Drugged-Up Pantless Wonder Wins the Hearts of America

#1 Song in the Country.  Jesus.

Lady Gaga was, um, a spectacle on The Tonight Show last week.  There’s something funny about a pantless poorly-cordinated bimbo staggering around stage, attempting to play a keyboard, singing about how she doesn’t know where she is and had too much to drink the night before while Thriller rejects bounce around her.  Roofie-Pop… so hot right now.

This will probably be pulled off of YouTube eventually (but you can see it on Hulu),  so here are my screencaptured highlights:

Lady Gaga strikes a pose:

Lady Gaga does a very loose Robot:

Lady Gaga does a very poor Charleston:

Lady Gaga paws at a piano held up by one of her backup-dancers:

Lady Gaga does the Charleston again, while 24‘s Mary Lynn Rajskub and Dustin Hoffman smirk behind her:

Well Why Don’t You Just TELL Me the Best Album of 2008?

She & Him

In trying to think of my favorite albums of the year, I was looking around on other sites to see what albums actually came out this year (why this tag info doesn’t come up in iTunes baffles me).  I’m trying to listen to as MUCH 2008 music as possible in the next few days in order to make some decisions, but so far my opinions were more like Steve from Coupling’s thoughts on Fabric.

So, because I like Excel documents, I grabbed a few of the top 50-or-so lists (Paste, Mojo, Uncut) which, btw, is NOT a good sample of publications…  so I grabbed MetaCritic’s “Top 30 Best Reviewed Albums” and added it to the list too.  With a straight average (regardless of how many times they were referenced), here is the top 10 w/ their average ranking:

1. She & Him – “Volume One” 1
2. The Last Shadow Puppets – “The Age Of The Understatement” 2
3. Plush – “Fed” 3
4. Vampire Weekend – “Vampire Weekend” 4
5. Fleet Foxes – “Fleet Foxes” 4.25
6. Bon Iver  – “For Emma, Forever Ago” 4.75
7. Neil Young  – “Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968” 5 (tie)
8. Okkervil River – “The Stand Ins” 5 (tie)
9. The Bug – “London Zoo” 5.5
10. Shugo Tokumaru – “Exit” 6

After seeing this very odd top 10, I have to mention that 6 of the Top 10 didn’t make the top 50 of any other list.  How can this be?  How can the best album of the year (according to Paste) be completely disregarded by all other mags?  What does this say about the world of criticism?  Well, in my humble opinion, every magazine, despite all being able to listen to the same LP’s in 2008, need to have their own little “things”.  They all feel the need to champion records to exalt their superior tastes — whether this means gushing over a record no one went super-crazy for, or one no one else has even heard of.

The Bug

I cannot claim to be completely informed about new music, but it does annoy me that 3 of the top 10 artists:  The Last Shadow Puppets, Plush, and Shugo Tokumaru; I haven’t heard peep about until now.  You can chalk that up to me living under a rock, or, as I’d rather; chalk it up to critics keeping their favorite records a secret and then sticking an obscure album way high in their Best-Of List, thereby solidifying their status as super cool, music insider/outsiders.

So, to get rid of the Let’s-Mention-an-Album-No-One-Else-Will epidemic, I will eliminate all albums mentioned only once in all four Year-End lists.  THEN, our top 10 looks like this:

1. Vampire Weekend – “Vampire Weekend” 4
2. Fleet Foxes – “Fleet Foxes” 4.25
3. Bon Iver  – “For Emma, Forever Ago” 4.75
4. Neil Young  – “Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968” 5 (tie)
5. Okkervil River – “The Stand Ins” 5 (tie)
6. The Bug – “London Zoo” 5.5
7. Shugo Tokumaru – “Exit” 6
8. Paul Weller – “22 Dreams” 6.5
9. Girl Talk – “Feed the Animals” 7
10. Sun Kil Moon – “April” 8

This works more like DEMOCRACY!  Or, more like parliamentary procedure, like, you know, when one guys like “I move to nominate Girl Talk”, and then some other dude in a headband and American Apparel short-shorts is like “I second that!”…  The Girl Talk motion passes!

