Opinion

2011 was a dreary year for pop music, it wasn’t terrible by any stretch of the imaginaton but it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination either. I waited to get excited by anything, everything last year. And I did. Music streaming. But if your top story is about music distribution, whatis your number # 2 story?

“I get some simple beats and an oscillator, and I play around with em till I get some real good beats. That’s all I’m doing now, working on having beats.”

Sure we’ve all seen terrible, terrible concerts where you’ve felt stuck in your chair like Alex in “A Clockwork Orange” , fixated on the tragedy unfurling in front of you

“Closing Time” is the name of Joseph “Catch 22” Heller’s last novel where he revisits his iconic characters still paralyzed by fear of death. Which is a whole other Catch 22, of course. We are terrified of dying and we are gonna die anyway

In 1982, I interview 1982 I interviewed the Jesus And Mary Chain for Creem and in the middle of the accompanying article, allowed it to go off the deep end as I detailed a terrible break up I was going through

If scientists are still investigating whether music really impairs studying, a recent study showed that ‘participants [who had to memorize things in order] performed worst while listening to music, regardless of whether they liked that music’ and ‘did the best in the quiet and while listening to a tape repeating three’.

now it’s all over, like a telescopic love seen from a distance, always in the rearview mirror and stuck in this eternal present. It is alway January and February. The seventh year of a marriage, the cold, blustery boring part of the year

The album was a real step up and forward for the group lyrically, musically, and spiritually. It set them ahead and showed that they can shake it up and yet still remain punchy, addictive, and heartfelt all at once.

The lyrics are so ridiculously amazing that it makes you just want to hear them over and over again, with the gentle guitar and Oberst’s whispery yet strong voice makes it driving and attention grabbing, yet still calm and emotional.

Of course Smith is an egomaniac, even his kids are and they haven’t accomplished anything yet. As are the three names on this little list.

First of all, minks are rodents?? Certainly not! They belong to the same order than dogs and cats, would she wear her pet on her back? She is an idiot.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of artists out there anymore Rock music is no longer where creativity is and it’s no longer taken seriously by creative people. It’s been absorbed into the mainstream culture and has become too conformist and normal.

The Devil Wears PradaHartford CT Riding high on some new found fame you would expect an ounce of arrogance- to actually know they screened their press options (and chose us!) was an honor not to be dismissed.

if Common is not bragging, he is plying Gangsta, loverboy or holding hands over black excellence. There is something so horrible, so undignified, about this calling up the centuries dead ghosts of black slaves to point at how great you are.

In May 2009, rock nyc had been up a month and I was fond of “Paparazzi”, so I tried to get a tix to see Lady Gaga at T5/ It was sold out. But then she added a late night show and a hmmmd and I haaaaad and finally decided to buy a tix

This is 2011, if an album doesn’t kick in, there are a million more just waiting for our attention. So when neither Adam’s “Ashes And Rain” nor Marling’s “A Creature I Do Not Know” hit my mental repeat button I moved on. Till I bought tix to see them live.

The romance has gone out of it”. That’s Noel Gallagher discussing what has changed in the consuming of music and it was certainly a much richer experience when you were actually searching out music.

. Los Campesinos were headlining and coming off easily their best album to date We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (even the title is a knockout). They encored with “You Better Use Those Fingers For Crossing” and I left the space and all I wanted to do was write about how I felt about the nights music.

There is nothing worse than a preachy preachy entertainer. Some are notorious for it (anyone remember Richard Gere and his Tibet obsession?) and there is the delivery of your message