Idolator

It seems that some enterprising scamp mailed a box of poo yesterday to MTV's VP of "Creative Music Integration," Joe Cuello. Actually, the crappy surprise was sent via private messenger, and there is no indication as to who did it or whose waste it was. I'm choosing to believe that this story is true, though it is unverified at this point. What does a VP of Creative Music Integration do? Well, he chooses the music that goes into such tony productions as The Hills, which means probably means he finds a way to license artists' music gratis and then chops it into little six-second snippets that ASCAP or BMI can't recognize. But, hey, that's based on previous experience with MTV. I'm sure they pay artists tons now for placements!

It wasn't me, I swear!

Did Someone Send This MTV Exec a Box of Poop? [Gawker]

Blonde Bond Daniel Craig and cell phone pitchman Noel Gallagher got into the kind of fake celebrity spat that the British tabloids manufacture daily by using the patented system of drawing two celebrity names out of a hat, asking them about one another, and then creating a headline that seems salacious—"Daniel Craig baits Noel Gallagher over guitar skills jibe," in this case–-until you read the story and realize that nothing all that interesting happened.

In this case, Craig was questioned at a movie premiere about Noel Gallagher's assertion that Craig should play him in the (inevitable?) Oasis biopic. Craig said he was too old for the role (he's one year younger in reality), and that, anyway, he was better at guitar. I did some digging to see if I could find 007 jamming out on the guitar, but I was met with crickets and tumbleweeds. (The British beefcake apparently does enjoy a game of Guitar Hero now and again, but that really ain't the same thing.)

In a comment on his Morrissey review earlier this week, fellow Idolatorian Mike Barthel mentioned that his antipathy toward Animal Collective was so strong, he couldn't even understand why other people liked them:

Why do I hate AC? I've gotten into it elsewhere, and yeah, like Maura said, there hasn't really been a proper platform to air any writer's grievances at length. I just really, really don't like them, to the point that I don't even really understand why other people like them. I actually spent about an hour today talking to a former AC-hata who was trying to talk me into liking the new album, and I gave it an honest, serious try, and it made me want to stab knitting needles in my eyes.

Every week in the "Shhhh-it!" AnonIMous Super-Secret Music-Biz Interview Series (S-I!AS-SM-BIS for, uh, short) we interview a grizzled music industry veteran via the topsy-turvy world of instant messaging. This week brings an interview with TheThingThatShouldNotBe, an editor at a metal magazine and a longtime aficionado of the genre. TheThingThatShouldNotBe has a lot to say about the state of metal today and is fairly sanguine about the prospects for metal print magazines in this deleterious time for the music industry. He poses a theory as to why metal fans are so devoted, chastises Idolator for its lack of metal coverage, and takes on the lack of metal on year-end lists, particularly that of Pitchfork:

TheThingThatShouldNotBe: i mean, pitchfork reviewed a fistful of metal releases throughout the year, some quite favorably, but when it came time to make up their top 50 list, not one metal title was on there
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: same with the onion av club list - not one metal title
StumpyPete1975: I think it's the problem with consensus
StumpyPete1975: there is that one metal guy on staff
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: it bugs me because they're not claiming to be parochial indie-only sites, they're claiming to be covering the best of current music
StumpyPete1975: yep
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: and yet, when the year ends, their true colors are revealed
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: i mean, i don't have to pretend to like bon iver or whoeverthefuck, you know?
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: when i make a list of the best albums of the year, it's gonna be the best METAL albums of the year, and everyone reading it knows that going in
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: but pitchfork wants to expand their stylistic purview - until they don't
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: and it winds up being disrespectful
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: and an inaccurate portrayal of culture as it exists on the ground

Metal machine music after the jump!