Quick hitter post -- REJOICE!

Pitchfork is down!!! Hurray!

Now, with this opportunity now available to the rock-addicted masses, stereogum, Idolator and the Onion AV Club are always better options. I also just discovered SPIN magazine's Blogroll the other day, and it's kindof brilliant in the sense that they can bring people to their site without doing any actual work. But wait, isn't that the premise that all blogs are based on? Kidding. Although, I don't think I'm cool enough to read BrooklynVegan. PASTE magazine is among the best as well. Loved their most recent MMJ cover story. Fantastic. I agreed with soooo many of the points they made in that article. Well done.

ANYWAY, ist's always nice to have a break from their snarky indie-elitism, even if Pitchfork.tv is always worth checking out and they have very extensive music news. My problem with them has always been their criticism. It's altogether too fucked up. (in fact, that could be in the makings of a future columnish thing. stay tuned.) Have they ever rated a non-Radiohead megaband higher than 8? Can that really be taken seriously? I can never get over how misguided and hipster-elite the writers from that site are. Really, they've become just as annoying as Rolling Stone magazine.

BTW, as an indie/alternative rock fan from the Midwest, I'm exactly who these fuckers are trying to market to. And Pitchfork is consistently wrong. Step your game up, Forkers.

Never Mind the Hipsters, Here's "Evil Urges"

I have been waiting awhile for this album.

In the early summer months of 2006, I was introduced to My Morning Jacket by a fellow used CD store employee. Not long after hearing “Z” and “It Still Moves,” used copies of each were sitting in the backseat of my car, getting heavy rotation in my CD player on the road. (And of course, Road Rock is the best Rock) Of course, they were also getting heavy airplay on my iTunes as well, with songs like “Off The Record,” “Wordless Chorus,” “Mahgeeta,” and “One Big Holiday” launching their way up toward “Top 25 Most Played” status.

Later that summer, MMJ was scheduled to play a headlining set at the U.S. Cellular Stage at Summerfest, a ten-day 12pm-12am festival on Lake Michigan in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. I was still mostly unfamiliar with the entire body of MMJ’s work, but I still wanted to see them play that night – July 3. I figured there would be no better way to usher in the 230^th year of our nation’s existence then to take in some beer-soaked lakefront rock and roll with a few friends.

Now, many shows that I’ve been to have been involved some level of inebriation, and many of those times, the inebriation added to the experience of the show. Many people believe this type of activity to be essential to the rock show. Most of the time it’s just fun. However, no drugs or alcohol would be required to realize the majesty of My Morning Jacket live and outdoors. To this day, it is one of the five best live shows I’ve ever seen. Rock and Roll has always been my #1 drug of choice.

Of course, after the show, I couldn’t get enough MMJ, and started listening to more and more of their material. The more I listened to My Morning Jacket, the more I liked their music. They seemed like the only alternative rock band that had the emphasis properly placed on the “rock,” while incorporating major elements of the “alternative.” The band never overtly tried to be different and singer/guitarist/songwriter/producer Jim James has never made it a secret that he loves Neil Young. He also has no problem having an album cover prominently featuring a grizzly bear (It Still Moves), growing a mammoth woodsman beard and launching into extended guitar-rock jams with flying-V guitars. MMJ has never shied away from their Louisville roots and seem equally enamored with classic blues/country and bombastic guitar rock.

But the subsequent success of MMJ’s 2-disc live album, “Okonokos,” recorded on the same tour as their stop at Summerfest, propelled their popularity and genuine credibility (and I suppose, awesomeness) to new heights. The brilliance of “Z” and the nearly-religious experience of their live shows had some calling them America’s Greatest Rock Band or The World’s Best Live Band or even, America’s Answer To Radiohead.

Needless to say, My Morning Jacket’s latest effort, “Evil Urges,” (officially released on June 10, via ATO) has come with the support of some serious hype. Videos of their new songs surfaced online after a memorable performance in Austin. The late-April leak of the album pushed the hype to new levels, when it was clear that “Evil Urges” would be a step out of their normal wheelhouse.

Now, I don’t pretend to be the world’s highest authority on all things MMJ. I’ve seen them once live (I plan to go again when they visit Milwaukee this fall) and I own three of their CD’s. I have listened to most of their music in some capacity, though not all of it legally. However, I did download “Evil Urges” the minute I heard of the leak, and was extremely excited to see how this album would be received by a drastically changing music industry, with new players and fewer boundaries, and older players realigning the boundaries and rewriting the rules. MMJ seemed to be right in the thick of it all.

Increasingly popular music blog, Stereogum, was among the first to review “Evil Urges” in their hilariously titled series of what is essentially a leak review, Premature Evaluation, on April 23.

Stereogum always excels in relating the reality of album reviews, which is that it is mainly a first impression, and not a true assessment of the album as a whole. However, the Premature Evaluations do seem to garner the most discussion on these blogs, and the initial response in the review (as well as in the comments, for the most part, though there were some dissenters who yearned for the earlier sounds) seemed generally positive.

