I Don't Even Know Where To Begin With This Die Antwoord Crap.

It's the Saw of music videos — creepy, nightmarish, looks like it was shot in a sewer and probably involves a crowbar at some point. If this is what the kids are listening to, pass me a Bruce Springsteen CD because I'm done here. And, if being catchy is all a song needs to make it onto The Fork these days, well, stick this in your Tunnelvision pipe and puff on it.

WHYYYYYY

Listen — I'm doing my best over here to make this morning go well after two vodka drinks last night did me in, since I apparently have the tolerance of a fourteen-year-old girl at a basement party. Zonked-out tired, chugging pulpy coconut water in the attempt that it'll make me feel "replenished" (it doesn't) and just wanting to scroll past some She & Him news item to click play on Stereogum's one-in-four-songs-is-good mp3 player, I head to the site and see this:

A college newspaper's entertainment website.

But then there's the "are you sure you're not bullshitting me?"-flavored icing on the cake — the GIF.

THE GIF! THE GIFFFFF. IT JUST KEEPS BOUNCING UP AND DOWN. I can barely focus for the entire time it takes to type "Ster—" into my browser before it auto-suggests the site, let alone leave this bouncy ball just sitting in the browser. It's like a fucking cat toy for distracted twenty-somethings who just want to know when Toro Y Moi is coming to town.

Guess I'll be spending more time on Pitchfork. Blurg.

UPDATE: Either every computer I own is cached to the max, or they nixed the flashy gif. Feel free to embrace your music news without going into a miniature seizure.

Sleigh Bells Is The Product Of My Mother's Dreams.

While reading through the February issue of Nylon on a train ride to the middle of nowhere for a Superbowl Party (7 layer dip can motivate me to do just about anything),  I read a story about Sleigh Bells with this fine tidbit:

"In July 2008, [Alexis Krauss] was dining with her mother...at a Williamsburg restaurant, when their waiter, [Derek] Miller, mentioned he was looking for a female singer. Mom played indie-rock yenta, and soon the pair was talking shop."

Wha...? As a jewish twenty-something with a ton of meddling female relatives, this happens at EVERY meal, whether I'm around — "Carlye, isn't that waiter sweet? He likes writing! He works for a school newspaper, you should write together!" — or nowhere to be found — "I met the most adorable boy last night while waiting in line for a movie, you would have loved him. He likes music, and television and, oh! He was just like a young Cary Grant".

Everyone who selects a chosen person for this chosen person does a pretty crapola job, considering baby-faced teenage waiter isn't really my type, and, you know, I live in a yellow couch-holding apartment with that kid Donald.

That being said, it is incomprehensible that not only did a mother's mealtime meddling work, but caused deserved popularity and a tour with Yeasayer instead of necessity to ashamedly apologize and leave a 25% tip. Maybe the next time Grandma Leila thinks I should spend some time with the guy swirling my frozen yogurt, I'll heed her advice.

//

oh, thanks:
photo from the clink

I'd Post The Fever Ray Acceptance Speech...

But really, it's so terrifying that I don't even want to Google it. The melted-candle-face-gum-on-bottom-of-shoe look is what nightmares and Pan's Labyrinth are made of. The whole "I don't like showing my face" schtick is has been done and is rather annoying, considering by going to great lengths to avoid showing your face, you're drawing an unbelievable amount of attention towards it. And for fuck's sake, Karin Dreijer Andersson is actually pretty. Leave the face altering for the rest of us and the geniuses at NARS, okay?