The A.V. Club - Music

Music: Newswire: People Still Buy Music: Daft Punk set to sell a ton of records this week

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:45:00 -0500

All that Daft Punk hype prior to the release of Random Access Memories apparently really worked. Billboard is projecting that the French duo will sell about 300,000 copies of its new record in the U.S. alone this week, putting the group easily on top of the Billboard 200 chart. That will be the second biggest debut week for an album this year, behind only Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, which sold almost a million copies its first week out. Selling 300,000 copies would give Daft Punk its biggest sales week ever. The group’s last ...

Music: Hear This: Pantera’s “Walk” is the cry of aggrieved, disaffected youth

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:00:00 -0500

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing. This week, we’re asking our writers to talk about a song that always reminds them of their own arrested development. To be a teenager in Arlington, Texas, in the early ’90s, you had no choice but to respect Pantera. Right as I was starting high school, Pantera released 1992’s Vulgar Display Of Power—a heavier, groovier form of thrash that made Pantera, in the many circles that loved to ...

Music: Gateways To Geekery: An initiation into the psychedelic sci-fi rock of Hawkwind

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Pop culture can be as forbidding as it is inviting, particularly in areas that invite geeky obsession: The more devotion a genre or series or subculture inspires, the easier it is for the uninitiated to feel like they’re on the outside looking in. But geeks aren’t born; they’re made. And sometimes it only takes the right starting point to bring newbies into various intimidatingly vast obsessions. Gateways To Geekery is our regular attempt to help those who want to be enthralled, but aren’t sure where to start. Want advice? Suggest future Gateways To Geekery topics by ...

Music: Newswire: Kanye West wants Will Smith to come out of rap retirement, be one of the apostles of Yeezus

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:10:00 -0500

Now that there’s a set June 18 release date for Yeezus, Kanye West’s not-at-all arrogantly titled follow-up to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, more details of the contents of the album have trickled out. In addition to the singles West has played on Saturday Night Live or projected onto a nearby building, it looks like one of the tracks on Yeezus might feature The Fresh Prince himself, rapper turned actor Will Smith. West has apparently spent some time with Smith in a studio in Brazil, trying to convince him to return to the mic to prophesize the coming ...

Music: Great Job, Internet!: Paul Scheer dons the Arsenio flattop again, reenacts the super awkward Tupac interview with Jordan Peele

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:00 -0500

Star of The ArScheerio Paul Show Paul Scheer has joined forces with MadTV and Key & Peele star Jordan Peele to remake one of Arsenio Hall's most awkward interviews for YouTube's Comedy Week. This time around, Scheer trotted out the transcript for Arsenio's weird sit-down with rapper Tupac Shakur, who, during the original interview,was making the promotional rounds for his film Poetic Justice with Janet Jackson and spent an inordinate amount of time relishing the fact that he got to make out with her on set. Scheer has been doing word-for-word reenactments of Arsenio's more memorable ...

Music: Newswire: Rapper Tim Dog probably faked his death to avoid paying the women he scammed, has an arrest warrant out

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:30:00 -0500

Hardcore rap provocateur Timothy Blair, a.k.a. Tim Dog (most famous for his NWA diss track “Fuck Compton” and work with Ultramagnetic MCs) reportedly died back in February from complications related to diabetes. But a growing stream of evidence has begun to suggest that, actually, Tim Dog faked his death in an attempt to avoid paying women he’d scammed into financially supporting a comeback album he never intended to make. Last week, Esther Pilgrim, one of the victims of Tim Dog’s scamming, claimed he’d been faking his death to escape paying her the $19,000 required ...

Music: Hear This: You don’t have to know the words to have fun with this Stone Temple Pilots single

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:00:00 -0500

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing. This week, we’re asking our writers to talk about a song that always reminds them of their own arrested development. My wife and I are in the process of getting rid of our car; where we live and work in Chicago, we rarely have reason to drive, so we’re basically paying the city to give us a parking ticket every two to three months. Even though we no longer ...

