Yes, I Have a Beard. But Even If I Didn't, I'd Still Find This Really Stupid

If I knew how to use the scanner that sits on the bottom shelf of the coffee table in my living room, I would have scanned a page from the new issue of Time Out New York, where an uncredited writer compiled a dreadful little info-graphic about bearded men. Some are straight, you see, while others are gay, and their patron saint is Tim Harrington from Les Savy Fav. Also, they're not usually as angry as they appear, and they mostly just want to be loved. And, here's my favorite part: Their style icon (not to be confused with their patron saint, who, as we've already discussed, is Tim Harrington), is the Brawny Paper Towel guy, who.... oh, will you look at this, doesn't even have a fucking beard.

In my mind, this was the straw that broke the sad, poorly laid-out camel's back. 

The Worst Paragraph I Read Today

It's old news, from a NY Times article that ran way back in August, but it was brought back to my attention today by a post over at Philebrity, and seriously, you've got to read it. 

DURING his freshman year at Point Park University in Pittsburgh a couple years ago, James Acklin, now 20, felt lost among the social cliques on his new campus until he got to talking with a student who was in some of his classes. She seemed unusual, and it wasn’t just her look: thick-framed eyeglasses, bangs and vintage dresses. Then, one rainy day in February, the two skipped class and went to her apartment. As soon as she opened her door his instincts were confirmed: she had a turntable. So did he. They both spoke the language of vinyl.

I mean, come on.  I can't figure out if it seems more like it was written by a teenager or an 80-year-old. 

A Thing I Was Wrong About

I'm not even being a jerk here: I genuinely didn't think Blockbuster existed anymore. But now I think I might go find one and buy Goobers. And maybe concert tickets? 

Live Nation and Blockbuster Team Up to Frustrate Ticket Buyers (Idolator)

Sometimes I Do Actually Hate the Media Elite

In this week's New York Magazine, there's an article by Adam Sternbergh called The Mad Men Dilemma, in which he considers the minor cultural phenomenon the show has become. His theory is that people are more compelled than ever to try convincing everyone they meet to watch the same shows they watch because, thanks to the internet, I guess, the rest of the world is headed in a gazillion different directions, with nothing really connecting us to one another. It's a nice enough idea but far from a home run. 

"It doesn't even matter that not many people, relatively, are actually watching Mad Men," he contends. "What matters is that everyone's talking about it." Mr. Sternbergh apparently was not at the Conklin family Thanksgiving Dinner, where, as is often the case, conversation turned to television. Lost, mostly, or Dancing With the Stars or even Gossip Girl. As soon as I spotted a lull, I asked everyone -- aunts, uncles, cousins -- if they were watching Mad Men, and I was greeted with blank stares all around. 

This is a conversation I imagine would have gone similarly at a whole lot of dinner tables around the country, which is why Sternbergh's theory is ultimately flawed. What he doesn't seem to understand is that, for most people, that connection, that shared cultural experience, is still there -- it's just that the things connecting them aren't necessarily things he cares to embrace. 

Jay-Z Track Leaks, Isn't Good

Everyone's talking about the new Jay-Z track today, the one that's supposed to be appearing on the soundtrack to the Biggie biopic scheduled for release next year. It features a Santogold sample, was produced by Kanye, and sounds like it was recorded in about fifteen minutes, all of which is nice in theory. But it turns out Jay isn't quite as suited for this type of tossed-off track as his producer. He's still at his best when things are huge, when the production is ambitious and polished and the rhymes are carefully constructed around a bigger idea. He got a ton of shit for that silly "30s the New 20" song, but it was exactly the kind of thing he excels at: making grandiose statements that he thinks should change the way hip-hop conducts itself. Here, he's reverted to bragging about how tough he is, and with the exception of that one about Jackie Robinson, none of his rhymes really hit home. He seems lost, like he's playing someone else's game rather than making everyone else play his. Not exactly the kind of tribute Biggie deserves, now is it?

 

Seriously, Why Do People Make Fun of the Decemberists?

