Tag Archives: video

Video: Kanye West — “Heartless”

I was talk­ing to Mark this after­noon about the state of the music indus­try, some­thing we do from time to time, usu­al­ly when I’m cer­tain that it’s final­ly reached rock bot­tom. There’s some­thing fore­bod­ing in the Novem­ber release cal­en­dar. If this year is real­ly the music indus­try’s last gasp, then Novem­ber will be its death rattle.

Who isn’t releas­ing albums in Novem­ber? Justin Tim­ber­lake. He — and the tire­less Rihan­na — are the only major stars who come to mind that aren’t squeez­ing albums into 2008’s Q4. It’s shock­ing. I keep going back to Mau­ra’s post that sug­gest­ed that this could be a sign that the end is nigh for mul­ti­mil­lion­aire artists and the com­pa­nies that back them. Is this it?

If it is, there’s only one album that I’m even remote­ly curi­ous about in the hol­i­day glut of new releas­es. It’s Kanye West­’s 808s and Heart­break. Few artists have such a total­iz­ing aes­thet­ic. Mr. West syn­the­sizes cool ideas unlike any oth­er artist work­ing at his lev­el. Time and time again, I’ve looked for any rea­son to dis­miss his work as pas­tiche, but to do so would be a big mis­take. Kanye West bor­rows, steals, and co-opts styles unlike any­one since Madon­na, sniff­ing out trends and taboos and ele­vat­ing them to the mainstream.

Watch Kanye West­’s new video, “Heart­less.” His cool­ness is undeniable.

A QUICK WORD ABOUT “FAKE EMPIRE”

When I first heard the Nation­al’s “Fake Empire” used dur­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, I was­n’t sure if the Democ­rats quite under­stood the reflex­iv­i­ty of its use, i.e. that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has been half awake in a fake empire since Sep­tem­ber 2001. It’s time some­one — or some­thing — woke them up.

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2008: SOLANGE — “SANDCASTLE DISCO”

Bey­on­ce’s lit­tle sis­ter Solange is prov­ing to be one of the most pleas­ant sur­pris­es of the year. “Sand­cas­tle Dis­co” is anoth­er one of those songs that should’ve been released the moment it was clear that there’d be noth­ing fun on the radio between May and August. I mean, how could a song this fun be kept from a mass audi­ence in times like these? It’s the sort of song you’ll be singing in front of the mir­ror into your hair­brush. For a few min­utes, Solange’s “Sand­cas­tle Dis­co” makes you for­get about how bad it is out there. Shred the unpaid bills! We need more confetti!

(Please for­give the spot­ty video qual­i­ty. I tried to use FNMTV’s pro­pri­etary play­er, but it would­n’t load prop­er­ly when embedded.)

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2008: TORCHE — “ACROSS THE SHIELDS”

Some peo­ple are dis­ap­point­ed in Torche for record­ing an album that has crossover poten­tial. That might both­er me, too, if it were still pos­si­ble for met­al bands to crossover. To me, “Across the Shields” exem­pli­fies what makes Torche’s Mean­derthal such an excit­ing album: not only are they mak­ing catchy, hooky music, they’re still going for the jugu­lar. Every moment exults in tri­umph. With Mean­derthal, Torche blend inten­si­ty and pop sen­si­bil­i­ty that one rarely sees in met­al, and it’s more than a lit­tle refresh­ing after a few sol­id years of black met­al fetishism.