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 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…]
It’s true… Pete Wentz is a genius. Or someone at Fall Out Boy camp has got it going on in their noggin. A smattering of break-up rumors cropped up online, fresh on the heels of the Tuesday release of the band’s greatest hits album Believers Never Die. Take the NME tweet from just yesterday: Fall … [Read more…]
Lil Wayne can do it all. Pleading guilty to guns charges. Dropping rhymes on a terribly conceived Weezer track. And now releasing the mixtape No Ceilings. Nah Right has all the info on the mixtape and a link to download the thing. All I can say is, in just experiencing the first couple of minutes … [Read more…]
Uncle! Can I give up? I’ve kept a pretty upbeat attitude when it comes to Weezer as of lately. I always hope for the best, and if I’m disappointed I’ll just say “maybe next year” and move on. But, “Can’t Stop Partying” is, well not quite the Weezer folks have eulogized over the years, nor … [Read more…]
I didn’t even bother watching the Grammys (nor have I in the past… well, who knows), because, well, for one thing, I rarely go out of my way to watch TV (especially on a Sunday night). But for one thing, of all the inumerable awards out there, the Grammys seem most meaningless; they toss aside … [Read more…]
A countdown of the best albums of 2008, in all their colors.
Sometimes life feels like a Kurt Vonnegut book, the way seemingly random events and lineages come together in unknown ways. It also helps when you checking out a heaping helping of Vonnegut novels from the library and his particular method of story-telling seeps into your life. Let me explain: Having recently graduated and awaiting the … [Read more…]
Down in New York for the weekend, I decided to take a break from some ear-shattering concerts (short review: Deerhoof rocked Prospect Park, Parts & Labor absolutely killed it at Siren Music Festival) to check out David Byrne’s Playing the Building exhibit at the Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan. The instillation is a wonderful little … [Read more…]