And I fucking loved it. I still can’t stop listening to it. I think “Evil Urges” is among the five best albums to be released so far in 2008. It shows a logical progression of the band. They decidedly knew they were going to change things up a bit, and I could not be happier with the change. More experimental, but more stylistically experimental while retaining their so-called southern-rock roots. The title track is one of the better opening tracks I’ve heard in recent years, the outer-space jam of “Wordless Chorus” turned up to 11 with an extra extended alt-rock jam for good measure. Delicious. “Librarian” is another immediate standout, where Jim James (who gets delightfully poetic on this album) details a potential (?) sexual encounter with a sexy librarian, and goes on tangents about human nature throughout. It’s like an intellectual wet dream, even if it is a fairly basic, bare-bones song that is simple but not the bad kind of simple. The “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream” bookends are both spectacular, inventive, progressive greatness, “Aluminum Park” and “Remnants” are both completely kickass rock songs and “I’m Amazed” simply takes off on the open road with James in both amazement and bewildered confusion at the nation they’ve crisscrossed on tour (in support of Z).

However, one song seemed to really divide people on this album, the obscure third track, “Highly Suspicious.” Now, I don’t believe that this track should be taken seriously in any capacity. It is a seriously goofy song and it is COMPLETELY out of character so it’s certain to alienate a number of fans, especially fans of their older material. In an interview with SPIN magazine, James described the song as (and I’m paraphrasing here) a conflict between a drug addict and someone (law enforcement, perhaps?) who is highly suspicious of the dubious activities (peanut butter puddin’ surprise, perhaps?) of the drug addict. The song is mostly stupid, however, it does have potential as a live song because it seems like it might be kinda fun, even though it’s kinda stupid.

But that’s really where the polarization starts, and the biggest argument against this album came on June 9 – the day before “Evil Urges” is released – from the pretentious online pseudo-revolutionaries (or we could just call them hipsters, for short) at Pitchfork Media.

With their 4.7 review of “Evil Urges,” Eric Harvey of P4K slammed MMJ, and unfavorably compared them to label-mates Dave Matthews Band, and called “Highly Suspicious,” “a loud thud ending any chance Urges had to match the group's previous records. An attempt to merge the band's penchant for live quirkiness with James' long-simmering Prince fixation, the track sounds like My Morning Jacket's version of a Phish novelty.”

With that, P4K drew a line in the sand, essentially losing their final chance at serious critical credibility, delving into hipster anti-mainstream nonsense once again. Last year, they gave a great Kings of Leon album a 5.4 and did major damage to their “indie cred” or something. They’ve killed The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Killers, and just about anybody who made a leap to the mainstream without staying in the bounds of the indie universe. It is entirely possible that Harvey and the rest of the Pitchfork staff legitimately do not like “Evil Urges,” but that’s not the point. MMJ has been on MTV, Rolling Stone magazine, and other mainstream music media outlets, and of course P4K takes issue with this, because they want indie rock to be exclusionary. They want to have good music be like a club with a bouncer checking your indie cred. “Sorry, you don’t like No Age or Fuck Buttons? Get the fuck out! Go buy yourself a Smiths record and get yourself an education!”

I’m so sick of that shit. Fuck the hipster backlash, you gotta stop keeping everyone down. It’s a sick sour vibe and it doesn’t help anyone and is no longer part of the solution. It is no longer a challenge to the rest of the music universe (to put it in hip-hop terms) to step their game up.

So now that MMJ is big business (and I think they knew this while writing and recording EU), they served up some highly suspicious bait for the rabid hipster hate machine, and Pitchfork and the pretentious hipster universe clamped down hard. They know what you want, you want the better of two halves.

The hipsters would have crucified Jesus too, but not for the same reasons as anyone else. They would have said “You know, I really liked his early stuff, but everything after the Sermon on the Mount was just trash, totally trying way to hard to make it big.” Nothing could be more idiotic.

So as they often do, Pitchfork missed the point in their “Evil Urges” review. In a way, “Evil Urges” is MMJ’s “Kid A,” a critically confusing album at first – given the difficulty in following up an album like “OK Computer” (or Z) – but one that should prove to be a major step in the right direction for the Louisville rockers.

But one thing that no critic is willing to say is that everyone was expecting MMJ to be the American answer to Radiohead, and here I think they’ve proved that they are. American music has always fused different music-related ideas together. Like Dylan’s incorporation of the electric guitar in the mid-60’s, or Radiohead’s “Kid A” electronica shift or the Beatles psychedelic movement once the arrived stateside. Now, I wouldn’t put MMJ in the league of any of those artists by any means (yet) but not all positive shift in the music universe was met with critical praise. You always hear stories of how folkie Dylan fans stopped supporting him in any capacity once he went down to Maggie’s Farm and grabbed an electric guitar.

Other reviews besides Pitchfork’s were generally mixed. Nobody anointed them America’s answer to Radiohead and I don’t think anyone thinks they are. They aren’t expected to be and they certainly are an entirely different animal from what a band like Radiohead or Wilco brings to the table.