  

Now, we’ll cut the fat again, here is a list of albums that made three of the four 2008 Best-Of Lists (in an act divine intelligence, there are exactly 10 albums that did this):

1. *Fleet Foxes – “Fleet Foxes” 4.25
2. *Bon Iver  – “For Emma, Forever Ago” 4.75
3. *Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – “Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!”  9.25
4. Portishead – “Third” 10
5. *The Hold Steady – “Stay Positive” 12
6. Drive-By Truckers – “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark” 17.33 (tie)
7. Randy Newman – “Harps And Angels” 17.33 (tie)
8. Sigur Rós– “Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust” 17.33 (tie)
9. *TV On The Radio – “Dear Science” 19.25
10. MGMT – “Oracular Spectacular”  30.33

*Appeared in all four Year-End lists

You can of course argue that reducing editorial content and criticism to averages strips the rating of any validity… I would probably agree with you. 

But here’s what the list above does:

• It devalues the one-offs that a critic just had to put in the list for rep’s sake. 
• The obligatory high ranking for the band that posed for your cover is marginalized. 
• What emerges are albums that were universally liked — albums that you “buried” deep in your top 50 because they were too obvious, too mainstream, or were afraid to rank too highly.

What we have with this bottom list is 2008 albums that found favor with a diverse amount of critical publications — two iffy “rock” mags, a singer/songwriter obsessed one, and a computer aggregate site.  The result is LPs that span an array of tastes despite the gerrymandering that may effect one individual publication.

I’ll put my personal faves up later this month, and follow-up with a revised page when Stereogum, Pitchfork, and Tiny Mix Tapes, Coke Machine Glow, PopMatters, etc start to mention their favorites.

Don’t Look Back in Anger: Pitchfork Music Fest Styles of the Past

So, here’s the deal.  I kept referring to my past Pitchfork commentary, but then I realized my MySpace blog is torturously slow (and some of the pics are missing).  So, I’ve rescued it from that page, updated some of the pics, reformatted, and voila… a year-old piece that still makes fun of festival-goers effectively.  (A topic that, apparently, is timeless.)  Away we go!

Originally posted 8/9/07

 

In and Out

Well………. both Pitchfork and Lolla have occured and aside from all the music I wanted to see, a bonus for going is the people-watching.  Trends come and go, but never are they more embraced (badly or not) than at music festivals.

I’m not dismissing and ESPECIALLY not condoning any of these, but here’s a little heads up about what the art undergrads and coffeeshop workers near you will be sporting and/or name-dropping over the next few months:

 

1.

Out: Aviators

In: White/plastic-framed sun-glasses,  and the glasses David Duchovney’s wore in Zoolander

2.

Out: The Baumer  

In: The Smooth Sailor

 

3. 

Out: Truckers Caps

In: Painters Caps

4.

Out: Iceland

In: Sweeden

5.

Out: Vespas   

 

 

In: low-cc pedal-start motorbikes

 

6.

Out: Dance-Punk

In: Prog

7.

Out: Soccer jerseys

 

In: old-school soccer / tennis / basketball shorts

 

 

 

8.

 Out: the urban cowboy

 

 

In: the urban lumberjack

 

 

 

 

9.

Out: useless terms like “electroclash”

 

In: useless terms like “futureshock”

 

 

 

10.

Out: headbands

 

In: kerchiefs

Notes on the Pitchfork Music Fest

Nick Zinner of !!!, doing what Nick Zinner does.

I’m currently working on my annual “trend spotting” type list of what I saw at this weekend’s festivities. (You can check out last year’s here.) If you are not aware, Pitchfork is a festival that brings local, national and international talent together, so they can all look at how each other are dressing. Oh yeah, there’s music there too.

It was a pretty good year, actually, but I was hoping for more in the “style” department, not sure why. It could be for anyone of these three reasons:

1. As Pitchfork notoriety has grown in the last three years, perhaps the fest’s “edgy” feel has worn off a bit, and with that, it’s forward-dressing attendees have diluted.
2. My disillusionment and unending distaste for anything new or old
3. I am WAY ahead of all trends now.

Bradford James Cox of Deerhuner and Mark Sultan of King Kahn attempt to entertain impatient Cut Copy fans. “A” for effort.

The feast was actually really fun. !!! killed, which is no surprise. Les Savy Fav was awesome, also no surprises there. Biggest issue with the event was actually Cut Copy’s failure to make it from the airport in time for their closing set. Though that’s no fault of their own, it’s still supremely disappointing. In what allotted time was left, they made the most of it, banging out both crowd-bouncers “Light & Music”, and “Hearts on Fire” to an enthused (but obviously peeved) crowd. Those that stuck around to see the hyper-abbreviated set worked very hard for an encore which didn’t come — chanting “Five More Songs, Five More Songs” probably didn’t help.

