Idolator, All About the Music... If Only It Were

etymologies

Nick Diamonds Figures Out The Secret Meaning Of Vampire Weekend's Name

We sent Idolator videographer Alex Goldberg to the steaming hot Coney Island boardwalk for Siren Fest on Saturday, and while he was there he chatted up a few of the artists present, including Nick Diamonds from Islands. Above, a routine "who would win in a fight" conversation about Islands and Vampire Weekend turns into a revelation of the sinister meanings behind the name of Morningside Heights' most well-known deck-shoe-wearers. Here's a preview: The words "parasitic" and "temporary" are both used![YouTube]

11:00 AM on Thu Jul 24 2008
By Maura Johnston
5 views, Comment

OMG, could Sugarland keep Miley Cyrus from the top spot on the album charts next week? Breakout was only 2,000 sales ahead of the super-deluxe edition of Sugarland's Love On The Inside through the end of yesterday, according to sales reported by Trans World Entertainment, Best Buy, Circuit City, Starbucks, Borders, iTunes, Target, Anderson Merchandisers, and Handleman. (Both albums officially hit stores on Tuesday.) And Sugarland's outselling Miley at Amazon, too! What will Disney do? Does this mean more MySpace picture leaks are in the offing? [Billboard]

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they're gonna clean up your looks

Russia Is Getting Ready To Outlaw Teenagers' Acting Out

Over in Russia, there's concern about the future of the country, thanks to the kids who are doing crazy things like growing their bangs long and piercing their eyebrows and listening to the Used. The adults are alarmed: Who will rule the country in 2020 if the adolescents of today are too busy rebelling through their teenage years? These tendencies are, after all, so abnormal—especially when they involve black nail polish and studded belts. The only way to fix this problem, some Russian politicians are saying, is to legislate against it! Which is why there's a bill that's trying to outlaw the "negative ideology" of emo, a term that apparently has one of those "I know it when I see it" definitions among the brainiacs who drafted the bill. More »

10:15 AM on Thu Jul 24 2008
By Maura Johnston
62 views, 4 comments

Latest by NeverEnough: @Ned Raggett: I love you. more »

the biz

Some Music Business-Related Statistics Are Actually Trending Up

Hey, guess what? Music-business stocks are only doing poorly, as opposed to piss-poorly! Shares of Warner Music Group and Live Nation, both of which have taken hits lately, have sort of risen from their recent doldrums; WMG saw a five percent day-to-day increase at the end of yesterday's trading, while LYV rose "as much as nine percent" during the course of yesterday. Media attention helped out WMG, which was called the best-performing media stock of 2008 by the New York Post earlier this week. That's because the stock price, despite the company taking a beating from industry observers, has rebounded 34% from the $5 mark it was at when this year rang its opening bell. (Of course, the stock's current "good" price is way off the stock's highwater mark of $29.48. I thought people who traded stocks were supposed to know how to read through slightly fishy math?) Meanwhile, one of the explanations for Live Nation's uptick seems a little fishy to these eyes. More »

9:45 AM on Thu Jul 24 2008
By Maura Johnston
49 views, Comment

videodrone

Nas Brings His 600,000-Plus Signatures To Stephen Colbert's Place

On the heels of the Fox News protest he led outside the NewsCorp Building and his album hitting No. 1, Nas stopped by the Colbert Report to chat with Stephen about why he was in a flame war with Fox and Bill O'Reilly in particular, the scrapped title of his album, and how the news media is somehow more sensationalist than ever before. Video of him performing his Fox News dis "Sly Fox" after the jump. More »

9:15 AM on Thu Jul 24 2008
By Maura Johnston
152 views, Comment

In case you weren't irritated enough by the DJ Khaled video that premiered yesterday, Complex has helpfully provided a list of the man's five most annoying moments. Apparently he dreams of owning gas stations someday, which leads me to believe that he needs something of a primer on the state of that particular business. [Complex]

