At 11:35pm on Friday, June 18th, BBC2 is slated to broadcast “Cool Britannia”, a Later with Jools Holland special. This is likely a tie-in with the DVD of the same name scheduled for release. Radiohead are going to be featured on the show, likely playing ‘The Bends’.
(Thanks to Treefingers.)
Will the rise of iTunes and portable MP3 players doom the CD? Or, more specifically, the album tracklist? Some people seem to think it will. As you’ll note, you can’t purchase Radiohead’s music on iTunes- the band has made it clear that their albums are meant to be taken as a whole. There’s a rather intelligent article in the Scotsman about this. Here’s an excerpt-
As you may have heard, the pop single is doomed. Today?s teenagers would rather buy ringtones or download songs from the internet, if they?re not buying computer games, DVDs and drugs. The grown-ups, meanwhile, have given up on singles as a rip-off and buy Norah Jones albums instead.
I won?t shed a tear. Singles are a rip-off, and I?m not sure anyone over 12 cares who is at No1 any more apart from the horrible record company people who spend fortunes putting them there. I?d feel sad if albums died too, though, as a few people now seem to think they might.
This is not a new prediction. Wise old Brian Eno once mused that in the future the idea of listening to the same prerecorded sequence of music again and again would seem medieval. The future of recording, Brian thought, would be self-generating sound – music that is different every time you play it. Recent predictions about the death of the album are more prosaic, and partly the fault of the iPod. If you can download music and store hundreds of songs on one of these fancy portable MP3 players, why buy albums? Buy individual pieces of music instead and compile your own sonic landscapes.
This bothers me. Certain sets of songs work together, and lose impact if split from each other, or even from the artwork they?re packaged in. The modern nightmare that is Radiohead?s OK Computer, the greatest pop album of the late 90s, was great partly because of the tracklisting, the way songs shared themes which resonated more as you went on (it starts with a car crash, ends with a man saying “idiot, slow down”). Then there was the haunting intermission of Fitter, Happier, perfect in the middle of the album, far less powerful elsewhere, and the paranoid artwork that made you never want to get on a plane again.
Read the entire article here.
Ain’t It Cool News has posted several reviews of an early screening of The Life Aquatic, the new film by Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums). According to one scooper, one musical montage scene utilizes ‘Everything In Its Right Place’. Now, as we all know, Wes Anderson is fond of using classic pop much more than he is using modern tunes, so whether this stays in or not is anyone’s guess. We’ll know for sure come Christmas, when the film is scheduled to be released.
As a film geek, this was already tops of my must-sees this year (along with Kill Bill 2 and a new documentary by a certain Mr. Moore). This doesn’t hurt.
On his new album Live from Bonnaroo, Govt. Mule’s Warren Haynes opens his live set with Radiohead’s ‘Lucky’. The track is available as a single as well. Click here to listen to a 30-second sample at the iTunes Music Store (iTunes required, naturally).
Here’s an excerpt from an article in the New York Times about the live album-
“Live at Bonnaroo” is Mr. Haynes’s second solo album; the first, “Tales of Ordinary Madness,” appeared in 1993, when he was still relatively obscure. If to this point Mr. Haynes has been primarily known as a prodigious guitar-slinger (last year Rolling Stone ranked him among the 25 “Greatest Guitarists of All Time”), “Bonnaroo” showcases him as a singer and songwriter. The album’s 16 songs alternate his own haunting ballads (“Beautifully Broken,” “Tastes Like Wine” and “Patchwork Quilt,” a requiem for Jerry Garcia) with versions of songs by Radiohead (“Lucky”), U2 (“One”), Otis Redding (“I’ve Got Dreams to Remember”) and the Eagles (“Wasted Time”). His voice, a husky, blues-boy croon rippling with conviction, weaves together the varied material. As far as his guitar playing on the album, however, Mr. Haynes wryly described himself as a “paid accompanist.”
“I’m not a great acoustic player,” he acknowledged. “I enjoy it, and I’m getting better, but there’s nothing virtuoso about it. And I like that. It allows me to sing and interpret the songs differently. That’s part of what makes it special for me.”
On the day the album was recorded, Mr. Haynes took the stage at around noon, a time at which he would more typically be sleeping. (Characteristically, he had played late the previous night with the Allman Brothers.) The thousands of stalwart revelers staggering into the site surely were not in much better shape. Consequently, the set has an almost dreamlike feel, as if Mr. Haynes were simply playing some of his favorite songs as they came to mind.
That’s pretty much how it was. As Mr. Haynes, who had done about a dozen solo performances in his life to that point, was sketching out his set list that morning, his wife, Stefani Scamardo, who manages him and other performers, noted the brooding Radiohead song at the top. In a perfect spousal question that is really a comment, she asked, “You’re not really going to open up with `Lucky,’ are you?” Mr. Haynes, a North Carolina native who speaks in a cheerful “hey, buddy” drawl, chuckled at the recollection. “Well, yeah,” he replied, “I think I am.”
You can read the complete article here.
The Scotsman has an interesting article on artist Susan Philipsz, who does installation art, featuring Radiohead. An excerpt…
The voice of Susan Philipsz comes singing down the telephone line from Berlin, clear, untrained, rather melancholy and as if she?s singing to herself, but with a sense of purpose. It has a muting effect. The song ends, and there?s a click of a mouse on a computer. “Did you get that?” asks Philipsz. “I held the mobile up to the computer speakers. I?m not very technical”.
The song is just one of many sound installations that Glasgow-born, Berlin-based Philipsz has created in the past decade since graduating with an MA in Fine Art from the University of Ulster.
Her lonely, detached songs won her a nomination for the Beck?s Futures Prize this year, and feature in its exhibition, which hits Glasgow this week after being shown at London?s Institute of Contemporary Arts. Philipsz didn?t win the prize, but received a share of the ?20,000 pot.
Her work is about temporarily altering listener?s perceptions. It?s what makes her an artist rather than a singer. Much of her work has involved hijacking public address systems, the first example of which was at Laganside Bus Station in Belfast in November 1998. The installation, called Filter, consisted of a recording of Philipsz singing, unaccompanied, ?Airbag? by Radiohead, ?Who Loves The Sun? by The Velvet Underground, ?Jesus Doesn?t Want Me For A Sunbeam? by Nirvana and ?As Tears Go By? by The Rolling Stones.
“I chose those songs for their themes of longing and escapism,” she says, “because bus stations are normally places where you?re waiting to be some place else. I was interested in that psychological state.”
You can read the entire article here. Sounds interesting.
CORRECTION- It’s not really our mistake, but a mistake nonetheless…Nirvana did not write ‘Jesus Don’t Want Me For a Sunbeam’, the Vaselines did. Adam and Brad wanted you to know that, and dammit, they’re right.
The PBS (Poetry Book Society) has named its list of 20 Next Generation Poets. As you may remember, Colin was on the judging panel.
You can read more about this here.