According to Rolling Stone, their new record is "a twisty, fantastical story about a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William, who is desperate for the two of them to be reunited; a forest queen; and a villainous rake."

How is this bad? What is wrong with people?

Why Progress is Hard

Katy Perry is on the cover of Out Magazine's "People of the Year" issue, presumably on the merits of "I Kissed a Girl," despite its portrayal of homosexuality as a viable way for a woman to piss off an ex-boyfriend / increase her chances of snagging a new one. And despite its portrayal of homosexuality as an act of rebellion. And despite it's assertion that homosexuality is "not what good girls do."

Richard Lawson wrote about it at Gawker, and he makes some fine points:

Sure, OK, Out isn't exactly the arbiter of gay culture it sometimes seems to fancy itself, but still! The bulk of the little bit on Perry is pretty praising (though they do at least mention the fact that some gay activists aren't happy with the song or Ms. Perry—who also has a song called "Ur So Gay" about a po-mo/homo ex-boyfriend who like, drinks wine and drives a hybrid) and that, I think, is pretty embarrassing for the magazine. Harmless fun is only fun when it's, well, harmless. This kind of co-opting of a hard-fought cause does, I suspect, do some damage.

Both of her geigh-themed ditties are kind of "jokes" in that way where they actually aren't jokes at all but the problem is that people who are smart enough to "get" "it" (common idiots, out of work chimps) are also smart enough to, you know, not like her music. It's her impressionable teeny bop fan girls who I worry about. I worry, frankly, that when they are of age... they will go wild.

I wonder if we're maybe giving Katy Perry a little too much credit as a comedian here -- just because non-idiots have to laugh at something in order to keep from jumping off a bridge doesn't necessarily mean it's a joke. 

UPDATE: Oh man, I just read the article in Out. Here's my favorite part:

"Yet even after a year of fielding tough questions about the divisive singles, Perry maintains she is simply espousing self-exploration and open-mindedness. 'I think certain parts of the world—especially in the U.S.—are just dying to be offended,' she says. 'I get a lot of journalists in Europe who are like, ‘What's the big deal? People are OK with hip-hop videos, where there are strippers and drugs and gangs and guns, when you're singing about an innocent kiss?' I'm aware of people's opinions, but it won't change how I express myself as an artist.'

You're right, Katy. Between "I Kissed a Girl" and "Ur So Gay," you're really making us search long and hard for something to be offended by. 

Most People are (Bad) DJs

Someone in my office just put the Strokes' First Impressions of the Earth on the stereo. We made fun of him, obviously, with cries of "TOO SOON!!!!" and "Whoa, this sounds like Television!" But I've always liked this record a lot more than most people. Probably just because of this verse, from "On the Other Side,' though:

"I hate them all, I hate them all.

I hate myself, for hating them.

So I'll drink some more. 

I'll love them all. 

Then I'll drink some more. 

I'll hate them even more than I did before."

Aw, Julian, you're alright in my book. even still.

I Was a Skeptic at First, But These Miracles Work

I'm going to fulfill all of my deep, dark, rockist fantasies tonight, when I go see the Hold Steady and the Drive-By Truckers at Terminal 5. At other shows on the tour, they've been doing a joint encore, and they've reportedly done covers of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died"  and "Burnin' For You" by Blue Oyster Cult. Either of these would be fine, but I'm holding out hope for "Rockin' in the Free World," because, duh. 

For the first time since I college, I just made a list of all the records I want to buy. I remember when I used to carry one around all the time, badly creased from being in my wallet for so long, and covered in illegible scribbling -- things like, "Pavement -- Watery something?" or, my personal favorite, "Dylan -- Ten of Swords," as if I was just going to stumble upon the $1,000 collector's gem at the local Tower Records or something. Idiot. Anyway, like I said, I just made another list, but this time it's in an impeccably designed Word document, which I emailed to myself so I can always have it on my iPhone. I'm supposed to be mourning the loss of some sort of innocence, I think, but I absolutely am not. 