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yo quiero yum brands' money

50 Cent Is Really Going Through With That Taco Bell Lawsuit

"50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, accuses the Mexican-style fast food chain of 'diluting the value of his good name' and employing a guerrilla advertising campaign to fool consumers into thinking he had endorsed the chain, said the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court. ... 'As Taco Bell intended, many customers believed that 50 Cent had agreed to endorse Taco Bell's products. Indeed, postings on numerous Internet 'blogs' castigated 50 Cent for 'selling out' by his apparent endorsement of Taco Bell,' the lawsuit said." Wait, 50 Cent cares about what bloggers think? I thought his immense piles of money acted as soundproofing from the Internet hoi polloi, although maybe his associates' albums chronic stiffing has changed his perspective on things. [Reuters / Previously]

6:45 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Maura Johnston
112 views, 1 comment

Latest by Captain Wrong: 'diluting the value of his good name'? Oh, I don't think Curtis needs any help there. more »

O.P.P., We Did It Again

"Rough"-ing It In East Africa

Even in the MP3 age, there are CDs worth searching out—and that require the search. "O.O.P., We Did It Again" is dedicated to great albums that are criminally out of print, and that aren't necessarily likely to become available anytime soon. More »

5:30 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
256 views, 4 comments

A Good Drum Session: It May Be Better For You Than Wii Fit

"Dr Marcus Smith, from Chichester University, said drummers needed 'extraordinary stamina.' A hour in concert could burn between 400 and 600 calories, he said." A vigorous concert could result in drummers reaching heart rates of 140-150 beats a minute, with peaks reaching 190. As a drummer friend of mine told me when I shared these results with him, "that's why I'm such a good lay." (Ladies, he's available!) [BBC / Pic via Panopticist]

3 comments

Hey, Fortune! I know that as a Time Inc. publication in 2008, you're pretty much charged with putting a shiny happy gloss on news pegs for "interesting" business ventures out there, and doing so in word counts that are dwindling so quickly, you'll eventually be communicating via semaphore. (Or photo galleries. Or both.) But when you drop a statement like "Just as the political bloggers are altering the outcome of elections, MP3 bloggers are changing the way people discover new music" in an otherwise decent article on the Hype Machine, maybe you should actually hold up an example of that "discovery," so as to give your readers a little bit of context? Especially given that the one good thing the Internet music elite seem to be better at chewing bands up and spitting them out before they've even been partially digested than actually "discovering" them? [CNNMoney]

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arguing on the internet

Is Techno In A Holding Pattern?

This may be super-last-week of me to mention, but I admired Philip Sherburne's recent Pitchfork column about what he sees as a current malaise in dance music. For one thing, it's a piece whose main body (the stuff Sherburne wrote, not the quotes beneath it) you can read and substitute your own proper nouns into: it's apt about a lot more than just dance music right now. What's most interesting, though, is the light it sheds on dance music as a business. More »

4:30 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
648 views, 8 comments

Latest by spazandmojo: @Norman: i second your knife comment... i like them to a degree as well, but they are pop. and even what they do with the influences of pop and dance can be traced into the eighties to folks like anne clark, 242, etc. more »

who charted

Nas Doesn't Need A Title To Wind Up On Top

Nas' new album, which was stripped of its epithetastic title in the months leading up to its release, took the No. 1 spot on this week's album charts, selling 187,000 copies in its first week out. The album, which leaked earlier this month, had a first-week total that was a little more than half of the 355,000-sold mark achieved by Hip-Hop Is Dead a year and a half ago. Nas is Nas' fourth career No. 1. More »

4:00 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Maura Johnston
333 views, 5 comments