I decided to read some iTunes reviews of “Evil Urges” (who’s sales may get eaten up by the monster release that is Tha Carter III) and one headline in particular caught my eye. It read, “Never Mind the Hipsters, Here’s Evil Urges.”

I mean…I couldn’t have said it any better. Friday it was announced that My Morning Jacket will be playing at Madison Square Garden – the biggest stage in the center of the world – on New Year’s Eve. 2008, which is shaping out to be perhaps the most important year in music since 1994, will end with MMJ at the Garden.

As far as I’m concerned, Pitchfork is now as much a part of the problem as MTV. Congratulations, you’ve come full circle.

Now about anointing Lil Wayne Best New Music status…

suspended (obviously)

unless i decide to post my CD reviews

ARTICLES

Music Marketing - MLK Jr. and the music business from Music Marketing [dot] com.

Arjan writes on the “gifted songwriter” that is, Alanis Morissette. Are you kidding me?

Idolater - ‘Business Wrier Shocked To Discover Horndog Rapper Also Possesses College Degree, Business Acumen.’ Man, I can’t believe people in the business world would consider NOT taking Ludacris seriously. Totally uncalled for. (please note sarcasm)

Idolater - Garth Brooks thinks illegal downloads should be treated like speeding violations.

Idolater – Idolater hates the Coachella lineup. It might not have Radiohead, but from all accounts, Roger Waters puts on a phenomenal live show.

Idolater - Idolater presents a link to the Village Voice’s last of 2007 year-end lists, but then it’s not there. Singles of the year? Rehab, Umbrella, All My Friends.

Idolater - Results from Idolater’s Pop Critics Poll. If there’s you decide to read from today’s links, this is it. Fantastically done on many levels.

Idolater - ‘What does Barack Obama have in common with the Insane Clown Posse?’

Idolater - Idolater on the Billboard Hot 100. I just found this blog, can you tell it’s already one of my favorites?

Idolater - ‘Someone with a sorta optimistic view of the music industry’ This someone is Simon Fox, head of HMV. I went to an HMV store in Cambridge when I was there, and for a corporate chain store, it’s well above average. Maybe we’re not screwed after all.

Send me dead flowers has boatloads of Radiohead from the ‘93 Feet East gig.’ That must be what they’re calling Radiohead’s performance Audio, video, setlists…etc. Long live the kings.

Idolater - Idolater on the Billboard Top 200 – Who Charted. I feel like they’re somehow stealing ideas from me, even though that’s not conceivably possible.

Idolater - One of the idolater writers has his family listen to music and gets their reaction. The best part? (while listening to “Stronger”) “Sister: You know what's a big factor of why I don't like this song? Those awful fucking sunglasses with the blinds. They look retarded.
Sister’s friend: You look like you have Down's Syndrome when you have them.
Sister: Camp Courage sunglasses. [to Author] Don't put that in there.”

Idolater - Prozac might sponsor Coldplay’s next album. I don’t even have a joke here.

Idolater - ‘Panic at the disco: Glad to be gay, (if they were gay)’

The Late Greats take a look at some covers of “Fake Plastic Trees.”

I Guess I’m Floating’s MP3 grab bag.

Stereogum – ‘Patterson Hood on demanding rock records’

Stereogum – Another idea of mine that Stereogum improbably stole from my brain. Analyzing iTunes Celebrity Playlists, in this case, the automaton that is, Katie Holmes. Her playlist isn’t terrible, actually, even though she’s (I think) saying that it’s her character’s playlist, whatever the fuck that means.

Stereogum – Who needs illegal downloading when you have Stereogum streaming the new Drive-By Truckers album?

Stereogum – 93 Feet East webcast. Long live the kings.

Stereogum – ‘Randy Newman’s totally appropriate, political MacWorld performance’ I just liked the headline.

Stereogum – Live Truckers.

NEWS

You ain't no picasso - ‘Cinci’s MusicNOW Fest to bring in Grizzly Bear, Andrew Bird and Dirty Projectors’ Landmark day for Cincinnati-area whistling enthusiasts…err, Andrew Bird fans.

Idolater - Lil Wayne is arrested with quite the debaucherous arsenal.

Idolater - ‘Chinese Democracy: The present you didn’t even know you were getting’ I'm still not believing anything until it's on the shelf.

Idolater - Diddy is now Sean John. I’m sorry, was this supposed to be relevant? My mistake.

Idolater - Some of the mouse’s “still-innocent” stars cover KISS. Somewhere, Chuck Klosterman and Rivers Cuomo weep.

Idolater - Well, no Jonny Greenwood at the Oscars, which is unfortunate. You know what else is unfortunate? 3 of 5 songs nominated were from “Enchanted.”

Idolater - ‘Coachella lineup announced: Prepare yourself for the Anticlimax’

Idolater - Making as much money as possible by being greedy corporate scumbags must be on The Rolling Stones’ Bucket List.

Idolater - ‘Indie rocker and emo doofus want you to get out and vote for the guy you were probably gonna vote for anyway’ In other words, Win Butler of the Arcade Fire and Pete Wentz of Fallout Boy want you to vote for Obama. Maybe Win should stick to the stage and Wentz should stick to…whatever it is that Pete Wentz does.

