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Music

This is the archive for Music.

• How to write a simple English / Humanities paper in LaTeX

  Congratulations! You’re sick of Microsoft Word! This post is a very quick and dirty introduction to writing a regular, run of the mill English/Humanities college essay or term paper using LaTeX. I’ll show you how to get the software, write the paper, format it, put together the bibliography / works cited, and generate the pdf […]

• Posted on May 05.08 to Computing, Music, Snobbery   

• Well, Our Love Was often Averred, and Spontaneity Has Brought a Third

  Seems like the in thing these days is to spawn. I’m now an uncle, and several of my friends are about to have their first children, just had children, or have recently added to their brood. So I started imagining a mix of baby songs this morning in the shower. Right away, I thought of, […]

• Posted on Mar 30.08 to Music   

• Hip-Hop, Art of Noise, and a Hiatus

  I’m not feeling the blogging thing lately, for whatever reason. The fact that Summer is dominating the genre these days might be part of it. In any case, I’ve had two ideas for comment-driven posts, so I’ll throw both out here and see what you, my dear readers, have to offer.
  1. Name that Sample: I’m […]

• Posted on Sep 21.05 to Music   

• The Death of Rock

  This is a slightly Whettish post, but these lyrics have basically destroyed anything resembling credibility rock still may have had (though I’m suspicious about whether there was any left):

  Glamorous
  Indie rock ’n’ roll is what I want
  It’s in my soul, it’s what I need
  Indie rock ’n’ roll, it’s time
  Two of us
  Flipping through a thrift store magazine
  She […]

• Posted on Aug 30.05 to Music   

• “Not Marxists”—Ha!

  Tim Gane told me, to my face, that Stereolab aren’t a political band, and that he hates it when they’re called “Marxist” in the press. But I’m listening to Sound-Dust for the first time in a while, and the fantastic (are there bad songs on this album?) “The Black Arts” comes on. Opening lyrics:
  I need […]

• Posted on Aug 12.05 to Music   

• The Megaopus

  I’ve sorted iTunes by time, and I now am looking at all the songs I have that are at least ten minutes long. I’m trimming out the jazz, classical, and live stuff, and let’s see if the ultimate gesture of hubris, the ten-plus-minute megaopus, is worth it. Who wants to read some thoughts on really, […]

• Posted on Aug 10.05 to Music   

• Taste the Shame

  Whet served up an Embarrassment Mix. There are some similarities there to something I threw up a long time ago. In any case, I’ve got a few additions.
  1. 311, “Amber”: I still don’t get it. Maybe I’m culturally locked into the idea of amber as something beautiful and nice. But damn it if I still […]

• Posted on Jul 11.05 to Music   

• Indefensible Position: Speakerboxxx, etc.

  Esquire used to have this feature, called, I think, the “Indefensible Position.” Like one guy wrote 250 words about why it’s good to drink and drive. That’s not exactly what this is about. Here I just make short, declarative points, and maybe flesh them out a bit, but not much, mostly since I’m lazy. This […]

• Posted on Jun 27.05 to Music   

• Moron Music

  I already did one of these music “meme” things earlier this year, but the masses have spoken, or something like that. Anyway, here goes…

• Posted on Jun 14.05 to Music   

• “Or Write a Song Nobody Has Sung / Or Do Something That’s Never Been Done”

  Firefox devoured my 2000-word review of X&Y yesterday. I talked a lot about what sorts of influences I felt in the album (whole lot of early Bowie, golden age Cure), took a detour through the history of “hot jass,” and betrayed an embarrassingly large and detailed familiarity with the works of Phish and Dave Matthews […]

• Posted on Jun 07.05 to Music   

• Deadly Beats, Cont’d

  Sure, I had to read about this in Blender, but that doesn’t make it less true or insanely great. I first came across the song “Oh, Calcutta!” (which I always figured was from the musical) as the opening track (by the Dave Pell Singers) of the still fantastically interesting The Sound Gallery, Vol. 1. Apparently, […]

• Posted on May 25.05 to Music   

• Way-Homers in Music

  In Raising Arizona, we learn of the way-homer, the joke you won’t get until you’re on your way home. That tends not to happen with jokes for me, except, for, I guess, the joke about Janice’s being not a lesbian but rather Lebanese from Mean Girls. But I have remarked before how songs come back […]

• Posted on May 22.05 to Music   

• Top 5 Records

  I haven’t actually thought about how I’d specifically answer these questions since reading Steve’s post yesterday, but it’s been on my mind. So I thought it might be interesting to see, in 30 minutes, what kind of answer I’d drum up about my favorite music. So here goes!

• Posted on May 13.05 to Music   

• Frustration

  Well, I’ve managed to make up my own damned mix along the guidelines I established last month. Pete, thanks for the one track of help. This CD would be really good if I didn’t sell out at the end with a Postal Service song, but what the hell can I say? I think I’m becoming […]

• Posted on Apr 25.05 to Music   

• “They only want you when you’re seventeen / When you’re twenty-one / You’re no fun”

  Somewhere, someone, and I’m not naming names or pointing fingers, seriously dropped the ball. How is it, that in the four years since it was released, no one said to me, “yo, you might kind of find Ladytron’s 604 right the fuck up your alley—Bulgarian lyrics, clean electroclash beats—check it out”? All those years of […]

• Posted on Mar 23.05 to Music