time fools.... free booze and no lines. just you know, hang out and get to know the right people or lose some weight and be cuter and then you can be where everyone else wants to

The street team member behind the cloak of anonymity:

this was as close to beatlemania (or menudomania) as Ive ever seen the scene at the pool. the crowd was super loud even for ting tings (we listened from outside, never got in). but if you were inside it was only half the story. You had people scaling fences, 20ish girls in high heals climbing that big 10 foot chainlink fence and heroically making it inside, you had people in the playground climbing on the rock, on the monkey bars, there were people up on the fire escapes two blocks away. there was blood sweat and tears out there. even though we never made it in, seeing all this and listening from the outside still made for a memorable day. esp when they played "time to pretend". it was so moving to hear the people sing it under their breath. just an amazing amazing day. MGMT will be huge after this, mark my words.

(Beatlemania? You do mean as in the cover band, right? I'm going to say yes, if only because of this person's preferred spelling of "heels.")

And your obligatory missed connections, "funny people" edition:

I saw a hipster awkwardly and unathletically jump the fence, splitting his pants. No joke. Hilarious.

anyone see the old man who got nabbed by the cops trying to get under the fence by the port-a-potties?

the naked black dude on the slip and slide was really throwing himself out there.

Why do people crowdwatch so much at fucking shows? Who cares?

Duh, to post comments that are more insightful than yours, dude!

Moving on, here we have people who are going to be laid off soon, if karma is real:

i was with blah and we are stunning young men, each bestowed with well paying jobs



we tipped 6 bucks on top of the 6 dollar price of beer because we are filthy fucking rich

And finally, what all 160-plus comments all pretty much told me in toto, summed up quite succinctly by anonymous @ 8:39 a.m.:

blah blah blah, the line was long, blah blah blah, I hate people who cut, blah blah blah, i cut in line, blah blah blah, mgmt doesn't have that many fans, blah blah bah, i deserved to be in there more than you did.

Oh, Internet. I love the way you bring the people together.

MGMT @ McCarren Pool was packed [Brooklyn Vegan]
[Photo via Suburban Cowboy]

Things obviously haven't going so well for last year's winner, Amy Winehouse. But the award has turned a bit of a corner after a rough run in the '90s, with recent winners including Carrie Underwood, John Legend, and Maroon 5. Still, the winner often seems to be a little predictable once the nominees are announced (did anyone think Ledisi was going to win in February?), so take your best guess (Duffy) of who will win (Duffy) from this list (Duffy) compiled by Martens.

Leona Lewis

The Ting Tings
Katy Perry
Vampire Weekend
Estelle

Santogold

She & Him

MGMT
Lil Mama
Duffy

From that list, I think you can immediately forget about She & Him; Merge probably doesn't carry the clout to pull of a win in a major category, even if the voters are taken in by what Martens describes as "a '50s-influenced sound, evidenced by Disneyana in songs like 'Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?' " Leona Lewis is generally the sort of act that does well at the Grammys, but without Clive Davis around to work the system in her favor, her pretty girl/good singer act might not be enough. MGMT, the Ting Tings, and Vampire Weekend are unlikely to stand too much of a chance besides a token nomination between them since one "rock" act usually grabs a nod (2008 example: Paramore).

Perhaps most intriguing is Santogold. Santi White been around the business for awhile and is doing an excellent job of turning her album into this year's version of Moby's Play, which can't hurt executives who are wondering where their next revenue stream might come from. Although Santogold's record itself seems on the verge of being too edgy for the notoriously stogy Grammy-voting bloc, she might be in the right place at the right time to pick up a few votes from those who want the Grammys to look hip.

Still, Martens hits the mark perfectly when describing Duffy's chances of taking home the award.

Duffy's vintage soul should be Grammy gold, if voters don't shy away from lauding a U.K. soul star two years running. On her debut, "Rockferry,"...Also working in Duffy's favor is her early success. Nearly two months after the album was released, it's still in the top 20, which is an impressive feat for a newcomer....

