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(02/02/10 6:00am)
Since the infamous ""wardrobe malfunction"" in 2004, there has
been a significant shift in the direction of Super Bowl halftime
performances. The trend is obvious in the six years since: Paul
McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen, and now the Who. Take your choice
of adjectives: careful, cautious, conservative, symbolic.
(01/28/10 6:00am)
The official website of Beach House, the four-year-old,
two-person ""dream-pop"" duo, brings you to a single image of the
two acting like a pair of misfit, ironically swanky teens. You
can't see their faces. There is a sculpture of a head with multiple
faces in between them, and Victoria Legrand's hand is tucked into
her pants next to her belt buckle, where ""GIT SUM!"" has been
MSPainted in. To boot, the three links on the page—aside from those
accessing a new Teen Dream single—are miniscule and
hidden. As a whole, this is uncannily indicative of the unabashed
timidity and awkward social remoteness Beach House purvey through
their music.
(01/28/10 6:00am)
The official website of Beach House, the four-year-old,
two-person ""dream-pop"" duo, brings you to a single image of the
two acting like a pair of misfit, ironically swanky teens. You
can't see their faces. There is a sculpture of a head with multiple
faces in between them, and Victoria Legrand's hand is tucked into
her pants next to her belt buckle, where ""GIT SUM!"" has been
MSPainted in. To boot, the three links on the page—aside from those
accessing a new Teen Dream single—are miniscule and
hidden. As a whole, this is uncannily indicative of the unabashed
timidity and awkward social remoteness Beach House purvey through
their music.
(01/25/10 6:00am)
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away (""Ready are you?
Wh-wh-what know you of ready?"" interjects Yoda backed by a dubstep
beat), technology became so advanced that artists could take the
creative work of countless others and splice them together in new,
trendy ways. These new, flashy packages became the ‘hip' to music's
old ‘hop,' spontaneously sparking dance parties using the least
likely of characters.
(01/21/10 6:00am)
Josephine Foster's archaic approach to music is thoroughly
indicative of her background. She is an aspiring opera singer
turned classically trained songwriter who can play guitar, piano,
harp and ukulele. Her tastes lend her a sound predating pop music
as we know it, making her an old-school traditionalist. Think of a
Joanna Newsom type of adoration for antiquity, only not so wrapped
up in individual vision and ambition.
(01/19/10 6:00am)
Another decade of music has come and gone. Every one—let's say
from the 1950s on—embodies shifts in cultural and technological
influences allowing unique artists and stories to develop in pop
music. And as much as change is resented in almost all forms, it is
inevitable. However, for avid music listeners, it becomes important
to separate juvenile fascinations over greatness from truly
relatable artists who are relevant to your life in ways deeper than
their trendiness and your ability to talk about a band everyone can
relate to.
(12/15/09 6:00am)
""You're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution / A
time where there's got to be a change,"" begins The
Ecstatic. An intro featuring Malcolm X speaking at Oxford
University finds Mos Def comfortable in his pre-established niche
as a socially conscious rapper educated enough to rep with both
hard and soft intellectuals.
(12/15/09 6:00am)
Rappers always seem to deliver when you least expect it...
Except for the Wu-Tang Clan, who have seemingly been living like
gangsters for so long they can't help but be authentic, offensive,
crude and disturbing.
(12/15/09 6:00am)
Freddie Gibbs, a straight-off-the-streets mix-tape
rapper from Gary, Ind., is one of the biggest anomalies in the rap
game. He's not for people who enjoy pop/rap stuff, even though his
production can sound similarly over-the-top at times. The beats
evoke constant swagger as a foundation, and his flows, though raw
and crude in subject matter, are even more crisp, polished and
ambitious. In spite of his delivery, which ranges from Bone
Thugs-n-Harmony to Lil' Wayne in pace, fans of classic gangster rap
will have a hard time looking past such ornamented production and
hard-knock content.
(12/08/09 6:00am)
""I am so / I am so / Out of tune,"" Jeff Tweedy sang at a solo
acoustic set he performed as a rogue while recording Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot, simultaneously turning it into a lamentation of
personal, professional uncertainty. Overall, its directness is so
mysterious, ambiguous and genuine it discomforts and reassures at
the same time. Despairingly crying out in self-awareness, Tweedy
emotes a candidness that only a Ditch Trilogy-era Neil Young would
be bold enough to pull off, calmly finishing the stanza, ""With
you.""
(11/30/09 6:00am)
The end of the year is the best time for music fans as, it means
it's time to quantify our opinions in the preferred writing style
of audiophiles: lists.
(11/24/09 6:00am)
An emphatic dunk by junior forward Keaton Nankivil came just in
time to seal a 64-61 Badger victory against Arizona last night in
the first round of the Maui Invitational.
(11/23/09 6:00am)
Over the last 10 years, music transformed in just about every
way possible to expand its embrace with new personalities. While
other genres continue to explore new sonic depths, however, hip-hop
remains somewhat static. Any underground or gangster rapper who
finds success invariably becomes drawn toward the light of the
mainstream market, leading to an industry lacking a clear motive
more often than coming off genuinely inspired. Many rappers have
looked to this trend as a fresh source of inspiration, but the best
hip-hop artists of the decade tend to ignore the industry on their
most successful work.In the case of my rapper of the decade, the
industry can be used as an unspecified evil protagonist in relation
to an elaborate pen-persona that disregards the line between fact
and fiction.
(11/16/09 6:00am)
This should not be the first time you've read about Pitchfork
and its indie influence. It has been making bands relevant since it
became a daily in the late '90s and coolly bashed the mainstream
scene. For every pop music movement there is backlash, resentment
and something of a countermovement. Consider Pitchfork the
instigator of this decade's musical countermovement to the late
'90s.
(11/09/09 6:00am)
So last week's decrying of Lil Jon was fun, but a ranting column
like that is not very productive without alternatives and guidance,
so running it concerned me and got me thinking.
(11/08/09 6:00am)
Listening to Wale's mixtapes can be enigmatic. At times, you're
asking yourself why you spend your time listening to an
oft-monotonous delivery lacking in hooks, and at times you're blown
away by his relentless barrage of rhymes and asking yourself why he
can't do more with such obvious talent.
(11/02/09 6:00am)
Lil Jon is set to release his first solo project Nov. 24,
entitled Crunk Rock. Why should anybody care? The short
answer is you should not care nor pay it any attention, yet people
will. Maybe even a lot of people, which makes me curious.
(10/26/09 6:00am)
Earlier this summer, an unforeseen surprise caused Christmas to
come early for music geeks everywhere, and it presents two starkly
contrasting approaches to the current music market. I was able to
get my hands on Eminem's Relapse and Wilco's the album in the same
week, but what made it such an unexpected celebration is the fact
that Wilco's album wasn't supposed to come out until June, yet it
matched Eminem's May 15 release.
(10/19/09 6:00am)
I got a hold of Dizzee Rascal's new album Tongue N' Cheek over
the weekend, and it left me with one thought: An artist who can
maintain success in a distinct sound or genre for any length of
time is extremely rare.
(10/12/09 6:00am)
A new single is set to be released along with ""This Is It,"" a
movie about the rehearsals leading up to what was to be Michael
Jackson's final tour. The song was unfinished, only a piano with
Michael singing and some of the lyrics. On top of this, a
significant amount of unfinished tunes have been recovered. But if
any artist is so electric and dynamic their work deserves to be
preserved the way they left it, it is Michael Jackson, though there
are some odd cases of posthumous work in the past that also warrant
questioning.