Batman

someone under the age of 50 would be interesting. though i will admit there aren't a lot of young artists right now with near-universal appeal. modern taste is very fragmented.

Yeah there's a point where "good for their age" just becomes "not good," and it would appear that The Who has passed that point. And it looks like for now Joe Montana is still the best quarterback ever, gooo niners!

I thought the Who were extremely shabby, ha ha. I thought it was funny whenever Pete Townshend would do the windmill strum without actually playing the guitar. I guess the backup guitarist was loud enough.

Wow, in all the Grammy performances I've ever seen, I have to say that Lady Gaga's duet with Elton John was the only interesting thing I've ever seen at the Grammys. I've never been big on Lady Gaga but I have to admit that was pretty awesome.

oh and I'm just going to call it right now: Taylor Swift is going to win a bunch of grammys. I'm not a fan, but I bet the Grammy voters are

who I want to win in the big categories: Record of the Year: Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling out of the nominees this is the only one I even sort of like. Definitely a guilty pleasure for me over the summer. Album of hte year: No opinion, I avoided these albums. Song of the year: Beyonce - Single Ladies. Not just a guilty pleasure, a truly well-made song. Beyonce's producers made a track that is reminiscent of older soul, but it also has a futuristic quality to it that somehow coincides really well with the retro-ness of it. Best new artists: I haven't been able to make it through a full listen of Oracular Spectacular since 2008, but MGMT is a good band who deserves to get as big as they did, and it would be cool to see them win.

The Onion's article on him is pretty great http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bunch_of_phonies_mourn_j_d RIP

oh I didn't realize they were brothers

Thanks Carl, glad I could provide another point of view. But even though I defended it, I still am getting pretty tired of autotune. My problem isn't the autotune itself, it's the way in which it is used. I think it can totally be used in the correct context (see Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx, even T-Pain does it pretty well in my opinion), but too many artists are using it in songs where a purely human voice would sound much better. Electronic dance music can (and maybe even should) sound like it's being made by robots, but R&B is supposed to have some soul to it. So yes to Daft Punk, no to Rihanna (except "Umbrella" which is a guilty pleasure for me). My biggest problem with music this decade is that trends come and go too quickly. Something will get big, then it will get huge, and then it will be passe within a few months. I can't tell if it's due to the nature of the trends or the quickness of information spreading these days. I think part of it is that the rise of independent artists has made it so everybody wants to be a star, even moreso than in the past because stardom seems so within reach now. So a band will have a popular song and millions of normal people will imitate the things that make the song popular until everything about the song seems cliche. I could be totally off about this though. I know for sure that this is the way things are now, but I don't really know for sure if things were very different in the past.

The drummer's mom was my little brother's teacher in fourth grade.

Dear people who like Weezer's "Blue Album," You will also like Surfer Blood's "Astro Coast," especially if you also like going to the beach. Sincerely, Batman

wow I didn't realize until I typed that all out that I pretty much disagree with the entire article, ha ha.

I disagree with some of what was said in the 2nd article. I'll admit I'm pretty tired of the auto-tune trend, and also that I think it's being used way too much in the wrong contexts. But the paragraph about it makes it seem like you just put a voice into an "auto-tuner" and it automatically becomes melodic. The melodies don't come out of nowhere. The audio engineer/producer or whatever has to create a melody out of it. I think the people who grew up before auto-tune existed have a hard time accepting that because they are used to the simplicity of "Robert Plant is the frontman. He is singing. He is a musician." Now it's "Rihanna is the main performer. Some random nerd is making her music. She is not a musician, but this album with her name on it contains music." It's really weird because these pop stars are able to sell music becuase of their image, but if you really want to enjoy it you have to disconnect the image from the music. Also, I think if you really do want this auto-tune and corporate pop star thing to go away, you shouldn't hate on Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is, in my opinion, the main reason anybody under 13 still listens to guitar rock. When I was 11 the game "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" came out for hte N64, and everybody I knew (myself included) bought a skateboard. I teach music lessons at a kid's camp over the summer, and I can say that whenever I ask a kid why he or she wants to pick up a guitar, it's because of Guitar Hero. And it actually sets their sights really high and gives them something to work towards. A lot of kids will master "Free Bird" on guitar hero and inevitably get tired of pressing the same buttons on guitar hero all the time and then they want to learn the extremely difficult solo on the real guitar. And making your music "guitar hero friendly" isn't any different than making a song that's really easy for beginner guitarists to learn. The White Stripes did it with "Seven Nation Army" and they're mentioned as one of the best things about the decade. Also, I think you're confusing hipsters with emos. Emos are the ones who are stereotypically self-loathing. Hipsters freaking love themselves, that's why they dress so fancy and take all those pictures of themselves. I also don't agree that MP3s have killed the album. CD sales still make up for more than half of music sales worldwide (as opposed to digital sales). And seriously just name one pop star who only does singles without an album to back it up. You have to go deep into the underground to really find singles artists (which I actually think is unfortunate...I think more artists who make albums full of filler should just focus on making great singles. The book world has novel writers and short story writers, why can't the music world have that as well?) Also I wouldn't say that everyone hates Kanye and Lil Wayne. They both seem like pretty terrible people but at least 40% of Lil Wayne's raps are actually pretty good, and Kanye's first three albums are pretty great, especially "The College Dropout" which simultaneously became extremely popular and decried all the things that rappers did to make themselves popular. The song "All Falls Down" is a great example of what that album did best. In the 2nd verse, Kanye pretty much just bashes all the materialistic rappers, but in the 3rd verse he admits that he isn't above materialism and struggles with staying humble. It's too bad that later in his career he pretty much just became everything he said he hated about hip hop. I guess that's just what happens when your ego gets too big and your publicist doesn't keep you under control, ha ha. But one thing I agree with a lot is that the music industry going to war with the fans was a really bad thing and was a huge mistake for the music industry.

