Idolator

Like a lot of subcultural scenes, dance music is usually reduced to a few token entries on the year-end lists of general interest publications. As the former editor of wide-eared music site Stylus, Todd Burns did more than his fair share to turn people on to dance records that went deeper than the kind normally covered in your average indie rock webzine or glossy rock mag. His dance-centric essay for this year's Pazz And Jop poll, however, is an object lesson in how not to turn people on to the unfamiliar, mostly by spending a few hundred words telling them why they suck for liking records with things like hooks. Did you know that you should feel guilty for enjoying poppy crossover dance records? Somehow I don't think this kind of conscience-stricken Catholicism is exactly what all those old disco cats who equated the dancefloor with "church" had in mind, exactly. More »

Writing about Hostel 2 recently, Rich Juzwiak raised the old question about the infamous I Spit On Your Grave: "Is this director Meir Zarchi's parable for women's struggles and the strength needed to overcome them, or is it a 20-minute porno wrapped in 80 minutes of bullshit?" Which bring us to Simian Mobile Disco's most recent video for "Hustler," which raises a similar question on a much-smaller scale: More »