RIP emusic

Congratulations, emusic. Having toiled over the past 7 years to build up an indie-centric, DRM-free alternative to iTunes-- a go-to site for the frugal but savvy underground music connoisseur-- you've finally reached the mountaintop...

Christina Aguilera's back catalog.

And not just that. Xtina's friends Brittney Spears, NSYNC, Ricky Martin, Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys are also finally available on emusic. Praise the lord and pass the roofies!

Of course, nothing comes without a price, but fortunately in emusic's case it was only Matador Records, Merge Records, XL Records, 4AD Records and Domino Records. They're gone now, but that's okay because now emusic has Shania Twain!!

Sure, you'll no longer be able to download music from Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Arcade Fire, Caribou, Sigur Ros, Animal Collective, Spoon, Polvo, and all the other bands that made emusic what it is, but let's be realistic. Having done the heavy lifting to lay the foundation, it's time to send those artists out to pasture to clear room for the real jewels of recorded music...

The cast of FOX's Glee! (all exclusive trademarks apply)

Nice going, fellas.

Predictably Appalled by Pusha T

One of the verses that immediately stood out to me on the new Kanye album was Pusha T's verse on "So Appalled". Mostly, it stood out because it has some of the most openly, unabashedly misogynist lines in the entire album, although I must confess a weird kind of admiration for it. Throughout all his time with The Clipse, Pusha T has really gotten his flow down to a science, and I'm actually stunned by how efficiently he crams all of his usual talking points into such a short amount of time.

Take a look below, where I've reprinted the verse as I found it on a lyrics website. Over the course of about a minute he manages to:
1. Weave in an astonishing number of references to cocaine. ("Still move a bird like I'm in bed with mother goose, etc.)
2. Assert his superiority to women. ("I never met a bitch who didn't need a little guidance.")
3. Mention an expensive car he owns. (Range Rove, leather roof.)
4. Rhyme that mention of a car with some gangsta bravado. (Love war, fuck a truce.)
5. Make the kind of unexpected, oddball references that make him somewhat more interesting than your average gangsta rapper. (Flow similar to the Legend of the Falls.)
6. Get close enough to something approaching social commentary for the Pitchfork crowd to swoon over him all the more. (CNN said I'd be dead by 21.)

All of which definitely takes a certain level of craftsmanship, even if it ends up being so predictable that I personally find it unendurably boring. Listening to The Clipse is like talking to somebody at a party who is only capable of discussing the minute details of their job, or the expensive vacation they just went on. Ok, Ok, I get it, you used to be a drug dealer. If you're to be believed, maybe you even still are a drug dealer. You made a lot of money doing that. Can we move on now?

Success is what you make it
Take it how it comes
A half a mill in twenties is like a bill where I’m from
An arrogant drug dealer the legend I’ve become
CNN said I’d be dead by 21
Black jack I just pulled in aces
You looking at the king in his face
Everything I dream muthaf-ckers Im watching it take shape
While to you I’m just a young rich n-gga that lacks faith
Range Rove leather roof
Love war f-ck a truce
Still move a bird like I’m in bed with mother goose
Them hoes come in a bakers dozen
Claiming they was with me when they know they really wasn’t
I keep the city’s best never said she was the brightest
So if you had it too, it don’t affect me in the slightest
I never met a b-tch that didn’t need a little guidance
So I dismiss her past until she disappoint your highness

I speak the gospel, hostel
Tony doing time for what he did to nostrils
Paranoid mind I’m still under the watchful
Eye of the law, aspire for more
Them kilo’s came we gave you bobby brown jaw
Flaws aint flaws when it’s you that makes the call
Flow similar to the legend of the falls
Spillin’ I own you all, yeah

Rabin on West

I'm sure that in the coming month we'll all get in on the discussion of the new Kanye West album (which I am officially obsessed with, even if I have some mixed feelings about it). I just wanted to point everybody to Nathan Rabin's review over at the AV Club. It's the only review I've seen that spends some real time addressing what to me is the most remarkable aspect of the album: the debt it owes to rock songwriting, instrumentation, and production. This album is crawling with electric guitars, keyboards, and driving drums that often owe as much to indie-rock as they do to hip hop. There of course have been rock-rap crossover acts for decades, from Run-DMC and Aerosmith's famous collaboration, to Lil' Wayne's recent, less successful efforts. But I actually think that in the last few years there's been growing interest from the hip hop community in cross pollinating traditional hip hop sounds with electric guitars and rock sensibilities (perhaps on another day when I have more time I'll offer a few more specific examples), and it's been interesting to watch it happen, even if up to now there have been a lot of sonic missteps.

