Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind

I was going to develop this post more. I ran out of time. I’ll make it up to you next time. The point is that Klosterman is a great author if you love music and pop culture. He even writes fiction! If you need something new to read, it’s inALLcaps recommended.

Found in the book IV By Chuck Klosterman:

Interviewing Britney Spears is like deposing Bill Clinton: Regardless of the evidence, she does not waver.
“Why do you dress so provocatively?” I ask. She says she doesn’t dress provocatively.
“But look what you’re wearing right now,” I say, while looking at three inches of her inner thigh, her entire abdomen, and enough cleavage to choke a musk ox.
“This is just a skirt and a top,” she responds.

It is not that Britney Spears denies that she is a sexual icon, or that she disputes that American men are fascinated with the concept of the wet-hot virgin, or that she feels her success says nothing about what our society fantasizes about. She doesn’t disagree with any of that stuff, because she swears she has never even thought about it. Not even once.

“That’s just a weird question,” she says. “I don’t even want to think about that. That’s strange, and I don’t think about things like that. Why should I? I don’t have to deal with those people. I’m concerned with the kids out there. I’m concerned with the next generation of people. I’m not worried about some guy who’s a perv and wants to meet a freaking virgin.”

And suddenly, something becomes painfully clear: Either Britney Spears is the least self-aware person I’ve ever met, or she’s way, way savvier than any of us realize.

Or maybe both.

This is a fantastic cover of a horrible song:

Download Or, The Whale – Toxic (Britney Spears Cover)

Get more free songs from the band Or, The Whale over at daytrotter where they did a set.

Excerpt from the book Downtown Owl: A Novel by Chuck Klosterman

Music that Mitch did not recognize distortedly blared from a thirty-five dollar JVC ghetto blaster. The first song was futuristic, churchlike, and boring. the second song celebrated the inherent pleasure of jumping. The third song promoted the nation of Panama.


Has anyone seen the show Glee? Is it worth watching? Let me know. Anyways, the soundtrack to the show had a Van Halen cover.

Download The Glee Cast – Jump (Van Halen Cover)

Submissions Part 2

Yes, I get the weird duty of doing the posts on both X-mas eve and New Year’s Eve. Right now it’s fucking snowing up here in Boston. We had two storms a couple weeks back that dumped 20 inches on us. Then it melted. I was like, “Yay! I can park my car without having to destroy my back by shoveling now!” And now more snow. Some New Year, eh?

Anyways, I have to say I hope yours is good. And to bring in the New Year? Here are some more submissions I have gotten over the last few months. A sort of “Look Out For These Guys in ’09” sort of post.

First up is a dude by the name of Dave Wrangler. Here’s his MySpace page. He’s from Houston, and the South does do things dirty! He’s sent me a couple of tracks, and I wanted to share these with you guys, also. He does remixes of hip-hop cuts as well as mash-ups. They’re pretty straight-forward club cuts, and if you’re into dudes like Jokers Of The Scene, you’ll dig this guy’s stuff.

Download Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Baby I Got Your Money (Dave Wrangler remix)

[Download Detroit Grand Pubahs – Sandwiches (Dave Wrangler remix)]

[Download Dave Wrangler – Stay Fly VS. Womanizer (Three 6 Mafia VS Britney Spears)]

Next up is the post-punk group the Homosexuals. Myspace page is here. Now, I got this e-mail December 5th, touting their first US tour ever. Only problem? All the shows had already passed! And one was near Boston! Fuckin’ hell. I would’ve gone to see these guys, too. They’re definitely known to folks who dig the old school punk. And they released their first music in about 25 years. Here’s one of their new cuts, “Slow Guns”. Good shit!

The Homosexuals – Slow Guns

And lastly is a band that you guys probably know already. Devotchka. Myspace page is here. Well, for the XBox 360 game Gears of War 2, the fun folks at Microsoft chose to use a song of theirs that many people reading this already probably know – “How It Ends”. If you don’t recognize it by name? It was used in Little Miss Sunshine, and brilliantly, at that. So below, I give you their hit “How It Ends”, and have posted the commercial used to promote Gears of War 2.

[Download Devotchka – How It Ends]

And now? My “This shit has been on my iPod all goddamned year!” list. Yes. I swear. a lot. It’s beautiful. So here’s my list. You’ll notice I left off MGMT, as well as a few other indie-hipster-bandwagon groups. Well, it’s not bad stuff. It’s just that I got sick of them after about three weeks. These guys? I obviously didn’t get sick of! So here you go!

1 – Mogwai – The Sun Smells Too Loud
2 – The Dirtbombs – La Fin Du Monde
3 – Radiohead – House of Cards
4 – Fuck Buttons – Sweet Love For Planet Earth
5 – Hercules and Love Affair – Blind
6 – Bon Iver – Skinny Love
7 – Hot Chip – Ready For The Floor
8 – Thieves Like Us – Drugs In My Body
9 – The Verbs – I’m Your Chocolate
10 – The Ting Tings – Great DJ

As usual, buy this shit! Do it! For the children! Or just imagine children are somehow involved.