Pop Pretension: A Pretentious Site About Pop Music

Iggy Fucking Pop and the Fucking Stooges

2007-04-12T11:48:00.000-04:00

I got very close to Iggy Pop last night at the Electric Factory. You can even tell on my shitty cell-cam.

This show was the best kind of violence.

I have to rely on communicating through the interweb because I don't anticipate hearing again for a couple of days.

In the pic directly to the left, Iggy is leaning on the speaker stack about five feet away from me. The doctors say I may have brained my damage.

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Christianity, Germans and Hairy-Chested Man-Love

2007-01-01T21:00:00.000-05:00

I know it looks like these guys are running a sexy landscaping service. Actually though, they are musicians. Click the link above to see some of the most inspired album covers in the history of rock.

This collection of album covers may dispel the myth that all musicians get laid. And I'm putting out an all-points bulletin requesting the hook-up from anybody who knows where I can find "The Handless Organist." I'm marrying a woman without any limbs and I want to get this lady to play at our wedding.

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Free Miyoko: A Japanese Political Prisoner Who Just Wanted To Rock

2006-12-27T23:15:00.000-05:00

All of a sudden, it's illegal to rock out with your cock out, 24/7 in Japan, even in your own home!!

59 year old Miyoko Kawahara paid the ultimate price for her balls-out, good-time, party style.

According to The New York Times, "a Japanese woman charged with inflicting injury on her neighbor by blasting rock music at her house for 2 1/2 years was given a 20-month prison term, a court official said."

Due to the nature of the adverse health effects experienced by the 'victims' of this crime, we may assume that the recordings were likely the Quiet Riot/Twisted Sister brand of heaviousity which has already reduced so many peoples of the Asian continent, unprepared for the rockin' intensity of western makeup metal, to quivering post-traumatic litigiousness. A culture clash run amok, our heavy metal is the atom bomb of present day. . . assuming present day were fifteen years ago.

Surely this may seem an insignificant legal precedent now. But it's a slippery slope. If the Japanese don't rise up and stomp the anti-metalocracy invading their judicial law, the music world may become unsafe for such Japanese trending staples as The Blue Oyster Cult's 'Godzilla' and Randy Newman's 'Short People.'

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Underwater Dance Club

2006-02-06T16:46:00.000-05:00

New Orleans was famous, not so long ago, for its music. The poverty, crime and flying red cockroaches also had the effect of imbuing the magical city with its uniquely decaying charm. But the legacy of Fats Domino, Professor Longhair and Dr. Teeth from the Muppets' Electric Mayhem is still struggling to resurface through the stagnant aftermath of Katrina.

With the help of ongoing donations from artists like Pearl Jam, Wilco and U2's The Edge (who is a righteous dork), New Orleans has courted many musicians to return to the city from which ¾ of the population remains in exile. The modestly paying gigs which are being funded by such charitable efforts, however, do not constitute a living for many. Amongst its many mysteries as its pursues the still nebulous goal of restoring New Orleans to any reflection of its former self will be whether or not it is plausible to revive the sound that once distinguished it, even if only marginally, from a bacchanalian ghost town.

An administrator of the MusicCares program, which is commissioned with the task of resurrecting New Orleans' swing, Bethany Bultman “is heartened by the outpouring of generosity of her top donors and has nothing but praise for MusiCares. But five months after Katrina, Bultman feels that little has been accomplished. Nearly all of the 200 musicians she helps lack a place to live. She worries the situation will only get worse with a dearth of health care and tries to communicate to the national associations that the effort to restore the music community in New Orleans is one that will take years -- and one that will happen one saxophone at a time.” (Martens)

On a side note, check out the eerily prescient 2003 tune “Underwater Dance Club” by New Orleans native band Quintron.

Read the rest of the N.O. article at the following link or by clicking on the title link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020500713.html

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Bonnaroo Sells US Out? Try Like Five Years Ago

2006-02-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

Ray Waddell, in his Billboard article entitled "Bonnaroo Goes Rock", indicates the this 2006's line up for the Bonnaroo Festival will shift gears from a more "jam band oriented" bill of artists to an "indie" one. Bonnaroo's success since its inception in 2002 has made it the top grossing music festival in the world.