Idolater – Some American Idol contestant that received one of those yellow sheets of paper apparently already released a very forgettable album.

Idolater - Lupe Fiasco’s next album will be his last. Or probably not.

Stereogum – U2 look like cyborgs in 3D glasses at Sundance.

Stereogum – Blind Melon has new songs on their MySpace. Did they really have to go with the same name without Shannon Hoon? Isn’t that a little bit disrespectful?

Stereogum – The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are busy with a lot of things, from “recording a new album to practicing yoga to fighting with teenager hotel managers to hurling cow feces at each other.”

Stereogum – Feist’s new video.

Stereogum – ‘RIP Heath Ledger’

Stereogum – The possibility of Radiohead playing under the statue of liberty is so fantastic I don’t even care how much it costs. I’m going.

Stereogum – “Official Coachella Lineup 2008: See you on the Dark Side of the Moon”

Stereogum – Album art for the new Hot Chip album.

Stereogum – ‘Radiohead are weirdo rippers’

Stereogum – ‘Lily Allen suffers miscarriage’

RANDOM SEMI-AMUSING NONSENSE

Idolater - “LOL OMG @ script kiddies taking down the RIAA's site over the weekend and installing links to the Pirate Bay and error messages that read "FTW"! Surely these pranks will make people around the world take your "all music should be free for me and my friends right now" argument really, really seriously.”

Idolater - Hey there Delilah...you’re going to the Grammy’s?

Idolater - Dave Mustaine of Megadeth tries to stay relevant but instead insults every bass player on the planet by saying bass is “one step up from playing the kazoo." Well, I guess if your band plays repetitive drop-D power chords and only break the monotony for screechy, overdone solos, then you probably don’t need much of a bassist anyway.

Idolater - Following in the footsteps of such trendsetters as Fergie and ‘That hot brunette chick from the Pussycat Dolls or some shit’ (her official name), Britney Spears will be a cover girl for yet another magazine – Blender!

Idolater - ‘Advances in neurosurgery allow young woman to “enjoy” Sean Paul’s music once again’

Idolater - Ryan Adams is like the Billy Walsh of the music community.

Stereogum – Kanye is awful at Connect Four.

Stereogum – The Amy Winehouse crack video. Is it possible that the British have the best investigative journalists on the planet? I mean, besides the fact that Amy is clearly lacking in judgment filming herself smoke crack, isn’t it un-fucking-believable that this got into the hands of a tabloid?

Stereogum – ‘Technical analysis reveals EMI to be fucked’

Damn priorities...

My 10-pager on media ethics in the 2008 political campaign pushed the links to the backburner this week, soooooo blog links will come Friday. I did find some pretty interesting stuff, and I'm quickly realizing that one of the reasons that blogs exist is so people can say 'douche' more often. Not sure what to make of that.

In the meantime, heres a clip done by the Sundance Channel in their "Meet the Filmmaker" series. It's about the film adaptation of the novel "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote "Fight Club," and other bestsellers such as "Lullaby" and "Haunted." Sam Rockwell and Seth Rogen are playing the lead roles. I'm both terrified (because Hollywood could destroy "Choke") and thrilled (because the novel is fantastic and like any of Palahniuk's work, it was light-years ahead of it's time) that this film is being made.

EMPTYING THE ASHTRAY: Year-end Madness

It’s no surprise that in our era of immediate nostalgia that year-end lists carry great importance in the music world.

Sure, it might be obnoxious to try and understand the logic behind some of the choices in many of these year-end lists, but nobody ever said these results were scientific. Music is not science.

But if nothing else, these lists provide an excellent starting point for discussion. Did Radiohead really release the best album of the year, even if it was the one with the most hype? Was this the year that indie releases from M.I.A., The Arcade Fire and The National truly reigned as the best albums of the year?

Many of the year-end best-of lists that came out in December from magazines, blogs and other Web sites pointed to many releases that did not receive a great deal of mainstream success. Albums such as The Arcade Fire’s “Neon Bible” garnered a great deal of hype and media coverage, but that did not translate to big numbers in album sales, as it was only the 8^th best selling Independent release from ’07, and the 190^th best selling album overall (sandwiched between James Blunt’s “Back To Bedlam” and Johnny Cash’s “The Legend of Johnny Cash”).

Or is it in fact much simpler, and album sales are directly indicative of the best and most memorable albums of the year?

This idea of ranking albums lower in sales much higher than chart-topping albums is not a new idea, [but now more than ever is the music industry embracing the fact that album sales are no longer indicative of talent or influence on America and the music industry.]

Take, for example, Billboard’s twenty best selling albums of 2007, listed below.

