Monday, December 28th, 2009
It was a tumultuous year for late night laffs, with Jimmy Fallon joining the fray, Conan taking over Tonight only to find awful Leno sink the NBC ship at 10PM, and Letterman enjoying career-high ratings despite (or because of?) a sex scandal. It was, however, a solid year for late night music booking. We regularly saw bands leap from our backyards and comments section to network television, and indexed highlights for you the mornings after. Here’s a look back at a dozen memorable late night TV jams in reverse chronological order. It kicks off with last week’s surprise in which a Stroke and some ex-SNLers revisited a yuletide classic.
Continue reading The 12 Best Late Night TV Performances Of 2009…
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Monday, December 28th, 2009
As first reported by @KristinHersh, the paralyzed Athens singer/songwriter overdosed on pills and was pronounced dead on Christmas day. Constellation has collected words from admirers like Jeff Mangum and Michael Stipe, along with info on public memorials and donating in his honor.
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
There could not have been a more apt ID3 than that of Freelance Hellraiser’s “Stroke Of Genius,” the MP3 that launched this decade’s most fitting musical legacy. Parts of two or three or thirty tracks mixed into one supersong? What better than mashups to soundtrack a generation of smartphone-wielding Adderall chompers coming of age in a world where all music is free. In the years since Freelance Hellraiser (and 2 Many DJs, Go Home Productions, DJ Earworm, Party Ben, et al) raised the bar for bastard pop, we’ve seen bootlegging go mainstream in the hands of Girl Talk and Danger Mouse, not to mention 2004′s chart-topping Collision Course and the dozen questionable Jigga x [rock band] torrents in its wake. This year, bands like Passion Pit and Phoenix distributed stems of their hits as blogbaiting publicity stunts. (It worked!) Still, when it comes to remixes, few are more thrilling than hearing the vocals of one song over the instrumental of another and have it absolutely work. Which is why we’ve again collaborated with our favorite mashup artist, Australian producer Neil Mason aka team9, to mix our favorite tracks of 2009 with familiar oldies, creating something more than the sum of their parts. The process — Stereogum acquiring exclusive audio and making playlists, Neil working his ACID Pro magic (i.e., the hard part) — started months ago, with an eye on this holiday deadline. It’s our fourth annual Christmas present to you, and we think it’s the best MySplice yet. Enjoy…
Continue reading Stereogum & team9 Present… MySplice 4: 2009 Mashed Up…
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
One of my favorite things about Last.FM is that you can pretty much put in any adjective (”tag”) into the radio search bar and it’ll randomly play songs that users have tagged with that word. The more often people have tagged a song, the more likely it is that it’ll be played on that radio [...]
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
“i guess this time of year is a time for serious reflection and i have been doing a lot of that since coming back from copenhagen. you know what has stunned me coming back is the anger you can taste in the air…” More at DeadAirSpace.
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Our yuletide ’09 playlist keeps expanding. Yesterday we premiered Crocodiles & Dum Dum Girls’ holiday jam. Now we’ve added Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings’ “Ain’t No Chimneys” and Magnetic Fields’ “Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree” (from Realism). Download ‘em here.
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Susan Boyle has topped the Billboard charts for the 4th consecutive week and her sales actually went up this week from the week before. She’s already sold well over two million copies of her album (I Dreamed A Dream.)
She looks to have a very good shot at reaching three million sales for the year [...]
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Enigmatic Swedish crew jj has signed with SC (in conjunction with Scandinavian home Sincerely Yours) for its followup to the acclaimed jj nº 2. nº 3‘s out 3/9 stateside, two weeks before jj’s first US tour (with the xx, because duh) starts. SXSW warm-up gigs look likely.
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
JC traverses time and space in his first video from Phrazes For The Young, your 27th favorite album of 2009. Which means stormy pagodas, b&w tricorns, street gangs, and an ’80s club scene with obligatory keytar. It’s a fun ride, and, in the grand tradition of Dire Straits and Daft Punk, Julian’s wardrobe is lined with neon. Sorry no dice roll here, but you will see him juggle mallets when he’s not scrawling profound (also neon) graffiti like “ANGER IS WEAKNESS. PATIENCE IS STRENGTH.” Think I once read that in a Ludlow Street bathroom.
Continue reading New Julian Casablancas Video – “11th Dimension”…
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Seems like Animal Collective couldn’t keep themselves from topping most every list that came out this Listmas, even that of the Norwegian singer-songwriting Brooklyn transplant Sondre Lerche. Instead of conforming to the consensus pick of “My Girls,” though, Lerche told us his “favorite song of the year” was the swirling Merriweather gem “Bluish.” (See the full list here.) And in honor of it touching him so, Sondre’s memorialized his love for the Collective’s love song by bunkering in a Brooklyn basement — armed with just a guitar, a voice, and an honorary late-breaking splash of weirdo effects — to tape a cover for all to enjoy. It’s going out as a Christmas Eve gift to his mailing list tomorrow, but Mr. Lerche’s kindly sharing it with us now, to help all of us get through this last shopping day. Enjoy.
Continue reading Sondre Lerche Covers Animal Collective…
Posted in General, Music | No Comments »
