Phil Ramone Made Crappy Music the Right Way

Phil Ramone, who died Saturday following an aneurysm, produced an astonishing number of albums it’s not cool to enjoy. Wikipedia helpfully provides a category full of them. He was in on Rod Stewart’s first pop standards album; he did the Sinead O’Connor album after the one Sinead O’Connor album; he…

The Alchemy of Vulgar Fashion: Patience, Magic and Blood

Denton death-synth duo Vulgar Fashion is about as enigmatic as it comes. If you’re scouring their website or Facebook profile for a crisp, straightforward shot, you’ll turn up empty-handed. The only real way to see and experience them–Julie Mckendrick and Andrew Michael, who fantastically go by the stage names Kubic…

Rock Band DLC Shuts Down: How A Geek Sport Briefly Became A Party Phenomenon

Rock Band is over. Well–kind of over. It’s been “over” in the people-who-wouldn’t-otherwise-touch-a-Playstation-caring-about-it sense since a few months after Beatles Rock Band came out, but now it’s “over” inasmuch as after April 2, when “American Pie” will be released (nice timing), developer Harmonix will shut down the downloadable content pipeline…

Country Divas Ashley Monroe and Kacey Musgraves Have a Need for Weed

Kellychristinephoto.comWhere the weed at?This week the Golden, Texas native Kacey Musgraves finally releases her eagerly-awaited debut album, Same Trailer, Different Park. Indeed, it’s fitting that she’s from a town named Golden, as the new album is but the most recent example of some serious Solid Country Gold that’s come from…

Okay, Illegal Downloads Probably Are Hurting The Music Industry

This would have surprised me no matter who had turned it up, but there was a special irony in learning that illegal music downloads “aren’t hurting the music industry” from a beleaguered print magazine’s free-news arm: Illegal downloads aren’t hurting the music industry, new study claims | ti.me/10371Ow (via @timeculture)—…

Pixies Reunion Rumors: Should You Be Worried Or Excited?

The Pixies’ first reunion produced one song–Kim Deal’s “Bam Thwok”–and a bunch of chances for people who were born between Surfer Rosa and Tromp le Monde to see them live for the first time, and was thus low-risk-enough to be almost universally popular. Now a possible Pixies re-reunion is on…

They Might Be Giants Does Not Need More Conspiracy Theorists

Hard to believe that it’s been over three decades since John Flansburgh and John Linnell first started playing music as They Might Be Giants. What started as two nerds and a drum machine has slowly evolved into a multi-media company with two distinct divisions: indie rock and children’s music. Speaking…

Justin Timberlake and Kanye West’s Feud And Avoiding Famous-Guy Backlash

The foundation of Justin Timberlake’s fame–broad-based and consistent and weirdly resistant to automatic internet backlash–is that it came, originally, from looking this ridiculous, and he seems to accept that. That’s the only thing I can come up with to explain just how many people I heard talking about his appearance…