Lee Hazelwood: Bored

My favorite part of this video of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra doing "Summer Wine," from the super-awesome Nancy and Lee album, happens at about 40 seconds in. No human being has ever been less enthused while singing the words, "whoa, whoa!" But then again, I guess it's to be expected, considering a strange woman just got him drunk and stole his spurs and some cash. 

Flyover Rock: Now a Real Thing?

In response to Marc Hogan's succinct, insightful blog post about Ann Powers' LA Times piece on what she's calling "Flyover Rock" (defined loosely as the rock music that's voraciously consumed by middle-America: Nickelback, Daughtry, David Cook, Puddle of Mudd, etc.), Idolator's Mike Barthel asks the question, "Is it ultimately more condescending to dismiss Nickelback because they don't sound like the music you like, or to try to appreciate them because that's what 'real people' listen to?"

My answer, in a nutshell, is that neither is particularly condescending. I dismiss Nickelback because I don't like them. Because their songs are informed most obviously by the first wave of post-grunge bands that I also didn't like, albeit for very different, admittedly more personal reasons. And because the production of their records is unpleasant to my ears, over-compressed and far too polished, or, to use a slightly outdated, or at least frowned-upon, term, radio-ready. And because I find the earnest, hyper-emotional delivery of high school-grade poetry to be laughable. 

On the other hand, I also don't really see anything wrong with trying your best to see in this music what so many others see. There's a difference, though, between understanding how others feel and why they feel it, and forcing yourself to feel the same way. 

Here's a snippet from the Idolator post:

Powers writes: "Since the days when former art-school kids the Rolling Stones declared themselves exiled on Main Street, populism has served as a normalizing counterpoint to rock's freaky bohemian tendencies." And that was great when freaky bohemian bands were selling lots of records and getting lots of attention. As Howes [co-writer of hits for Puddle of Mudd, Daughtry, Cook, et al] points out, however, "The people in Middle America seem to still buy records. The other folks -- consumers of what we might as well call "blue-state rock" to be consistent -- don't so much. If all we care about is continuing to hear music that sounds like it's trying to be freaky and bohemian, that's fine. But if we care about music as a cultural force, it's a problem.

Only, again, I don't think it's a problem at all. Just because some music critics don't have any interest in listening to David Cook during their free time, it doesn't mean they're incapable of recognizing and speaking critically about the impact his music has had on the culture as a whole. Now, if they're not willing to engage in that dialogue, then it's a problem. 

So going back to Hogan's initial point (that the glorification of dumbed-down middle-American ideals is about to come to an end in the world of politics, but not in music critic circles) as it relates, in my mind, to the role of the critic, there's nothing wrong with Powers wanting to write this piece -- it's just that it would have been a lot better if she'd considered the possibility that the tunnel-visioned people she was covering were as misguided as the tunnel-visioned media elite she was so willing to let them attack. 

How is Season Two of Mad Men Almost Over Already?

There's a very good Emily Nussbaum post over at New York Magazine's Vulture blog about the most recent episode of Mad Men, in which Joan, the powerful and impossibly proportioned Queen Bee secretary was raped by her fiance, after-hours in her boss' office. Nussbaum wonders what this will mean for Joan going forward, if falling victim to such an act will force her to reevaluate her role as the woman who uses her sexuality as a weapon, now that even that has been taken away from her. 

Update: Joan didn't even appear in the season finale. WTF, you guys? 

New Favorite Bob Dylan Photo

This is my new favorite Bob Dylan photo. Also, am I going to have to buy The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8?

Back to Work, People.

The Twin Cities Daily Planet recently published an article called Too Much Information? Music Criticism in the Digital Age, and while the writer, Megan Wiley, did a fine job with the piece, just as countless other writers have done a fine job writing the exact same piece in every alt-weekly across the country for the past three to five years, I can't help thinking everyone would be much better off if editors would stop running this stuff.  Half the reason print journalism is in such dire straits is probably that print journalists seem to spend most of their time writing about how the internet is changing everything -- some say it's cheapening things, and some, like Wiley, eventually conclude that there's enough room for everyone. Regardless, it's a whole lot of nervous (and public) hand-wringing about business models, essentially, rather than the thoughtful, highly informed criticism they're supposed to be able to do better than their web-based competition. As they continue to write about things that would be better covered in an editorial staff meeting, people who actually want to read about music are finding different sources. And it's becoming more and more difficult to blame them.

