Now we really can’t wait until February 26. More »
Our pals over at Absolute Punk have arranged to slash Amazon MP3’s price of Sycamore Meadows, the most recent album by Idolator interviewer/ee Butch Walker, to $2.99 through next Thursday. If you’d like a pre-purchase preview that goes beyond the 30-second snippets Amazon provides, a live clip of “Ponce De Leon Ave.,” during which Walker provides an assist on the percussion at the end, is above. [Amazon / Vimeo] More »
There are two reasons that I’m glad I kept putting off my treatise on the very unfortunate Bob Dylan vs. will.i.am smackdown in honor of Pepsi: First, MTV News’ James Montgomery pretty much summed up my thoughts on the overall “the present is kinda crappy, let’s just OD on sugar” feel of the ad; and second, I found out that the Coca-Cola-sponsored collaboration between Cee-Lo, Patrick Stump, Janelle Monae, Brendon Urie, Travis McCoy, and Butch Walker had debuted online today. Guess which one is about 50 million times more pleasurable to these ears? I’ll give you a hint: It’s the one without Shrek in its attached video. Embeds of both tracks after the jump.
As you may have gathered, I’m raring to close the book on 2008, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t run down some of the site’s highlights during what was a pretty dreary year overall. After the jump, behold a pretty subjective top 12 of the year (thanks to our technological limbo I can’t run any sort of numbers, but I think this list accurately captures the best moments we’ve had during a long slog of a year). And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank all of you for coming back, reading, commenting, and pointing out when I get shit wrong (which is too often). If you think I got this list wrong, feel free to abuse me with compliments in the comments section!
It’s no secret that the denizens of Idolator HQ are big fans of both Fall Out Boy and really smart pop, so having FOB frontman Patrick Stump and pop troubadour Butch Walker interview each other is kind of the perfect way to introduce our new series of conversations between artists. After the jump, the two have a friendly chat about first concerts, free stuff, and how each developed his signature singing style.
As a Valentine’s Day present to people who love bitching about the record industry and super-huge, arena-styled choruses, Butch Walker is self-releasing a double live album tomorrow via his Web site. More »
Today’s New York Post has an article on Crush Management, the company that guides the careers of Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, and other tortured-dude bands with overly wordy titles. It’s a somewhat odd piece, if only because it’s peppered with quotes from Butch Walker that sound a lot more derisive than they probably were in context, but it does also float the theory that today’s emo is pretty analogous to a rock sub-genre popular about 20 years ago:
…[Crush Management’s Jonathan] Daniel thinks that FOB and its spawn are disparaged by critics because “they’re very much like the hair bands of the ’80s, like Motley Crue – it’s, like, heavy metal for girls. This scene is very much like that. It’s very female-based.”
“He couldn’t be more on the mark,” says producer Hollander of Daniel’s assessment. “Dead on. If you were a hipster, like I was at that, age – God, you wanted to laugh at it. That’s exactly right.”
Welcome to the first installment of The Cover-Song Showcase Showdown, in which we pit two versions of the same beloved song against one another, and let you determine which is superior. Why? Because we’re all about spreading democracy. That, and goosing our page-view count. More »
