Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. Courtesy Darcy James Argues.
10. Estelle featuring Kanye West. “American Boy.” Leave it to a girl from overseas to sing the best song about Americans this year. And leave it to Kanye to only make it better.
9. Pete and the Pirates. “Knots.” A beautiful piece of guitar pop that will seem longer than its 2 minutes and 14 seconds once it logs a week of playtime inside your head.
8. Jamie Lidell. “Little Bit of Feel Good.” 2008′s best soul track, hands down, from 2008′s best soul album, hands down. Jamie Lidell is single-handedly striving to make Motown relevant in the age of computers.
7. Okkervil River. “Singer Songwriter.” If this song sounds as though it’s about you (or your girlfriend), don’t get mad; just appreciate the incredible perceptiveness of Will Scheff’s lyrics.
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Without TRL in their pre-teen lives, I wonder what the next generation is listening to. Just kidding. I’m not that out of touch. Disney manufactured pop stars of course! Yes, despite Annie Leibovitz’s best efforts (and I guess Vanessa Hudgens’s … lapse in judgment?), the eyes of the nation’s youth will be fixated on Miley Cyrus, High School Musical 3 and future NBA number one overall pick(s), the Jonas Brothers. The better question is, what does a Jonas Brother listen to? It seems Kevin Jonas, just like yours truly, grew up listening to blink-182:
“Musically, I was definitely into blink,” Kevin, the oldest Jonas brother at 21, said last week from Hollywood. “Travis Barker is one of the greatest drummers ever, and all the guys in blink are really good songwriters. I grew up listening to their music, and they definitely played a part in the (sound of) early Jonas Brothers.”
But don’t jump to any conclusions about Kevin and his brothers, all three of whom wear “purity rings” to affirm their vows to remain chaste until they marry.
It’s a little disturbing just how closely Disney monitors every word coming out of their Jonas mouths, as they can’t even listen to a band loosely affiliated with nudity without making sure to emphasize that it was just about the music. Here’s to hoping the Farrelly brothers can change that in the upcoming JoBro film, Walter the Farting Dog.
24 Nov 2008, Posted by David Graham in Playground, 0 Comments
When it rains, it pours. I’m on a blogging rampage. Anyway, eminent Bull City arts-boosting nonprofit the Durham Arts Council, along with the Durham Artists Guild, has issued their annual call for artists. They’ll be accepting submissions for both solo and group shows through the end of January. Here are the detes: (more…)
Ladies and germs, here’s a preview of an article that will be running in tomorrow’s Chronicle about Duke Performances. DP has offered free tickets for several recent shows; officials are citing an overbooked season, entertainment fatigue after the presidential election and lots of local options as reasons for slow sales. For the full scoop, read tomorrow’s paper. In the meantime, here’s DP Marketing Director Ken Rumble’s Nov. 17 e-mail to DP patrons offering the free tickets: (more…)
Sasha Frere-Jones’ profile of Flying Lotus (Steven Ellison) from this week’s New Yorker talks about the artist’s remix of Radiohead’s “Reckoner”:
This doesn’t remake “Reckoner” so much as let it float, like a liquid suspended in another, heavier liquid. There is an elegant sense of proportion in this remix. As radical as the change of mood is, and as detailed as it manages to be, the track is less than four minutes and never gets too busy.
The remix is beautiful, but it raises a question. Ellison is neither a DJ nor an artist, and most of his work is original. But his “Reckoner” remix demonstrates how far remixes have come from the old days of dropping a techno beat over a pop song, with the remix largely analogous to the original. The remix has been elevated to an art form. Remixes, like Flying Lotus’, can be remarkable reinterpretations of songs, standing on their own two feet. There is the famous Girl Talk debate. But with Ellison, the question is not legal. It is artistic. When does the a remix stop being a remix and become its own work of art?
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