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 of hip-hop heads. … [Read more…]
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-put bit of subliminal music … [Read more…]
The new year is almost here, and with it comes a maelstrom of “End of the Year Lists.†Here on Ex-Spectator, I’ll be rolling out a few “End of the Yearâ€/â€End of the Decade†lists. Today’s list: The Best Free Albums, EPs and Mixtapes of 2009. Since Radiohead made the pay-what-you-want model so notable with … [Read more…]
2008 is almost gone as the New Year will arrive in a matter of hours (or it may have already arrived depending on when you read this). So, in anticipation for the number of times I’ll forget to put “2009” on whatever documents need a proper year, here’s a little listing of 9 things I’ll … [Read more…]