the new conservatism is the new conservatism

(Pitchfork have voted Radiohead's Kid A as their Number One album of the decade.)

ET Recommends - 32: Pens (update)

Bangs wept, but this band have just been lifted from the realms of the merely great (which anyone can be) to being the coolest in the UK!

Dave Graney vs Triple J's Hottest 100 Of All Time

This is worth a look at - Dave Graney giving Triple J listeners a much-deserved slapping over at Mess And Noise. Here are a couple of samples...

Defending the indefensible - 10: Radiohead

Go on then. Double dare ya.

The Pitchfork "Top" 500 of the 00s

Everything that's wrong with music is contained within the following list.

Great trainwrecks of our time - 4: Matthew Sweet meets Susanna Hoffs

On the way into college I was listening to the new Susanna Hoffs/Matthew Sweet album of cover versions, Under The Covers Vol. 2. Oh, those bastards.

The problem with free speech

This post is dedicated to those tireless champions of free speech on the Drowned In Sound message boards who see nothing wrong with using an offensive word or phrase as long as everyone else does.

Presumably, next week we'll see them using the word "nigger" everywhere - unless, of course, not enough people use that word as an insult anymore.

Great trainwrecks of our time – 2: Radiohead cover Blondie

Some cover versions should just be forbidden under punishment of death by fire ants. And is it just me, or does this sound like waaaaaay bad Manic Street Preachers, no disrespect intended (to the Manics)?

Defending the indefensible - 5: Bloc Party

Um.

Defending the indefensible – 4: Sigur Rós

It's not meaningful. It's not cathartic. It's not emotive.

Defending the indefensible - 2: Phil Collins

There's no excuse for some taste. None whatsoever.

Blind Blake vs Coldplay

I've been wondering about different directions this blog could take.

The temptation to post archive material (particularly from Plan B and Careless Talk Costs Lives) is overwhelming. I'd need permission from the designers, editors, original photographers and illustrators, but I don't envisage that to be a problem as this site is non-profit and it's good profile for material that would otherwise be lost.

I'd also like to reprint some of my original The Stranger columns because I'm proud of them, and my Village Voice blogs because those fuckers owe me (a lot of) money and haven't responded to any emails for a few months now. All of this will be easy to do, I'd imagine, once James from my music blogs class teaches me how to embed files.

The downside is that I think it might stop me from posting about new music here, and that's the primary purpose of this blog. (I'm using the word 'new' to refer to music new to me, not 'new' per se.) For example, Blind Blake, whose sweet earthy Bahamian music doesn't disappoint whatsoever, makes me realise how special M. Ward is and how major an influence Harry Belafonte was on my five-year-old self. In the world of Fifties and Sixties world of Blind Blake and the Royal Victoria Hotel in funky Nassau, politics = dance = colonialism = culture = entertainment = human life with all its frailties and humour attached, set to the gentlest of calypso rhythms. My favourite moment 'The Cigar Song' kicks ass harder than 10,000 Korn A-sides and also immediately engages Isaac in a singalong whenever he hears the opening chords strike up.

Maybe I should try and drive the numbers up on this blog, talk about the same dumb-ass mainstream 300 bands that everyone else talks about - Radiohead (yawn), Coldplay (triple yawn), U2 (yawning so hard it feels like the entire world is going to collapse into my mouth and I'm going to choke on the fumes). You know something? What shocks me the most is their fans' lack of imagination and the most rudimentary of research skills.

I mean, why would you listen to this when you could listen to this?

Pah.