Now that Kanye West is making 35-minute videos for his songs, and every dense, new Lady Gaga clip must be endlessly dissected for cultural references, there is something undeniably refreshing about a simple, straightforward music video. In a recent ArtsBeat post, Dwight Garner confesses, “I was always a minimalist – give me a concert clip, or even a bit of straight-on lip syncing to a good song” and asks readers for their favorite no-frills videos. Commenters over at The New York Times came up with quite a few suggestions, but we couldn’t help but compile a list of our own (which overlaps slightly with theirs). Add your picks in the comments.
1. Does Seth MacFalane wish that Family Guy would get canceled? In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter he says: “Part of me thinks that Family Guy should have already ended. I think seven seasons is about the right lifespan for a TV series. I talk to the fans and in a way I’m kind of secretly hoping for them to say we’re done with it.”
2. Pitchfork is bringing a new music festival to New York City this February; according to the organizers, it will “include works by visual artists and game designers at galleries, museums and unconventional performance spaces around the city, along with four days of performances at clubs run by Bowery Presents.” [via ArtsBeat]
3. So here’s one (and quite possibly, the only) reason Star Wars fans might want to see Paul W.S. Anderson’s 3D version of The Three Musketeers when it hits theaters on October 21: it will be your first chance to check out the new 3D-converted Phantom Menace trailer. [via /film]
4. British book publisher Faber & Faber has named Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as its new editor at large, a position once held by Pete Townshend. Explains Faber editor Lee Brackstone: “We now have an excellent portfolio of authors from the pop world and our intention is to develop these relationships and continue to build a reputation as the home for exciting and original writing on music.” [via Guardian]
5. NME.com has arbitrarily named Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” the best song of the past 15 years. Rounding out their top five: Arcade Fire, “Rebellion (Lies)”; Outkast, “Hey Ya!”; The Strokes, “Last Nite”; The Killers, “Mr. Brightside.” Do you agree with this list?
“What is the music of #OccupyWallStreet?” NPR music critic Ann Powers asked on Twitter over the weekend. As the movement rolls on after a weekend that brought hundreds of arrests and lots of publicity, we think that’s an excellent question. From the hippie ’60s to the riot grrrl ’90s, every great political struggle has had a soundtrack of its own. And while past anthems like Crass’s “Do They Owe Us a Living?” and Dead Kennedys’ “Kill the Poor” are certainly applicable to Occupy Wall Street’s critique of economic injustice and capitalism run amok, we think new music is vital to new movements. With that in mind, we’ve taken a stab at compiling some great politically conscious songs that have come out in the past five years. Add your suggestions (or, you know, gripe about “kids these days”) in the comments.
No matter how much we love them, there comes a time when we must face up to the sad reality of film and TV’s fictional bands: They don’t write their own songs. It just isn’t possible. They aren’t real. Solace, however, can be found in the surprising little-known facts that accompany these fake jams. Many of them, for instance, were written and recorded by actual bands long before they became hits for your favorite faux ensembles, while others were simply ghostwritten by artists you probably know. Meet the real musicians behind film and TV’s fake bands after the jump.
Whether or not Lady Gaga’s weird motorcycle hybrid album cover thingy was meant to be funny is entirely open for debate, but either way, the finished product is pretty hilarious. Apart from other examples of God-awful album covers (of which there are plenty), the whole thing got us thinking about musicians who are genuinely funny – often unexpectedly so, like Gaga herself, who has often displayed a pleasantly self-deprecating sense of humor in interviews. Read our selection after the jump. For the sake of this post, we’ve excluded actual comedians who also play music – so no Flight of the Conchords, The Mighty Boosh, etc. But even then, there are plenty to choose from.
Collaborations are a risky business. For every “Where the Wild Roses Grow” or “Candy,” there’s 100 abominations like “Dancing in the Streets.” It’s easy enough to make lists of musical collaborations that stink up the stereo, but occasionally, just occasionally, there’s an pairing that works against all odds. With Nick Cave & UNKLE’s “Money and Run” getting released this week, here’s a mixtape of cross-genre or otherwise unlikely combinations that produced unexpected gold.
Welcome to the Clubhopping Top 10, a monthly list of dance tracks that have caught us by the ears and feet (not necessarily in that order), with embeds (or, failing that, audio clips) so you can hear most of them for yourself. This month’s roundup includes everyone from Robert Owens and Tom Trago to Jarvis Cocker (!) and the Dirtbombs (!!), in alphabetical order after the jump.
Somewhere in the gray area between Bob Dylan writing “Masters of War” and the 2004 presidential elections, singing songs about the things that matter got very uncool. Marvin Gaye, John Lennon, and Bob Marley were the hip, countercultural voices of their generation, but, up until recently, protest music has been the reserve of crusty punk rockers and be-dreaded folk singers – the kind you’d never want to end up to talking to across a non-vegan buffet table at a party.
However, the past decade has seen a revival of the modern protest song in pop and alternative music, spurred on by mounting disillusion with U.S. foreign policy, the Iraq War, and the increasing interest in politics among America’s youth. Everyone from Godspeed! You Black Emperor to Kanye West is doing it – heck, even Pink had a go with her cheese-layered ballad “Dear Mr. President.”
Watching the video for “Synchronize,” Discodeine’s new collaboration with Jarvis Cocker, we couldn’t help but be taken with its darkly beautiful, drug-laced imagery. And it occurred to us that, despite the undeniable synergy between drug-taking and music-making, we actually don’t see too many controlled substances in music videos — perhaps because that shit is bound to get you banned from TV, not to mention condemned as a horrible influence. Now, we certainly don’t endorse (or even, in all cases, understand) the behavior in the clips below, but we can’t deny that they do make drugs look awfully glamorous.
