Watch New Video From the Twilight Sad for “Seven Years of Letters,” In Which the Band Commits a Fairly Grizzly Murder, Which I’m Not Convinced Is Entirely Fictional. Remember When the Band Was Robbed a Few Weeks Back? Could Be Revenge; Just Sayin’ [Pitchfork]
Jason Molina Feeling Worse Than Usual, Cancels Tour With Will Johnson (Which Was Supposed to Promote Their Album Together, Descriptively Titled Molina & Johnson…Now How Will Anyone Know About It? Even Molina’s Extremely Outdated Fan Site Has Nothing to Say About the Album) [Brooklyn Vegan]
Stream Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls Covering the Chantels’ “He’s Gone,” Which is No More or Less Bubbly Than One Would Initially Expect [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Lily Allen Quitting Music For Two Years After Returning to Music After Quitting Music After Quitting Twitter After Threatening to Quit Music After Starting a Blog About Not Wanting to Do Music if People are Going to Steal Her Music; Elsewhere, I Just Downloaded a Ton of Lily Allen Illegally…Listening Party at My Place [Idolator]
Stream New Shearwater Song, “Castaways,” Which is Painfully Boring, and Much Too Vibrato-ed, Even For a Shearwater Track (But Does Feature a Daintily Keyed Piano…It’s Really Cute!); The Golden Archipelago Released February 23 [Stereogum]
Scott Kannberg, AKA Pavement’s Spiral Stairs, Negates His Own Statement That Pavement Would Never Record Another Song, Claims that New Songs Inevitable if Band Chemistry is Good; Chemical Composition of Pavement Unclear…Most Likely Includes Carbon [The Age]
Smiths Guitarist/Indie Vagabond Johnny Marr to Write Score for Film Starring Antonio Banderas and Snoop Dogg About Strippers; With a Cast Like That, How Could the Film Be Worse Than the Cribs’ Last Album? [NME]
http://www.nme.com/news/nme/48674
L.A. Fuzzy Girl Pop Band Dum Dum Girls Announce Debut LP, I Will Be; Released March 30 (And Features a Track Called “Bhang Bhang, I’m a Burnout” – Who Wouldn’t Be Psyched on That) [Pitchfork]
Billboard Says New Arcade Fire Album Due Out in May; Will Most Likely Feature Veiled References to Haiti, Religion, Family…Possibly Feature Inspiration From the Boss [Billboard]
compiled by Max Sebela
Supposed Dates For 2010 Daft Punk Tour Leak, Including a Stop in Yankees Stadium on August 15 – Dates are Not Yet Confirmed, But Will Most Likely Be Kept as Robots Have No Place For Scheduling Errors, and Most Likely Have Google Maps Stored in their Titanium Minds [NME]
Sunset Rubdown Frontman/Wolf Parade Co-Frontman/Swan Lake Co-Co-Frontman Spencer Krug Desires More Attention, Records Solo Under Pseudonym “Moonface;” Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums Released January 26 [Pitchfork]
All Tomorrow’s Parties Announce Initial “Don’t Look Back” Line-Up for ATP New York; Iggy & the Stooges Performing Raw Power From Cover to Cover; Remains to be Seen Whether or Not Mr. Pop Will Finally Promise on Walking Street as Cheetah; ATP New York Takes Place September 3, 2010 [Brooklyn Vegan]
Swedish Songstress Lykke Li Releases a Free Cover of the Shirelles’ classic, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” Stream It Here; Considering the Heartbreaking Pace of the Song, I’m Guessing Li Has Already Answered that Question With a Firm “No” [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Lily Allen (Who, Let’s Remember, “Quit” Music Due to Illegal Downloading (Allegedly (…At This Point, Pretty Sure She Didn’t Quit))) Says She’s Fine With People Buying Burned Copies of Her CDs, as Long as They Pay For Them; Elsewhere, Who Wants to Buy a “Copy” of Alright, Still? [NME]
Merge Reissues Neutral Milk Hotel’s Albums; Releases Two Videos of Jeff Mangum Playing Aeroplane’s “Two Headed Boy” and Avery Island’s “April 8th.” Warning: These Videos Made Me Cry Due to Intensity of Mangum’s Music and Memories. Maybe NSFW, if Your Co-Workers Are Likely to Call You Names [Youtube]
compiled by Max Sebela
Lily Allen, Who Recently Quit Music, Reissues Some of Her Music, Performs Music With Dizzee Rascal, Seems Completely Immersed In Music [Idolator]
Portishead Working On Follow-Up to Last Year’s Third; “It Could Be Out In a Year’s Time,” Meaning It Hopefully Won’t Take Another Decade [Pitchfork]
Stream Karen O’s Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack In Full; Feel All Fuzzy Inside, Grow Tired of the Seemingly Constant Clap Tracks [Stereogum]
British Post-Punk Dudes The Futureheads Working On a “Complicated” New Album; I Can’t Decide If It Would Be Sweeter If It Were This Kind Of Complicated, Or Some Other, More Complex Kind of Complicated [Prefix]
UK MC Lady Sovereign Arrested In Australia After Spitting In Someone’s Face; According To Twitter, Sovereign Believes Spitting “Nasty,” But Being Punched In the Head, Nastier [NME]
Watch New Andrew Bird Video For “Anonanimal” – Does This Remind Anyone Else of Day of the Tentacle? 90s Point And Click Adventure Game Fans? Too Niche? Guys? [Rolling Stone]
Stream Upcoming Air Album Love 2 In It’s Entirety; Simultaneously, See Who Else Is Currently Streaming Love 2 (Currently, There’s One Person In Siberia Listening, Probably Trying To Warm Up With Some Sweet, Breathy Air) [Prefix]
Nathan Williams From Wavves and Jared Swiley From Black Lips Got Into a Bit of a Scuffle, And Somehow Williams Won (Sort Of…He’s Just A Little Guy); Swiley Continually Calls Williams The F- Word (No, The Other, Really Bad F- Word) [Brooklyn Vegan]
