What is going on in the world?

Jay Reatard? RIP.

Haiti? Fucked.

Michael C. Hall? Sick.

Heidi Montag? Plastic.

Proof that Jessica Simpson and Billy Corgan are an item? Deleted.

What could possibly be next?

snooze: monday, january eleventh

a day, today:

Let's Wrestle, a band whose name doubles as a pretty good pick-up line, signed to Merge Records, who will release their debut album In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s this March. In the announcement, they call their song "We are the Men You'll Grow To Love Soon" the "Let’s Wrestle’s Barmitzvah from whence they turned from punk pre-teens into men who rock.”

Grow to love you? Please, honey. I fell in love once you began describing your music in puns about Jewish coming-of-age rituals. And tell you what - if you come for a couch session, I guarantee there'll be hamentashen waiting on the coffee table.

on myspace

on hype machine

Transference streaming! on NPR! holy fuck!

Daytrotter's (seven song!) session of the day features Daniel Johnston and HYMNS, who we'll be recording a couch session with later this week. Check it.

Diplo released this Free Gucci (Best of the Cold War Mixtapes) thing for free download. I have no idea if it's good or not. (I'm listening to Spoon.)

Oh, and Vampire Weekend offered their album for $3.99 on Amazon and Dirty Projectors gave away some some songs but everyone was probably going to download them both illegally anyway, which is depressing. The tunes, however, are anything but.

Back In The Day

Wait...people still know who run major labels?

For the most part, the only big-time record executives I can think of are the ones from all those VH1 specials re-runs about Tommy Mottola and Mariah Carey when they were married that always had that picture of them from their wedding with her huuuuge hair and immediately follows with the voiceover saying "they divorced soon therafter" and a clip of her singing "Honey" on the beach.

Unless it's about the guys who run Frenchkiss or a fun tidbit about the inner workings of Merge, I'm not even going to waste my guessing power. That's obviously what Cash Cab re-runs are for.

//

oh, thanks:

gossip from page six

oh, come the fuck on: playbill edition.

As much as bringing social commentary-via-watered down rock with a splash of men's makeup to the stage can be annoying, the fact that Green Day is the one who made it to the randemonium ranks of Broadway crossover (like ABBA or Fela Kuti or Rock of Ages' musical ear buffet) out of alllll of the bands in the country is worse.

There are plenty of other artists who would be way better suited for a stop on 42nd Street that are instead stuck playing to crowds that stand on their feet the whole time in venues that don't have ornate ceilings for shows that your parents would never want to pay for and immediately take you out for a late-night dinner afterwards. (Clearly, the only worthwhile part of being stuck in Times Square.)

But, there's no sense in calling it broke if you can't fix it, so, we took the liberty of letting you know who we think would be better suited for a dance ensemble, song reprise and a stint on ol' Broadway:

Animal Collective. The lights? the costumes? The ability to drop acid while feeling highbrow and sitting next to a seventy-year-old theatre patron? Bring it on.

Sufjan Stevens, scoring a dramatic musical about The Oregon Trail. He'd finally crank out some of those state-based tunes he empty-promised us, and the ballad he'd write for the roadside funeral when the eldest sister dies of dysentery would be nothing short of phenomenal.

Bradford Cox playing the lead in The Phantom of the Opera...for no other reason except for that it would totally rule.

Tenacious D, only because I'm shocked that they haven't already done this.

Def Leppard. Someone, somewhere, at this very moment is stripping to one of their songs, and the idea of guys being able to tell their girlfriends they're going "to the theatre" and are instead tucking into one of those plushy seats to watch some pole action makes me want to help a brother out.

Andrew W.K., because really, he only way I'm going to understand this whole "I'm not Andrew W.K. but I am but I'm not" brain drain is with through a 90-minute musical culminating in a chorus reinterpreting the "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" line of "I Am The Walrus" into a full-length Beatles-meets-Broadway tune followed by an encore of "Party Hard" where the entire audience headbangs away their meta headaches.

'N SYNC. A live-action version of that puppetering No Strings Attached cover would be a pretttttttty good pre-intermission closer. But in all seriousness, Chris Kirkpatrick probably needs to find some work.

list: things i liked this year.

perfection.

(ditto.)

you had me at "pizza".

you had me at "I HATE!"

not into the xx's live show, but the album is a whole 'nother story.

i want to hipster-hate the hell out of these guys in their cute little sweaters with their cute little pop tunes but fuck it, i can't. and i'd be lying if i said i wasn't excited to hear the next album.

i listened to this album a zillion times in 2009.

(i wouldn't be surprised if i did the same in 2010.)

is it me or did everyone forget this album happened?

 

Post-Nothing gets the "I never in a million years thought I'd like this album and yet cannot listen to it in my office because i punk-dance and rock the fuck out in my chair and it's humiliating" award.

sadly, the last harlem shakes album.

(i guess this won't be a better year.)

melodic rock that makes you want to scream, cry and
jump head first into a mosh pit, all at once.

(if this album doesn't blow your socks off, you'd better be barefoot.)

best album of the year.