Stream the Entirety of the Them Crooked Vultures Self-Titled Album, Which is, In My Opinion, a Bit of a Let Down (But, Hey, I Think Led Zeppelin’s Entire Career is a Bit of a Let Down…) [Youtube]

The Magnetic Fields Announce New Album, Realism, Set to be Released January 26; Stephen Merritt Remains Better at Naming Songs Than Just About Anyone, With Song Titles Like “We are Having a Hootenanny” and “Everything is One Big Christmas Tree” [Pitchfork]

Watch Claymation Video From anticon. Founders Themselves, “Roman is as Roman Does,” Which is Nearly as Frightening as Lady GaGa’s Video For “Bad Romance” [Prefix]

Stream Beck, Binki Shapiro, and Devendra Banharts’ Version of Leonard Cohen’s “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong;” Grow Frustrated When Finding Out That Banhart Still Shows a Lot of Talent Even Though What Will We Be Was Awful (And Self-Fulfilling: A Poorly Conceived Album is What We Will Be) [Gorilla vs. Bear]

British Electro Rockers Hot Chip Announce New Album, One Life Stand, Which is the Quality of Emo-Pun I’d Expect from the All American Rejects; Released Februrary 9 [Spin]

The Drums Announce New Single Release of “I Felt Stupid” from the JM Approved Summertime! EP; I Look Back Fondly On When the Drums Were Our July Featured Artist, and Encourage You All To Go See Home Video (Our Current Feature Artist) This Thursday [NME]

Stream Delorean Remixing Franz Ferdinand’s Tonight Track “Live Alone,”and Turns It Into One Big World Music Party Jam! Drinks All Around (Preferably Served Out of Some Kind of Exotic Balearic Fruit…Perhaps a Kiwi) [Pitchfork]

Stream New Single from that Swedish Glow-Fi Band jj, “Baby,” Which is Set to an Understated Montage of Graceful Horses, and is Deliciously Auto-tuned (As Much as a Song Can be Delicious, as Sound is Not Edible) [Gorilla vs. Bear]

compiled by Max Sebela

ART OF SONG
Why?
“These Few Presidents”
Alopecia
2008 | anticon.

I like hip-hop; a lot of people like hip-hop. A lot of people claim to like hip-hop. A lot of people hate hip-hop. A lot of people claim to like hip-hop but hate rap. Some people think rap is violent and hip-hop isn’t. People don’t know the difference between the two. Most people (including myself) don’t know shit enough about hip-hop to really make a justified claim. I know this. I still like hip-hop.

Instead of discussing the merits of the genre, or attacking it because Q-Tip doesn’t shred a guitar, and Clipse sold cocaine, and therefore obstructs the morality of our kids, I’m going to make a claim that’s more fun to debate: anticon. founder Jonathan “Yoni” Wolf (aka Why?) is a contender for the greatest active lyricist in music. And he raps!…sort of.

“These Few Presidents” is the third track from last year’s brilliantly morbid Alopecia, and one that best exhibits what Why? is all about. In his somewhat nasally, sneer of a voice, Wolf rap-sings “At your house/ the smell of our still living human bodies/ and oven gas/ you pray to Nothing out loud/ two first names and an ampersand/ embroidered proudly on a kitchen towel.” In a single line, he hits on: 1) impending death 2) the human desire for marriage 3) fear of commitment 4) uncertainty in a higher power 5) the perceived simplicity of intimacy. And none of these themes are buried; the listener doesn’t have to dig them out from a pile of symbols and non sequiturs the way Bob Dylan, Conor Oberst, Silver Jews’ David Berman, or any non-ODB member of the Wu requires.
More on Why? | “These Few Presidents”