My Favorite Songs on My Favorite Show

They used LCD Soundsystem's "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down" on tonight's episode of Gossip Girl, and it was perfect. As was almost everything else about the episode, especially when Rufus Humphrey, the father of the two poor Brooklyn kids who live in a giant loft in DUMBO, mentioned that Tanya Donnelly had asked his newly reunited 90s alt-rock band to join her on tour.  In my mind, it was implied that it was a Belly tour and not a solo tour. God, "Feed the Tree" is such a good song. 

Jesse Malin Hates the Pogues

I hate to waste my time complaining about all the things I don't like, rather than spreading the word about all the things I do like, but this afternoon, I got a promo of a new Jesse Malin record. I took out the record, a full-art version, and flipped it over looking to see which ridiculous, posed photos of himself he decided to include this time around (I wasn't disappointed, by the way -- there's one of him at a record store wearing a silly hat, looking sad and holding a record by Louis Prima and Keeley Smith), and I noticed that one of the tracks, #2, was "Me and Julio Down by the School Yard." Then I noticed "Walk on the Wild Side." And "Lady from Baltimore." And "You Can Make Him Like You."  A covers record, apparently, from a dude who, admittedly, has always had decent enough taste in records, but who's spent far too much time trying to be as cool as all of his favorite artists, always knowing deep down, I suspect and hope, that the difference between him and all the people he idolizes is that none of them had to try quite so hard.

Anyway, he also does "Fairytale of New York," by the Pogues, and it's driving me insane. Aside from his irritating delivery, where he switches between all sorts of different put-on voices, and his crazy pronunciation of the letter B, which -- I don't even know how to explain it -- sort of sounds like a noise one would make in hopes of getting an infant to laugh, and his insistence upon veering from the melody not quite enough to qualify as a complete re-working, but just enough so that his version could never possibly be enjoyed by anyone who likes the original (read: everyone), he also commits one of the cardinal sins of cover songs: Unless you're changing them to make a point (which is also ill-advised for the most part), do not fuck up the lyrics. 

A list of the lines Malin botches here:

"The rare old mountains do." 

Now, it's possible that I'm giving him even less credit than he deserves here by not capitalizing properly and by assuming a misunderstanding of context, but if you don't know that it's "mountain" -- singular, not plural -- then can I really assume you know that "The Rare Old Mountain Dew" is the name of a traditional Irish folk song? 

"This year's for you and me."

No, Jesse, it's not. It's for "me and you."

"Lying there almost dead on that drip in the bed."

This one doesn't seem like a big deal -- the correct line is "lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed" -- but it's indicative of Malin's intense inability to understand the natural rhythm of things, the subtlety language. "That drip in the bed," in addition to simply not sounding good, almost makes you think he's talking about a bed that had sprung a leak or something, and not about a person lying in bed on an IV. 

There's one other thing, too, which isn't strictly a botched lyric, but it's still infuriating. The Kristy MacColl parts are done by NYC songwriter Bree Sharp, who by and large does a pretty good job. But when she gets to the "You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy faggot" line, she giggles right before she says the word "faggot," as if she's worried people might think she actually hates gay people, rather than trusting her audience to understand that she's playing the part of a character who used a hurtful, loaded word to express sheer disgust with another character -- not as a harmless, ironic joke between two people, which is how Sharp's giggle makes me think she wants it to come off. She completely misses the point. 

If Malin thought the rest of the vocal take was good enough to justify leaving in all these mistakes, he was very, very wrong. 

