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The 10 Best Record Store Day Black Friday Releases

By Tom Hawking on

We’re generally skeptical about the consumerist crapfest that is Black Friday — spend Thursday giving thanks for everything you do have, and wake up early the day after to throw elbows like crazy at your fellow shoppers to spend a shitload of cash on everything you don’t have — but if there’s one thing we do like buying, it’s music. Happily, Black Friday does tend to bring a decent amount of music-related specials, mostly via the folks at Record Store Day. As such, we’ve dutifully thumbed through this year’s list of special releases to sort the proverbial wheat from the chaff, and shared our shopping list after the jump. What’s caught your fancy this year? … Read More

Music

10 Bands That Would Make Great Cults

By Tom Hawking on

The new Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros record, entitled simply Here, came out last week. We’ve never been massive fans of the band, in all honesty — their touchy-feely but weirdly blank music, and Alex Ebert’s messianic “Edward Sharpe” personality, have always given us the creeps a little bit. There’s something almost… cultish about it. Although, if nothing else, this realization got us thinking about other bands that could well be cults, and/or musicians who’d do a fine job as cult leaders. Are there any musical cults you’d be up for joining? (No, Cults don’t count.) … Read More

Music

A Selection of the Most Genuinely Terrifying People in Metal

By Tom Hawking on

A couple of weeks back, apropos of the kinda disconcerting intensity of the excellent new album by Death Grips, we published a feature about the most terrifying people in hip hop. The idea proved mildly controversial, but we’re happy to say most readers saw the feature for what it was: a lighthearted idea with utility across a bunch of genres. As such, we thought we’d follow up this week with the other genre that’s been the bête noire of respectable parental types over the years: metal. As with hip hop, this is a genre that’s produced its fair share of genuinely disconcerting characters — we’ve nominated a few after the jump, and as ever, we’re open to suggestions. … Read More

Music

Watch Fascinating Documentary “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” on YouTube

By Tom Hawking on

Happy Saturday! It’s a beautiful sunny day, in NYC at least, and if such things make you feel like nothing more than holing up on the couch for the day, then you could do a whole lot worse than spending today in the company of 2005 documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, which has recently surfaced in its entirety on YouTube. The film is a pretty great exploration of what it means to be a metalhead, and features interviews with a load of metal luminaries, including Alice Cooper, the late Ronnie James Dio, Lemmy, Tony Iommi, Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, the frankly terrifying Gaahl of Gorgoroth, and the similarly terrifying Necrobutcher of Mayhem, who provides the film’s most memorable quote in answer to a question as to whether he has any comment on the idea that black metal is losing touch with its roots: “Yeah, I got a comment. FUCK YOU.” Watch the film in its entirety after the jump. … Read More

Music

A Brief History of Musicians & Murder

By Andy Phillips on

Hair jokes aside, we don’t see any levity in yesterday’s conviction of legendary girl-group producer Phil Spector. The Wall of Sound inventor was always eccentric, but, from the outside, it seemed a fairly benign insanity. (I mean, who hasn’t secretly wanted to take the Beatles down a peg?) I suppose there’s not much to say except that with genius often comes genuine instability. After all, this isn’t the first time an influential musician has committed the ultimate crime. After the jump, the tragic tales of ten other iconic musicians who went over the edge. … Read More