Posts from December 2000

30
Dec 00

Before I head off for New Year’s

• New York London Paris Munich • • Post a comment • 333 views

Before I head off for New Year’s, another anniversary – tomorrow marks the first birthday of Elidor, NYLPM contributor Robin Carmody’s music’n’culture website. Which, obviously, comes highly recommended.

And it being the end of the year, I’ll just say that I thought 2000 was – in the end – a pretty good year for reading about music. Not on the newstands, but here on the web. At the end of last year I had about six or seven music bookmarks – now I read 3 or 4 times that number of sites regularly, and best of all most of them are writing about music from a personal, impassioned perspective, not trying to weigh stuff up and dole out points and play Proper Rock Critic. In a fragmented-market, file-sharing era, that bullshit game is over, than goodness. I know you’ve heard all this from me before, so I won’t bang on, but it’s nice to have made even the very modest contribution I have to pop talk this year. 2001 should be very, very interesting. Happy New Year!

MY FAVOURITE SONGS OF 2000

• New York London Paris Munich • • Post a comment • 1,545 views

I’m sorry, other things got in the way and so here is – contrary to the new contributors’ guidelines – a list without commentary! Links are to the original reviews, where applicable. Unreviewed songs will hopefully get their due.

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Three HipHop Moments

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Three HipHop Moments is an article by Ethan Padgett, a new Freaky Trigger contributor. I like it. If you want to contribute yourself, you can check out our brand new submission guidelines.

So much diffidence and heartbreak

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So much diffidence and heartbreak: it’s the Make Out Club, a site for indie kids to get together and spawn. I found it kind of depressing – it’s what happens when you’ve got so many records that all your emotional responses are learned and you find yourself paralysed into a kind of contorted hipster position: hey really i don’t care, i’m an individual, but love me, damn you. Or of course you just write twee shit about what your favourite sweet is. Three thoughts: i) there is nothing wrong with American college students which could not be solved by lowering the drinking age to 18. ii) We should have personal ads in Freaky Trigger. iii) Never date anyone who owns any records. All these thoughts have their flaws, mind you. Link stolen from Sarah, again, because I am lazy.

Focus Group Write-In Votes

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Focus Group Write-In Votes: little by little we’re getting there.

29
Dec 00

Scroll down a bit at

• New York London Paris Munich • • Post a comment • 272 views

Scroll down a bit at dissing.org and you’ll find Sarah C‘s diss of pop propagandists Baxendale. Now, you might think reading this that FT would be right behind Baxendale, but the one track I heard by them seemed a bit, well, forced. According to Sarah, the ‘dale’s target audience are “those who wish – so desperately wish! that chart pop was their real safe haven with sequins and ladies but are too intellectually snobby to accept it” and that seems to make sense to me. Mind you, you can’t trust anyone who doesn’t like the Clientele.

NYLPM contributor

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NYLPM contributor, AICON fall gal, and internet superstar Maura K Johnston will be DJing tonight, 6.30PM-10PM EST, on WPRB, which is some kind of communist indie rock station no doubt. It will be broadcast on the net, so if you’re in, listen. As it happens, I am in, as a strange combination of circumstances (mostly lack of money and New Years Eve being on a Sunday) finds me not at the pub on a Friday night. So I will be listening to Maura’s show and chatting, perhaps with my fellow listeners, on IM (screen-name: TomFT26). If you’re up and online, drop me a line and if I don’t know you we can have an awkward but fun exchange.

Maura will also be DJing on Sunday, between 1.30PM and 4PM EST. This show promises special end-of-year content, and is not to be missed, unless you’re in a boozer or something. (If you’re in a Philadelphia boozer, get them to tune their radio in.)

It touches slightly on the Magnetic Fields

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It touches slightly on the Magnetic Fields, but basically this is just to say for anyone who cares that A Loafer’s Discourse is back from its holidays too.

My Favourite Album Of 2000

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My Favourite Album Of 2000 reviewed, by me, on FT.

28
Dec 00

millie’s top 100 pop songs

• New York London Paris Munich • • 3 comments • 2,846 views

millie’s top 100 pop songs – well, not millie’s really, so much as the 250 or so (!!) people who voted in her alternative-to-Rolling-Stone poll, one of whom was me (and two of my choices got in). The main question I have is what is the sample size of any given music poll beyond which the Beatles will automatically come top of it. The secondary question I have is: “Hey Jude? Are you deaf or something, mate?”.

(Oh yeah – cheerio Millie from the world of the regularly-updated-website! An always-entertaining read, you will be missed, and good luck in whatever you do next!)

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