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 part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he sits down with his family for the fourth time to analyze last week’s Billboard Top 10:
I’ve been traveling all May, starting with a week in New York, with stops in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago before spending a week in the Twin Cities. (Portland, Ore., is next, before heading home to Seattle.) I’ve been seeing a lot of my family while I’m here–and of course I had to play them the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 of May 24.
As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. In this installment, he flips the dial to the nation’s Adult Contemporary stations and finds a lot of familiar faces.
As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. In this installment, he tries to sort the factual errors from the intentional comedy from the plan ol’ batshit as he subjects himself to the Fuse show 10 Great Reasons, where a zoologist, a cheereader, a TV chef, and Carnie Wilson all have plenty to say about girl/boy bands. Even if little of it is coherent.
As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. In this installment, he looks at an issue of Spin from 1990 that attempted to tell rock history through Top 35 lists:
If you saw my bulging shelves full of CDs, books, magazines, photocopies, and printouts, you might call me a collector. But I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the designation: even when I was 13 and deep into comic books, I wanted to read them more than I wanted to preserve them. Keeping them around was a fringe benefit. The same has been true with music magazines, but it wasn’t always, which is what has lately driven me to eBay to find old copies of Spin. One of my favorite issues was cover-dated August 1990: Jim Morrison against a bubblegum-pink background on the cover. The headline: “35 Years of Rock’n’Roll.” A subhead: “Top 35 Lists of Everything From Guitar Gods to Dead Rock Star Charts.”
Iron Maiden plans to release its greatest-hits-of-the-’80s compilation, out in mid-May, as free 320kbps downloads. The catch: the files will be in WMA, not MP3, and they’ll evaporate from your HD after you’ve played them three times. (There will also be a no-DRM option for actual purchase.) More »
So Blu-Ray has won out over HD-DVD in the future-of-how-we-rent-movies-for-home-viewing technology sweepstakes. Since I have no horse in this race whatsoever–I’m still behind watching all the movies I DV-R’ed from TCM’s month of Oscar-winners–I mention it only as the pretext to an Idolator poll. Not the critical kind–the kind where you, the reader, answers a broad, sweeping question that’s been nagging me for the past few, well, years: Who, precisely, watches the bonus DVDs so many current pop albums come with?
As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he looks at the Britain’s ever-shifting definition of “indie,” with a BBC chart that includes everything from soul to Radiohead effluvia to synth-pop that first hit three decades ago to, yes, even some indie rock:
As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he looks at the legacy of British broadcaster John Peel’s annual Festive 50 countdown, and how Peel’s fans are continuing the tradition, for better or worse:
As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he looks at the Top 10 UK Singles for the second week of February, explores cultural differences related to Europop synths, and comes to grips with the Nickelback song he didn’t entirely hate (at first):