"Last year, it took in $13.4 million and drew 76,049 people to its rural setting about 60 miles south of Nashville. Last year's numbers were down from $14.5 million and 90,000 attendance in 2004; attendance will be capped at 80,000 this year and ticket prices will be increased slightly from the $172.50-$146.50 charged last year."

By "indie", Bonnaroo's spokespeople are referring to the fact that bands like Steve Malkmus and the Jicks, Deathcab for Cutie, and My Morning Jacket will be added to a line up which already features Soul Live, Dr. John, and Ben Folds.

Is this an improvement or not? Weigh in with your comments. This year's Bonnaroo is going to ditch Trey Anastasio for Malkmus, but also is going to force us to listen to Deathcab for Cutie. Considering the fact that the audience is still stuck with the "blowing into a hollow log" inspired Rusted Root and the musical circle jerk of Medeski, Martin, and Wood, I don't think I'll be shelling out the more than $150ish price for the ticket, though Beck will be there.

2006 BONNAROO- JOHNNY ON THE SPOT OR WAVING ITS DICK IN THE WIND

COMMENT AND LET US KNOW

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In a World Frozen Over with Over-Exposure...

2006-01-31T18:43:00.000-05:00

Aptly, the title of this post comes from a Soul Asylum tune. The irony of the title, brought full circle by the band's capitalization on the Seatte Grunge movement of the early 1990's, is that Soul Asylum attempted to piggy-back on a popular trend and yet fell short on substance alone. The title of the blog encapsulates a major reason why this band experienced any success at all.

Akin to this, the Artic Monkeys have exploded onto the current music scene, whatever it may be. Piggybacking off of whatever godforsaken crap these kids are listening to, the Arctic Monkeys promise to be the next big thing (plus, in order to capture the 18-35 market, record execs. have begun calling them the new "Oasis"....WOW.) In any event, the link for this blog leads to a review of the Arctic Monkeys' debut album titled, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not". What rebels.

"The Arctic Monkeys have been whirled around in a no-hype-hype doublespeak that's clearly been exploited to the very hilt in order to get most of the music press and beyond all chattering to the same tune."--Luke Turner, Reviewer for Playlouder.com

Iggy Pop, after horribly wounding his chest by falling on a table of glasses at a bar, bled all over the audience. That was rock'n'roll. The Arctic Monkeys have no street cred with me. Not until they slit their own throats and follow Iggy's example.

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Steal Your Daddy’s Records While He’s Drinking

2006-01-23T20:05:00.000-05:00

Admit it. You have no idea how to take care of your CDs. You’ve lent them out to your irresponsible friends, stacked them recklessly in your car, used them as drink-coasters and played Prince’s “Sexy Mutha Fucka” on repeat so many times that the laser-print has flaked off and become a threat to your health. They skip and scuff and generally sound like flatulence in a tin can. It’s not your fault though. CDs really do blow.

It could be that the impermanence of the digital medium and the increasing disposability of CDs is causing a popular return to the rich analog hiss of the LP. After twenty years of dormancy, vinyl is doing well in the 21^st century.

Maybe it’s time to convert. Don’t worry. You’re never too young.

“Teens have become a surprise addition to this music-appreciation class. Youths who were born years after the CD became entrenched in the 1980s are fueling a resurgence in LPs, said Roger Bridge, product manager for vinyl for Virgin Megastores. Virgin is one of the few large retailers to carry a sizable selection of vinyl.

"I've been amazed at the success we've had," said Bridge, who has overseen Virgin's rededication to vinyl in his three years there. "I'd read reports everywhere about the death of vinyl, but it just wasn't given the attention it deserves."

As interest in vinyl grows, so does the number of bands wanting their albums issued on LPs as well as on CD, Bridge said. Indie groups appreciate vinyl because, for one thing, that's what the cool kids listen to.

