« older | Main Largehearted Boy Page | newer »
December 7, 2007
Shorties
Notable additions to the master list of online 2007 music lists include the Guardian music critics best albums of the year, Rock Insider's best Los Angeles albums, and WFUV's best albums.
All yesterday's additions to the constantly updated master list of online 2007 music lists:
The Blog of Eternal Stench (top albums)
Controlling_Chaos (top albums)
dyme def (favorite albums)
Eskimo Bliss (top albums)
Fresh Cherries from Yakima (favorite Royce 5'9" lines)
Fresh Cherries from Yakima (music)
Fresh Cherries from Yakima (top northwest bands to watch in 2008)
Georgetown Voice (top albums)
GorillavsBear (favorite songs)
Guardian music critics (best albums)
The Hamilton Adventures (best albums)
It Covers the Hillsides (best albums)
Jared Followill - Kings of Leon (best albums)
In League with Paton (albums of the year)
Letters Home from Camp - Eric (top albums)
Markland Starkie (favorite albums)
Max Silvestri (best albums)
The NDNU Argonaut (best albums)
Passion of the Weiss (best hip-hop songs)
Provocatively Evocative: The Destroyer (top albums)
Rock Insider (best Los Angeles Albums)
The Sandman Chronicles (top albums)
Save the Robot - Chris Dahlen (favorite songs)
Silhouettes of Birds and Trees (best albums)
SL__72 (top albums)
There Stands the Glass (top songs)
To Die By Your Side (essential albums)
Unconventionalitismnessity (top albums)
VH1 Blog (top albums)
VH1 Blog (top singles)
WFUV (best albums)
you're a city on a hillside in a country far from here (top albums)
see also:
the constantly updated list of online "best of 2007" music lists
the complete list of online "best of 2006" music lists
The Denver Post interviews Voxtrot frontman Ramesh Srivastava.
Q:Critical hype always seems to be a topic in early Voxtrot interviews. So I'll ask: How do you feel about the press attention these days?
A:You're thankful for every bit of press that comes along at first, but then you start sifting through it and having your own opinions about it. We're still thankful. But when you start out younger you take everything said about you as true, then realize that not everybody in the press or older than you has a more valid opinion.
The Daily Herald offers box set, DVD, and book gift suggestions for music fans.
The Chicago Tribune lists the year's best soundtrack albums.
The Asheville Citizen-Times interviews Black Lips drummer Joe Bradley.
Q: You guys helped start a scene in Atlanta with bands like Deerhunter and Snowden. What’s the scene like down there these days?
A: It’s great. There’s a lot of audience participation. In Atlanta, there’s never been any one scene that’s big enough to have its own club or following, so all of the different types of bands just play together. There’ll be some punk band with us and maybe Deerhunter on the bill, so you get a good variety. And everyone is real close and friendly.
The Lafayette Courier and Journal interviews singer-songwriter Tim Williams.
Who are your major musical influences?
Now, I really enjoy Hank Williams and George Jones and newer songwriters like Will Oldham. I enjoy a broad range of stuff and yet I'm really picky as well. Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters is another one. I like people who have been around awhile. I believe I need to put out a lot of records to be taken seriously. I'm in it for the long-haul.
The Rocky Mountain News lists the top 25 debut novels of the year, and includes Largehearted Boy Book Notes contributor Joshua Furst's The Sabotage Cafe.
The Guardian's sport blog lists six great football (soccer to Americans) books.
The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival has set its dates for 2008, June 12-15.
The Economist lists its books of the year.
Daytrotter features Ferraby Lionheart with an interview and in-studio performance.
The Minneapolis City Pages interviews singer-songwriter Nellie McKay.
CP: Your songs are diverse musically. When you compose a song that combines genres – like "Sari", which incorporates hip-hop elements – do you set out to try to combine styles in a certain way, like “Hey, maybe I'll shout here, maybe I'll put a quiet piano part here”?
