For the kids like myself that grew up in ’90s, I think most of us remember an era when MTV was the purveyor of all things cool. Beavis & Butthead and Daria aired daily, The Real World wasn’t scripted yet and alternative, electronica, and hip-hop music inspired some of the dopest music videos of all time. The music video was a full-fledged art form, complete with superstar directors (Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry) and full of weird shit an eight year-old kid probably shouldn’t have been watching.
But hey. Now that MTV programming is almost exclusively dedicated to quality, thought-provoking programming like Jersey Shore and The Hills, it’s hard to see why anyone would be nostalgic for a time when these five-minute masterpieces ruled the small screen. In any case, Pitchfork picked 50 of their favorites, and luckily for us nostalgia junkies, Maaria gave me the heads up. Check here for the full list, and hit MORE for a few of my personal favorites.
Good songs come from a lot of different places. I remember last month at the Foreign Exchange show at Yoshi’s SF, Phonte spoke on the all-too-common, and frankly unnecessary debate between “mainstream” and “indie” fans. The Foreign Exchange proceeded to hit us with the musically inclined, neo-soul versions of “Turn My Swag On” and “Stanky Leg”, among others. That shit was comedy. The point being that at the end of the day, it’s all music, and the lines people tend to draw often have more to do with perception than musical quality. With the Bowties crowd, maybe I’m preaching to the choir. You guys have some eclectic tastes, which is why I can drop some Diddy and some Beach House in the same post, and not really think twice about it. Anyway, we’re glad to have you behind us. The best is yet to come.
This one is likely to crack hard and sell out fast, so getting tickets soon is probably the best course of action. Coming off one of the year’s most impressive albums with This Is Happening, James Murphy and company will take the stage in Hollywood on Friday, October 15th. Joining LCD on the same stage earlier that night will be Hot Chip and Sleigh Bells, which should set off the evening nicely, and loudly. Tickets are lightweight pricey, but three dope bands is hard to argue with. Cop here.
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“Got no time to for spreadin’ roots,
The time has come to be gone,
And to our health we drank a thousand times,
It’s time to ramble on…”
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There’s a few things I like to think I know about art. And among them are a few ideas pretty closely related to this video. For one, less is more. Doing something simple often says a lot. Secondly, emotional investment in one’s work is important; it allows to art to be a release for the artist, and it makes the piece resonate with it’s audience that much more. Thirdly, a magnetic and talented performer can make anything worth watching. For all of those reasons, the video for “Cold War”, shot in a mental asylum in a single take, is one beautiful piece of art. Janelle continues to impress.
No one really likes Monday mornings. Getting up early is weak. Work is weak, unless you’re job is really that clean (Crosby, Will and the rest of the Google staff, I see you). But hey, getting up early has its upside sometimes. Take right now for instance. It’s been a slow ass week, so today’s a good day to drop a gang of new tracks. For the folks who missed the latest snippet from Andre 3000, feel free to peep below, and expect to see the CDQ off Jeezy’s album soon. The K-Os & Drizzy is serious, the Röyksopp is a jam, the Matthew Dear is geeked and that Twista damn near gave me chills. One of the best verses I’ve heard in a minute. Anyway, there’s a bunch of new shit to check out, and the last two songs are about hard drugs, which is cool too. For the folks on the grind, I hope you work somewhere where it’s cool to have some headphones on.
“Quit these pretentious things, and just punch the clock”, Regine Chassine’s voice warns us, echoing the sarcastic sentiment of an album about being dissatisfied with modern, materialistic suburban culture. As social commentary, The Suburbs isn’t exactly novel in its thinking. But if there’s a band with the earnesty, the fervor and the musical ideas to execute the kind of sweeping modern statement the album represents, it’s Arcade Fire. Dipping into more adventurous territory than ever before, “Sprawl II” may be the most radical departure from the gloomier feel of their early work, with a deceptively poppy melody along the lines of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”, and a texture not unlike the ’80s synthpop that informs much of the album. Exciting, ironic and impassioned, it’s a fitting final track for The Suburbs, which somehow manages a sound as big as its ambitions.
