On Monday, Rolling Stone debuted it’s online subscription model, as well as a much-needed website facelift. Unfortunately, it may be too little, too late. In the years Rolling Stone wasted their web-space, with nothing to show but a handful of articles hosted on a domain, music blogs and sites have sped past the magazine (and many … [Read more…]
On Monday evening, Vocalo’s Robert Feder reported that Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis left the newspaper for a career elsewhere: Jim DeRogatis, co-host of Chicago Public Radio’s nationally syndicated “Sound Opinionsâ€and one of America’s premier authorities on everything that rocks, resigned Monday as pop music critic at the Sun-Times to join the faculty of Columbia … [Read more…]
That whole Insane Clown Posse’s turn towards appreciation of life’s little wonders, aka the “Miracles” music video, just won’t quit. People are loving hating eating it up, and the meme seems endless. Or at least endless on an Internet time-scale. Take the most recent episode of “Saturday Night Live.” The cast and writers did a … [Read more…]
The past few years, one word has come up constantly in conversation about today’s pop music: Balkanization. Be it another teeny-indie scene given the tag “glo-fi,” or another subset of Brooklyn bands revisiting the aural atmosphere of ’60s garage pop, the message remains loud and clear: As micro-scenes develop within pockets of our society, our … [Read more…]
Sunday afternoon, NME reported the death of Devon Clifford, drummer for Canadian power-punk band You Say Party! We Say Die!: You Say Party! We Say Die!‘s drummer Devon Clifford passed away this morning (April 18), after collapsing during the bands gig in Vancouver on Friday. Clifford was 30. The band posted a brief note on their Twitter account, … [Read more…]
Who knew that our country’s forefathers were such good rhymeslayers? Apparently, this guy [via New York Magazine]: [vimeovid id=”10969400″] Yep. The Tea Party has hit its tipping point for parody, and this time their critics really didn’t have to do anything. Political rap is all well and good, but this just isn’t good. Just hearing … [Read more…]
Dear jolly, rotund Record Store Day Man, Gosh, is it almost Record Store Day again? I’ve waited so long for this day to come! And I’ve been a really good music writer this year, Record Store Day Man. Honest I have. (Well, unless you ask brokeNCYDE.) I wrote my heart out about all the bands … [Read more…]
Free the Music is a guide to new albums, EPs and songs that are available for free online. Today’s drop is: Das Racist – Shut Up, Dude. In today’s everyones-a-blogger, link economy online community, many an Internet scribe would be content with where Brooklyn’s Das Racist was at the end of 2009. A “year as … [Read more…]
Maybe you’ve seen the new Insane Clown Posse music video. Maybe you haven’t. It’s entirely plausible that you’ve missed the sheer insanity of the “Miracles” music video, considering it’s netted a little more than 400,000 views in close to a week. That’s chump change in viral video terms. Yet the sheer amount of text devoted to … [Read more…]
I recently critiqued an article by Steve Almond that I felt unfairly and naively  lambasted music criticism. Almond wrote music criticism is pointless: I disagreed. And then I stumbled upon something that support Almond’s point 100 percent. I still don’t agree with what Almond wrote, but this piece of “music criticism” by Impose’s Jason Diamond … [Read more…]