Fall Out Boy's Folie A Deux, announced as "delayed" earlier today, is coming out Dec. 16: "Though this is not the date we had originally planned nor the optimal date according some demographic marketing analysis, we put our eight feet down told our label it must come out this year. We’re already bummed enough that Chinese Democracy is gonna beat us to release." Well, I wouldn't count on that yet... [petewentz.com]
Former unrepentant Lou Reed sampler Mark Wahlberg said recently that he has absolutely no interest in returning to music, and that he wants to hide his pants-dropping past from his kids, who were born in the post-Funky Bunch era. Lying to your children as a way to protect them might seem like an odd parenting technique, but a quick review of Marky Mark's YouTube catalog confirms that this is indeed the correct child-rearing strategy.
More »
As Matos mentioned earlier this month, the Seattle radio station KEXP decided to mark its annual membership drive by counting down its listeners' 903 favorite albums—and they'd better realize that however much Radiohead is currently in their playlist, it's not nearly enough, as four albums by that band are in this list's top 20. OK Computer tops the list; The Bends is No. 9; Kid A is No. 11; and In Rainbows squeaks into No. 20. Where it's right behind The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. (You know what I love about Internet polling? The perspective all of the people who care enough to vote on these sorts of things seem to have.) Anyway, the top 50—as well as Nos. 900-903—are after the jump. Take notes on it, as this Thom, Win, Kurdt, and Bono-heavy list will surely calcify into The New Classic Rock Orthodoxy sometime within the coming decade.
More »
So there was a new Fall Out Boy record that was supposed to come out on the glorious day when American citizens elect their next president, allowing for big time emo commentary on the State Of Our World, Which Is Not Very Good. Something like that. I confess that ever since I quit Idolator-ing full-time I have somewhat lost track of the comings and goings of Maura's favorite band (Ed. second-favorite band after Nelson and the Instant Composers Pool, thank you) and since the VP debate, I've sort of tried to purposefully lose track of what's going on with the election. Anyway, that Fall Out Boy record is now notcoming out on Election Day because the band has realized it's a VERY IMPORTANT DAY for a world where bankers are about to start showing up to work in loincloths. Instead the album is coming out... well, the band isn't quite sure when it's coming out. But be assured that the delay is due to "reasons that suit [the band's] ideals and are unselfish" and will include an "extensive preorder campaign that will take into account the current state of our economy," possibly by including canned goods or a recycled mustard bottle full of unleaded with each purchase. The band members would also like you to know that, despite their on-record admissions of being decent-minded liberal humanists, they're not telling anyone to wear a specific campaign button, okay?
More »
Maybe! Over the weekend, a snippet of a song called "Steppin' Out Tonight" leaked, and while people were claiming that it was a new song from Timberlake's forthcoming album—which is set to drop in 2009, provided there are any music retailers remaining in America at that time—others debunked that rumor, saying that the song was actually a lost track from the Justified sessions. Which makes sense, since it seems to be relatively free of Timbaland "wiki-diki-doos," swapping in horns that sound suspiciously like they've been sampled from a classic Sade track instead. (No, seriously. Sure, Justin could easily be called a smooth operator, but the resemblance is kinda ridiculous.) [YouTube]
Why would one be surprised that Kiss had branched out into a line of branded Mr. Potato Head dolls? After all, they've hawked condoms, and coffins, and Barack Obama T-shirts, and coffee, and... well, the list goes on. But there's something almost cuddly about these renderings of Kiss in spud form, a certain roundness that's missing from the latest comic-book renderings of the group. And it's making me want to force through a lot of puns involving Kiss song titles and various ways of serving potatoes—"I Love It Baked"? "Turn On The Broiler"? "Cold G(rat)in"?—but instead I'll just show you the prototypes of the potatoes themselves, because really, the headline of this post alone is groanworthy enough.
More »
Judging by the amount of hits our post about new Journey frontman Arnel Pineda has received in the last year, classic bands replacing classic members remains a controversial subject among hardcore fans. The Washington Post takes a look at the 21st-century wave of reformed '70s and '80s hard rock bands who've replaced their singers to discover that (surprise!) "these bands are in the nostalgia business," not willing to give up the tour and t-shirt gravy train just because the guy holding the microphone happened to quit or kick the bucket. Now while anyone should be able to enjoy a reconstituted Foreigner at their local amusement park amphitheater if that's what gets their nostalgic rocks off, there was one quote in the Post's article that made us wonder: how many people paying $25 or $50 or $100 per ticket for big-name reunions would be just as happy catching a really boss cover band at their local sports bar for free? And will the same kind of nostalgia one day get you to pay big (or not so big) bucks to see your favorite band live, minus the voice that made it famous?
