Music
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.
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.”
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?
Album Review: Michael, by Michael Jackson
Good news about Michael Jackson’s first posthumous collection: for one thing, it’s short.
deadmau5
Although he wears cute, cartoonish mouse heads when he performs, Joel Zimmerman is not the cuddliest guy on the music scene. Judging by his various online spats with DJs, promoters, fellow electronic music producers (and even their fans), the artist known as Deadmau5 can seem ornery indeed.
Mike Tompkins
In a World Wide Web full of bizarre celebrities, from the histrionic Chris “Leave Britney alone!” Crocker to the glassy-eyed Tay “Chocolate Rain” Zonday, one YouTube sensation stands out. His name is Mike Tompkins, and he’s… rather normal.
Justin Bieber vs. Nirvana
In this era of smooth-edged production, the all-acoustic album is the mark of an artist who desires to be taken seriously. So as Justin Bieber releases My Worlds Acoustic, certain questions arise. Will his album be as significant artistically as commercially? Where does the pubescent star stand in the all-time pantheon of musical greats? And why is it that we can hear synths in the background? Here’s how the new album stacks up to a few landmark acoustic releases from the past two decades.
Book Review: Daniel Lanois
Two-thirds of the way into his memoir, Daniel Lanois describes his approach in recording Bob Dylan’s album Time Out of Mind: “I wanted the shadows to hold hidden secrets, for the details to pique the curiosity of a viewer … I wanted the sunlight in the portrait to outlive us all, and be blazing with premonition, hope and redemption.”
Michael Franti
Michael Franti loves arena tours: There are massive crowds to be won over, big stages to jump around on … and most importantly, NBA practice courts. When the singer/songwriter and his reggae/hip-hop/folk/rock band Spearhead opened for John Mayer on a North American tour this past winter, they would often coax their way into professional basketball facilities. “It would always be an off-day for the team,” he recalls, “so the coaches would come out and throw us balls, and we’d shoot and go through drills.”
Album Review: Robyn
Anyone who’s skeptical about the power of pop music to evoke emotional complexity should listen to Call Your Girlfriend, the centrepiece of Swedish pixie Robyn’s new collection. Alongside production euphoric enough to induce butterflies (with whooshes of synths and bounding arpeggios), Robyn sings from the point of view of someone trying to convince her lover to break things off with his girlfriend. She sounds simultaneously hopeful, sweet, sympathetic, hectoring, narcissistic and somewhat desperate.
