Idolator

It is no secret that Idolator loves Scritti Politti, the U.K. post-punk-into-pop group masterminded by once frosted, now bearded political theorist Green Gartside. (Many "OMG!"-grade text messages were exchanged when Maura and I finally got to see the band in 2006^*.) That's why it was exciting to read this eMusic interview where Gartside talks about his future plans (even if those plans include a Hot Chip collaboration). But reading him describe his earlier self, back when Scritti was making U.S. dance-pop hits like "Perfect Way," with characteristic revulsion made us track down a vintage 1986 video interview to see why he was still so squeamish. More »

What with their ability to make the young girls scream, it would be inevitable that angry teenagers have started to rail against the scourge of the Jonas Brothers. But instead of composing a ditty like "New Kids Got Run Over By A Reindeer" or graffiting "MORE LIKE N SUCK!!!" in their school's ladies' room, members of the Web 2.0 generation have taken their anti-moptop crusade to the Internet. On YouTube, for example, a video that opens with the greeting "Hello. If you are watching this and you are a Jonas Brothers fan you should kill yourself." is rising up the "Most Popular" charts, no doubt in large part because lots of kids have vacation this week. The clip lays out boilerplate anti-boy-band rhetoric while also big-upping Slipknot and ripping the JBs' bulletin board-posting fans for having "no clue of proper grammer and punctuation." (Sigh. Kids today.) And it's garnered 700-plus comments so far, which are so far evenly split between Jonas Brothers fans and their older brothers haters. But I'm pretty impressed by the rebuttals from young laurennmariexo, who composed an 18-point (!) treatise responding to the allegations laid out in the video: More »