We haven't run a new segment of our search for the worst in Village Voice Media music writing recently—not because there hasn't been material, but because forcing myself to read some of the same writers turning out the same crap got tiresome after awhile. However, that doesn't mean there isn't exciting VVM-related news going on.
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Status Ain't Hood, Tom Breihan's blog for the Village Voice, is calling it a day. It seems that Breihan's found himself a new gig for some yet-to-be-named online project, and that his planned departure later this week is coinciding with a potential writers' strike at the Voice that may begin tonight. We tip our hat to Breihan, who tirelessly covered American Idol and did an admirable job of trying to enjoy every rap album that made the Billboard Top 100. No matter what the future holds for him, he will always be very, very tall. [Village Voice]
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and Broken Social Scene will headline this year's Siren Festival, the Village Voice-sponsored free sweatfest on Coney Island scheduled for July 19. Other bands on the bill: Beach House, Film School, and Annuals (remember them?). Bonus frequent-flyer points go to Times New Viking, who will play Siren on Saturday then fly out to Chicago for a performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival the next day. Full lineup after the jump.
The LA Weekly has let classical critic Alan Rich go because of decisions made "by the corporate people in Phoenix," where Weekly owner Village Voice Media is headquartered. Just out of curiosity, how many full-time classical critics does VVM have left at this point? (For a point of comparison, Rich's ouster means that the entire city of Los Angeles has one.) [LA Observed]
Lil Wayne will release The Carter III on May 13. Maybe. After all, the guy has spent the last two and a half years doing everything but making actual studio albums: seven or eight mixtapes, dozens of guest appearances, several arrests, and more hype than the"Loungin'" video*. Some of this attention has been warranted. The Carter II, his previous studio effort, is a good but not great record, with "Tha Mobb" ranking as one of the decade's finest rap songs and "Shooter" impressively meshing hardcore raps with a crossover sensibility (though Alan Thicke will forever out-class his son). Moreover, Wayne's ascendence benefited heavily from 2005's ignominious distinction as one of the worst years in rap history, with critics so strapped for music to ride for that they actually tried to convince themselves that Paul Wall and Mike Jones were good.
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Add another music festival to the pile of multi-band shows coming to an open-air space near you this summer: This year's installment of the sweaty Village Voice-sponsored Siren Music Festival will take over Coney Island on Saturday, July 19—the same weekend as both the Pitchfork Music Festival and the jammy Mile High Festival. I guess when you're throwing a free festival, you don't have to worry about sagging ticket sales, but that seems like some odd counterprogramming to me. [Brooklyn Vegan]
Village Voice Media has reportedly eliminated its national Executive Music Editor position, but the company is keeping the guy who had that job, VVM lifer John Nova Lomax, around; he'll return to his old gig as music editor of the Houston Press, which means that Chris Gray, who held the Press' music-editor position until about an hour after he filed his final post-SXSW story, is out. Nice of the VVM folks to get their pound of barbecued flesh out of Gray right before they gave him his walking papers—never say that they don't know how to keep it classy! [The Skyline]
Dan Weiss is a young writer who seems well-meaning and smart enough, but honestly, does he really think DFA associates Hercules and Love Affair's disco track "Blind" is really "a projected summer hit"—maybe in England or New York, and if so he should've said so—much less "a mélange of Primal Scream's 'Swastika Eyes' and Blur's 'Girls and Boys'"? Is this really as far back as Weiss can go with a record so swimming in '70s and '80s sonic signifiers? [Village Voice]
Like many of us, Courtney Love wonders about certain choices Village Voice Media has made over the last few years. Twelve hours ago she was specifically irate over Voice music editor's Rob Harvilla's recent piece on the Foo Fighters, where Harvilla praised frontman Dave Grohl for his likeability by claiming that "in arena rock, as in politics, we vote for the candidate we'd most enjoy having a beer with" and that Grohl was the arena-rocker in whose company he'd most enjoy popping the top on a tall cold one. Courtney then attacked Harvilla's offhand dismissal of informed voting until her caps lock squealed like someone in Boy George's basement, comparing Harvilla's lede to a "Fox [News, presumably] talking point" and referring to the Foo Fighters as a "mediocre" band. Incensed that the general public perceives arena rockers as beer fans—"Beer isnt even GOOD. i mean REALLY."—Courtney went on to list all the things she's done with arena rockers instead of drinking beer, maddeningly teasing us by not including the names of the arena rockers in question.
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Well, that's it. Tag it and bag it. Unless I happen to notice a late-breaking entry from the Burlington Community Times tomorrow while getting my coffee, the publication of the Village Voice's Pazz And Jop poll marks the last of 2007's year-end lists, headed up by LCD Soundsystem (album) and Amy Winehouse (singles). Now let us never speak of either again.
THE GOOD: 2007 is over! Also Feist and Wilco were both kept out of the albums Top 10, plus an honestly surprising, kinda heartening Winehouse-over-Rihanna singles upset, if only by 4 mentions. (And even if No. 2 Rihanna spanked No. 3 "All My Friends" by a whopping 32 mentions.)
THE BAD: As with the Idolator Pop Critics Poll, Peter Bjorn and John earn a Top 10 placing on the singles list despite the evil "Young Folks" first whistling its way into our lives in 2006. Damned twee Swedes.
THE WHAAAA? Radiohead beats M.I.A. to the No. 2 albums spot despite an equal number of points, thanks to four more ballot mentions that break the tie. Not quite fraud at the polls, but clearly the electoral college is not the only voting system that needs reforming.
As previously reported on Idolator, you might have noticed that the quality of writing in the music section of your local Village Voice-owned alt-weekly has dipped slightly in the last few years. In partial tribute to the memories of adequate-or-better writing gone by, and partially to make for easy material on a Friday, we again turn the spotlight on everyone's favorite national alternative media chain. Niki D'Andrea, music editor of the Phoenix New Times, today's your lucky day!
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You (hopefully) have better things to do with your day than read the bold and edgy blogs the New Media folks at 
And now it's time for another installment of Rock-Critically Correct—except this time we've made a few changes to the feature. After the jump, our non-anonymous correspondent critiques the most recent Village Voice music section, where she used to be an intern.
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A quick recap: For the past few months (we think), one of the music bloggers over at the Village Voice—a NYC-based publication that specializes in coining zingity-zang catchphrases—has been occasionally dropping the term "assholator" (it's a combination of "asshole" and "idolator," FYI). We generally just ignore it, as it's yet another whiffed attempt to further our meager little war-of-words, and because we ignore the VV music blog anyway. But today's little missive doesn't make any sense: Granted, we specialize in bad headlines—revel in them, in fact—but this one wouldn't make it even on our most desperate days. Here's why:
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As longtime fans of snarly guitar hero Mary Timony, we were planning on seeing her as many times as we could this week, but we only knew about her showcase late Saturday night. So we got even more bummed about our Thursday 15 minutes ago, when we found out that we could have capped our frustrating day with sets by Timony and the always-exhilarating Oxford Collapse. Turns out the two of them were playing a bash for the Village Voice that was both unadvertised and Bravery-free. What, did our invite get lost in the mail? So sad.
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We knew the Voice's music cred was shriveling, but yikes—the Bravery? Why not just have one of the editorial interns fart into a helmet, and call it a night?
As this week's Village Voice cover story proves, it's hard to find a NYC writer who doesn't have some sort of connection with Ultragrrrl—even if it's just through random nightlife socializing. And since we'd love to read an Ultra piece that takes an outsiders' stance, we asked several high-profile scribes about whether they have enough distance to remain truly objective. Their responses after the click-through.
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We don't expect 
Idolator