That's right. The hippest kids are listening to their father's music medium.” (Craven)

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Record Companies Bitch And Moan All the Way. . . Away from the Bank

2006-01-23T19:32:00.000-05:00

First they didn’t like the P2P music piracy. Now they don’t like the legal pay sites. As the record industry recorded its sixth straight year of losses, ITunes turned in staggering numbers. Record companies don’t have the technology or the understanding of the product but they have come up with an innovative way to lose less money. They want to charge you more.

“Followers of the digital music industry [‘Read: record executives,’ Balls.] are voicing concerns that the growth of legitimate downloads-- such as those offered by Apple's iTunes Music Store- have incurred lasting damage to record labels' profitability. "Music has become a disposable item," said Nicholas Firth, chairman and CEO of BMG Music Publishing. "For many people it's a traffic builder," Firth said. The $1.1 billion earned last year in digital music sales is mostly comprised of online iTunes sales, and some believe that Apple's dominating website is part of the problem, according to a report from the Associated Press” (IPodnn)

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Western Music Banned in Iran: Black Market Sales of America’s “Horse With No Name” skyrocket.

2006-01-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

“Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has signed a decree banning all Western music that 'does not conform to Islamic doctrines and the spirit of the Islamic Revolution.' The ban applies to state-run radio and TV. Television stations will only be allowed to broadcast relaxing and memorable revolutionary music.” (Reitov)

Only a few select artists have been deemed acceptable for play on Iranian public airwaves. Chief among them is the British mega-band Coldplay, which generally tends to encourage despair, suicide bombing and other forms of artistic fundamentalist Islamic expression.

Other western artists, such as Britney Spears, who was credited with a syphilis outbreak in Iran’s adolescent female population, and Creed, which promotes a specifically Christian type of revolutionary violence, are henceforth strictly forbidden from radio play in the theocratic Persian Gulf state. A fiery Iranian Communications Commission administrator explained in a transcribed interview that ‘we don’t tolerate that kind of crap in our country. Allah considers sucking to be an egregious sin for which the only suitable punishment is being raped in the ocular cavities by a camel.” Efforts to extradite former Creed front-man Scott Stapp to Iran have already begun.

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The Record Industry: Dumb as Dogshit

2006-01-16T14:37:00.000-05:00

Record companies understand Peer to Peer music downloading as well as they understand music. The RIAA continues to hipshot one meaningless lawsuit after another at private citizens who have committed the heinous crime of listening to music without selling a kidney to afford it. As a means to stemming the tide of its financial losses, this method has failed miserably, with users preferring the risk of ass-raping imprisonment over listening to Ashley Simpson and Yellowcard.

The record industry is bleeding to death and it can’t seem to clot the gashes, no matter how many Creed-like scabby pustules fill the holes. In addition to proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it has no clue how to produce music of substance or staying power, the record industry is demonstrating its ignorance to shifts in media use as well.

“SINCE 2003 THE Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed almost 15,000 lawsuits charging computer users with trading music online.

In October attorney Ray Beckerman . . . told Wired News he believes thousands of defendants may have been falsely accused. As Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director Cindy Cohn points out, investigators may incorrectly link file lists to Internet protocol addresses, and cable companies have been known to incorrectly link IP addresses to customers. Furthermore, as home and cafe wireless networks become more common, there's no guarantee that the customer was the one sharing music.” (Sanchez)

The Record conglomerate is a dinosaur that will die because of its tiny, pre-evolutionary brain.

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Polishing the Brass KNOB of the Sinking Ship of Rock and Roll

2006-01-12T12:44:00.000-05:00

-----i love cumbersome headlines...hahaha

Today's blog entry hits to the heart of the matter with the problems inherent in what we, the consumers, have decided to accept as music. I recommend that if you read one article about the current state of rock and pop music, this would be the one...well at least for today (I'm admittedly fickle). Some choice excerpts from Roger Scruton's National Review 2002 article entitled, "The Song is Ended-Analysis of Pop Music Today", should whet your appetite to click this link.

Roger writes:

The dynamic interaction between serious and popular music came to an abrupt end with rock. With a few exceptions, the only input into modern pop is pop: Oasis is downstream from no one save the Beatles. The musical language has remained fixed in the moment of the Sixties, gradually losing the life and the melodic invention of those years, to become a kind of mechanical parody of its own infertile repertoire.