"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" is the 6th best album of the 00's. BAM! Hmmm for this thread I'm going to go with Vampire Weekend. I do like them, but I just can't go crazy over them like so many of my musical peers do.

He's got some good stuff on stage, but he was definitely better in the studio. I personally don't like all these post-mortem releases. I even heard one that was unfinished and the record company hired musicians to play the drums and bass on songs that were just guitar before he died. Pretty lame that they would disrespect his music like that.

I missed a chance to see him play for free at a record store this summer and now I regret it. I hear he put on great performances. RIP

1. no country for old men 2. planet terror

If my research is correct, the last person to actually do that was Pepa of Salt n Pepa, and she did it in 1993.

So it came out today that Mark McGwire has finally admitted to taking steroids in 1998. Not that this should come as a surprise or anything, but it's still a pretty major event in the history of the steroid era. But one thing that interests me about the story is that he said he first took steroids in the late 80s, and as far as I know there has never been any suspicion of steroid usage for pre-90s players. It makes me wonder how far back you have to go to truly find the era of "pure" sluggers.

Yeah how did that happen? From what I saw it didn't look like an unusual hit at all. It must have been pretty serious though because he said he couldn't feel his arm after the game.

The other league I'm in is me and a bunch of friends who are kinda treating it like a competition, so instead of making my dream festival I just tried to make the one that would get me the most points. So that is my explanation for Drake, Owl City, and Paramore, ha ha. But I still would definitely attend my festival. Just imagine seeing both Radiohead and Michael Jackson at the same festival.

honorable mentions to Lust for Life, The Boys are Leaving Town, and Dominoes

I didn't follow the new music as well as I should have last year, but here is my top 5 1. Passion Pit - Manners 2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion 3. Dam-Funk - Toeachizown 4. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms 5. Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind I heard a lot more, and even liked a lot more, but these are the only five I think I'm going to be listening to in 2010. There were a bunch of other good ones but I felt like I only listened to them because they came out in 2009. These 5 are truly amazing though, in my opnion, and I think they'll stand the test of time for me. Honorable mentions (that aren't even close to these five for me) include F*ck Buttons, Atlas Sound, Raekwon, Mos Def, Painso f Being Pure at Heart, Grizzly Bear, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Dirty Projectors, Girls, and Dan Deacon. top 30 songs list for me here, and these are all A+ songs in my opinion. 1 Passion Pit - Little Secrets 2 Dam-Funk - Summertime Clothes (remix) 3 Cymbals Eat Guitars - And The Hazy Sea 4 Basement Jaxx - Raindrops 5 Animal Collective - Daily Routine 6 Animal Collective - What Would I Want? Sky 7 Bloody Beetroots - Warp 1.9 8 Dykeritz - Chasing the Wheel Away 9 Ravishers - Keep You Around 10 Animal Collecitve - Bluish 11 Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer 12 Dam-Funk - (My Funk Goes) On and On 13 Passion Pit - The Reeling 14 Duck Sauce - aNYways 15 Passion Pit - Make Light 16 Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Stay Alive 17 Wallpaper - I Got Soul, I'm So Wasted 18 Big Boi - Shine Blockas 19 Sleigh Bells - Crown on the Ground 20 Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks 21 Dirty Projectors - Temecula Sunrise 22 LMFAO - Yes 23 The Mint Chicks - Hot On Your Heels 24 Starfucker - Boy Toy 25 The Whitest Boy Alive - Intentions 26 Phoenix - 1901 27 Atlas Sound - Walkabout 28 Mos Def - Casa Bey 29 YACHT - I'm in Love with a Ripper 30 Dan Deacon - Snookered

just joined the songfacts league...and I'm winning!

Seeing USC in the middle of the Pac 10 was a beautiful site