New Kanye bold, clumsy

Kanye's in the living room, pouring his heart out; I'm in the kitchen making lemonade.

Friday cheese

Ace Frehley - "New York Groove"

I'm not a huge KISS fan, but their late-70s disco crossover stuff like this Frehely 'solo' tune and "I Was Made For Loving You" are such great pop songs, it's tough not to like it.

In 1978, each member of KISS released a solo album on the same day. I can't imagine something like this happening in today's musical climate, with very few bands out there that are well known enough that people would buy a record made by each member of the band. U2 maybe?

Latest obsession

The Hold Steady - "Sequestered in Memphis" on Letterman

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I'm pretty much in love with new Hold Steady album. I hadn't really got into them before browsing Metacritic's top rated albums of the year a couple months back, but this album has been growing on me ever since. This song is killer, but the album's closer, "Slapped Actress" is sort of like indie rock's version of gospel. Highly recommended if you like contemporary rock that sounds simply classic. Note that's a small 'c' classic.

Time to break out the winter mixtapes

I just listened to this track on the walk home tonight, it's definitely a winter favourite. In fact, the entire first Broken Social Scene album is a perfect soundtrack for walking home in the gently falling snow with a couple rye's in the belly. The rest of their discography, not so much.

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Kid A is another great winter night album. From the artwork to the coldness of the synthesized music to the fact I first bought the album on a cold December night in high school, few albums compare when it comes to getting you through the winter months. Uber-critic Robert Christgau gives the album a great description that also applies to why the album goes so well in zero degree weather - it's "sadness made pretty".

Rough mornings call for a little smooth music

I love this show.

Pitchfork fucking rips Pumpkins

Smashing Pumpkins' Anniversary Tour Is a Shitshow

It is my firm belief that Corgan is tarnishing the grand Pumpkins legacy with this ridiculous second run, but seriously, Pfork goes a little too far with the headline... solid quote here though:

You can do your own thing all you want, but it's rude, to say the least, to begrudge people their expectations when they pay hundreds of dollars to see you. And you can mock "those reunion bands" all you want, but your insistence on ruining people's nostalgic fondness for your band instead of playing to it doesn't change the fact that you're cashing in, just like they are.

Yesssssssssssss!

LCD Soundsystem not splitting

/off Swarm again

Noooooooooooooooooooo?

LCD Soundsystem R.I.P. ?

/off Daily Swarm

Talkin' bout Girl

Apparently, the latte-lamenting hipsters over at blogto didn't dig Girl Talk's Toronto set on Wednesday night. I wasn't there, but I'll have to take their word for it.

Nice to see someone going against the grain as far as the effusive praise showered on Mr. Gillis, and I totally agree that a dude playing a laptop is a lame set. There's just no way around it. His records are brilliant, but the guy is at best an entertainer, at worst a scalper. Just don't call him a musician.

On the other hand, anyone who can get the staid, zombie-like concert goers of this city to dance just a little god damn bit has to be given some credit... right? And I hope the irony of calling out hipsters on a hipster blog isn't lost on the author.

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And now, a song that has nothing to do with the post, but popped into my head after I wrote the title to this post:

Why?

via Daily Swarm

Nirvana's Nevermind baby recreates classic album cover

...and Guns N Roses have an album coming out in less than 10 days.

It's culture in reverse!

Mp3 album aggregator

Here's a cool link that's sort of like HypeMachine, but for albums:

Cab It Up

The nerds do it again

Wired: How Math Unraveled the 'Hard Day's Night' Mystery

It took Dalhousie University professor Jason Brown six months and some advanced mathematical analytical techniques to crack the code behind one of the most mysterious sounds in music: the "prraaaaaangg" sound at the beginning of the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night."

I had no idea the first note to that classic song was so layered and rich with harmonics... listening back to the song, it seems so obvious. As George Martin is quoted in the same article - "it shouldn't be expected that people are necessarily doing what they appear to be doing on records".

Another great music streaming site

My friend Dale tipped me off to a very cool streaming music site called Grooveshark. They seem to have just about everything in there, and they should, when they call themselves "The World's Music Library".

While the 'Most Popular' has the usual ring of top 40 hits, queries for Steinski, Captain Beefheart, White Williams, and Dorsey Brothers turn up positive, Blue Peter has nothing and Martha and the Muffins brings up six "Echo Beach"'s... which goes to prove that Canadian 80's New Wave is about as obscure as our cultural climate will allow.

Also, watch out for the irritating "You Just Proved Pop-ups Work!" thing in the bottom right hand corner.

Not Weird Al

Being a huge Weird Al fan, I find it bears repeating that half the songs on P2P networks are not actually by the incomparable Mr. Yankovic.

Not Weird Al

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If the song that your idiot friend is talking about features any of the following:

-swears
-hurtful commentary
-political commentary
-derogatory statements about any group
-sexual references
-drug references

...it's not Weird Al.

Oh, and check out the new single on his website.

Chocolate city

Too bad Richard Pryor didn't live long enough to take his rightful place as Minister of Education.