Quotable

Lloyd Shows Us How To Do A Q & A

Here at Idolator, we have a collective love for the R & B singer Lloyd, whose forthcoming album Lessons In Love drops Aug. 5. That admiration was mainly based on his musical output, which is made up of some of the finest R & B tracks of the last few (maybe more) years. But there's a whole new reason to have a crush on him now, as this chat he had with TJ Tanner of Neon Limelight shows that his interview technique is as smooth as his falsetto. (Two minutes into their interview, he says to her, "If you look anything close to how you sound you have to be the finest woman alive." The reason? "I have an album coming out in two weeks. Why wouldn't I try to win you over?") After the jump, other choice quotes. More »

3:45 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Maura Johnston
176 views, 2 comments

Latest by breedavies: I would've liked the entire interview to be about his hair. more »

BREAKING: Zune Tattoo Guy Gives Up

"I am done. I have had the Zune since day 1 and have noticed little improvement. I have tried my best to support them every step of the way but the recent Xbox Live announcement at E3 made me lose it. To not include Zune Marketplace or the ability to load videos from Xbox Live to your Zune made me finally give up. I am in the works of figuring the best way to get a new tattoo to cover the logo on my arm. Thanks for all the harsh comments and you will see very little of me anymore." I guess this means the name change plan never worked out? [Zune Scene]

4 comments

serve this

A Real-Life Interaction With 2 Live Crew's Brother Marquis

Late last week, I was out walking to a movie in downtown Seattle when I got the following text message from a friend in Minneapolis who works in a hotel restaurant: "Haha. I served and got hit on by brother marquis of 2 live crew. Get this, he was in town because he is being charged for sexual harassment by a woman from a club." I had to ask for further details. Here, pretty much verbatim, is what my friend told me. More »

3:00 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
298 views, 2 comments

Latest by rcr2: Oh, great. Now I have to go download As Nasty As they Wanna Be. more »

videodrone

Come Back, Matisyahu, All Is Forgiven

Someone brought to our attention this morning the existence of JewTube, which is exactly what you think it is. The emphasis seems to be heavily weighted toward the Orthodox end of things, so you wouldn't think you'd find much in the way of music. However, a search for "music" brought up, among other things, a list of phrases to click on. I went for "hip-hop." And how. Enjoy the site's sole rap effort to date, about which none more needs be said than the title of this entry. Oh yeah, and another thing: Oy. [JewTube] More »

2:30 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
173 views, 7 comments

Latest by KikoJones: What about these guys?+ Watch video Surely you've heard of their spanglish Hannukah song "Ocho Kandelikas" (above) or the always so tasteful "Kike on the Mike", right? more »

Higher education

"New York Times" Gets In On The Drum Line

Good NYT piece today by Samuel G. Freedman, who reports on the spike in enrollment for Florida A&M University's summer band camp, in which some 450 students compete for a spot in the school's famed drumline corps the Marching 100. It's an illuminating look at how stylized marching bands are continuing their work into the digital age, and often enhanced by it. (Students like the Seattle teenager Freedman centers his story around often get into the camp after seeing the Marching 100 online.) It's also got some intriguing numbers: More »

2:00 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
159 views, 7 comments

Latest by The Illiterate: When I was at the movies this weekend, there was an ad for the drumline championships, which are going to be broadcast in theaters around the country. It's obviously become a very big deal. more »

videodrone

DJ Khaled Convenes (Another) Battle Royale Of Sheer Annoyingness

It has come to our attention that DJ Khaled is screaming over giant, Jeep-ready beats that have lots of names and almost nothing else of any merit going for them. Again. Now and, apparently, forever, but instead of "We Takin' Over" the name of the new album is We Global Now, continuing the least talented man in hip-hop's impressive streak of meaningless megalomania. Oh wait—"forever" is just how long it feels like listening to this clown wrench the words "We the best!" over and over again. It's hard to decide what the worst part of this video is: Akon declaring, "I'm-a stay me" (must you?) or the fact that Fat Joe keeps popping up in the clip despite not having a single verse in the song. Does this make him the Jon Lovitz of rap videos? [OnSmash]

1:30 PM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
109 views, 1 comment

Latest by Oface: Aww...Guidos are so excited about this song. Its their summer jam, yo. more »