Hey It’s Monday, We’re All Feeling A Little Down…Here’s A Couple New Sufjan Stevens Songs; Oh No, Now I’m Feeling Really Down [Pitchfork]
Stream Devendra Banhart’s Awesome Remix of Phoenix’s “Rome” – Devendra Being Good At Remixing Is Always Surprising, Like Remembering Cher Won An Oscar [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Watch Video For Taken By Trees’ (Victoria Bergsman, That Girl Who Whistles and Sings on “Young Folks”) Cover of Animal Collective’s Merriweather Banger “My Girls,” Re-imagined As “My Boys” (Its Stupid. Plain and Simple) [Stereogum]
compiled by Max Sebela
Yesss!!! Listen To Big Boi’s New Song With George Clinton and Too $hort. Though Honestly, It’s Not As Crazy As We’d Hope [Prefix]
Getting Bored With Your Buddha Machine? No Worries, Throbbing Gristle Has Made Their Own Version: Helloo Gristleism! [Pitchfork]
Listen To New Best Coast, “Wish He Was You.” You May Be Sick Of These Lo-Fi Beachy Songs, But We Who’re Already Dreading Winter Need This! [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Morrissey To Release B-Sides Album, Tour West Coast [The Tripwire]
Whaaaa? FAC Supports Lily Allen After All. We’ll See What This Means For Our Theory On The Whole Debacle… [Pitchfork]
San Francisco’s Girls New Single Due In November. Watch Them Perform It Here! [Pitchfork]
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers To Release Fatty, Four-Disc Live Anthology [Rolling Stone]
Have You Ever Wondered What The Inside Of Kyp Malone’s Apartment Looks Like? Don’t Worry, We Have Too. You Can Get All the Mundane (and Exciting) Details Here [NY Post]
Hells Yeah. Mos Def Making Punk Documentary [The Tripwire]
Stream All Of Ghostface’s Wizard Of Poetry Here [Prefix]
In More Wizard And Music-Related News, ?uestlove and Friends To Play Free Screening Of Wizard Of Oz in Central Park Next Week [Brooklyn Vegan]
compiled by Erin Sheehy
IN THE NEWS
Poor Mark Ronson, he tried, he really did. Of course it’s not entirely fair to make it sound like his race has been run, but still, it must be damn frustrating to help cultivate two acts that were set to change the face of pop, and have both burn out with the dexterity of a match. It wasn’t surprising with Amy Winehouse, seeing part of her appeal was how fucked up she was, and finding out that she didn’t have the resilience or control her songs let on wasn’t much of a shocker. But Lily Allen, the cute, witty girl next door with a third nipple (Warning: kinda, sorta NSFW), why? She was the perfect pop outsider made for the masses – light, catchy, and fun, while not being bland and vapid – but then after a bit of fame, she fell into public drunkenness, breakdowns, and ridiculous celebrity feuds. The spotlight pushed her into a club she originally had no interest in joining, but did she have to start emulating its members? And even start sounding like them with her run of the mill second album, Its Not Me, Its You?
More on Lily Allen: Quitting Music?
February 23, 2009
Lily Allen | “Smile”
IN THE TUBE
Not only is “Smile” by Lily Allen a new addition to my extensive roster of guilty pleasures, but I hate to admit that I also enjoy the video. I haven’t been up on the latest music videos since MTV went downhill (which according to my definition is the mid to late nineties), largely because most of the videos made since then are clichéd and bland, relying on the same played out party/club scene or live rock show setting. But in “Smile,” a girl has her heart broken by a cheating boyfriend, and aside from devouring chocolate, she decides to get even “with a little help from [her] friends.” This support comes in the form of paying some people to jump the guy as he walks down the street and trash his apartment (including scratching the shit out of his vinyl – he’s a DJ), and then she herself laces his coffee with laxatives, pretending to provide emotional support.
I’m sure somewhere, if not everywhere, groups of mothers are protesting such behavior, such bad examples of how to react when relationships go sour. Of course, Allen’s unwholesome lesson is part of the video’s charm. “At first when I see you cry, it makes me smile,” she sings. We’re lead to believe guilt is around the corner. It isn’t. “At worst I feel bad for a while, but then I just smile.”
by Dan D’Ippolito
IN THE TUBE
Not only is “Smile” by Lily Allen a new addition to my extensive roster of guilty pleasures, but I hate to admit that I also enjoy the video. I haven’t been up on the latest music videos since MTV went downhill (which according to my definition is the mid to late nineties), largely because most of the videos made since then are clichéd and bland, relying on the same played out party/club scene or live rock show setting. But in “Smile,” a girl has her heart broken by a cheating boyfriend, and aside from devouring chocolate, she decides to get even “with a little help from [her] friends.” This support comes in the form of paying some people to jump the guy as he walks down the street and trash his apartment (including scratching the shit out of his vinyl – he’s a DJ), and then she herself laces his coffee with laxatives, pretending to provide emotional support.
I’m sure somewhere, if not everywhere, groups of mothers are protesting such behavior, such bad examples of how to react when relationships go sour. Of course, Allen’s unwholesome lesson is part of the video’s charm. “At first when I see you cry, it makes me smile,” she sings. We’re lead to believe guilt is around the corner. It isn’t. “At worst I feel bad for a while, but then I just smile.”
by Dan D’Ippolito
