Idolator

Look, we know that the festival-crazy nature of South By Southwest results in a bunch of cut-and-paste lineups—Satellite Party opening for The Good, The Bad, and the Queen; Paolo Nutini and Kings Of Leon setting the stage for the Stooges—but Saturday's showcase at Stubb's, which boasted Ghostface and Rakim as headliners, included a short set by Mickey Avalon, the Los Angeles ex-hustler who fancies himself a rapper. More »

While on a $2-bin spree a few months back, we decided to pick up the self-titled album by the New York outfit Morningwood—despite our grave misgivings about the band's name, we had an extra two bucks, and there were more than enough copies in the bin to spare. We returned to the Idolator flophouse and plopped the CD into our stereo, only to be gobsmacked by how just flat-out awful it sounded. The music was stoopidly slick, the songs were all too long by half, and lead moaner Chantal Claret's "sexy" vamping almost made us feel bad for her. ("First it was my legs, now my heart is open"? Come on.) The vision we got was of a Capitol Records honcho, upon finding out that The Gossip existed, heading down to the Major Label Cloning Lab to concoct a version that was completely depoliticized, 110% cheesier, and really freaking annoying. The CD was returned to the used-bin from which it came a few weeks later. More »