Tinted Windows, the generation-spanning act that brought together members of Hanson, Fountains of Wayne, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Cheap Trick for cheery tunes and maximum bloggability, had their debut album come out yesterday. Eric “Professor” Harvey came up with a fun parlor game in honor of what he’s calling the self-titled record’s “astonishing competence”–namely, what would your dream version of such a powerpop Voltron look like? The formula, and my attempt to solve for “x,” after the jump. More »
From the “someone hasn’t done this already?” More »
A tipster just sent us a YouTube clip for a Wrigley’s gum ad that aired during last night’s episode of American Idol, wondering if the droll singing voice coming out of the actor’s mouth was none other than the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt. It sure sounds like a Magnetic Fields song that just happens to be about the American Dental Association–right down to the plinky (but charming!) piano on the backing track–but the performance is a little too polished to quite convince us it’s the man himself. Merritt’s obviously cool with selling his distinctively froggy pipes to ad agencies, but clearly we need a second through sixty-ninth opinion here, so decide for yourself after the jump.
Stephin Merritt reads fifth-grade fave Ethan Frome on his birthday every year, because “it expresses everything about how horrible New England is.” More »
I caught the above ad for the Volvo XC70 during a Law & Order rerun last night, in which a deep-voiced man reworks the kids’ song “The Wheels On The Bus” so that it extols the virtues of the SUV, and I thought to myself, “That sounds like Stephin Merritt, or at least an ad agency-approved… More »