Before I write about “trend spotting” thing, which I’ll post about tomorrow probably, I wanted to mention things I didn’t see but expected to…

• Party-Rappers: I saw very few nu-rave/b-boy kids. There were a few zany fluorescent windbreakers in the crowd, but surprisingly few retina-burning limited-edition hightops, Kanye-esque Venitian blind sunglasses, and “crosscolor” wear.
• American Apparel Smack Girls: Emaciated heroin-chic AmAp mannequins, looking like the Olsen twins on a budget, did not take over the fest. I’m not particularly against American Apparel at all, but sometimes their style and color-choices are very disturbing. Just because you bought your entire outfit at the same store does NOT mean that it will automatically go together. They should put that as a disclaimer on the bag.
• The Unapologetic Prep: With XRT-approved artists Vampire Weekend and Spoon both playing, and with coverage from outlets like Chicago rag The Red Eye, I anticipated seeing a lot more Chad/Trixie presence. V.W. especially, whose style is particularly “high-prep” did not bring out the J. Crew slew. Surprisingly, the most evidence I saw of this was on Friday during Public Enemy!(?) Who woulda’ thunk it? While Chuck D was talking about war, racism, Darfur, etc., there was a dude next to us going on a tirade about Chicago’s 10.25% sales tax. When Chuck was talking about the drug trade and Big Pharm, this guy started screaming about how much money he lost with his Pfizer stock last week. I’m NOT making this up.
• Mud People: I’m am SO impressed with the lack of Mud People over the weekend. The hippie count, though present at the fest, was still at very low levels. Very few idiots thought it a good idea to douse themselves completely in mud. Yes, L.S.V. did it, but they’re on a stage — you are not.

Check back soon for a quick overview of what was stylin’ this year, and what you will soon see in your local bar if your local bar has Yo La Tengo on the juke box.

Oh, and just to streamline the process, here’s all the missed connections posted from this weekend so far. You’re welcome:

Jul 21 – My new friend from the East Coast – w4m – 29 – (Pitchfork)

Jul 21 – Pitchfork — the draw of the music kept me from stopping to chat – m4w – 30 – (Pitchfork)

Jul 21 – Broken arm dude at pitchfork – w4m – 22 – (pitchfork)

Jul 21 – giant camera lense and gray cut off jeans boy – w4m –

Jul 21 – To all the beautiful women at pitchfork that I missed (and still miss) – m4w – 28 – (Union Park)

Jul 21 – I saw you yesterday, but we still haven’t seen Of Montreal – m4w – 22 – (pitchfork)

Jul 21 – you asked if i’d blow the next hit in your mouth – m4w – 25 – (pitchfork animal collective)

Jul 21 – Rae…Ghost…Empty Cups…Backpacks – m4w – (pitchfork)

Jul 21 – your friends called you caleb – 25 – (pitchfork)

Jul 21 – Pitchfork: owl belt buckle both days – m4w – 26 – (union park)

Jul 21 – To The Hula Hoop Chick From Pitchfork (Saturday Night) – m4w – (Pitchfork)

Jul 21 – Can I see you again? – m4w – 28 – (Pitchfork) pic

Jul 21 – Hey, another pitchfork post – m4w – 24 – (The pitch)

Jul 21 – pitchforked – m4w –

Jul 21 – Pitchfork’s No. 1 Boobs – m4w – 27 – (Pitchfork Music Fest)

Jul 21 – Pitchfork glance – m4w – 26 – (Pitchfork)

Jul 20 – pitchfork guy at cut copy – w4m – 21 – (pitchfork)

Jul 20 – pitchfork – w4m – 24 –

Jul 20 – Brad on the No. 9 to Pitchfork – w4m – 25 – (Ashland to Lake St.)

Jul 20 – tennessee and pitchfork boy – w4m –

Jul 20 – Cute girl at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Saturday – m4w – 26 – (Chicago)

Jul 20 – Pitchfork — Throwing up near the entrance – w4m – 21 – (Union Park)

Jul 20 – saw you at the art museum AND pitchfork –

Jul 19 – Katie, this is Alex from Pitchfork – m4w – 22 – (Union Park)

Jul 19 – Pitchfork–your friend asked to unzip my shirt – w4m – 25 –

Jul 19 – you were working by the jewlry – w4w – (pitchfork)

Jul 19 – pitchfork – (indielove)

Jul 19 – Pitchfork Fest – 25 – (Union Park)

Jul 19 – pitchfork girl with guy’s face tattooed on left arm – m4w – 27 – (grant park)

Jul 18 – Pitchfork Cutie – Blue Cubs Hat and Glasses – m4m – 33 – (Pitchfork)