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Vinyl Rules Again on Record Store Day
It’s the most wonderful time of the year — for independent record stores, at least.
A Musical Awakening
“Don’t you remember when you were young / How you wanted to ‘Don’t set the world on fire?” sings Tim McIlrath on Endgame, the new album by punk band Rise Against. It sounds like a rallying cry for a generation of rockers who have been led to believe, by blingaddled hedonists and smug reality TV judges, that popular music can’t be revolutionary.
Robbie Robertson
On a postage stamp to be issued this June, Robbie Robertson peers into the distance with narrowed eyes. Depending on how you look at him, he’s either contemplative or suspicious. The dichotomy is fitting: the copious literature about his former group, the Band, depicts him alternately as visionary or cool, even a cold, careerist cat.
Album Review: Femme Fatale, by Britney Spears
In the video for Hold It Against Me, the first single from her seventh album, Femme Fatale, Britney Spears looms over the ground in a gigantic wedding dress, fights a double of herself in acrobatic slow motion, shoots neon paint out of her fingertips … and checks out the dating website plentyoffish.com.
Fusion Whisky
It’s been said that Amrut Distillery makes the best whisky outside of Scotland (by Whisky Magazine, 2011), the third-best whisky in the world (by Jim Murray, in Whisky Bible 2010), or the best whisky in the world (Malt Advocate magazine, 2011). And yet, it doesn’t put the age of its single malts on its bottles. Why? It’s afraid no one would buy them.
Rave-ival
Despite the rave scene dying out around the turn of the millennium, its soundtrack is everywhere. Electronic dance music record sales are surprisingly healthy, as most other genres languish on life support. Its artists headline huge festivals; its producers helm songs that top pop charts; its hooks soundtrack commercials; its textures bolster movie scenes; and its beats move bodies in clubs. Rather than lying dead, electronic music has become woven into the fabric of our day-to-day lives.
“Feminine Cuisine” at Montreal’s High Lights Festival
When your profession is dominated by male workaholics, the climb to the top can be dangerous. At 22, Renata Vanzetto has the scars to prove it: they run in ridges along her forearms and intersect the lines on her hands. But today, her biggest challenge is not to smile.
In Dire Need of Context
2011 is beginning to feel like 1991 all over again, as political correctness and censorship are once again front-page news. Last week, we learned that in Alabama, the NewSouth edition of Mark Twain’s 1884 novel Huckleberry Finn will replace the word “nigger” with the word “slave.” On Wednesday, the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council moved to censure St. John’s radio station CHOZ-FM for playing Dire Straits’ 1985 song Money for Nothing because of its use of the word “faggot.”
London’s Ale Taster
Great Britain’s pubs are closing at a disconcerting rate – 39 a week according to figures published earlier this year – as duty increases and the smoking ban have driven customers to drink at home instead. And yet, in the nation’s capital, a newly appointed Ale Taster is on a year-long pub crawl; according to Steve Williams, the glass is half-full.
From MySpace to Myanmar
The Internet brings the whole world to us, in all of its variety and much of its complexity. So why is it that so many people choose to use its phenomenally wide-angle lens to focus on Justin Bieber?