Whatever else you can say about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, I think that Kanye has blown the door open on rock/hip-hop crossover, and has created something that could (and hopefully does) serve as the blueprint for a lot of new music going forward. He has successfully fused elements of both styles, and made something thoroughly rock-oriented, without losing the hip-hop underpinnings that made his music so great in the first place, resulting in a mind-bending sonic landscape that I can't stop playing over and over again.

Does he also share some archaic and/or stupid views about women and relationships in the process? You bet he does! But when the music is this good, and the self-examination this intense (there are moments that almost remind me of Blue era Joni Mitchell...maybe I've just been listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell, but I think there are actually similarities) it makes you want to overlook all that. Kind of like the way everybody overlooks the noxious antisemitism in The Merchant of Venice, because the author certainly has a way with words.

But I'm sure I'll post more on that when I've had time to wrap my head around this album a little bit more. In the meantime, I hope everybody is listening!

Springsteen + The Roots

Awesome jam at the end.

My apologies for embedding a Hulu video-- nothing but ads. I hate them, but what can you do?

Christian-Era Bob Dylan

I recently decided to start exploring the Christian period of Bob Dylan's career, since it's a pretty sizable gap in my knowledge of the guy.

Stop one is the record Slow Train Coming. Two things stand out immediately: One, it is definitely Christian. Two, it is definitely a Bob Dylan record. Check out the track "Precious Angel" and try to tell me one bad thing about the music. For that matter, try to tell me how you'd write greater Christian rock lyrics, if you were setting out to do such a thing.

I particularly love the horns on this record. I can't think of any other Bob Dylan album where horns factor in at all. Also coming up huge is Mark Knopfler, who produced and plays lead guitar.

But the funniest thing about Knopfler's involvement is that Dylan never actually told him they were making a Christian record, and it didn't become apparent until he started laying down vocal tracks. Knopfler says he called his wife from the studio and said something to the effect of: "Sessions are going well. But... and I'm not sure about this... but I think we're making a Christian record." Classic.

(It also brings to mind one of my favorite Onion articles ever-- "Bassist Unaware Rock Band Christian.")

Patriotic Embarrassment

Is anyone else as obsessed as I am with following stories on the insane new TSA procedures for airport security, which involve either taking naked pictures, or doing an "enhanced" feel-up, of every single passenger to pass through American airports?

Some of the bloggers over at theatlantic.com are writing about it almost daily, and this post in particular, in which James Fallows compares airport security here to airport security in China, really gets at the embarrassment (I would call it a patriotic embarrassment) I feel as an American, thinking about how incredibly scared and stupid we must look to anyone from any other country in the world who is unfortunate enough to have to pass through one of the airports in which these new radioactive naked-picture machines are located.

I was especially disturbed by this footage of the new head of Homeland Security. The relevant portion begins around the 1:00 mark.

Cripple Fight
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Bottomless Pit in New York

New York Kittybrains... go see them. This Saturday at the Knitting Factory. (Which is apparently now in Brooklyn?)

http://www.bottomlesspit.us/dates.php

Fifty Percent of the Kittybrains Collective Is OFF THE MARKET

Just wanted to post my congratulations to Quinapalus, who joins Dr. Kittybrains among the ranks of the engaged! My sources tell me it happened over the weekend.

Add in the fact that Via Chicago is already married, and this Collective is flying off the shelves like Faith Hill CDs at WalMart. Congrats to you all!

Who will be next?

(And by "who will be next," I mean "Eric will be next.")

The Latest from Campbell/Lanegan

A couple months ago, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan put out their 3rd CD together-- Hawk. It's mostly Campbell's project-- she writes the tunes and plays a couple of instruments, while Lanegan just doubles her on lead vocals. Even the contact information in the liner notes refers you to Campbell's website. But my attachment to these collaborations come mostly via Lanegan-- certainly one of my favorite voices in all of rock.

I finally got my hands on this record yesterday, and I'm really impressed. Pretty sure it ranks as my favorite of theirs. For one thing, it's just more energetic than their first two records. While both good, those tended to focus on lulling ballads, whereas this one has more than a few bar room stomps. It also has 2 really good Townes Van Zandt covers-- Snake Song and No Place to Fall. (FYI, it's hard to find a Mark Lanegan interview where he doesn't gush all over Townes Van Zandt. His voice is much huskier than Townes' but there's an obvious influence there.)

If anything, a lot of Hawk reminds me of Bob Dylan. Some sounds like his late '60s stuff, particularly the New Morning album, and others sound like songs he's releasing today. Check out this track, which is the last one on the album.

After listening to this twice, it's already sounding like one of my favorites of this year. We'll see come December.

Whoa Again

Kanye officially enters the Use Your Illusion phase of his career.

One of My All-Time Favorites

Mark Eitzel's West...

I haven't listened to this in at least a year, and I'm kind of kicking myself for it. It's been one my favorites for the 13 years(!) that it's been around, and now I've got to put it back in my rotation.

