Entertainment Hierarchy
Keeping in mind that not every novelization of a music video is better than the original, some songs are better in and of themselves than whatever musical theater version the Parenthetical Girls seem to be suggesting.
Llewellyn Hinkes
The Week After
Barack Obama’s inauguration next week will be full of significant, historical events. But what about the seven days to follow?
SoCal Decay
A new song from Crystal Antlers feels like perpetually falling into a never-ending K-hole of darkness and despair, Southern California-style.
Programming in English, or Translate :: ParseLib :: English
Computer code may not be gobbledygook, but that doesn’t make it art. A survey of the field of programming-cum-poetry to find the ghost (of Hamlet’s father) in the machine.
Medications
Let’s just get this part over with quickly: Bad Brains, Fugazi, Dischord, harDCore. There, much better.
Better
The legend is true: The infamous, ill-fated, Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy has been leaked after 14 years of recording and scads of record-company dollars down the four-track. I had hoped it would be the greatest peak in maddening celebrity indulgence, like a thousand Golden Throats
No Pause
Kids seem to love these mash-ups. It appeals to their dual desires of flaunting copyright laws and hearing lots of songs all at once. It’s a short-attention-span, intellectual-property-law jamboree. And this latest Girl Talk album is a sampling bonanza sure to boggle the minds
The Secrets of Iceland
From what I can tell, Iceland is on a breakneck pace to make it seem like a place called “Iceland” is a sun-drenched adventure land. They don’t use gasoline, produced Björk and Sigur Rós, and race around naked to their hearts content. It’s all part of a
3rd Planet
I really wanted to love bluegrass; I really did. It helped me think I didn’t actually avoid country music, just commercial country music. Or electric country music (or some other arbitrary distinction). That was before the Washington, D.C., N.P.R. affiliate would play 12 straight hours of
African Scream Contest
In Africa, they’re just getting around to publishing essential psychedelic compilations that should have been out eons ago. Few know a name outside of Fela Kuti or King Sunny Ade. If there were any justice in the world 50 Cent would take the offer from Taco Bell to change