Wednesday night I spent $16 on jukeboxes at two establishments in New York City. Sixteen dollars! That could buy, I don’t know, three pints of ice cream at the bodega down the block. But I felt like the investment was worth it, particularly at the second bar I visited, where six Washingtons allowed me to blare 19 songs throughout the bar and my friend and I were pretty much the only customers left in the place. Not that other patrons would have stopped me from playing the Monkees’ “Valleri” and the Raincoats’ “In Love”*; after all, the huge catalogs of the Internet-jukebox era have made it a lot easier to impose your tastes on others, even if doing so costs you an extra credit per song. So this weekend, I wonder: What songs will you always play on a jukebox if you have some unused dollar bills rustling around your wallet? Five songs that I have no problem dropping 25 to 100 cents on after the jump.
Last month, we noted that, despite media outlets from Pitchfork to Paste to USA Today claiming there was a comma in the title of TV On The Radio’s triumphant new record Dear Science, there was no punctuation to be found in the album’s actual name. (He missed MTV, Blender, and AllMusic, all of which showed their commitment to the cuddly clause-container weeks after his expose broke.)
From time to time, we like to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. After the jump, we look at the critical reaction to TV On The Radio’s new album, Dear Science, which comes out in the US tomorrow.
Much like its sonic accompaniment, the video for… More »
Pretty Goes With Pretty calls on all those writers out there who are being “unnecessarily manipulated into poor grammatical choices” by the possible comma appended to the title of TV On The Radio’s new album to rise up and cast free the shackles of oppression via press release. More »
No, seriously, it is: It starts off with a twitchy bassline that reminds me of the Au Pairs’ finest moments, then opens up into this absolutely gorgeous, string-laden track that sounds like it’s meant to soundtrack a sumptuous dream, the type that results in you waking up with a satisfied smile… More »
ARTIST: Scarlett Johansson
ALBUM: Anywhere I Lay My Head
RELEASE DATE: May 20, 2008
WEB DEBUT: April 30, 2008
A festival with Justice and Devotchka as the headliners? Where’s the Jay-Z or Joe Jackson? Where’s the Weiland? The ironically named Monolith Festival, which will hit Red Rocks Ampitheater on Sept. 13 and 14, is keeping the scale kind of small, but kind of awesome as well. TV On The Radio, CSS, Del The Funkee Homosapien, and bands with even less name recognition may not pull in the suburbanites, but it should make for an enjoyable show. Lineup after the jump.
From time to time, we like to give our readers the floor for “Hey, Asshole!”, which documents concert-going experiences that are ruined by the other people in attendance. If you feel like getting revenge on someone who put a damper on your show-going expierence, send your stories or cameraphone shots to asshole@idolator.com. Today’s submission comes from Idolator reader David Hogue, whose view of TV On The Radio last night was obstructed by a big guy with a shaved head and his late-arriving friends:
Earlier today, we posted a story from a TV On The Radio fan who had to deal with some pushy fans at the band’s show in Columbus last night. This provoked an e-mail from another reader who had some unfortunate fauxhawked-jerk exposure while at a show by the band, which we reprint here even though–or perhaps because–its subject line uses one of our banned words:
Subject: National trend of douchebags seeing TV on the Radio