I Watched the VMAs

Since, I believe, 1994, when Green Day and the Beastie Boys performed back to back on a revolving stage,  capping off their summer-long stint together on the Lollapalooza tour, I've been immensely dedicated to the VMAs, if not because they ever feature any artists I actually care about, or because they ever honor any of the artists I actually care about, then just because the show provides me with a concrete way of checking in with the younger side of popular culture. It's my job, obviously, to stay at least somewhat on top of this stuff all year long, and I try to, but no matter how many You Tube videos I watch, or how many music charts I read, I still always feel somewhat disconnected, as I think every right-thinking almost-30-year-old probably should. So the VMAs allow me to feel a little bit closer to things, and I appreciate it. 

Anyway, the 2008 VMAs were on last night, and these are some things I thought about them:

1) Rihanna hasn't had a decent single since "Umbrella," and while I can appreciate the tone of her voice, it's becoming increasingly clear that it's also quite thin and completely unremarkable. Also, her outfit sorta scared me. 

2) Katy Perry is a monster, and I despise her, but I don't quite understand why she didn't get a real performance instead of the crappy, commercial-interrupted one with DJ AM and Travis from Blink-182. 

3) Britney Spears looked so nervous that I actually almost felt bad for her. 

4) Pink's performance was embarrassing. Walking through the fake streets of the Paramount lot, she kept breaking things and lighting stuff on fire and pushing dudes down flights of stairs, I guess acting out the lyrics to the dreadful "So What," in which she assures her ex-boyfriend that she's angry enough about their breakup that she's going to get into a fight, presumably with an anonymous stranger, but not so angry that she's forgotten about her status as a rock star, if I'm not mistaken, she's going to use to get a table at a nice restaurant? Or maybe not. I don't know. At the end of her horribly acted little walk through the town, she wound up on stage, stripped off some big jacket, then jumped around with her ass hanging out. As the song was ending, she turned around and opened a button on her already mostly open shirt, making sure to reveal to everyone the tape she'd placed on her nipples. This is how you know you're dealing with a REAL bad girl, apparently... calculated nipple slips. 

4) Lil Wayne's pants were really, really low, and I was somewhat disappointed that in a live setting, his voice isn't nearly as raspy as it is on record. But he seemed to be enjoying himself, and I think I like him more now than I did yesterday, which was already quite a bit. 

5) Christina Aguilera was lip-syncing for most of her performance, which strikes me as a sort of a waste. Also, the dancing was uninspired and her outfit was truly, truly unfortunate for a bunch of reasons I do not feel comfortable talking about. 

6) Lots of people whose opinions I respect have said lots of nice things about Paramore over the past year or so, and I never quite understood. But last night, watching their performance of "Misery Business," I realized that lead-singer Hayley Williams is no joke. She's like an emo, female version of Mike Patton, which I mean less in an offensive, "for me to like something, I have to be able to compare it to an old, male, rock and roll example" kind of way, but more in an "I can't believe how many different voices she has" kind of way.

7) Jordin Sparks, in response to British comedian and the evening's host, Russel Brand's jokes about the Jonas Brothers' "promise rings," said, "It's not bad to wear a promise ring because not everybody, guy or girl, wants to be a slut." Because if you have sex, you're a slut. Also worth noting: Sparks was the only person in the audience who didn't applaud when Russel Brand requested that Americans elect Obama. 

8) Kanye closed the show with a song on which he actually sings. It was fine, and his voice has some interesting qualities, but I can't be sure if I was hearing his actual voice or a vocoder. Which reminds me: everyone, please, please stop with the vocoder.

 

I Listen to New Records While I Drive, Sometimes It's Disappointing.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in my car on weekends, mostly sitting in traffic on the B.Q.E. while people stop and gawk at the Waterfalls.* It's frustrating at times, but it's also when I get to pay close attention to new records. It's the most suburban thing about me, I think, that I never quite feel like I've really heard a record until I've spent time with it in my car. Anyway, this past weekend, I took two new records with me: Catfish Haven's Devastator and Calexico's Carried to Dust. On first listen, I wasn't particularly fond of either. 