NM: I have no idea. [Pauses, laughs] With "Sari," basically nobody in the studio had any experience producing hip-hop, so we were wandering around the studio randomly asking people “is this funky? Does this sound funky to you?” But it is nice to always have fresh things.
Harp also interviews McKay.
HARP: Do you feel like the protest song is diluted by the notion that protest itself is diluted by rhetoric, and by celebrities taking stands because they have to get PR?
The fact that the problem has been around forever does not render the objection passé. There are many easier ways to get PR than protesting—as long as an injustice continues, people have a responsibility to try and stop it.
JasonHare.com is sharing "mellowmas" holiday tunes.
No Dessert for You lists its favorite "non-Christmas" Christmas albums.
Inside Vandy profiles one of my favorite indie record stores, Nashville Grimey's.
So other than listening to music at one of the store’s many listening stations, what else does Grimey’s offer? Well, bands play in the store all the time. There have been tons of in-store performances by both up-and-comers and established artists, including Feist, the Black Keys and Frank Black of the Pixies. Or might your trip to Grimey’s include rubbing elbows with music’s most talented? Possibly. Meg White of The White Stripes is a regular, and her ex-husband Jack stops in on occasion.
Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara talks to the Age.
The Manchester Evening News profiles noted indie rock poster artist Jay Ryan.
Jay who is renowned for his humorous, vacant-eyed and almost cartoonish animal images in dynamic colours, and Diana, who works in a fine-art influenced illustrative style, are in the enviable position of only working for musicians they admire - artists like Arctic Monkeys, Crowded House, Shellac and The Decemberists.
“I had a school girl crush on Crowded House,” admitted Diana.
Jay added: “Shellac is one of my favourites, they have a great sense of humour and I like working for bands with a sense of humour about themselves.
“I have a harder time working for very serious bands.”
Matthew Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces explains his songwriting influences to the Montreal Gazette.
"The big records of the late-'60s," he said, "like (the Beach Boys') Good Vibrations, (The Who's) A Quick One While He's Away, and John Lennon's songs from the White Album, like Cry Baby Cry and Happiness Is a Warm Gun - the way they were made was very different.
"I don't compare any song I've written to anything as perfect as that, but that kind of structure, those little surprises, are the songs I like best. I also like a three-minute song that doesn't change much, but there are a lot of other people writing those, it seems."
A representative from Merge Records explains the importance of the Arcade Fire's Grammy Nomination to the Montreal Gazette.
"The exposure is going to help in terms of getting the band's name out to a demographic that might not have been exposed to it. The Grammys are by nature a pretty mainstream entity. It's nice to get that recognition from the music industry as a whole."
Sharon Jones explains her classic sound to the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
"This is my life," she said. "I've been doing what I do for the last 40-something years.
"People ask, 'Are you trying to create a classic soul sound?' I ain't creatin' nothing. Every time I open my mouth, this is what's going to come out."
Status Ain't Hood examines the 2008 Grammy nominations.
LAist offers an audio interview with former Blondie singer Debbie Harry.
Engadget readers recommend the best earbuds (my vote is for the Shure E3c's).
Voting kicks off today for NME's 2008 Shockwave Awards.
The Florence Times-Daily notes the resurgence of Alabama's Muscle Shoals music scene.
Guardian readers recommend songs about other songs.
Singer-songwriter Aimee Mann talks to the Northwest Herald about her Christmas album, One More Drifter in the Snow, released last year.
“I didn’t want to do a modern version of Christmas songs,” Mann said. “That always drives me crazy. For me personally, I don’t want to hear the electronica version of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.’
“I wanted to make a record that was like my favorite Christmas records that Dean Martin or Johnny Mathis made, but with a smaller group, more like a jazz trio sound instead of an orchestra. We wanted to make it old-fashioned and a little quirky.”
also at Largehearted Boy:
2007 online music lists
Daily Downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