1. Daughtry – “Daughtry” (2006 Release)
2. Akon – “Konvicted” (2006 Release)
3. Fergie – “The Dutchess” (2006 Release)
4. Soundtrack – “Hannah Montana” (2006 Release)
5. Carrie Underwood – “Some Hearts” (2005 Release)
6. Nickelback – “All The Right Reasons” (2005 Release)
7. Justin Timberlake – “Futuresex/Lovesounds” (2006 Release)
8. Soundtrack – “High School Musical 2”
9. Various Artists – “NOW 23” (2006 Release)
10. Linkin Park – “Minutes To Midnight”
11. Beyonce – “B’Day” (2006 Release)
12. Kanye West – “Graduation”
13. Rascal Flatts – “Me And My Gang” (2006 Release)
14. The Beatles – “Love” (2006 Release)
15. Gwen Stefani – “The Sweet Escape” (2006 Release)
16. Miley Cyrus – “Hannah Montana 2 (Soundtrack)/Meet Miley Cyrus”
17. Josh Groban – “Awake” (2006 Release)
18. Norah Jones – “Not Too Late”
19. Taylor Swift – “Taylor Swift” (2006 Release)
20. Jay-Z – “Kingdom Come” (2006 Release)

Top to bottom, that is quite the reprehensible list, in all honesty. It’s no secret that Americans regularly buy pretty awful music. This is, after all, a country where The Eagles’ “Greatest Hits - 1971-1975” is the best selling album of all time.

But even if you remove the NOW compilation and Disney Channel soundtracks that are marketed more toward a pre-pubescent audience, that still leaves a top ten of Daughtry*, Akon, Fergie, Carrie Underwood*, Nickelback, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Kanye West, and Rascal Flatts.

And there are a hell of a lot of people who listen to those ten artists. I unfortunately worked at a Buffalo Wild Wings this past summer and those ten artists were about the only music I heard while at work. (The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’ came on one day and I swear I came out with twice as many tips because it kicked so much ass. Everyone else working there or eating there just was really confused by it. I’m not making this up.) Bars play most of those artists. Lots of people download that shit.

So undoubtedly, these are all big-name artists that have the ability to sell out arenas across the country on any given night. What I want to know is whether these ten artists have made the music that is going to be remembered more than anything else from this current generation of music, which of course translates to usually what is considered the “best” music from that time period.

Certainly, if you look to the past, there was excellent music being played in not-so-excellent eras of music that has stood the test of time better than their big-name counterparts. (For Example. The Clash and Van Halen both released albums in the late-‘70s and early ‘80s. The Clash sold enough to have a successful career and Van Halen sold everywhere and made millions and millions of dollars. Whose music do you think has more of an impact thirty years later?)

So perhaps the most influential or “best” albums of 2007 are coming from a different area of the music industry, entirely separate from the best-sellers.

Magazines, newspapers, and just about every possible online medium all made “Best Albums of 2007” lists. And despite the fact that there are so, so many things wrong with it, Rolling Stone magazine is the most recognizable name in reporting on music. And even though this list is very different from Billboard’s, I still must stress that Rolling Stone is an entertainment magazine and no longer a magazine covering the counterculture or the rock scene, or whatever it is that they haven’t written about since (at the latest) the mid to late-‘90s.

However, Rolling Stone is still a good example of what some people might look back on to understand what music was important in that particular year. So for the sake of argument…Rolling Stone’s Top 20 Albums of the Year.

1. M.I.A – “Kala”

2. Bruce Springsteen – “Magic”

3. Jay-Z – “American Gangster”

4. Arcade Fire – “Neon Bible”

5. Kanye West – “Graduation”

6. Radiohead – “In Rainbows”

7. LCD Soundsystem – “Sounds of Silver”

8. Rilo Kiley – “Under The Blacklight”

9. Against Me! – “New Wave”

10. Spoon – “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”

11. John Fogerty – “Revival”

12. Bright Eyes – “Cassadaga”

13. Lily Allen – “Alright, Still”

14. Gogol Bordello – “Super Taranta!”

15. Common – “Finding Forever”

16. Les Savy Fav – “Let’s Stay Friends”

17. The White Stripes – “Icky Thump”

18. Lucinda Williams – “West”

19. Devendra Banhart – “Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon”

20. Melissa Etheridge – “The Awakening”

First of all, many of the albums on the Billboard list were released in 2006, effectively disqualifying them from Rolling Stone’s list, but if you go back to RS’s 2006 list (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/12800635/the_top_50_albums_of_2006), only Justin Timberlake’s “Futuresex/Lovesounds” made it into the top 50. (It came in at 22)

But the only 2007 release that appears on both lists is Kanye West’s “Graduation.” (Which, perhaps not coincidentally, is up for more Grammy’s than any other album this year.)

So clearly, there is a distinct disparity between the opinions of the most popular music magazine in the country on the best albums of the year and the best-selling albums of the year.

But part of me in inclined to think that Rolling Stone is out of touch with their readers, especially those in a younger (and probably a more culturally important, as it pertains to music) demographic, which shows in their lack of hip-hop in the top 20.

But at the same time, I find it difficult to grasp that the best-selling artists this year are the ones that are to be remembered by history.

But who has the answers?

* American Idol product: Album sales are skewed due to the free advertising for multiple hours per week on America’s #1 watched television program in addition to other entertainment programs that are dedicated to the show and its artists and the paid advertisements for the show.

MONDAY LINKS

This week's batch of links is just comprised of news and articles from some of the larger music media sources.

