Posts Tagged ‘project x’

Project X By The Book

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. MORE »

When you metion the "funniest, most deadpan writer" you are referring to Tom McRae, not McCabe

MORE »


Project X Would Do Anything For Love, But It Won’t Sing That

As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Michaelangelo Matos breaks down top-ten lists from every genre imaginable. In this special Oct. 10 edition of his column–it is 10/10, after all–he breaks down some of the worst lyrics to reach the airwaves of British radio. MORE »

This list does not come even close to giving Oasis their due. "Supersonic" alone could have filled up the list:

"I'm feeling Supersonic / give me Gin and Tonic"
"I know a girl called Elsa / She's into Alka Seltzer"

And this piece of work right here:

"You make me laugh / Give me your autograph / Can I ride with you in your B.M.W ? / You can sail with me in my yellow submarine"

Noel Gallagher, everybody. Whatever, man.

MORE »


Project X Hits the Hip-Hop Nostalgia Circuit

As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Michaelangelo Matos breaks down top-ten lists from every genre imaginable. After the jump, he sits through VH1’s latest TV-based listicle, 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs, and finds a few poignant moments among the MC Hammer jokes: MORE »

"We Trying to Stay Alive," is worse than the the stripper song?

MORE »


Project X Gets Lost In The Jungle

f16404ddswo.jpgAs part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Michaelangelo Matos breaks down top-ten lists from every genre imaginable. After the jump, he sifts through two rundowns of jungle singles that hint at where the genre’s been and where it’s going:
MORE »

Wow, nothing from Jungle Sky? No DJ Soulslinger? "Mutant Jazz"?

It's weird how I used to be pretty into this stuff, and yet there's a couple tracks here I don't know at all. I think it goes to show the genre was much wider and deeper than any of us realised at the time.

On the other hand, this is all really clubby stuff, whereas I started focusing more on the Squarepusher/Spring Heel Jack/etc. headphonier side of things as soon as it emerged. Which I guess underlines my above point.

MORE »


Project X Dances With History Via “Mixmag” And The BBC

underworldddd.jpgAs part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Michaelangelo Matos breaks down top-ten lists from every genre imaginable. After the jump, he sifts through two lists of dance tracks picked by two different segments of the British populace:
MORE »

@Audif Jackson Winters III: Right. I suppose my dividing line was too broad, but I don't mean people who listen to the radio are stupid or anything like that. I mean that there's a big difference in the kind of audience that buys a monthly magazine devoted to the latest goings on in the clubbing realm and an audience that would tune into a series of BBC Radio 2 shows celebrating the history of dance music. (The list above was taken from the site advertising a three-part series of the best-ever dance records, and there were also apparently a number of programs celebrating it.) By definition the second group would be larger and broader--and would probably be more likely to include people with nostalgic feelings for the Second Summer of Love. Whereas Mixmag has a specialized, younger audience for whom the second half of the '90s is a kind of mecca. I'm not calling anyone bad names here. I'm trying to denote a demographic difference--and obviously should have done so more clearly.

MORE »


Project X Plays with Some Of “Our Favorite Things”

363_50_cover.jpgAs part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. In this installment, he talks about the way experimental-music quarterly Signal To Noise broke free from the typical listicle template: MORE »

Great column, and it dovetails well with Maura's EW piece. I'm a huge fan of Taylor Swift's entire album, and the "signature breakup song" perception is a hugely misguided media concept based on two great singles. But really, there aren't that many more breakup songs than any other mainstream country album. (There might be some gender issues here as well, as vicious woman-scorned break-up songs tend to be patronizingly celebrated, especially in publications with only fleeting country coverage. See also Miranda Lambert.)

Not sure I agree though with the idea of "signatures" not arriving until a second or third album. Surely, the Ramones, Jeff Buckley, Talking Heads, R.E.M., Liz Phair, LCD Soundsystem, all had a signature sound on or before their debut albums. And as for signature break-up songs, wasn't "Don't Think Twice" on Dylan's second album?

MORE »


A Project X Family Reunion

takeabow.jpgAs part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he sits down with his family for the fourth time to analyze last week’s Billboard Top 10:

I’ve been traveling all May, starting with a week in New York, with stops in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago before spending a week in the Twin Cities. (Portland, Ore., is next, before heading home to Seattle.) I’ve been seeing a lot of my family while I’m here–and of course I had to play them the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 of May 24. MORE »

>>Brittany: Usher used to be good. But then after that one club song he made-"Yeah." That was a good song, but then he kept trying to make club songs and they weren't as good.>>

spot on. i would like to see him do more along the lines of "U Don't Have to Call" or "Caught Up," which was so gloriously MJ (JJ too circa "Alright")

MORE »


Project X Turns On The AC

itstartsinmytoes.jpgAs part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. In this installment, he flips the dial to the nation’s Adult Contemporary stations and finds a lot of familiar faces. MORE »

@Maura Johnston: True. And it's lengthy days in workplaces like that that make One More Try by George Michael seem like the best damn song ever recorded.

MORE »


Project X Tries To <em>Reason</em> With Fuse TV

fuse_logo.jpgAs part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. In this installment, he tries to sort the factual errors from the intentional comedy from the plan ol’ batshit as he subjects himself to the Fuse show 10 Great Reasons, where a zoologist, a cheereader, a TV chef, and Carnie Wilson all have plenty to say about girl/boy bands. Even if little of it is coherent. MORE »

You're right about my not being an historian. Although I am currently pursuing my Ph.D in history, I have not obtained it yet, and am quite a few classes away from doing so. While doing the interview, I requested to be known as "historical fiction author," but they obviously ignored me and went with "historian."

That's Hollywood for you.

As for how they found me, a producer googled "history buff," which happens to be the name of my blog!

Michelle

MORE »


Project X Spins Top 35 Rock Lists Compiled By “Spin”

spinjim.jpgAs part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. In this installment, he looks at an issue of Spin from 1990 that attempted to tell rock history through Top 35 lists:

If you saw my bulging shelves full of CDs, books, magazines, photocopies, and printouts, you might call me a collector. But I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the designation: even when I was 13 and deep into comic books, I wanted to read them more than I wanted to preserve them. Keeping them around was a fringe benefit. The same has been true with music magazines, but it wasn’t always, which is what has lately driven me to eBay to find old copies of Spin. One of my favorite issues was cover-dated August 1990: Jim Morrison against a bubblegum-pink background on the cover. The headline: “35 Years of Rock’n'Roll.” A subhead: “Top 35 Lists of Everything From Guitar Gods to Dead Rock Star Charts.” MORE »

one thing I meant to mention but forgot to is how the book excerpts, especially, in the meetings-of-minds list sort of reframed rock history in a way that undercut neat historiographical patterns--made the footnotes the main story, a good trick for the article's length at least.

MORE »