The Illiterate

Sitting at an intersection, asleep behind the wheel, classical music blaring out of the stereo. Those longhairs just can’t be controlled.

Heh, heh, Kanye said “poke her face“. Problem is, Gaga already sang “fuck her face” in the original. Does this mean Gaga has bigger balls than Kanye?

Forget Vampire Weekend. Try Amadou & Mariam instead.

Every once a while, I go through a Beatles phase. For reasons psychological and emotional that I can’t really explain, but that are probably along the same lines as the desire for comfort food, a fab four frenzy comes upon me and I start listening to all the albums again, watching segments of the Anthology documentary, reading bits and pieces of their history that I’ve read countless times before, and bemoaning the fact that certain items, such as the original mono mixes of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper, aren’t available on CD (I have two mono Peppers on vinyl, and the US Revolver, but they’re both a bit scratchy, and the US Revolver doesn’t have “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “I’m Only Sleeping”).

I’ve been going through one of these phases the last week (touched off by reading Andrew Loog Oldham’s memoirs), and through one of those wonderful bits of serendipity that happen now and again, it comes at the very moment that EMI and Apple have finally gotten their act together and announced the complete remastering of the Beatles catalog, a project that includes stereo reissues of their entire output plus–and I for one can’t believe this is finally happening–a special box set of every mono mix, albums and singles. That means every album through The Beatles and every single through “Hey Jude”. Best of all, since this particular Beatles phase is fading, it doesn’t come out until September, which should be just about time for my next one (and just before my birthday, too–hmm).

Still no word on a digital release, but give them chance. It took them four years to get this together (half as long as The Beatles’ actual recording career), and I have a feeling it will all be ironed out by September.

uh-oh

Katy Perry is headlining Bumbershoot. Not to worry, though–it might very well be fergalicious.

top ten update

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been scanning the economics blogs, reading debates about stocks and stimulus and credit swaps and unemployment and whether or not the current recession (or potential depression, depending on who you’re reading) has bottomed out. Here, in the rather less significant world of pop music (a world that seems to get less significant by the moment, though it’s spawning its own massive unemployment numbers), it’s fair to say the bottom has been reached. I know, just a couple of months ago I was saying that the bottom had fallen out, and that may still be true, but it may also be true that we’ve reached a new bottom, and things will begin to level out from here on in. I say that not because I’m an optimist, but because I can’t see things getting any worse. The first three months of any year are slow for pop music, but this year has been something more than slow. Three months in and, with the arrival of Carrie Underwood this week, only eleven new songs have appeared on the top ten, the slowest pace since 2005. This year feels slower, though, because in 2005 the records were better. So far only Kelly Clarkson has managed to rise above mediocrity, and there are already three contenders for the worst of the top ten list (“Poker Face” being the current number one seed). It can’t get any worse, can it? Wait, what? Green Day wrote a rock opera? Shit.

top ten update

Nothing new on the chart this week, though Kelly Clarkson does move up a few notches on the back of her new album. Unfortunately, the same effect doesn’t apply to The Dream, whose album debuted at number two. The two singles he’s released so far, including a lovely duet with Mariah Carey, “My Love”, barely moved at all.

Not much of interest in this week’s debuts, either. Carrie Underwood covers Motley Crue; Plies confirms his thugness by declaring, at the end of a lust duet with Ashanti, that she’s “my property, I’m her owner”; Ciara, with help from Justin Timberlake, finally puts together a track that sounds like it could be a hit after over three years in the wilderness; Musiq Soulchild emotes and melismalizes over a track for four and half minutes without actually finding a song; and Montgomery Gentry brags some more about being white trash.

Finally, a brief word about “Hoedown Throwdown”, the new Miley Cyrus track from the upcoming Hannah Montana movie. It’s said that when Elvis was recording the soundtracks for his movies he would sometimes be so upset with the material he was given to sing that he became physically ill. Right now, Elvis is looking down on Miley Cyrus from rock and roll heaven and sympathetically throwing up.

good news for barbershop quartets

According to Billboard, NBC is planning on putting yet another singing contest on TV, only this time, everybody has to sing a cappella.

“This is a fantastic feel-good series that viewers of all ages can enjoy,” said Paul Telegdy, executive vp alternative at NBC and Universal Media Studios. “To hear these singing groups re-create a popular song with only the sounds of their voices is truly amazing.”

Is it now? Even more than American Idol or Nashville Star I can’t begin to describe how dismal a prospect this seems to me. NBC execs, who cite Justin Timberlake as an inspiration, seem to be imagining a parade of wholesome boy bands filling their studios, making music fit for angels. What I see is an endless parade of bad human beatboxers, with bad rappers and hip-hop crooners standing up front. Maybe NBC isn’t aware of how technically accomplished you need to be to pull off a decent a cappella performance. 99% of the contestants on American Idol couldn’t do it, and that includes most of the winners. Besides, even the greatest a cappella music, including doo wop and gospel, gets boring after awhile. Unless a group is the modern equivalent of the Comedian Harmonists, the lack of instrumentation and the relative redundancy of the arrangements can wear thin fast. As for solo singers, even the greatest I would only want to take in small doses.

I’ll be surprised If they even finish their proposed eight week run.

everything that’s wrong with indie in a single tweet

From the New York Times’s SXSW Twitter feed: “At NPR’s party, the audience is miked. Now everyone can say they’re on NPR.”

dolls and wizards

If I were still in my twenties, and it were still the 1980s, I’d be incredibly excited about the reuniting of The New York Dolls with Todd Rundgren–if only because Johnny Thunders and Killer Kane and Jerry Nolan would still be alive. Now it seems a bit like desperation, especially since the album includes a rerecording of the unimprovable “Trash”. I don’t think the desperation is on The Doll’s part, though. Their last album was great, and David Johansen is as unflappable as they come. Todd, however, hasn’t been involved in a high profile project for god knows how long (XTC’s Skylarking is the last one I can think of) and was pleading poverty–from his estate in Hawaii–in a recent issue of Mojo. Personally, I think if he needs money that much he should start writing pop songs for Disney stars–he’d be a natural.