Will Kanye’s new album have a riff about I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings? Well, West made reference to Caged Bird author Maya Angelou today on his blog while announcing his return to the studio: IT’S FUNNY HOW SO MANY RAPPERS GET WORSE AS THEIR CAREERS STRETCH OUT BUT TRUE POETS GET BETTER. Â WE … [Read more…]
The ‘net’s been abuzz, questioning the verifiability of Andrew W.K.’s identity in music. Andrew recently opened up and let people know the attacks he’s suffered due to his musical evolution and identity in the pop realm: Since 2001, I have been accused of being part of a conspiracy in which I knowingly entered into a … [Read more…]
“Gimme something to look forward to,” Britt Daniel sang on Spoon’s 2002 album, Kill The Moonlight. And with every new year, there’s a great list of upcoming releases by musicians to impatiently look forward to with every blog post on “Band A” or “Band B.” Spoon is one of those groups that’s bound to get … [Read more…]
Happy 2010! It’s time to start off the new year with something new… Or, in this case, something old turned new. Rolling Stone has the details on the Soundgarden reunion: Soundgarden fans woke up to incredible news this New Year’s morning: the band, which split in 1997, is officially reuniting. And that’s about all the … [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 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 Overlooked Albums of the Aughts. A while back I started an ongoing feature called “Overlooked in … [Read more…]
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#”] It’s a pretty jubilant, bouncy tune, not unlike something off of Herbert’s Scale, where the musician sampled … [Read more…]
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 and black humor, died on Friday in a hospital … [Read more…]
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 still in a … [Read more…]
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 declaring Chesnutt dead due to the source of the news. … [Read more…]