Danger Mouse

Why should anyone care about Beck? Isn’t he just some 90's holdover gone morose, gone Scientologist, gone lame with the weight of his early successes and the death of irony, that vein he mined so long and so well?

 

His last two releases, the aimless Guero and the overworked yet hollow The Information were critically shrugged at and popularly buoyed by the artist’s (deserved) reputation, but seemed to have found Beck Hansen short on good ideas or good energy, something for which he was never, ever lacking.

Yet the father of two is nearing 40, at the tail end of his recording contract, undetermined as to his future, and like the rest of us looking at the abyss that is the future of music.  read more »

Howard Wolfson, the Casey Kasem of New York politics, just sent out his annual Top 10 album list, an eagerly-awaited annual document that some unsophisticated reporters occasionally use to guide their Christmas shopping.

You sort of knew he'd like the political new Green Day album, American Idiot, which gets this plug:

"What happens when the glue sniffing class clowns starting raising their hands and getting the answers right?"

The full reviews are on his site, but here's what Howard's been listening to on those long drives:  read more »

Funeral -- Arcade Fire U2 -- How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb DJ Dangermouse -- The Grey Album Elliott Smith -- From a Basement on the Hill TV on the Radio -- Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes Green Day -- American Idiot AC Newman -- The Slow Wonder and Snow Patrol - Final Straw Kanye West -- College Dropout Morrissey -- You are the Quarry Franz Ferdinand -- Franz Ferdinand