It’s hard to sum up an entire year of pop music in one concise “best of” list. Instead, here’s a tidy little look at some of the highs and lows in pop music over the past year: Hip-Huh?: The New Yorker‘s Sasha Frere-Jones declared that hip-hop was dead and upset a lot o[...]
Archive for December, 2009
December 28th, 2009 - 11:07 pm § in True/Slant
Tor Mashes-Up Q-Tip & Final Fantasy
Tor, one of the musicians who topped my “Best Free Albums of 2009” list and one brilliant mash-up artist, is at it once again. Eight hours ago, Tor dropped a new mash-up. Instead of another re-mixing of Sufjan Stevens, Tor tossed wordmaster Q-Tip onto some fine violin-work by Final Fanta[...]
December 27th, 2009 - 3:44 pm § in True/Slant
Pixar's Up: The Remix
Someone on YouTube has taken a note out of Herbert‘s songbook. That being, find something, sample every sound that comes out of it and create some wonderful ditty. Here’s what’s been made of Pixar’s brilliant film, Up: [youtubevid id="JVxe5NIABsI&feature=player_embedded#"[...]
December 25th, 2009 - 8:12 pm § in True/Slant
Vic Chesnutt Dies, NYTimes Confirms
Singer-Songwriter Vic Chesnutt died this afternoon in Athens, Georgia. There had been unconfirmed reports that he died last night, which proved to be untrue. At 5:27 PM EST, New York Times critic Ben Sisario gave an official word: Vic Chesnutt, a singer-songwriter whose music dealt with mortality a[...]
December 25th, 2009 - 10:29 am § in True/Slant
Vic Chesnutt Death Reports Unconfirmed
As I mentioned last night, there were a few reports that said singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt died after slipping into a coma. All of those reports seemed to point to one source: Henry Owings. However, as of about an hour ago, new information has surfaced that Chesnutt has not died and is indeed stil[...]
December 24th, 2009 - 11:28 pm § in True/Slant
Vic Chesnutt Reported Dead
Singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt has been reported dead after slipping into a coma on Thursday. Chunklet‘s Henry Owings took to Twitter two hours ago with the following message: RIP Vic Chesnutt… The A.V. Club’s Josh Modell posted the information an hour later, but was skeptical in d[...]
December 24th, 2009 - 12:40 am § in True/Slant
The Best Music Criticism of 2009
The finest piece of music criticism in 2009 did not come from a paper of record. It did not come from a music-dedicated blog. It came from the disastrously-produced superhero film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I had the (dis)pleasure of viewing Wolverine the other night, but was tickled pink by one well[...]
December 23rd, 2009 - 12:19 am § in True/Slant
The Decade In Emo
It was indeed “A Decade Under The Influence.” But while Taking Back Sunday could string together a few solid hits drenched in a post-hardcore milieu and cut with pop sensibilities, chances are no one in the band could have predicted how influential emo would become in the aughts. The presence of[...]