As you might have noticed, this is a bittersweet week around here; because of budget cuts, we’ve had to say goodbye to pretty much all the Idolator contributing writers, from columnists to daily bloggers. The site is going to go on as a solo project of sorts, although the news cycle might run at a slightly slower pace. I just wanted to take a moment on this crappy day to thank everyone who’s contributed to the site during my tenure, from the people who helped me sift through the news cycle every day to the columnists, each of whom expanded the focus of the site. More »
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!
And I don’t just mean your mental state (although that certainly gets its knocks)! The Guardian today looks at the long, glorious history of musicians and fans giving back to those people who dare criticize the music they love. And by “giving back,” I mean “physically attacking, sometimes with knives.” I can’t tell if these stories are making me feel better because the only retributions I’ve received are mean e-mails or if they make me feel worse for not saying things that get people really riled. But my colleague has apparently not had the same problem as me! After the jump, I talk to Idolator’s own Jess Harvell about his top three biggest threatdowns.
Scottish band Life Without Buildings broke up in 2002, before they could really benefit from being an early-adopter in indie rock’s renewed 21st-century postpunk arms race. More »
As you may have heard, Gossip singer Beth Ditto has displayed the majesty that her momma gave her on the cover of the NME this week. So wait, a few years ago, nudie shots of Ditto were confined to the lesbian sex mag On Our Backs and now she’s being anointed the “Queen of Cool” by the U.K.’s most toilet paper-worthy tabloid while wearing nothing but painted-on kisses? Did we miss a meeting?
Yes, for one time only we are reviving one of our wackest most beloved features, where we dig up the gonzoest of the gonzo writing at Internet indie-rock tastemaker site Pitchfork. More »
Adorable, baseball-capped yupster and indie-rock money printing machine Sufjan Stevens has been awarded a commission at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 25th annual “Next Wave Festival,” which starts in October. More »
What the blogs were posting, uh, a year ago: Meat Puppets drummer Derrick Bostrom has been running his Bostworld blog for a few years now, each post rummaging around in Bostrom’s attic-cluttered noggin and pulling out one of his idiosyncratic obsessions: yellowing ’50s newspaper articles about Ike… More »
Hello, I’m Jess Harvell. I don’t own a home computer at the moment. I can’t “work an RSS feed.” I have never knowingly looked at Stereogum. I don’t have cable. My knowledge of pop culture these days is almost entirely down to what one of the editors of this site copies and pastes to me in IM chats. More »
Who among us hasn’t dreamed of wearing a leopard-print dress with Eazy-E in full Native American headdress printed on the bottom right? More »
