NME Releases List of Top 20 Songs of the Decade, With Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” Topping the List; Elsewhere, News Slow, I Commit to Making Lots of Thanksgiving References in Honor of the Holiday (And am Very Thankful That Underappreciated In Rainbows Track “Reckoner” Made NME’s List) [NME]
Watch WHY?’s Two-Song Music Video For Eskimo Snow Tracks “These Hands” and “January Twentysomething,” Which Features a Father With a Bunch of Arrows in His Back Dragging a Child from a Car Crash (Whether or Not He Was Playing a Celebratory Game of “Pilgrims and Indians” Remains to Be Seen) [Pitchfork]
Stream Grizzly Bear Remixing German Electro-Mopers the Notwist’s Oft-Remixed Track “Boneless” – I’m Fairly Convinced that this is Better Than the Entirety of Veckatimest (But That’s Because Veckatimest is Weak-(Cranberry)Sauce) [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Inversely, Stream Neon Indian Remixing Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest Track “Cheerleader” (And Stream Another Neon Indian Version Here); Veckatimest May Have Been a Little Lacking, as I Just Mentioned, But These Remixes are Strong (Like Good Gravy?) [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Watch the Pixies Play Doolittle Opener “Debaser” on Fallon, then Watch them Play “Hey;” Both of Which Seem Pretty Restrained – But Not as Restrained as Your Usually Drunk Uncle Will Be at the Dinner Table This Year (Aunt Laura Probably Lectured Him in the Car After Last Year’s “Incident”) [Stereogum]
Former Spaceman Jason Pierce AKA J. Spaceman Announces New Spiritualized Album for 2010, and Re-releasing His Classic Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space; Expect It to Be as Woozy as the Rest of Spiritualized’s Albums (Tryptophan Woozy?!) [NME]
Portland Emo-Punks the Thermals Announce New Album, and Give it a Preemptive Release Date of September 7, 2010; Meanwhile, Pull on Your Thermal Underwear Because This Thanksgiving Weather is Cold (Okay, That’s a Stretch, But C’mon, Only So Many Thanksgiving References are Possible) [Pitchfork]
compiled by Max Sebela
Pavement Adds Fourth Show To New York’s Central Park Summerstage 2010; Stephen Malkmus Unaware That By “World Tour,” Matador Expects Them To Leave Central Park [Brooklyn Vegan]
Watch Depraved Web Series Namaste! From anticon.’s Much-Beloved Why?; Why’s Upcoming LP Eskimo Snow Released September 22 [anticon.]
Stream Strokes Frontman Julian Casablancas’s New Synthy (Read: Not Really Worth Listening To) Song “11th Dimension”; Casablancas’s Debut LP Phrazes of the Young Released October 20 [Myspace]
British Art Dance Cutie Goldfrapp To Score Upcoming John Lennon Biopic Nowhere Boy — This Is Cool, But Confusing [Pitchfork]
Lego Iggy Pop to Star in Lego Rock Band; Watch Lego Pop Fall Into Lego Herion, Get Picked Up By Lego David Bowie, And Redefine His Lego Career Through A Lego Series of Lego Albums and Accomplishments [Idolator]
Stream to Pearl Jam’s New Album Backspacer A Couple Days Early…Or Don’t. I Probably Wouldn’t. Backspacer Released September 20 [Spin]
Andrew W.K. To Tour With Calder String Quartet; Shouts of “LETS GET THIS CRECENDO STARTED” Heard From Miles Away; Meanwhile, Quartet Unconditioned To Partying Quite So Much – All Report Hangovers, Immense Fun [CMJ]
Watch New Thom Yorke Video For “All For The Best,” Off The Upcoming Mark Mulcahy Tribute, Ciao My Shining Star; Ciao Released September 29 [Pitchfork]
Insane Clown Posse Fans (Popularly Called Juggalos – Find Them In The Faygo Aisle of Your Local Walgreens) and Slipknot Fans (Called Maggots – Find Them Looking Through Jack Skelington Coffee Mugs At Your Nearest Hot Topic) Don’t Get Along [Prefix]
compiled by Max Sebela
July 3, 2009
Why? | “These Few Presidents”
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”