Catfish Haven is still doing the rowdy, 60s soul thing I loved so much on their last record, Tell Me, but there's something really terrible about the production on the new one. Too much separation, I think, to the point where every song winds up sounding like it could be the generic "soul" ringtone on a cell phone.  

I spent less time with the Calexico record despite being even more excited for it, and there was something keeping me from really diving in. It seemed a bit cold, which is surprising considering how welcoming I've found everything else they've done. I worry that it has something to do with my inability to process what I believe might be a more pronounced focus on the Spanish and Mexican sounds they've always implemented so carefully. After a few more careful listens, I'll decide how I feel about it, but right now, the whole thing seems like pastiche. 

Both records do, actually, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around when exactly I find it offensive and when I don't. It may ultimately devolve into a conversation about authenticity, though, and that's not really fun for anyone, now is it?

*Speaking of the Waterfalls, did anyone happen to notice a few weeks ago that the one out there by the Statue of Liberty just kinda stopped working? I drove by it on two separate occasions, a few days apart, and mysteriously, it just wan't on. Presumably, no one cared.

Irish Folk Singer Ronnie Drew, 1934 - 2008

Ronnie Drew, lead-singer of the Dubliners, who were the single most energetic Irish folk band I've ever heard, died on Saturday of throat cancer. The Times ran a nice obituary yesterday, my favorite part of which is:

"Liam Collins, writing in The Belfast Telegraph on Tuesday, recalled a story told my Mr. Drew's son, Phelim, about the morning the singer stopped into an empty pub for a cocktail. The bar's only other patron looked at Mr. Drew and remarked, 'I thought you were off the drink."

'I am,' Mr. Drew replied, but I have a gin and tonic every now and again. I find it helps me to mind my own business. Would you like one?"

I can't stop watching this video of the Pogues and the Dubliners playing "The Irish Rover." Watch how Drew and MacGowan just stand there during the instrumental passages. It's wonderful. 

I Talk About the Hold Steady All Day, Every Day

My friend Sarah just started a blog on which she'll attempt to suss out her feelings on the Hold Steady, a band she'd hated forever, but has recently come to like. Sort of. 

She brings up an interesting point in her second post, about how all the women in the songs on their new record, Stay Positive, are sorta fucked,  or as she puts it, "broken." This is something I thought critics were going to bring up a lot more with this record, because I do think there's something to it. I said this in my review, though, and I do stand by it, I think -- the girls are all messed up, for sure, and I was troubled by it at first, but I'm not sure how mad I can get, because, really, everyone is messed up. And for the most part, I think the boys come out looking even worse than the women, even if only by virtue of the fact that they continue to chase them. Like the woman in "Magazines," for instance--I think she comes off looking great. She parties a lot, gets drunk, seems like she might have some money, has dudes lining up to date her... I don't know. She seems kinda powerful--she's fucked, of course, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a Hold Steady character who's not fucked in some way. 

I was telling Sarah she should give Separation Sunday a chance too, because I think one of the most appealing things about the Hold Steady are the recurring characters (Holly, Gideon, Charlemagne, etc.) and the constant references to other songs, both their own and other bands', and that record is overflowing with all of that stuff. It's like a test--a way to congratulate yourself for being cool enough to recognize rock-nerd references wherever they pop up. It's stupid, obviously, but I think it's the same kind of thing that's happening with Girl Talk. For me, that's really all he's good for: providing a setting for a bunch of people to congratulate each other for having the same set of pop-culture reference points. I think the Hold Steady fulfills that same urge.

A Record I Will Never Hear

Going through the stacks of CDs on my desk just a minute ago, I came across the new record by the Faint, which came out a few weeks ago to not a whole lot of fanfare. I've always been at least passingly interested in their music, and have come to respect them, if only for being so far ahead of the game in terms of the whole dance-punk thing. And then just yesterday, I read a New York Press article about them, and learned that they'd drifted away from the Saddle Creek Records scene, which they were so much a part of for over a decade. They released the new record (their first in four years), Fascination, on their own Blank.Wav Records label, which is a move I can support. 