But although the language has remained unchanged, the way of producing and consuming it has suffered a radical upheaval. Modern pop is essentially processed music, in which the major chord is engineered into fast-food flavors and packaged behind a juvenile face. The songs are machine-made, according to a standard specification, and the best that we can hope from them, musically speaking, is a catchy tune, as in the Spice Girls' "Wannabe." The music is often inseparable from the video, or impossible to perform without the engineers who are its true creators -- as in the notorious case of Milli Vanilli, whose Grammy award of 1990 was quite unfairly rescinded when it was discovered that they did not perform the music that was recorded in their name.

At the risk of being cheesey...I'm going to quote a Bob Dylan song:

"Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to" --It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Listen to Bob Dylan, refuse to eat the shit that they serve you.

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Fools Rush In...With Stabby Eyes

2006-01-10T13:29:00.000-05:00

If the outlandish repetition of an Elvis composition can drive someone to attempted murder, what then arethe effects of the continuous streams of the same 4 to 5 sub-par pieces of musical diarrhea that children are exposed to daily by FM radio, and in the larger sense, Clear Channel. I submit the above article as concrete proof that music, and the tireless repetition thereof, can and, in some cases, does promote violence, even if the lyrics and tune are devoid of negative intentions. Parents beware, the Blacked Eyed Peas may give your kids the final push they need to murder you in your sleep.

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Crappy Music Sells, But Not That Well

2006-01-07T15:25:00.000-05:00

2005 will go down on record as a year of tumult, chaos and handheld wireless devices that almost work. Bookended by natural disasters, shrouded by political scandal and glossed over by consumerism, the year produced music with no conscience, no interest in the world and no capacity to sustain long-term album sales.

“Album sales dropped again in 2005: Mass-market hits felt disposable, like a momentary pleasure rather than like something worth owning.

The best-selling album released last year was Mariah Carey's Emancipation of Mimi, which shuns eccentricities to offer radio-ready R&B songs about hooking up, breaking up and making up. In the last weeks of December, its sales edged out the routine gangsta rap of 50 Cent's Massacre, which substitutes belligerence for romance but is no less circumscribed.” (Pareles, 1)

The music industry is failing and they say it’s your fault for downloading instead of paying for your music. It may take a few more years before these buttholes learn to sell you something that’s actually worth paying for.

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Times, They Are A Changin'

2006-01-05T00:53:00.000-05:00

These are just a few choice lines taken from Time Magazine's June 18, 1956 issue regarding the "fad" of rock'n'roll:

" In Boston Roman Catholic leaders urged that the offensive music be boycotted... In Minneapolis a theater manager withdrew a film featuring the music after a gang of youngsters left the theater, snake-danced around town, and smashed windows. In Birmingham champions of white supremacy decried it as part of a Negro plot against the whites..."

"Rock 'n' roll is based on Negro blues, but in a self-conscious style which underlines the primitive qualities of the blues with malice aforethought..."

"Psychologists feel that rock 'n' roll's deepest appeal is to the teener's need to belong; the results bear passing resemblence to Hitler mass meetings..." (54)

---Let us fast forward 50 years to an article concerning the benefits of Rock in adolescent therapy written by prominent music therapist Jukko Tervo. He writes:

"The significance of rock music is essentially connected with the fact that the adolescent has neither words nor commonly shared ways of expressing the new and never before experienced changes taking place within him- or herself. Music can emotionally affect adolescents at a deeper level than is possible with words alone. Rock music can enable adolescents to express, to be in contact with and to share amongst themselves feelings of anger, rage, grief, longing, isolation, psychological disintegration etc., as well as to experience closeness. It can safely lull the adolescent into regressive moods and – with its musical clarity, simplicity and high volume – give shelter to the distressed and may sometimes even be of help to confused adolescents"

WAIT A MINUTE...WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NEGRO CONSPIRACY TO RESSURECT THE HITLER YOUTH?

I'll tell you what happened. Rock'n'Roll has lost its way.

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