More »
Yesterday's New York Times had a story on how AC/DC is standing up against the digital age: The band is putting out Black Ice via brick-and-mortar outlets only next week, with Wal-Mart getting the CD exclusive and indie stores being allowed to sell it on vinyl. Angus Young told the Times that his band's resistance to going digital was rooted in the idea of iTunes selling chunks of albums instead of full-length records: “It’s like an artist who does a painting... If he thinks it’s a great piece of work, he protects it. It’s the same thing: this is our work.” Well, someone in the chain of getting the album to stores didn't quite get the memo on AC/DC's analog ways, or maybe they just found it hypocritical that AC/DC was OK with selling single songs as ringtones, but not as 99-cent downloads, because Black Ice leaked last week, and according to estimates, it's been downloaded some 400,000 times from BitTorrent alone.
More »
Latest by Captain Wrong: @Chris N.: LOL. Thanks for putting more humorously (AC/DC hardly an album band) what I was thinking. I love AC/DC, but come on. That is a weak, weak argument coming from these guys. more »
While I was on a Brooklyn pier watching aerialists and Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of Indie Rock Celebrity Bumpwatching 2008 (sigh) on Saturday night, New York's Knitting Factory was playing host to the Holiday Surprise tour, on which various members of the Elephant 6 collective—including Julian Koster of the Music Tapes/Chocolate USA, Will Hart and Eric Harris of Olivia Tremor Control, and Scott Spillane of seemingly every Elephant 6 band's brass section (as well as the Gerbils)—performed the songs that made me wear down many a CD back in the day. And wouldn't you know it, Jeff Mangum, of Neutral Milk Hotel and an increasingly large legend thanks to the now 10-years-old In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, also showed up to lend his voice to a few of the evening's performances: The opening track to the Olivia Tremor Control's Dusk At Cubist Castle, "The Opera House," is above, and after the jump, a clip of the evening's performance of "I Have Been Floated."
More »
Latest by Lucas Jensen: Bill Doss (OTC, Apples in Stereo, Sunshine Fix) was there, too. Just sayin'. It was like an Olivia's reunion. more »
What's a bigger sign of the Pussycat Dolls' desperation: The fact that there's already a third single from their quickly fading new album, the "Big Girls Don't Cry"-like weeper "I Hate This Part" (in which alpha Doll Nicole Scherzinger tries to go the Serious Sad Singer Playing Piano On A Beach route, I guess to confuse fans of sensitive-dude bands); or Scherzinger's assertion that Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin would make a great addition to the group because "she seems like a headstrong woman, a tough chick. And she's hot." What, no mention of Palin's flute prowess, Nicole? I mean, it's not like you're going to let her sing. [YouTube / Huffington Post]
A few weeks back my headphones died after getting crushed underfoot by an oblivious houseguest. So I went to Best Buy and purchased what seemed to be a fairly decent new pair for not too much money. (Times are tight, etc., etc.) It turned out they were, in fact, complete garbage—tinny and hissy to the point of being all high-end and no bass at all. So what do I do to compensate? Return them? (No, that would be the smart thing to do.) I crank them louder than usual. (Baltimore being a fairly noisy place already.) Now I'm an observant guy, so I'm not too worried about getting taken out by a bus because I didn't hear it, and I always turn them down when I'm in elevators, on buses, etc., out of respect for fellow humans. But there's always the aspect of using headphones (and/or keeping them at eardrum-obliterating volume) that I seem to purposefully overlook: the fact that they are undoubtedly killing my hearing. Now when my mom reminds me about my grandfather's tinnitus any time she comes to my house and sees my iPod sitting on my desk, she has even more hard data to wield while admonishing me. Warning to headphone users/abusers: you're probably well-familiar with the findings of this spanking new European study, but you still might not want to read the following if you'd like to remain un-paranoid about the health of your ears for the rest of the day.
More »
Latest by Christopher R. Weingarten: I wanna get those Dr. Dre headphones, which cut off a HUGE amount of outside noise and sound fucking amazing.