But the fact that they released the record on their own actually made it even more disconcerting and, frankly, infuriating, when, after inserting the disc into my computer, I got a message saying it could not be played. They water-marked the shit out of it, making it so that it can be played practically nowhere. I remember taking home a similarly-protected promo copy of the Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America back in 2006, and not being able to listen to it on my computer, in my car, or on my big, main stereo system in my apartment. If I remember correctly, the only stereo that would play it was a tiny, shitty boombox. And, well, I definitely do not care enough about the Faint to go through all that. So, sorry dudes in the Faint, you should tell the people at, er, your record label that, next time around, you might get a little more press if you actually allow members of the press to, you know, listen to your record. 

A Book You Should Read

Today marks the release of It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music, a new book written by noted Pitchfork, Paste, New York Times and Spin scribe Amanda Petrusich. I've read it cover to cover, twice, and it's great. She examines American roots music through a series of road trips to historically important music spots around the country, in hopes of coming to some conclusions about what exactly constitutes "Americana" in a modern sense. She does a exhaustive job covering all the early stuff, form the Delta Blues, straight through Elvis, Johnny Cash and just about everything else you could think of. But what sets It Still Moves Apart, what makes it stand out from so many of the other like-minded works--in addition to her focus on geographical features and U.S. highways as an integral to the development of the music she's writing about--is that she follows it through to today, discussing at great length the alt-country movement of the 90s, the freak-folk movement of a couple years ago, and an assortment of artists carrying on in the same tradition right now. 

Back in 2001, I remember watching the PBS documentary American Roots Music, about 95% of which was outstanding. It provided more than a surface look at how Americana had changed over the years, about how the genre was kept alive through a series of small changes throughout the years, giving way to all sorts of little sub-genres that were developed by artists who were informed by what came before them without being completely beholden to specific stylistic choices. And then, disappointingly, as soon as they get up to Steve Earle and, I believe, Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Avenue project where they set unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics to music, the documentary fell apart with depressing footage of old (like, seriously old), white-haired men playing traditional bluegrass on flat-bed trucks at state fairs. It always struck me as odd that the directors weren't willing to do a bit more digging to find out what was going on at the time, that they were content to come to the conclusion that roots music exists today only through a fast-fading (read: dying) group of revivalists. Fortunately, Petrusich does a much better job. 

I Apologize, Lars. You May Have Been Right.

Bloc Party just announced that they'll be releasing their new record, Intimacy, in digital format this Thursday, with a physical copy containing different songs scheduled to arrive in stores in late October. 

Now, I can't listen to Bloc Party for more than about thirty seconds before wanting to grab someone by the shoulders, shake them, and scream that the dance-rock sub-genre has done more harm than good to rock and roll, by not so subtly implying that regular, non-tweaky rock music, the kind we listened to for fifty years, can't be danced to. But even I have to feel bad for them in this situation. It remains to be seen just how different the physical copy of their record will be, but even if it contains three of four alternate songs, it seems like an awful lot to expect from a band, to assume that they have so much extra material just sitting around. 

As if making a record weren't hard enough already, we're creating an environment where it's becoming even harder--with all this bonus material and these gimmicky release schedules becoming increasingly necessary in the battle against leaks--and as a result, the full-length format, as everyone has been saying for years, is being respected less and less, to the point where it's not even clear why anyone bothers anymore. 

Look at what went down with Bradford Cox this past weekend. While the leader of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound was trying to give away digital access to a brand new "virtual 7"" to readers of his blog, he accidentally posted a link to an unmastered, working version of a new Atlas Sound record, as well as some bonus tracks that were going to be released on the new Deerhunter record, Microcastle, which isn't coming out until October, but which leaked widely months ago. Someone caught on, re-posted the link, and just like that, Cox's attempt at making back some of the money he lost when Microcastle leaked was ruined, and a large portion of his fanbase was given access to a record long before he wanted them to hear it (he had yet to even record vocals on one of the tracks). 

His response, presumably in reference to the now-leaked, incomplete Atlas Sound record, was, "Fuck this shit. I can just make another album." 

Jeez.