Culture Blues

Clef Notes: #5

Every Friday, or at least until his spectacular rock star flameout, Giovanny will be dropping a week’s worth of music knowledge on you with Clef Notes, proof positive that he’s a one man music magazine.

News

Cha-ching!!!: Steve Jobs busted out the ol’ business outfit this week to deliver the keynote speech at the Apple Media Event in San Francisco, California. This year's conference was billed as “music themed” and among the topics discussed were a slew of new innovations and shiny things that you will no doubt be spending your money and time on in the coming months; most intriguing of these is Ping. The mission statement of Ping is simple, yet revolutionary. Apple intends for it to be a “social network for music,” which will essentially allow iTunes’ 160 million users to connect with their friends for music recommendations. Jobs himself described Ping as “Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes” and, if it can deliver even a sliver of the proposed experience, there is no doubt that Ping will be the next “next big thing.” With its Facebook-style layout, and a Last.fm-like scrobbling feature, Ping will allow users to see each other's tastes, concerts they will be attending and much more. There will also be artist pages, where you will be able to see what their recommendations are, read their status updates and even leave them comments. It seems that Apple’s dream unicorn (by which I mean research and development department) has come up with another stellar idea - only time will tell if this will be among the company’s successes, or another Apple TV fiasco (which, btw, they claim they’ve fixed).

D'Oh: Atlanta born rapper and part-time actor T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Cottle were arrested Wednesday night in Los Angeles, California. According to TMZ, law enforcement officials pulled T.I. over after he made an illegal U-turn on Sunset Boulevard. Once they approached the rapper's Maybach (to quote Jason “ballin”) the authorities smelled marijuana. They subsequently searched the vehicle, and found what is reported to be “a small amount” of ecstasy (allegedly). Basically T.I. was engaging in the kind of activity that is completely recommended for people who are on probation after serving seven months on a weapons conviction (well played sir!). This setback couldn’t have come at a worse time for T.I. who just recently married Cottle, and is currently starring in the #1 movie in America. After they both posted $10,000 bail and were released on Thursday, Cottle fired up the twitter (of course she did) and left fans this message "Jus wanted 2say thank u 2every1 dats been leaving encouraging msgs & prayers! We love u guys:) going 2bed now! So glad 2b n a nice clean bed." Obviously Ms. Cottle is either 12 or an English major.

I want one of each: The obsessive zeal of a collector is a powerful and all encompassing force. Jay-Z and the Yankees hope to capitalize on their devoted fans’ mania, by joining forces to release a limited line of memorabilia to commemorate Jigga’s upcoming shows at the house that George Steinbrenner built. Among the items to be produced are: a series of T-shirts with both of the participants' branding, an S. Carter #4 jersey (while Jay’s birthday is December 4th, it is not known if he is a particular fan of Lou Gherig), and a totally awesome looking all-black, fitted Yankee cap with the Blueprint 3 logo on the side. So far the response by fans to the new merchandise has been very favorable, and the Yankees claim that it’s already among the best-selling limited run lines that they have ever produced. It's still unclear if Eminem (who will be sharing the bill with Jay at both Yankee Stadium and Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers) will reach a similar merchandising deal with the Tigers, but probably not; after all, we are talking about Detroit here.

Now they are just trying to make people mad: In an effort to promote their newest commemorative issue, “The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs”, Rolling Stone stirred up a real hornet's nest on the interwebs last week by posting the top ten tracks on their site. As we all know, The Beatles are kind of popular, and nothing quite riles people up like making “definitive” lists of any sort... so forums and blogs from here to Liverpool, and back, were ablaze with opinions and rants of contention and objection. As I was doing my research for this blurb, I read dozens of sites and threads that were responses to Rolling Stone’s list. The vast majority of them angrily took exception, not just with the list, but with the fact that the publication had the gall to even engage in such an endeavor. Rolling Stone is of course no stranger to this type of “controversy”; through the years they have provoked similar outrages with their “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” “500 Greatest Songs” and dozens of others (which are, of course, nothing more than cheap attempts to increase readership and stimulate discourse). On that note, don’t forget to read my “Top Ten List of the Best Beatles Songs” further on in this edition of Clef Notes.

State of the industry: In last week's edition of Clef Notes, I warned you all that this day would come; of course, that doesn’t make this any easier to stomach. Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream is the #1 album on the Billboard Top 200 this week, proving that the record-buying population of this country is a bunch of fucking idiots. What was it America, huh? Was it the sophisticated song craft? The immaculate production? Or the elegant cover layout? You guys disappoint me more than George Lucas and your parents combined. What makes things worse is that Teenage Dream's 192,000 units sold marks a chart high for 2010, AND the record’s title track is #1 on the digital downloads chart, making it the second Katy Perry song to hold that position this year (the first is California Gurls, which has pushed over 3,000,000 downloads and is on track to became the most downloaded song of the year). Alas, it doesn’t look like Katy will lose the top spot anytime soon, as the upcoming album release schedule is pretty bleak for the next two weeks... and then Hurley will drop, and my ulcer will continue to bleed.

