Last week, we amused ourselves with a thought experiment that was doing the rounds on Tumblr — marking 4/11 by picking out the best songs in our iTunes library that were precisely four minutes and 11 seconds long. It turned out that there were heaps, and the idea got us thinking: when better to do something similar than 4/20? So we thought we’d limit ourselves to making our annual stoner mixtape for today out of songs that are precisely four minutes and 20 seconds long. (Disclaimer: these songs are all 4:20 on our iTunes — your mileage may vary, and all that, but let’s not split hairs, eh?) … Read More
Talking Heads
10 Rock Albums That Were Impossible to Follow Up
It’s a familiar experience. There’s that one mind-blowingly great album you just can’t get enough of, an album of epic proportion. Then one day you learn that this beloved artist will be releasing a new album. A sense of dread-tinged anticipation overcomes you. Any potential trace of hopefulness that it just might live up to your expectations is overshadowed by the bleak probability of impending disappointment. It’s not that all follow ups to great albums are necessarily bad, it’s just that there’s a certain discomfort in knowing that we’re going to have to move on and adapt. That’s the way music works; sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. We’ve put together a list of ten earthshaking rock albums that were impossible to follow up, often resulting in a derailment, a reinvention, or a fade-away. … Read More
The 10 Best Rock ‘n’ Roll Bands To Dance To
Lonerism, the new album by the most excellent and hyper-talented Australian psych band Tame Impala is out today, and we’ve been enjoying it immensely. Perhaps the best thing about the band is that their music is as danceable as it is psychedelically wigged-out — something that’s perhaps more surprising than it should be. Happily, the dance music/rock music divide is far less pronounced than it used to be, but still, we go to far too many rock shows where everyone but us is just kinda standing and nodding their heads. So to celebrate Lonerism, we’ve selected some of our other favorite guitar-focused bands for jumping around like a lunatic to. Who are your choices? … Read More
Literary Mixtape: The Sisters Brothers
If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: the homicidal cowboy brothers from Patrick DeWitt’s recent Booker-shortlisted novel, The Sisters Brothers. … Read More
Duane Dalton’s Elegantly Redesigned ‘Album Anatomy’
You might be tempted to lump in Duane Dalton’s Album Anatomy series with the many “minimalist” renderings of pop-culture icons and artifacts that have flooded the Internet. But the Dublin-based designer is actually doing something a bit more interesting than many of his peers, pushing all the information about the record to the top and bottom of the image and using the center space to illustrate his own experience of it. Dalton writes that the project is “an exploration in the art of reduction. It breaks down album imagery into its purist [sic] form by discarding any unnecessary information. This is achieved using a strict grid that displays the relevant album details, which leaves a central void to convey a response to the album. This void is filled by my personal response to an album. It can be influenced by a key track, the cover art or the overall flavour of the album.” Click through to view some of our favorite Album Anatomy redesigns, and visit Dalton’s website to see many more. … Read More
Read an Excerpt of Jonathan Lethem’s Book About Talking Heads
“Recommendation: When using this product, actually listening to the record is strongly indicated. I don’t mean just on those crappy little speakers built into your computer, either. And turn it up, for fuck’s sake.” Those are the instructions that greet the reader of Jonathan Lethem’s Fear of Music, a book about the Talking… Read More
10 Underrated Band Members Who Deserve Your Attention
We’ve written several times over the last couple of months about how much we’ve been looking forward to Lee Ranaldo’s solo album Between the Times and the Tides, and how much we’ve been enjoying it now we’ve heard it in full. It’s a welcome step into the spotlight for Ranaldo, a man long-appreciated for his startlingly innovative approach to the guitar, but perhaps less so for his songwriting talents and vocals. The arrival this week of Between the Times and the Tides has gotten us thinking about other musicians who’ve perhaps been overlooked in comparison to more prominent band mates. Click through for a selection of our favorites, and let us know who you think deserves a place in the sun. … Read More
Literary Mixtape: Holly Golightly
If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: Truman Capote’s “American Geisha,” Holly Golightly. … Read More
Watch Talking Heads Play “Psycho Killer” at CBGB in 1975
In his fantastic new book Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever, Rolling Stone critic Will Hermes writes about Talking Heads’ first performance at CBGB on June 5, 1975: “[T]he band sounded like a cross between the Modern Lovers and Television minus the latter’s guitar sparks: strangulated vocals, rudimentary bass lines, and martial little-drummer-boy beats that hinted at soul music. [David] Byrne had just turned twenty-three; Tina [Weymouth] and Chris [Frantz] were twenty-four.”
If Hermes’ description piques your interest, then you’ll definitely want to check out the video below. NPR has posted a clip of Talking Heads playing “Psycho Killer” at CBGB later that year, from the new DVD documentary Chronology. The footage, preceded by Seymour Stein’s reminiscences of the band’s early days, is fantastic. Most fascinating of all is seeing Byrne before he’d figured out his twitchy, electric frontman schtick. … Read More
Literary Mixtape: Patrick Bateman
If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: American Psycho‘s über-fit antihero, Patrick Bateman. … Read More
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