Next week, the links will appear on Wednesday and will be comprised of links exclusively from independent blogs.

Enjoy.

-dan

ARTICLES

NME – Jack White talks with original “Conquest” singer Patti Page in USA Today and NME has a completely necessary news story about the article’s highlights. I love NME.

CNN – A major news network addressing the digital revolution in the music industry? Yes, and believe it or not, it’s extremely well done. Definitely worth a read-through.

Wired – ‘DRM is Dead, But Watermarks Rise From Its Ashes’

Stereogum – ‘Premature Evaluation: Drive-By Truckers – “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark’ If there’s a better name for a pre-release review than ‘Premature Evaluation,’ I’d be curious to know what it is.

Stereogum – ‘New Rivers Cuomo Video: “Blast Off!”’

Stereogum – Flight of the Conchords rock the party at the Consumer Electronics Show. Seems like a gig Murray would book. Either way, Bret shows off his latest innovation (Camera-phone-TV-toothbrush) and Jermaine shows off his ridiculous beard. (VIDEO)

Rolling Stone’s New Music Blog – RS profiles the “psychedelic hard-rockers” Black Mountain as a breaking artist. (VIDEO)

Rolling Stone – John Paul Jones sits down with David Fricke of RS to talk about the O2 show and the band’s future.

Rolling Stone – Article plus audio of an interview with Ringo Starr regarding “Liverpool 8.”

Rolling Stone – January Smoking Section: Stevie Wonder, Mark Ronson and Metallica. Talk about being all over the place.

The Onion AV Club – ‘Visual Audio’ featuring Nirvana, Tom Petty, Tool, The Who, The Ramones and more.

The Onion AV Club – The most underrated instrument in the history of rock and roll is without a doubt the harmonica.

MOJO – ’12 Inches Of Pleasure: Why the album still rules’

AP – ‘Music insiders discuss industry fixes’

AP – Dave Grohl and the Foos talk about the success of “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace” and the impact that their music has had on fans.

Pitchfork – Mark Richardson of Pitchfork explains why even though he can’t play an instrument, it doesn’t mean he can’t be a music critic.

Pitchfork – Black Mountain’s Jeremy Schmidt on Pitchfork’s Guest List and he reveals that he doesn’t have a cellphone, cable television, nor does he listen to the radio.

The Economist – ‘The music industry – From major to minor’

Rolling Stone’s Rock and Roll Blog – Marilyn Manson on teaming back up with long-time collaborator, Twiggy Ramirez, “We started music together because we wanted to bring about the apocalypse, and we realized we didn’t finish.”

Gibson – Is Chris Daughtry full of shit? No, he’s just a pussy. His music has no relationship to rock and roll.

Glide Magazine’s Hidden Track Blog – Pictures and video from Umphrey’s McGee’s 10^th anniversary New Year’s Eve set in Chitown.

The Onion AV Club – This Was Pop: Dec. 2007. Quite possibly the best (and easily the most hysterical) analysis of modern pop music I’ve read in months.

The Onion AV Club – ‘19 Movies anchored by a single artist’s songs'

NEWS

NME – Eminem hospitalized for pneumonia.

NME - The latest addition to the “Hey, how can we pimp The Beatles?” business plan – a John Lennon necktie. Is it just me or has weird Beatles merchandise tripled since George Harrison [RIP] passed? Are McCartney and Ringo selling out for just about anybody now? Someone needs to put a stop tot this.

Rolling Stone’s Rock and Roll Blog – Though not at the ceremony, Jonny Greenwood’s “There Will Be Blood” soundtrack wins a critic’s choice award for Best Score. Eddie Vedder shows up to the ceremony, but wins nothing. So let’s get this straight, a member of Radiohead doesn’t show up to a pointless, self-congratulatory, Hollywood awards show but wins, and a member of Pearl Jam shows up to said pointless, self-congratulatory Hollywood awards show and comes up empty. Seems to me that everything is in its right place.

Paste Magazine – New label, new album, new tour for Man Man.

NME – Drummerhunter.com is a really weird idea, but it could prove to be a very interesting little development if it becomes successful.

NME – Trent Reznor is somehow surprised people would rather not pay for music from a relatively unknown artist if given the option not to.

Pitchfork – The Hold Steady is working on their fourth full-length album and playing a few select dates in the UK in February, as well as a one-off in Ybor City, Fla (where they evidently party hard) in January.

Pitchfork – In what looks to be a potentially groundbreaking collaboration, The Black Keys’ new album, “Attack & Release” is produced by Danger Mouse and will be released on April 1. The Keys also are set to start a 21-city U.S. tour that begins March 3 at the SXSW festival and finishes May 17 at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston.

Pitchfork – ‘Silver Mt. Zion lend tune to Lost ad’ Constellation Records breaks their anti-corporate stance and indie world once again wonders if they’ve sold out. And maybe they have, but come on, it’s Lost! Who wouldn’t want their music associated with the most anticipated premiere of television’s best show?

Pitchfork – Drive-by Truckers hit the road in support of “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark,” out on New West Records on Jan. 22.

