Music News 03/15/10

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It seems like supergroups are the new black and on May 11^th Gayngs will release their debut album titled Relayted.  Gayngs consists of a grip load of Minneapolis and Wisconsin artists such as members of Solid Gold, P.O.S., Justin Vernon and Mike Noyce of Bon Iver, Maggie Morrison and Grant Cutler of Lookbook,  members of Andrew Bird’s touring band and a multitude of others.  Solid Gold’s Zack Coulter is claiming lead vocal duties, and it’s still fuzzy as to how the other million musicians fit into the band.  If you pre-order the album via their label Jagjaguwar’s website, you get a free download of the full album on 4.20.10.  They also have two shows scheduled on May 14^th at Minneapolis’s First Avenue.  Tickets are on sale now for $15, and I got mine.  It will be interesting to see if this is a hot mess, or a hot masterpiece.

-Felicia

As an impressionable teenager, I had a lot of music idols. Guitarists and lyricists that I admired numbered in the hundreds. Music businessmen, though? Exactly one: Jonah Matranga, aka Onelinedrawing. Also known for his stints in bands like Far and New End Original, I completely adored Jonah not only because he made alternatively powerful and sweet-natured music, but because of the way he treated the ever-debated practice of selling records. It’s a rather simple idea that changed my perspective on ‘making money’ at a rather young age: “pay what you can, not what I ask.” That’s right, light years before Radiohead was given credit for the same thing, Jonah was giving you actual records (often with supplemental CD-ROM goodies – haha remember CD-ROMs?) for whatever number of bills you had in your wallet at the venue that night. Well, for a while Jonah’s been dormant music-wise, but something has spurred him to come back to life, at least online: J. Lo’s recent performance on SNL. You see, one of Jonah’s trademark symbols that was almost synonymous with his solo act Onelinedrawing, was a hand-drawn heart with one of its sides resembling a question mark. It was everywhere: t-shirts, records, autographs, web sites, CD-ROM (still makes me giggle!) content, etc. And then J. Lo shows up on SNL with her drummer’s kick head having an eerily similar symbol right there on it. And apparently it’s going to be used a lot in Lopez’s upcoming marketing push for her new record, Love? Now because Jonah’s always been gracious and modest about getting money for his art, he at first just saw it as a funny coincidence. But now people are encouraging him that he has a legitimate case, though taking down somebody like J. Lo will prove to be way hard. Whatever way you think he should be swayed, you can find out more here: http://jonahmatranga.com/bleeagh/2010-mar5-jlo-heart.html

-Chris Polley

In an unsurprising twist, OK Go announced this week that they would be leaving label EMI. The move stemmed from EMI’s admittedly outdated policy regarding embeddable music videos. The surprise of the whole situation is that, rather than attempting to find a new label to sign to and work on the promotion/distribution of their new album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, the popular web video sensations whose songs are (let’s face it) rather bland (if not completely grating) have decided to start their own label: Paracadute Recordings. The label will give the band the freedom to produce and share their work however they damn well please. I suppose I wish them luck; such a venture is bold and could actually influence a lot of other bands in today’s DIY market. The problem is, they’ve painted themselves into a corner; they should just give up and stick to directing music videos, because we all know their popularity has nothing to do with their songwriting. What is weird to me about the whole thing is that lead singer Damian Kulash told Rolling Stone, “We realized we wanted to leave EMI in 2002 — it was just a matter of when.” Um, you mean you waited 8 years to leave your shitty record label? If a marriage brews in hatred that long, it usually ends in a domestic disturbance and a division of assets. (Also, OK Go have been signed to EMI for more than 8 years? Who were they screwing?)

-Christian H.

The transformation of MTV from a primarily music video format to a variety format happened sometime in the mid 90’s with the rise of the Real World and Beavis and Butthead. Slowly but surely music began taking backseat to reality shows like Road Rules and The Osbournes. Recently, Van Tofflier, president of MTV, remarked that MTV is not dropping music but rather Gen Xer’s because of their “cynicism.” This is an interesting statement considering that “Jersey Shore,” perhaps the most cynical show ever produced, has been a ratings boon for MTV. MTV is now aiming at the current 18-29 population, who are apparently more “traditional” according to Tofflier. It is fairly obvious that MTV, through it’s popularity, has become a media brand. They stamp the MTV logo on almost anything that they think will bring in money (Super Sweet 16). Music videos stopped bringing in the money, so they switched to reality tv. It is strange that the President of the MTV is not aware of his own companys business model (Nudity Tease + Drunken Brawl – Good Music = Megabucks).

-Daniel Wipert

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The albums up for OMD review this week are:

- Tuesday, March 16: The Album Leaf, A Chorus of Storytellers

- Wednesday, March 17: Hot Chip, One Life Stand

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And now, our Weekly Playlist!

Chris P. -“Hollywood” by Marina & The Diamonds is already a hit across the pond and I hope it will translate when her record The Family Jewels gets its U.S. release later this spring, because it is a simple song making fun of America’s most-hateable city and also has some killer orchestral production, plus a wickedly catch chorus to boot.

“Welcome Wagon” by Fang Island is pretty much the antithesis of Marina’s music, so if you like your pop fast and gritty instead of mid-tempo and glossy, try this one out. It’s still as infectious, just in a more hipster-approved kind of way.

Christian - To sate the many, many college kids getting this week off for Spring Break (and to honor those of us trapped in reality), I have decided to pick a couple songs that are a bit warmer.