Music: Great Job, Internet!: Let Solange and The Lonely Island school you on proper punctuation with their new single,"Semicolon"

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:45:00 -0500

The Lonely Island may have just dropped a new clip, “Diaper Money,” on Monday, but the group’s commitment to #WackWednesdays apparently hasn’t waned one bit. The trio just dropped a new collaboration with Solange (a.k.a. Beyonce’s sister), and it’s hot, naturally. “Semicolon,” an ode to the punctuation that not enough people use, both educates and entertains, sort of like a much hipper Schoolhouse Rock for the 21st century. The Lonely Island’s The Wack Album arrives June 11 and features guest contributions from Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, and more.

Music: Newswire: Paris Hilton announces sort-of-maybe-long-awaited followup to her debut album

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:35:00 -0500

Who could have foreseen in 2006 when heiress, reality “star,” “actress,” and “human being” Paris Hilton paid a whole bunch of people to produce her debut album, Paris, that the world would have to wait seven whole years for her to pay Afrojack to produce her second one? And yet, finally, a Hottie, a Nottie, and a Repo! The Genetic Opera later, the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the saying “All that glitters is not gold” has announced that her sophomore outing will be released on Cash Money Records later this year. The as-yet-untitled house album will feature appearances from hip-hop hams ...

Music: Newswire: Get Involved, Internet: Help make a documentary about Joe Strummer's old car

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:40:00 -0500

Hot on the heels of the announcement that The Clash will be releasing the Sound System box set in September, and the late Joe Strummer having a small plaza named after him in Granada, filmmaker Nick Hall is attempting to enact some cosmic justice by finding out what happened to Strummer's long lost car. The film, I Need A Dodge!, examines Strummer's time in Spain during the mid-'80s, specifically his falling in love with a Dodge that he lost in a parking garage through some folly of errors (read: cocaine-induced confusion). With the film nearing completion Hall ...

Music: Newswire: R.I.P. Trevor Bolder, bassist for David Bowie and Uriah Heep

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Trevor Bolder, a musician best known for his work with David Bowie and Uriah Heep, has died at the age of 62, after a bout with pancreatic cancer. The product of a musical family—his father was a trumpet player—Bolder teamed up with guitarist Mick Ronson for his first professional band, Ronno, in the late ‘60s. Bowie drafted the two of them to back him up during an appearance on John Peel’s radio show, then used them on his 1971 breakthrough album Hunky Dory, on which Bolder played bass and trumpet. Ronson and Bolder formed the core of ...

Music: Great Job, Internet!: The first single off Goodie Mob's reunion album features Janelle Monáe, is totally nuts

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:50:00 -0500

Atlanta hip-hop group and original home of Cee-Lo Green Goodie Mob has set an August 27 release date for Age Against The Machine, its first album since reuniting last year and the first to feature the full line-up since 1999. “Special Education,” the just-released first single, sets a ridiculously high bar for the rest of the album. The track features an insane, almost industrial exploding funk beat, a stately chorus from fellow Dungeon Family member Janelle Monáe bemoaning uniformity in music, and a pretty killer verse from Cee-Lo himself.

Music: For Our Consideration: Will indie-rock reunions become just part of the plan?

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

On April 29, The Smiths officially became the last hopelessly broken-up indie-rock band when its successor in the uncomfortable-level-of-emotion sweepstakes, Neutral Milk Hotel, announced its first tour in 15 years. Strangely, though, what surely would have been treated as a miracle resurrection a decade ago didn’t feel like much of a bombshell three weeks ago. That’s partly because the notoriously reclusive Mangum has been performing solo sets regularly for over two years, on increasingly major stages and mostly featuring material from Neutral Milk Hotel’s two albums, 1996’s On Avery Island and 1998’s In The Aeroplane ...

