Leave your worries behind

Here's a couple of non-Thriller Rod Temperton gems from the disco era, "Groove Line" by his band Heatwave, and "Rock With You", written for the king. So turn it up, grab a drink, and let the snow melt away.

If you can't beat 'em

From Wired: Major Labels Allow P2P Music Sharing on QTrax

The songs will be wrapped in Microsoft's Windows Media subscription DRM.

And, from the Toronto Star: Digital music sales jump 40%

Looks like the music industry isn't cured yet, but it sure is working hard on squeezing the consumer for what little pennies he will offer. If the major labels had their act together 8 years ago and made a strong sales push online, their profits wouldn't be in the toilet. They also could have saved themselves from the legal expense and trouble of suing their own clients. Ahh well, hindsight is 20/20.

You just can't give them no more

The group that the Mars Volta wishes they were every moment of their existence. Here's Can playing "Paperhouse" on German TV in 1972.



And thanks to the embedded Google search in Firefox:

"can paperhouse
can pap smears detect stds"

Good question... does Krautrock have the ability to detect STD's? Only time, or... time after time, will tell.

A brief history of 'tron

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music (with sound)

I just learned about Goa Trance.

Single gone low low low low low low low low

2008 is off to a grand start with four straight weeks of the rowdy ringtone rap "Low" at the top (or at the lowest position) of North America's cultural compass.

And he's not referring to a freshly baked apple pie cooling on the window sill. No, no, not at all. It's actually Nelly's booty-boppin' clothing line.



As YouTube user QCacd puts it, "c'est dla cris de marde."
And to that, I would respond - "Touché".

And how is it that Finger Eleven remains in the top 10 on the Hot 100 chart? That song is so 2007.

RIP, daydream believer

From CBC.ca Arts - John Stewart of The Kingston Trio dies

Stewart wrote "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees, which hit #1 on the Chum chart on November 20, 1967, right before it hit #1 on the Billboard charts, December 2. He was also a member of the Kingston Trio's second lineup, whose most recognizable song might be "Greenback Dollar", featured in the terrific film Thank You For Smoking... though he had nothing to do with the writing of that particular song.



Anne Murray's new duets album also features a horrific, muzak/karaoke version of the song. The snowbird pulls a Santana and hires Nelly Furtado for a duet. The production on these tracks gives me the feeling that the producer's heart just wasn't in it... or there just wasn't enough money. Nelly should have done Anne a favour and gave her Timbaland's phone number. Hey, Elton John did it...

If you try to steal the beat, the beat will steal you...

R. Kelly et al. mashed with 7/4 Shoreline. Too bad this particular Dr. Frankenstein didn't bring back the Broken Social Scene chorus, otherwise flawless... if bastard pop can even be called such a thing. The further apart the songs are, the better the mashup is, if the author can build the bridge. Here, the bridge is built, but you wouldn't want to drive over it every day.

Asphalt Autotuner

Steven Malkmus - Post-Paint Boy
&
Kanye West feat. T-Pain - Good Life

Getting washed up singers to write all my songs

More laughs at the expense of Nickelback...



Original video.

Featuring that guy from Nickelback

This Hour Has 22 Minutes - Nickelback's Amazing Facts

Brought to you by the YouTube director who obviously takes pride in bringing the show to the masses.

You know what else is funny? This:

Whatever whatever whatever

The World According to Pretty Toney

More than anything

Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 - Mas Que Nada



Plus, a pitiful reworking with the Black Eyed Peas. No slag on Serg, who definitely cashed in despite this being a total piece of shit. Here's hoping for a Black-Eyed-Plane crash in '08. Let's not even get started on Thriller 25. The beginning of the end for all mankind? Looks like it.

Send in the cassettes

From blogto: R.I.P. Vinyl Pressing in Canada

Epic

MTV.com: Mike Patton Voices 'I Am Legend' Baddies

To see if I still feel

A video of a bar band playing a bafflingly awful cover of Nine Inch Nails' "The Great Destroyer"... though all they're doing is playing over backing tracks grabbed from the bonus disc of the remix album.

Comment from the washouts themselves:

"a lot of things went wrong during it, quailty doesn't help, but we had a blast trying it out. thanks for all the possitive critisism and feedback."

They will find none here.

45 is 59

Wired: Jan. 10, 1949: A Brand-New Format for the Shirelles, Drifters

the "A side" being the projected hit and the "B side" being filler, which often became the actual hit

I don't think that's necessarily true. Sure, it happened, but 'often' is probably an overstatement. If Phil Spector had to trick radio DJs [page is a little tough on the eyes] into playing the a-side, how likely would they be to try out the b-side? But then again, what do I know? The king was dead before I was even born.

"Your butt is mine"

Spinner.com: 20 Worst Lyrics Ever

It's the freakiest birthday show

A belated happy birthday (Jan. 8) to a couple of kings...





And plus, silent raw footage from ^that video, with time code and everything! Cool beans... except for the live track which the video's poster added underneath. Watch with the mute on, and the studio cut playing instead.

American idiots

The Guess Who [Wikipedia]

5.8 this

Pitchfork should have realized by now that they should stick to the territory they're familiar with. Today's review of the new Nine Inch Nails remix album is nothing more than their usual smear job on an artist not in line with their despotic delusions of pop czardom. The reviewer dismisses every remixer on the album except for The Knife's Olof Dreijer, Fennesz, and the Kronos Quartet (with, might I add, Enrique Gonzalez Muller). Apparently the 'fork assigned a writer to comment on a remix album when that writer hadn't even heard the original work.

the Kronos Quartet manage to convey much of Reznor's Year Zero vision (without a trace of his scraping vocals) with equal parts dissonance and elegance on their rework of "Another Version of the Truth".

I agree wholeheartedly... except that the aforementioned piece contains no vocals and the Kronos Quartet aren't exactly known for their vocal skills.
The rest of the article is pretty spot on, including comments about the album's best remix, Fennesz's "In This Twilight". However, this article suffers at the hands of the magazine's pervasive arbitrary rating system, seemingly designed to keep unfavourables in check, and American Apparel on the backs of the kids who don't even read the reviews.

So we can start all over again

Good one from Blur & Jim Henson studios.

Totally mashed!

From boingboing:

Mashup of the 25 most popular songs in the U.S. in '07

A whole year of trash mashed into five minutes! Nah, it's actually really cool.

RIAA still sucks

From Crooks and Liars:

Record Industry Goes After Personal Use

[Washington Post]

Bangers and Mashed

Mashuptown.com - Best Mashups of 2007

My favourites on the list are "Lugosi's Mongoloid Loser" and "Don't Stop Believing In Planet Rock".

At your fingertips

From blogto:

TPL's Overdrive

Here comes your ghost again

Judas Priest turning Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust into metal power ballad gold.