She's a perfectly inoffensive choice. Like Winehouse, Duffy's retro-themed tunes recall an era more than stand on their own. There's a bit more of a vagueness to an act like She & Him, a sense of familiarity that one can't quite place, but Duffy's appealingly sweet sense of song-craft works to her advantage.

Familiarity, vagueness, inoffensive appeal? Sounds like someone should clear a place on her mantel back in Wales.

Grammys midway Part 1: Estelle, Katy Perry and an early look at 2008's notable new artists [LA Times]
Grammys midway Part 2: Duffy, Zooey, Santogold and more [LA Times]

Over the last few weeks, Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart has seen a new entry by one of modern rock's biggest mainstays, but it took me a while to figure that out, since said superstars are operating incognito.

"Mother Mary," which dips to No. 29 this week after peaking at No. 16, is the first radio hit credited to the Foxboro Hot Tubs. But the trio behind the song is better known as Green Day, who quietly debuted several tracks online under the alias in December, and have since racked up some impressive radio spins without the benefit of name recognition.

This isn't the first time Green Day has pulled such a stunt; in 2003, the group self-released an album as the Network, and for a few months kept up an elaborate ruse about having nothing to do with the mysterious new wave band whose singer sounded so much like Billie Joe Armstrong. But it's interesting that after reinventing themselves rather dramatically, and successfully, with 2004's guyliner-streaked rock opera American Idiot, Green Day still feel the need to moonlight under a different name to try out something a little different. And this time, they're a little less shy about capitalizing
on that side project; unlike the Network, who never charted, the Foxboro Hot Tubs will release their album on Warner Bros. and the band is putting up less of a front about who they may or may not really be. Based on the peppy retro-jangle of "Mother Mary," I'm guessing that full-length, due out in April, will be more enjoyable than whatever ambitious slog the next "real" Green Day album turns out to
be.

One of the reasons I take an active interest in what's going in the commercial rock market is that while I often don't approve of the trends and biases it's governed by, I can pretty easily identify and analyze them. And though I still listen to plenty of new underground rock, I pretty much gave up on trying to understand the machinations of the indie zeitgeist a long time ago; I'm generally pretty happy to remain blissfully unaware of whatever "blog band" is currently making the rounds. That is, unless they actually make enough of an impact to chart with a radio single, which is currently the case with both Vampire Weekend and MGMT.

The latter's "Time To Pretend" is pleasant and expensive-sounding enough that I can understand why it's crossing over. But it's kind of amazing to hear the former's "A-Punk" with the knowledge that this is the band that's inspired the most fevered rock-crit debates of 2008 thus far. On a blind taste test, I wouldn't give these guys two minutes, but at least that's all that "A-Punk" asks for; at 17 seconds longer than Blur's "Song 2" and four seconds longer than the Presidents of the United States of America's "Lump," it's one of the shorter songs to have made an impact on alt-rock radio. Unlike those songs, it doesn't use that brief window to drill its hook into your head; I can't remember how it goes a day after listening to it, nor do I have any desire to remind myself. If these guys have a shelf life on radio beyond their hipster buzz, I assume it won't be with this song.

For most of the past few months, the Modern Rock chart has featured two political punk bands with the word "Against" in their name that I've never brought up in this space, partly because I have trouble remembering which is which. But I recently decided on this handy mnemonic: Against Me!'s frontman is the one with the really annoying voice and Rise Against's frontman is the one with the really annoying hair. Currently, the former is at No. 27 and rising with "Stop," while the latter's "The Good Left Undone" has just now finally slid out of the Top 10 in its 38th week on the chart. I may not like them, but I can appreciate that these bands are keeping a more strident and aggressive strain of punk on the radio in the era of MySpace emo. And they're getting a little backup from veterans Pennywise, whose "The Western World," down at No. 28, is already the highest charting Modern Rock hit of the band's two-decade career. Green Day may be taking a break from both political comment and straight-up punk rock, but the airwaves are not currently lacking for either.