Music: Great Job, Internet!: Listen to a bunch of rappers reference former NBA center Alonzo Mourning

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Sports and hip-hop are a match made in heaven, but sometimes an unusual reference gets used so many times over the years that it stands out. Courtesy of an endorsement from Bethlehem Shoals (of dearly departed but never forgotten NBA blog Free Darko), now there’s a roundup by Vancouver-based Young Braised of many different rappers referencing former NBA star Alonzo Mourning in songs ranging from 1993-2012. Unfortunately, unlike other sports references, where a name gets used because of how great, say, Michael Jordan is at basketball, Mourning is such an ever-present name-drop because he goes well in any line ...

Music: Newswire: Queen guitarist Brian May says he hates The Voice, surprises no one

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Today in “water is wet” news: Brian May hates The Voice. The Queen guitarist says the show—he’s talking about the U.K. version, but his feelings would probably carry over to the U.S. version as well—“is absolutely the dullest, dumbest, most depressing programme on TV,” and is “the ultimate insult to music and performers.” In a post on his blog, May writes that he hopes the show “dies a natural death very soon” and that seeing “young singers busting their guts trying to win somebody’s attention, who is rudely sitting with their back to the ...

Music: Great Job, Internet!: There's a new Beyoncé song and it's great, of course

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:20:00 -0500

An unofficial (probably) version of a cut of the new Beyoncé record has hit the net and—surprise, surprise—it’s pretty damn good. “Grown Woman,” the song that she first teased in a Pepsi commercial this spring, finds Mrs. Carter blending afro-pop and R&B as she extols the virtues of being able to do whatever the hell she wants and stuff. It’s a little cheesy on the first listen, but give it a few go-arounds and it’ll be stuck in your head all damn summer.

Music: Hear This: An early Walkmen song gets anti-nostalgic

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:00:00 -0500

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing. This week, we’re asking our writers to talk about a song that always reminds them of their own arrested development. I’ve never pined much for my younger days: College wasn’t a non-stop drinking party for me or anything, but I feel happily smarter now than I did then. So I think I can relate to “We’ve Been Had” from the first Walkmen record, Everyone Who Pretended To ...

Music: Great Job, Internet!: Listen to two tracks from Into It. Over It.'s Life Is Suffering 7-inch

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:45:00 -0500

What started as a songwriting project for Chicago's Evan Weiss under the moniker Into It. Over It. quickly blossomed into a band more ambitious than the endeavor that bore it. After a year of writing and releasing songs—all compiled on No Sleep Record's 52 Weeks—Weiss released six split 7-inches chronicling his experiences in various cities across the U.S. before releasing his first full-length album, the aptly titled Proper, in 2011. Although Weiss had been touring for years on his own, offering up stripped-down versions of full-band numbers and plaintive acoustic tracks, last fall Weiss assembled ...

Music: Newswire: The Pogues' Shane MacGowan seeking dental help so that he can star in "Hollywood film"

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:35:00 -0500

The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan has long been famous for his teeth or, rather, for the lack thereof. A lifetime of drinking, drugging, and smoking has resulted in the loss of literally all the frontman’s teeth, but he’s taken to Twitter to find a dentist to give him a new smile. MacGowan has worn dentures since the removal of his last two teeth in 2009, but he’s recently gave up wearing them. Instead, according to his girlfriend, Victoria Mary Clarke, he’s now seeking someone to build him a new smile, one that can help him “star in ...

Music: Newswire: The Clash announce Sound System, the only box set that matters

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:40:00 -0500

The Clash is no stranger to having its albums reissued, repackaged, and repurposed, so it's inevitable that the band is finally getting the box set treatment. Housed inside a boombox-shaped box, Sound System will compile the band's seminal albums on CD with three discs of B-sides and outtakes, a DVD, and various pieces of Clash regalia such as a poster and dog tags. The albums are remastered for the ump-teenth time, but this go-round sees band member Mick Jones taking on the job. In tandem with the Sound System box the group will also be releasing The Clash ...