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Damn, is it really August already? By some folks’ logic, I think that’s supposed to mean Summer should be winding down. Personally, I like my glasses half-full, so let’s just say there’s a whole month left. Lately, I’m pretty partial to the Freddie Gibbs tape, but Arcade Fire, Slum Village and Seu Jorge’s new projects have all been getting some burn too. For my B-Town folks, I’m not mad at the latest from the Cataracs either. A little pop shit is only healthy. Hit MORE for all of the above, plus the new single from Wayne and Drizzy.
I remember when Mike put me onto Ra Ra Riot a couple years ago. And in general, the Mike co-sign means it’s something you need to hear, so I decided to look into them. It’s not every indie rock band that has a cellist and a violinist in their regular lineup, but it’s their unconventional chamber-pop approach that gives them a distinct sound. Even so, I didn’t know they had one like this in them. “Boy” is something like Vampire Weekend covering Peter Bjorn & John’s “Young Folks”, with the same kind of fast-paced, stuttering bass line, but this time surrounded by elegant strings. With Orchard, their second LP due out soon, this looks like a preview of what they’ve got in store.
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The story of Janette Beckman‘s early career goes roughly like this: after shooting album covers for The Police, and portraits of everyone from The Clash to Boy George in her native England, she moved to New York in 1982, only to capture some of the most iconic shots in hip-hop’s golden age. To rattle off just a few quick names, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys and Eric B. & Rakim were among some of the more famous subjects. Arkitip’s Project Space in L.A. will be featuring a retrospective of Beckman’s work, aptly titled Archive of Attitude, opening August 12th, and highlighting some of the more iconic shots from her storied career. If you get a chance to stop in, don’t miss it.
I’ll be real. I slept on Arcade Fire for a long time. It’s not like I disliked their music, but it always seemed like the music couldn’t possibly match the hype. To put it all in perspective though, 9.7 ratings from Pitchfork and placement on damn near every top ten list two albums in a row is a lot to live up to. The fact is they make exciting, imaginative music, and it’s no coincidence that people like David Bowie and Bono can be counted among their hundreds of thousands of fans. Personally, “We Used To Wait” is the most exciting record I’ve ever heard from them. But that’s just me. The Suburbs, their third LP, is due out a week from today.
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New York in the late ’70s and early ’80s was a pretty chaotic time. In an excellent short piece on The Summer of ’77 in the latest New Yorker, Tim Long describes a time “when the city was ravaged by drugs, drugged by corruption, corrupted by murder, and murdered by ravagement.” Amidst all the chaos though, some of the most important cultural movements took root. Within the span of less than a decade Punk culture, post-punk, Hip-Hop and a vibrant art scene all became part of a sort of subcultural renaissance. From Byrne to Basquiat to Bambaataa, Downtown Calling aims to capture an era in New York unlike any other by investigating it’s lasting impacts. Downtown Calling premieres at the New York International Latino Film Festival on Wednesday.
If Jay’s ridiculous verse on “Free Mason” somehow went over your head last week, do yourself a favor and let that one ride out first. My apologies if we’ve been a little Ross-heavy lately (no pun intended), but Teflon Don is looking serious. As far as the rest goes, highlights include some settled Dam Funk, the latest from Cudi and Ye, and a Mayer Hawthorne video full of bad ones. And don’t trip. There’s a plenty of even more obscure indie shit too. Watch the Edward Sharpe if you’re feeling adventurous. Much love to the fam. Last weekend was one for the books.
“Where I’m Going” is one of those indie-pop records where the appeal is so instant, you can tell it’s not going to go away for a long time. Placement in movies or commercials is pretty likely, and at the least, it’ll make it’s way into plenty of dorm rooms. It should be noted, however, that it’s a great record for different reasons than most of the Cut Copy’s previous work. Taking a step back from the dancefloor, and into laid-back psychedelia, “Where I’m Going” is unexpected, but impressive nonetheless.
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“Everybody seems to think I’m lazy
I don’t mind, I think they’re crazy
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find, there’s no need…”
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