Howdy. And welcome back to SVR. We’ve recently offered up some of the greatest videos in music history (part 1, part 2, part 3), and today, in the interest of fair and balanced coverage, we felt a hateful need to ruin your Saturday morning by inflicting an ethical obligation to present some of the worst music videos in history. So,
Read moreFirst of all, I recall to your attention the extraordinary fact with which I began. To wit, that the human being, like the immortals, naturally places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys — yet he has left it out of his heaven! The very thought of it excites him; opportunity sets him wild; in this state he
Read moreOne of my favorite musical sub-genres is sort of an off-shoot of trip-hop, a sultry urban electropop district where the downbeat influence of Portishead meets up with all kinds of interesting characters dressed like David Bowie in the ’70s. California pure pop a la Burt Bacharach, for instance, which we find in the likes of Saint Etienne (and the solo
Read moreLuke Haines isn’t very well known in America, and that’s a damned shame. He got a little attention here back in the early ’90s when his first band, The Auteurs, released their fantastic debut, New Wave. And then – it was like he never existed. Maybe this is because his music is so quintessentially English – after all, he was
Read moreThe results of the latest S&R Poll are in. Which of the following is the worst band name in history? 1: Hoobastank (28) 2: Limp Bizkit (15) 3: Hootie and the Blowfish (14) 4: The CC DeVille Experience (12) 5: Toad the Wet Sprocket (8) 6: Porno for Pyros (6) 7: Goo Goo Dolls (5) Panic! at the Disco (5)
Read moreIn previous Best of Music Video posts (part 1 and part 2) we’ve looked at everything from Johnny Cash to Prodigy to Death in Vegas to NIN and then some – and if you noticed a certain … heaviness … five points to Gryffindor. Today, in honor of the beautiful weather outside, we’re going to look at some of great
Read moreGive me one last dance We’ll slide down the surface of things You’re the real thing Yeah the real thing You’re the real thing Even better than the real thing I figured out a long time ago, even before I began encountering grad-level feminist critiques, that our media’s stylized construction and portrayal of female beauty was problematic. It’s bad enough
Read moreThe results of the latest S&R poll are in. Which of the following best describes your feelings about popular music? Music goes through cycles, but on average the quality of music today is about what it’s always been. (34) Today’s music sucks – I only listen to the old stuff. (27) I don’t listen to popular music. (21) Today’s artists
Read moreOne of my top CDs for 2007 was Walking With Strangers by The Birthday Massacre. And one of the top CDs of 2005 was Violet, also by TBM. About the harshest criticism I could muster for last year’s effort was that it wasn’t appreciably better than the 2005 release, but given how great Violet was, that’s hardly a damning critique.
Read moreEarly morning, April 4 Shot rings out in the Memphis sky 40 years ago today Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Today a black man who doesn’t want to make race an issue is running for president. He is opposed by one man who opposed honoring King with a holiday and by many more people who
Read moreMy old friend Adam Marsland has just released Daylight Kissing Night: Adam Marsland’s Greatest Hits, a greatest hits collection that draws from the best of both his solo and Cockeyed Ghost efforts, and boy howdy, am I jacked. If you don’t already know Adam’s music, let’s go ahead and get the triangulation out of the way. He’s kinda like a
Read moreThe 2007 YouTube Video Award winners have been announced (see all the nominees here), and they certainly provide fodder for debate. Not that I think the criteria were necessarily about critical standards, of course, but still. For instance, have a look at the human tetris performance, which won the Creative category, and explain to me how it beats this.
Read moreWhen I was in high school back in the Dark Ages we didn’t have music video channels. Kinda like today. But we did have this great show called The Midnight Special, which came on late Friday nights. In addition to live performances by a tremendous range of artists, it also emerged as the place where you could see music videos
Read moreTim Karr has an important read for music lovers up at HuffPo. In it, he covers OK Go’s descent into Washington to promote the importance of Net Neutrality to independent musicians. The band’s success is a testament to an open Internet. OK Go was propelled to national fame via the popularity of their YouTube videos. One, a treadmill dance along
Read moreThe serious bands get all the respect. All the critical acclaim. All the love from all the right people. Which is probably as it should be. But for every Beatles there’s at least one or two Rolling Stones, bands that aren’t terribly respectable and that clearly aren’t worried about cultivating an intellectual legacy. Sometimes you even get a little Beatles
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lullaby pit 