• Remem­ber how I was just bitch­ing about the sor­ry state of affairs Music ’07? Well, I think I’m half right. The New Pornog­ra­phers’ Chal­lengers phones in more of the same mid-tem­po pop they record­ed for Twin Cin­e­ma. The best part of “My Rights ver­sus Yours” steals the open­ing gui­tar chords from “Good Day Sun­shine.” Check it out for your­self [That ver­sion won’t have two blips at the end.]
• Or you can total­ly buy the hype at Goril­la vs. Bear. [You know, cred­it for post­ing repeat­ed­ly through­out the day, but wow, this is straight up PR copy. Par for the course…]
• That Spoon album? Idol­a­tor’s sen­ti­ments more or less hit the mark. More latent Bil­ly Joelisms than those on Gimme Fic­tion, but for its high points [“The Ghost of You Lingers,” “You Got Yr Cher­ry Bomb”] it feels too much like the sec­ond half of Kill the Moon­light.
• Speak­ing of Idol­a­tor, I was just speak­ing to a cer­tain name­less some­one about how Idol­a­tor at times seems like that mem­ber of the Gawk­er fam­i­ly who left for col­lege only to grad­u­ate to a life of slack­ing on Mom and Dad’s couch. Well, that may be true, but posts like this one real­ly make my day.
• In light of those two afore­men­tioned albums, I’m wor­ried to lis­ten to the new Art Brut too close­ly. Too late! It sounds more pol­ished and pro­fes­sion­al than the last record [see also: Franz Fer­di­nand, Inter­pol, Spoon, et. al.] but no more like­ly to make a crossover splash than the last record.
• Here’s k‑punk on a new dub­step comp. As with so many new gen­res that are com­ing and going almost simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, it feels like folks are lin­ing up to give eulo­gies at birth­day parties.
• If you’re a Fish­town­er, this is total­ly amazing.
• This is prac­ti­cal­ly with­in my grasp, although this prob­a­bly takes precedent.
• Any­one with thoughts on the Kodak v705, leave com­ments. My SLR-lite cam­era has not only nev­er had the tight focus I’ve need­ed, nor the fun pos­si­bil­i­ties of a slim point and shoot. In short, WANT!

• San­sho the Bailiff does­n’t haunt me like Uget­su, but Mizoguchi does things with light and tex­ture unlike any oth­er film­mak­er. Recommended.
• I’ve been in a mid-year rut with music. I’m dis­ap­point­ed in the New Pornog­ra­phers’ Chal­lengers on first lis­ten; I haven’t heard any good buzz about Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [aside from the love­ly New York­er ret­ro­spec­tive]; and I’m wor­ried that the new Liars’ record will be a com­plete bust. What can I say? I’m a pes­simist! I hope I’m wrong [or that some­thing unex­pect­ed hap­pens to renew my inter­est in music 2007.]
• Arthur and Yu is pleas­ant. Bloody Pan­da are pret­ty cool. Chris told me to give Gowns a chance. I may be done writ­ing for Paper Thin Walls, but I can think of few sites so thor­ough­go­ing in their cura­to­r­i­al capac­i­ty. Not sure if that trans­lates into traf­fic, but cred has to count for some­thing, does­n’t it?
• [Con­fi­den­tial to WOEBOT: S. Reynolds has been man­u­fac­tur­ing crises for mate­r­i­al for quite some time now. He wears cul­tur­al trends like a jack­et he can toss on the couch when­ev­er he feels like it. How’s that for bring­ing back “dis­cur­sive ener­gy?” I mean, how can you lament the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of a tech­nol­o­gy and music?]
• Read­ing Mediaor is great, but it also points up just how much redun­dan­cy their is in Web/Music 2.0 appli­ca­tions. I just want some­thing to replace MySpace now — awful ad-clut­tered inter­face, spam night­mares with a hor­ri­ble media play­er. Some­body? Anybody?
• Speak­ing of which, I want want want to read this like yes­ter­day. I’ve been a lit­tle more inter­est­ed late­ly in where dig­i­tal music and video and the inter­net are headed  more than the video and music that are dri­ving it.

Though it’s gone down­hill recent­ly, Cin­e­marati will be sore­ly missed. There’s always Film­brain…I hope! And here’s some­thing I applaud over at Self-Styled Siren!

I think we as Amer­i­can music crit­ics expect too much of British artists. We want 1984 and Bil­ly Liar. Por­tishead and the Kinks. So I had to laugh when I saw Wiley on the cov­er of The Wire this month. Do they not know that the whole world went post-grime the moment Lady Sov first melt­ed down, you know, like two years ago? Did­n’t Dizzee just release an album this week to no fan­fare at all? Now Soul Jazz is releas­ing a dub­step compilation?

Did The Wire pur­pose­ly tank the moment I bought a sub­scrip­tion? I know that’s not true, but when they changed graph­ic design­ers a few years ago, the look and feel of the mag­a­zine suf­fered and the con­tent soon fol­lowed suit. What happened?

I’m not sure that Hype­bot’s six part series on eMu­sic’s recent tur­bu­lence was any­thing more than sound and fury sig­ni­fy­ing noth­ing, or at best, very lit­tle about dig­i­tal music at all. Seems to me that it was more about the blood in the water than any­thing else, and like fren­zied sharks, eMu­sic rep­re­sen­ta­tives took the bait when they prob­a­bly should’ve steered clear. On the one hand it’s inter­est­ing to see exec­u­tives who care so much about their prod­uct, but on the oth­er, they should’ve exer­cised bet­ter judg­ment when it comes to open let­ters, etc.

The dig­i­tal music busi­ness is a shad­owy world.