But then you're risking getting jumped for a set of headphones. I saw some dude walking home from the subway with more »
Our look at the closing lines of the biggest new-music reviews continues with a roundup of reactions to Little Honey, the new album from perennial rock-critic favorite Lucinda Williams:More »
It's a sad sign of the once-proud NHL's booking power when the only band they can get for their opening-night festivities these days is Def Leppard, the still-kicking British outfit that's much better known for being riotous fans of footy. More evidence that the Leps probably have no idea what a "Nordique" ever was came during said show, when lead singer Joe Elliott was triumphantly handed the Stanley Cup by two Red Wings... and promptly put it on a nearby table upside down. (Of course, he explained the screwup by saying, "We're soccer boys, what do we know?") Given the relative fame of Def Leppard at this point, wouldn't an act like The Zambonis have been a better choice for such a season-defining event? Or, heck, any band from Canada? [YouTube via Sleaze Roxx]
Jamaican singer Alton Ellis, whose languorous, soulful vocal style and old-school grace added a romantic sway to ska and gave the world the sound of rocksteady, died Friday in London. Born in 1938 and recording by age 21, Ellis' lover-not-a-fighter attitude and made him kin as much to the American R&B and soul singers he idolized (and frequently covered) as his dance-crazed Jamaican contemporaries. (Over heavenly backing harmonies and a sweet little trumpet break, his 1965 hit "Dance Crasher" cautions rambunctious rude boys to be "gentlemen" rather than juvenile delinquents, wagging his finger with some of the sweetest wordless hooks of his career.) Like many workhorse pioneers of Jamaican music, Ellis continued to play live to enthusiastic expatriate audiences well past reggae's commercial heyday, even through treatments for the cancer he was diagnosed with in 2007. Sadly, I never had the chance to see him on stage, but reports of 21st-century Ellis shows verged on the ecstatic, even among less than starry-eyed attendees. Still, a great number of Ellis' songs, most of the best recorded for labels like Studio One and Treasure Isle, in the '60s, still abound with swoon-worthy moments (the echo-tinged sighs closing out "Cry Tough," the longing vibrating through one drawn-out "you" in the chorus of "I'll Be Waiting") captured forever on crackling and hissing 45s. Ellis was 70. [BBC]
Hey, Look, Someone Got A Job In The Music Business
Jason Flom, recently cut loose from his position as head of the Capitol Music Group during Guy Hands' reorganization of EMI, has landed an A & R gig at Universal Music Group. He may even get an imprint of his own, which makes sense, given that fans of rock acts like Flom proteges Kid Rock and Staind seem to be the only ones buying records these days. [Billboard]
The video for Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy" opens with a black-and-white tableau that's reminiscent of an early-'90s fragrance ad: Beyonce and her man trade synonyms for intimacy while standing in front of a stark bleached-brick background, then count down to the main event with "you, me, us." The main plot of the video involves Beyonce as Policewoman, and she happens to have a male partner with whom she shares a somewhat-too-close relationship, which progresses as the video goes along, and seemingly culminates with a conflict regarding a pair of earrings and some inappropriate grinding at a party—until it turns out that the scenario we've been watching is actually the gender-flipped version of what's actually happening, and Beyonce's man is the philandering cop. It's all very "deep," at least as far as portrayals of revenge fantasies every woman who's ever had to deal with a straying partner go. [WSHH]
More »
Latest by Al Shipley: She probably shouldn't have used this particular visual motif to make a serious statement when Lil Wayne will dropping a sleazy "Mrs. Officer" video any minute now. more »
Idolator
Fall Out Boy's Folie A Deux, announced as "delayed" earlier today, is coming out Dec. 16: "Though this is not the date we had originally planned nor the optimal date according some demographic marketing analysis, we put our eight feet down told our label it must come out this year. We’re already bummed enough that Chinese Democracy is gonna beat us to release." Well, I wouldn't count on that yet... [
Former unrepentant Lou Reed sampler Mark Wahlberg said recently that he has absolutely no interest in returning to music, and that he wants to hide his pants-dropping past from his kids, who were born in the post-Funky Bunch era. Lying to your children as a way to protect them might seem like an odd parenting technique, but a quick review of Marky Mark's YouTube catalog confirms that this is indeed the correct child-rearing strategy.
More »