Pitchfork – The music world could soon be having a D.A.N.C.E. crisis. It seems that Justice’s electro-pop dance song is gaining some popularity and the group will be playing Madison Square Garden on the Myspace Music Tour. I wonder if the hipsters will like this song as much after it’s played on mainstream pop radio between T-Pain and Britney.

The Onion AV Club - “Panic! At The Disco have decided to officially drop the annoying fucking exclamation point from their name.”

MOJO – The Jesus and Mary Chain release their first new songs since 1998 on their myspace page.

Glide Magazine – Courtney Love thinks Ryan Gosling and Scarlett Johannson should play Kurt and Courtney, respectively, in the upcoming Cobain biopic “Heavier Than Heaven.” Further proof that Courtney Love is the worst thing to ever happen to rock and roll.

Reuters – Live Nation continues to move forward and become a formidable opponent to Ticketmaster, which is fantastic for about 7,394,692 reasons. Anyone who competes with Ticketmaster is pretty badass in my book.

Pitchfork – ‘The National Schedule More Shows’

Pitchfork - Feist, Of Montreal, Bloc Party, and Muse, among others donate tracks to “The Green Owl Comp: A Benefit for the Energy Action Coalition.”

Pitchfork – More positive musician activism as Common plays the House of Blues for Chicago’s public schools. Almost makes up for appearing on that obnoxious GAP commercial.

Pitchfork – Radiohead to host BBC Radio 1 Jan. 17 from 7-9 p.m. I'm just going to go ahead and assume this will be online in it's entirety the minute they're finished.

Pitchfork – Cat Power visits India and Bangladesh. How nice of her. I wonder how many people over there have heard of Cat Power.

Pitchfork – Broken Social Scene will tour Australia, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand.

I Guess I’m Floating – ‘North American Cities Radiohead Prefer’

antimusic.com – Axl finished “Chinese Democracy”? Seriously?

EMPTYING THE ASHTRY: Hey music industry! Welcome to the 21st Century! Would you care for a beverage?

The influence and importance of rock and roll and the music industry on modern culture is often understated.

Even in a nation dominated by media-driven technological advances, the influence of the music industry is a difficult thing to grasp. It has been virtually impossible to escape technology’s advances in the world of mp3’s and digital music. iPods, iPhones, Chocolates, various mp3-capable megacellphones emulating the BlackBerry and iPhone are now cultural forces.

But are these cultural forces doing more to set music listeners free or imprison them in a digital system with its own rules and boundaries?

On Showtime’s new series “Californication,” (a show I believe is marketed directly at me) main character Hank Moody, played fantastically by David Duchovny, was asked about his job as a blogger for Hell-A magazine by Henry Rollins on his radio show. Moody responded “…we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it's really given us is Howard Dean's aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddie porn. People...they don't write anymore - they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it's just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King's English.”

Writer-producer Tom Kapinos makes an excellent, if not depressing point in Hank’s mini-monologue. However, this is not the case when it comes to the world of music, where freedom and democracy isI growing exponentially since the birth of digital music and file sharing.

It was Napster that first set us free.

I was introduced to Napster as a high school freshman. This was not my most critically acclaimed period of music fandom, as I regularly downloaded tracks by Limp Bizkit, Blink 182 and Green Day. (Of course, I was also downloading Hendrix and Nirvana and the Beatles and introducing myself to the world of rock and roll so I guess it all evens out).

Despite my poor taste in tunes at the time, I was not the only one divulging into this new software. More and more people in my sleepy little suburban hometown decided to download Napster and subsequently began downloading their own music, my classmates, friends and I no longer had to beg our parents for money to buy new music on CD. We could just download it ourselves and hope they don’t check for irrelevant parental advisories.

Napster became a cultural force for the young generation who would ultimately prove to be unwilling to go look for and purchase music in Sam Goody and Tower Records, opting to search the internet and make use of Napster’s ever-expanding database of free music instead.

And that, in its essence, is why music fans are now freer than ever before, and record companies are more fucked than ever before.

Now, Napster has been essentially shut down and marginalized to being just another pay-to-download service. Like the Bobby Fuller Four (and eventually The Clash and Green Day), they fought the law and the law famously won.

But by no means has that stopped anyone from downloading copious amounts of free music online. For every music site that's been shut down, more have popped up in its place and free downloads haven't slowed down in the least. And free downloads are now what my generation, and all generations after me are used to.

The kids these days, they are used to hyper-accelerated technological developments, and this has affected the music industry greatly. In all reality, most people of my age (22) have grown up downloading music illegally as a primary way of listening to their music.

The internet now holds widespread influence and ability for people to connect in strange ways that can occasionally become cultural relevant, and if they’re lucky, forces of brilliance. Because of this, those in my generation and just about every generation after mine will have this mentality of ‘music is free, and I can listen to whatever I want, wherever I go, all of the time.’

So all of the traditional venues for music consumption – the RIAA, record companies, CD stores – they can all fuck off because this generation of music fans is already free and are ready to move forward with this freedom.

