Another day, another e-mail from Universal Music Group Distribution CEO Jim Urie. Last time he urged people to write to Congress to support Music Rights Now, an organization that wants Congress to step in on music pirating. All well and good, except that their thinking is fairly backwards, and the organization’s wish to get Congress … [Read more…]
New York magazine picked up a YouTube clip of Andy Rooney discussing newfangled artists atop the Billboard charts on a recent “60 Minutes” episode: [youtubevid id=”KGCg6EO-sr4″] Well, Rooney got something right about why he doesn’t recognize any musicians in the Billboard 200: Age. His sincere grasp on reality is refreshing: His understanding that he’s no … [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…]
The folks behind Lollapalooza officially unveiled the lineup for this year’s fest (that’s right - no more letter guessing) Tuesday morning. And it looks like someone’s been reading Pitchfork. The lineup is jam packed with indie bands. Many of those acts have received the greatest praise Pitchfork has to offer, the oft-coveted “Best New Music” chalice/crown/shiny thing. … [Read more…]
Lollapalooza, the gigantic three-day alternative pop music extravaganza, announced its 2010 lineup. Except you’ve probably got to be Vanna White to be able to discern who will be there from this quirky/gimmicky mess: It’s a cute concept, but you’ve got to wonder why they decided to only use the “Os” from Lollapalooza and not any … [Read more…]
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 Grammy Award nominees were officially announced last night. Most criticisms of its blatant populism and lack of any surprise nominations aside, let’s tackle the really big issue with this years nominees: No Mickey Rourke. This is bigger than his Oscar loss last year to the overrated performance by Sean Penn in Milk. But wait. … [Read more…]