January 2010
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Crumbler's Songs for Next Year 2009
Does anyone else think it’s rude to release your list of the year’s best songs before the year is over? It’s not just that artists are still releasing new music; anyone who posts a list on Thanksgiving is giving up five weeks of listening to music! Seriously, did any of you out there feel like you had enough time to listen to music this year? Are you on top of all the albums you...
Jan 1st
December 2009
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Listen“The New Year,” Death Cab for Cutie....
Dec 31st
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Listen“In the New Year,” the Walkmen....
Dec 31st
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Listen“Glad it’s Over,” Wilco. This...
Dec 31st
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Listen“Cornerstone,” Arctic Monkeys. Three...
Dec 31st
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Crumbler's Albums of the Decade
Each year of the Big Zero, I picked a favorite album and have pretty much stuck with it ever since. Looking over the several thousand decade-in-review lists that have now been published, I haven’t read much that has made me re-consider my old favorites. That said, there have been dozens more records that were important to me over the last decade than whichever one I liked best in each...
Dec 31st
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“There are five new books on my bedside table that I’m dying to read, but if past...”
– Nick Hornby, resolving to finish all his nightstand reading in the new year, in the New York Times.
Dec 30th
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Dec 29th
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Tim O'Brien on what's wrong with contemporary...
Tim O’Brien, writer of one of my favorite short stories, had a marvelous essay in the Atlantic this year about the problems he has with many short stories. The writers’ workshops where so many of them are hatched focus on making stories “realistic,” he writes, only because it’s too painful to fault a fellow student for a failure of imagination. In general, the topic...
Dec 29th
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Jeff Tweedy at the Orpheum
For the past couple years, Wilco has generously accepted song requests through their Web site, and today I learned that the offer extends to Jeff Tweedy’s solo shows. I had a ticket to Tweedy’s sold-out show tonight at the Orpheum in downtown Phoenix, and figured I might as well request a track. It was harder to pick a song than I would have guessed. I’ve seen Wilco five...
Dec 28th
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Dec 27th
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Listen“Joseph, Who Understood,” the New...
Dec 26th
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Dec 24th
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Dec 24th
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Commercial radio's most-played songs of the decade
Via the AV Club: Country:          “Something Like That” / Tim McGraw / 487,343 spins CHR/Top 40:   “Yeah” / Usher featuring Ludacris & Lil Jon / 416,267 spins Hot AC:           “Drops Of Jupiter” (Tell Me) / Train / 338,749 spins Alternative:      “Last Resort” / Papa Roach / 221,767 spins Rhythmic:       “Low” / Flo Rida featuring...
Dec 23rd
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Dec 22nd
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Hear the James Mercer/Danger Mouse collaboration →
“The High Road,” which is apparently the first single, is promising.
Dec 21st
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Dec 21st
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Listen“Jesus Was a Crossmaker,” Frida...
Dec 20th
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“Nobody wants to write endings in television. They want to sustain the franchise....”
– David Simon, creator of The Wire, in a long interview with Vice. Simon is right on this point, I think — look at Dollhouse, which has known where it’s going from the very beginning and has been blowing my mind over the last few episodes. They only have a few episodes left to tell their...
Dec 20th
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Dec 20th
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“I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the best thing we’ve ever...”
– The National’s Matt Berninger, on the band’s forthcoming album, in Under the Radar. The record is due in May, and it should absolutely be called Underwater Peacock.
Dec 19th
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Dec 19th
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WatchWatch
Mustard the homeless man, after being discovered by radio hosts Opie and Anthony, sings the hell out of Radiohead’s ‘Creep,’ turning it into a blues song in the process. Can this guy be the next Susan Boyle? Please? (via @twentyfourbit)
Dec 16th
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Turns out everyone lies about their radio... →
But now we know what people really listen to, and while there are some sad faces (men love Celine Dion and Air Supply), I’m overjoyed at this simple fact: Meanwhile, smooth jazz has hit a low note. Clear Channel jettisoned such programming from eight of its stations after dismal ratings. Hard to imagine there will be better news today.
Dec 16th
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Grab 20 of the year's top albums for free →
Stumbled across this Tumblr, which is hosting Sendspace links to most of the big albums from this year: Animal Collective, XX, Jay-Z, Basement Jaxx, Miike Snow, Antony, Fever Ray, Passion Pit, and so on. Shady as hell, obviously, but maybe you’ve already used up all your eMusic downloads this month?
Dec 15th
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Listen“Idioteque,” Calico Horse. One of the...
Dec 15th
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Killer Crossovers 2009
Pop music this year was filled with strange intersections and worlds colliding. Below is Crumbler’s guide to the year in curious covers, strange samples and unexpected collaborations. My nine favorites: 9. Glee brings mash-ups to the mainstream. (Cast of “Glee,” “It’s My Life/Confessions.”) In “Vitamin D,” the show’s cast moved beyond its usual...
Dec 14th
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30 Christmas mash-ups →
Start with Divide & Kreate’s “Jingle Jane,” which puts “Jingle Bells” over the Velvet Underground, or DJ BC’s “Imagine Santa,” which pairs John Lennon with a young Michael Jackson.
Dec 14th
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“The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and...”
– Umberto Eco, interviewed in Spiegel. (via)
Dec 14th
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Dec 12th
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Dec 11th
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“In truth, we built the Model-T Ford because we had changed; we wanted to remake...”
– Richard Rodriguez, in a lovely elegy for newspapers, in Harper’s. “We no longer want to live in Seattle or Denver or Ann Arbor”: This seems to me to be very much the case.
Dec 11th
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Dec 10th
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Dec 10th
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 comes to Hulu →
That sound you just heard was all my free time bursting into flames. Joy!
Dec 10th
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“If the people that believed the moon landing was staged on a movie lot had...”
– Al Gore on the climate change “debate,” in Slate. So true, so depressing.
Dec 10th
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Dec 8th
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A guide to the decade's one-hit wonders →
Crazy Town, “Mambo No. 5,” “Chain Hang Low.” We are owed an apology.
Dec 8th
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Dec 8th
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Dec 6th
WatchWatch
Stereogum repeats its excellent joke from last year, paying tribute to all the bands who broke up in 2009 in the Oscars’ dead-person montage style. Don’t look back in anger, indeed.
Dec 5th
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“I think that, as more high-profile people come out as gay, there will be more...”
– Will Duane, smokehouse attendant, on Family Ties’ Meredith Baxter coming out.
Dec 4th
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Dec 4th
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Fleet Foxes to become hippie jam band
From Tom Breihan’s interview today with Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes: I think it will just be a different feeling instead of mellow. But positive— it will just be a different feeling from that. Different chord shapes, some extended. On the first record, I kind of wanted to avoid any extended grooves. But there’s definitely a couple of those coming in now, where the guitar part...
Dec 4th
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Dec 3rd
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“One night after a long day of campaigning, when the haters had made my spirits...”
– Ann Sensenbrenner, with the winning entry in the Write Like Sarah Palin contest, in Slate.
Dec 3rd
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“Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who...”
– From the Telegraph.
Dec 3rd
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The Executioner's Sax
thedanimal: As an early Christmas present to Casey, I present the director’s cuts from “Big Man” by Clarence Clemons and Don Reo. “Wow,” said the waitress. “You’re Clarence Clemons.” “Guilty,” said Clarence. “And I’m Bruce Springsteen,” said Norman Mailer. “No you’re not,” she said, but you could tell she wasn’t really sure. “I’ve put on a little weight,” said Norman patting his gut. “Well...
Dec 3rd
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Dec 3rd
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