by japhy grant on June 2, 2008
Are any of you keeping up with the YouTube experiment Rivers Cuomo of Weezer is doing? Back in March or so, Rivers called on YouTube viewers to come up with a song title (originally “80s Radio”) and then led them through the process, inviting would be rockstars to offer up chord structures, lyrics, bridges and adjustments. The result isn’t so much music by committee as it is, “Rivers picks what he likes and you all go with it”, which means the result, now called “We’re Turning Up the Radio” doesn’t totally suck. In fact, it’s sort of rad.
But what’s more rad is the sort of master class/ throw the baby bird from the nest aesthetic the experiment’s taken on. Hundreds of people each week audition their ideas before Prof. Cuomo through YouTube videos, which people then comment on themselves. It’s sort of Darwinian, with each new generation of the song spawning mutants. But it’s all collaborative in the best sense of the word; that the song sounds sort of like a Weezer song isn’t much of a surprise, but it has no one author who can claim credit. Cuomo actually makes a great, if eccentric teacher. He’s unafraid to say when something doesn’t work and quick to praise when it does. This is the kind of stuff that makes the Internet such a cool place to live in.
Shortly, Rivers promises to “offer the song up to the lions”, whatever that means. Stay tuned.
by japhy grant on May 30, 2008
Asked for a reason he actually opposes gay marriage, anti-gay marriage lawyer Dan Schweitzer flounders before Bill O’Reilly, comparing gay and straight relationships as being as different as winter and summer. Bill-O, after trying to give the guy as many opportunities to come up with a reason as possible concedes that all the justifications are lame and bigoted. I know this has been up for a bit, but if you haven’t seen it, you should.
by japhy grant on May 29, 2008
Now, I love me some Kanye. He’s the guy who made it okay for suburbanites with overachiever complexes to own hip-hop, after all. But dude, it seems like you can’t buy an album these days without finding Kanye guesting a track. Being the self-proclaimed king of hip-hop, isn’t enough, he’s got to absorb the careers of Madonna, Janet, Daft Punk and now N.E.R.D. That little teddy bear is actually the Borg, I tell you. Anyway, here’s the remix, which also features Lupe Fiasco, and Pusha T. It’s awesome. N.E.R.D.’s new album, Seeing Sounds is out June 10.
Everyone Nose (Remix feat. Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and Pusha T) – N.E.R.D.
by japhy grant on May 28, 2008
Which should be enough for me to dismiss them forever, but c’mon! It’s Weezer. It’s the You Tube-eriffic “Pork & Beans”, the first single from the Red album, out June 3rd. I hope Rivers deloused after giving Crocker a hug. That kid doesn’t need a hug. He needs a nice long stay in a sanitarium. Think I’m being mean? Here’s what the kid’s been up to lately.