So, welcome to the 21^st century, where it is now useless to fight the digital music revolution. Welcome to the 21^st century, where bands drop major record labels because they’re better off working independently. Welcome the 21^st century, where anybody has access to millions of mp3’s sitting at home on their computers. Welcome to the 21^st century, where the music industry is changing, and people are finding a new glimmer of hope in a time where we so desperately need it.

MONDAY LINKS

...and The Blinking Yellow Light is up and running.

To start things off, on this and every Monday, there will be a massive batch of music links to get you through the week.

Comments and suggestions are always encouraged.

Enjoy.

-dan

NEWS

Really funny PASTE magazine article about the Kinks potentially reuniting.

Festival news from Stereogum: REM signed on for the SXSW festival in Austin.

Republican front-runner Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris. Rolling Stone called them “Chuckabee.” Quirky name combinations have to stop sometime, don't they? Rolling Stone apparently doesn't think so. Either way, I like how Huckabee is trying to appeal to younger voters by using his bass guitar and Chuck Norris, but I think he's missing the point altogether.

Going to this show would have been a blitzkrieg shitstorm of epic proportions.

Rolling Stone rips the Grammy’s for being too gimmicky. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. However, they do make an interesting point about the stupidity one of the highly publicized Grammy gimmicks -- a YouTube competition to play along with The Foo Fighters. “Because that’s what the YouTube generation wants to see: forty-five French horn players performing for the opportunity to get lost in an orchestra at the Grammys.” Also, there’s apparently potential for an Amy Winehouse meltdown in front of a national audience. I don’t think America is ready, but it should be fun nonetheless.

More from the mainstream: Final ’07 sales totals. Josh Groban and the Eagles came out on top in the album wars and Soulja Boy won digital track honors with “Crank That.” If that’s not vomit-enducing, I don’t know what is.

Least surprising year-end news – album sales are down, and digital sales are up. Shocking, really, I had no idea people were getting their music online. What an unbelievable development.

SXSW band list from the live music blog. Austin should be excited, especially with one of the world’s greatest live bands, My Morning Jacket, in the mix.

Krist Novoselic is joining forces with “Lauded hardcore/noise-rock pioneers Flipper,” at least according to this snarky Pitchfork article.

PASTE magazine’s greatest riffs of the 21^st century…so far.

PASTE – Hot Chip hits the road.

PASTE – MC Hammer and dancejam.com. No words.

PASTE – Spoon heads to Australia.

PASTE – Odelay goes deluxe in January.

Alternative Press on Weezer new album.

Pitchfork – Yikes, a member of The Shins gets involved with domestic assault.

NME – Neko Case hits the road to test out new material.

NME - LIVE EARTH is honoured. We need an award show to honor a music event for bringing more awareness to the environment? That’s the solution? How about, oh, I don’t know, use the money it cost to put on an award show to go toward something that is actually helping the environment?

NME – New album from Nada Surf on the horizon.

NME – Thom Yorke talks about how “In Rainbows” was a conscious effort to make a 45 minute statement album. Thom is bringing back the concept of being a "rock star" for the next generation. [Sidenote: Anyone else think that it's really interesting that Yorke said that The Beatles’ defining album was “Revolver” and not “Sgt. Peppers” or “Abbey Road”?]

NME – Jay-Z leaves Def Jam for Apple! He’s apparently a fan of their business model, and Beyonce is not invited.

NME – Clapton, Townsend and Ringo team up for a supergroup New Year’s gig.

NME – Possible British-band supergroup. Or just more people for Liam Gallagher to piss off.

NME - Coner Oberst of Bright Eyes throws his support behind Barack.

NME - Hot Chip wants to pull a Radiohead. And so it begins…

NME - Ne-Yo sues R Kelly

NME – More Thom Yorke NME interviews, more brilliance. It does seem like NME has Yorke on speed dial though, and have him ready for interview whenever they have a random question. That’s ok though, they’re asking good questions for the most part.

Billboard – Death Cab has an album on the way, and it’s somehow going to be “sadder” than the rest of their material. You'd think they'd eventually stop whining, but apparently that is not the case.

Billboard - New one on the way for Rusted Root. I had no idea Rusted Root even released albums.

Billboard – Flo Rida sets digital sales record.

Billboard – Musicians to play New Orleans benefit (including more MMJ) It always makes me happy when artists play concerts for charity instead of sponsors. Kudos.

THE REST

DRM rights for dummies (and me).

Sound quality is for nerds anyway.

We’re actively becoming a nation of insomniacs! Awesome! I thought all I needed was my Diet Pepsi Max with Ginseng after 2 Red Bulls and 5 pots of coffee to wake up. Now all I need to do is blow something up my nose to stay awake! Wait a minute…



Deciding to be part of the problem as opposed to a part of the solution, The American Film Institute’s chose hyper-tabloidization of culture as one of the most significant aspects of 2007.

Beyonce kicks the shit out of Kanye at Connect Four.

Kanye West’s blog! I wonder which member of his entourage writes this.

Amy Winehouse cleans up by going diving with Bryan Adams. What the hell?

LA Times feature on the year in music, 2007.