The whole record was co-written with Peter Buck, who is featured throughout on guitar. It also has perennial Buck collaborator Scott McCaughey on bass and keys and the stellar Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin on drums. (Those three were also in Tuatara together.)

Here's a track:

And wouldn't you know it? Even Pitchfork loves it!

I apparently recommended this record 2 years ago in the midst of praise for a then-new American Music Club album. And while that record holds up, if you only acquired one thing by Mark Eitzel, I'd strongly suggest West.

Whoa

This craziness sure took me by surprise...

Boardwalk Empire is Great!

Trailer - Sunday 9pm

"All I want is an opportunity."
"This is America ain't it? Who the fuck's stopping you?"

Monster

I know a lot of you guys have been pretty down on Kanye West, but his new song "Monster" featuring Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj (who I'm not that familiar with, but whose verse on this song kicks ass), and frickin' Bon Iver, really deserves to be heard.

You can (and should) check it out here!

You Guys Into Jason Falkner?

Sometimes a song comes up in your iTunes shuffle and it just makes you smile. This happened to me today with Jason Falkner.

I first became aware of him because he played on the first Eric Matthews album. (Eric will remember that guy as a classic Drischord selection-- although one I no longer really like. Too coy and pretentious.) But then I got sent a Jason Falkner solo CD when I was writing for the Daily Northwestern. It was a collection of 4-track demos, about half of which had previously been released in fully "produced" versions on prior records.

Probably because I heard them first, I prefer the 4-track versions to this day. Raw and fun, but not undeveloped or lo-fi. This is probably the way these songs sound live.



Now, of course, I think of Jason Falkner mostly as the guy in The Grays who wasn't Jon Brion (and the one who wrote/sang their best song-- "Very Best Years"). He was also in Jellyfish-- a band I don't really know. Anyway, great power pop type of guy, and highly underrated.

Awesome cover

Everything about this Sweet Child O' Mine cover is amazing, from the outfits to the fact that there are several points in the song when each musician is _almost_ playing the actual part, but absolutely out of sync with the other two. But the point is not so much to make fun as it is to be thankful that youtube wasn't around when we were that age, because I am fairly sure that my band (shoutout to Pete X!) laid down performances that were almost as embarassing in my parent's basement (though I think even if youtube did exist then, we would have had the good sense not to post the footage):



Also, actually, Pete X was never this bad.

If Wyclef Jean Was President

I hope that in his campaign for president of Haiti, Wyclef remembers to uphold the seemingly supernatural promise he makes in the opening of this song.



"I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday, then go back to work on Monday." (Not the plan I'd go with, but I trust he knows what he's doing).

Your Latest Phish Update

The latest cover from Phish and it's, well, it's annoyed some folks. As a caveat, this came in the midst of "Harpua", which is traditionally a spot reserved for super goofy covers. Anyway, here you go...



What most surprises me here is how straightforward and faithful this is. And that they play the whole dang song.

No Conclusion

A rare example of a 10 minute song that pays off like gangbusters. This guy knows how to build a song, and once you've heard the final release, the way he teases you with it the first time, ducking back into the verse after we initially hear the words "I never ever wanted to write this song" is agonizingly delicious.



Though not on the CD, this is the final track on the vinyl version of 'Hissing Fauna...', and I can't imagine the album without those extra songs on side four of the LP. I've made my own iPod version of the album including the whole 'Icons, Abstract Thee!' EP as the final tracks of the album and it works for me very well.

Kevin Barnes' lyrics on this album, so paranoid and embarrassingly personal, really speak to me. As melodramatic as they are, I love the crap out of them. This guy really got under my skin on Hissing Fauna, but sadly, Skeletal Lamping was a huge disappointment. Meh.

The Latest From Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Glad to see Q and VC leading the migration back to the blog, and I'd like to chime in with my take on an old favorite of this collective. Bonnie "Prince" Billy's latest, The Wonder Show of the World, has been out for a good 3 months now, and it's aged quite well during that time span.

Musically, I'd place it between the open pop embrace of Lie Down in the Light and the spare open spaces of Master and Everyone. To me, this hits on two of Will Oldham's greatest qualities. I've gone off in the past about how minimalism as an "artistic choice" is kind of a cop-out for me, but there are some people who do minimalism damn well, and I think Will Oldham is one of them.

On the other hand, this new album isn't purely "minimalist" in terms of production values. It sounds professionally recorded to a degree I don't think I've heard since Bonnie "Prince" Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music, and that was a record that I think a lot of people found "produced" beyond an indie rocker's acceptable taste.

Take those comparisons as you will; this is a great record. The ensemble is great-- and gets equal billing for the first time-- and it features some of the most unabashed pop hooks of Oldham's career. If you're already a fan (and I think most of us are), I see no reason why you wouldn't be completely into this album.