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 top-ten lists from every genre imaginable. After the jump, he sits through VH1’s latest TV-based listicle, 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs, and finds a few poignant moments among the MC Hammer jokes:
Every month Robert Christgau publishes the Consumer Guide for MSN Music, and every month he chooses a handful of songs off albums he otherwise isn’t interested in, labeling them “Choice Cuts.” (This month those honors go to a couple of Rough Guide collections, two Jason Mraz discs, and George Stanford.) That type of sorting through the stacks is something all critics do a little of, at least: certainly the MP3 makes it easier to do so than ever. So tell us–which albums so far this year have you found only a couple of remarkable songs on, and which ones are they? My own short list is after the jump.
Flavor Of Love, the spinoff of a spinoff of The Surreal Life, now with its own spinoff with a spinoff, may not have done much for the legacy of Public Enemy, but it does seem to have given Flavor Flav’s thespian career a boost. Flav will star in MyNetworkTV’s Under One Roof, premiering April 16. More »
I had a pretty good time at last year’s Pitchfork Music Festival–it had a solid lineup, cheap water, and gorgeous weather–and the initial announcement for this year’s festival, which is taking place July 18-20, is making me excited to head back to Chicago this summer. Vampire Weekend’s presence ensures that there will be a ton of heated arguments by the beer stalls; Animal Collective’s participation will probably not satiate Jim DeRogatis’ wariness over Pitchfork’s similarities to Rolling Stone, so we’ll be treated to another year of seeing him sitting around the press area with a surly look; and most importantly, Public Enemy is performing It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back in its entirety as part of the festival’s annual “Don’t Look Back” series. Full list of announced artists after the jump.
Public Enemy will be performing It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back in its entirety this May as part of the “Don’t Look Back” concert series, and I’m already checking Travelocity for cheap flights to London, even though I know my heart’s gonna break the minute Flav walks out on stage in… More »
Now that Jay-Z is out at Def Jam and once again purportedly making eyes at Steve Jobs, Public Enemy frontman and early Internet adopter Chuck D has declared his intentions to seek Jay’s throne high-backed office chair, regardless of the fact that Def Jam has made no overtures towards him regarding the position. And, yeah we’re not sure why anyone would want to take a job as the head of a giant record label at this point in the industry’s history, but Chuck’s always been something of a “fixer”, whether it’s racist governments or creatively and financially stagnating business models. Perhaps as a way to prove to the suits that he’s given the label’s future some thought, he’s drafted a list outlining the changes he’d make beyond “release anything else we can from Rihanna’s album as a single, immediately.”
A clip of Snoop Dogg performing on Flavor Flav’s Comedy Central roast–which airs in a couple of weeks, and has on its bill both Carrot Top and Jimmy Kimmel–has been floating around today, and it makes reference to sleeping with Brigitte Nielsen and Flav’s resemblance to a blunt.