Reviews

I am pretty sure Interpol peaked on their first record (sorry scenesters, you have to move on). Like most, I was a fan of their 2002 debut (Turn Out The Bright Lights) and there were even a couple of jams on Antics which were totally diggable. Unfortunately, Our Love To Admire was pretty much a disaster and, sadly, their self-titled fourth studio LP fares no better. We have all heard Barricade and Lights by now, and are pedestrian to say the least (especially the latter - don’t let the slick video fool you). The rest of Interpol is an unfocused sprawl-noir which not only lacks the tightness of their previous records but, most glaringly, the vibrancy. There are a few moments that deserve their due; Success is a solid opener, the piano accompanied Try It On has an almost charming quality to it, and I suppose I could see the merits of Always Malaise (I don’t, actually, but the internet is pretty fond of it at the moment). This is not a Muse situation where my expectations for this record were impossible to meet as I came into it lukewarm, and finished feeling the same way.

Jack Tatum was a bone-crushing defensive back for the Oakland Raiders. The most famous words he uttered during his playing days were “I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault,” and he was widely vilified for paralyzing Darryl Stingley of the New England Patriots in a pre-season game. That Jack Tatum has nothing to do with the Virginia-born Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing, I was just amused by the name similarity. The guitar slinging Tatum is the newest in a breed of solo bedroom recorders to write an impressive debut album, and land himself a record deal. Gemini is an ethereal dream-pop record that surprised me with its overall song writing quality, and impressed me with its ability to channel influences. If you are a fan of the halcyon days of the British indie label 4AD then you need to give this record a try; tracks like Bored Games, Drifter, and The Witching Hour will have you digging some of your old clubbing outfits out of your closet and may make you pick up smoking again.

I have never enjoyed the Goo Goo Dolls. Their particular brand of uninspired, post-grunge, excessively insipid, aural monotony was always met by eye rolls and annoyance whenever their waves invaded my space. If you are one of those people who still listens to A Boy Named Goo and Dizzy Up The Girl, then please do us both a favor and stop reading this, jump in your Dodge Neon, go down to your local Best Buy and get this record- if you hurry you could be home in time for Friends. For the rest of you, allow me to sum this record up in one word: yawn. I will admit that I wanted to blast Something For The Rest Of Us; I wanted to verbally eviscerate Johnny Reznik for his “contributions” to our society (because I am a small and hateful person), and I wanted to call this one of the worst things I had ever had the unfortunate displeasure of hearing. Sadly, Something For The Rest Of Us is too banal to properly motivate me to hate it. There is not a single song that elicits any substantial reaction from me. From the obscenely trite and embarrassing Not Broken (about war veterans), to the faux-edge and simplistic hook of Home, there is nothing on this record that is worth your time or consideration.

16th Notes

Twitter lost an emcee this week as 50 Cent decided he needed a break from the microblogging site to focus on writing his newest record. How easily is this man distracted? We are only talking 140 characters... Josh Homme was apparently considering breaking up Queens Of The Stone Age in the wake of the departure of bassist Nick Oliveri. I need to find a way to make Guy Berryman leave Coldplay... If I asked you to guess what band just had their new fragrance released here in America, how long do you think it would take you to say the Sex Pistols? Johnny Rotten and company apparently decided they needed slightly bigger mansions... The newest edition of Dr. Dre’s Envy laptops came out this week. I guess it’s good that Dre has all this free time on his hands, it’s not like the public is waiting for him to finish a record that has been delayed for about two years now... Linkin Park announced that they would be performing at this year's VMAs. You don’t care either, huh?... Lastly, Radiohead drummer Phil Selway kicked off a solo tour in Japan this week. We just need to let him get this out of his system people...

Top Ten List

Like Kurt Cobain’s t-shirt read, “Corporate magazines still suck.” In that spirit I bring you my version of the top ten Beatles songs of all time.

10) Yesterday
9) I Am The Walrus
8) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
7) Nowhere Man
6) Abbey Road Medley
5) Hey Jude
4) All My Loving
3) Strawberry Fields
2) In My Life
1) A Day In The Life

Track of the Week

Put the Days Away - Sun Airway: When you first hear Put The Days Away by Sun Airway, the “Animal Collective meets The National” correlation is clearly apparent. Is that a problem? No, in fact, it is pretty fucking awesome.

Tagged as: 50 cent, apple, beatles best songs, dr dre laptops, goo goo dolls, Interpol, Jay-Z, josh homme, katy perry, limited edition memorabilia, ping, Queens Of The Stone Age, sex pistol fragrance, steve jobs, T.I., The Beatles, wild nothing, Yankees