October 30, 2007

Tuesday Coos, “Music News Day”

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News

  • Dead Elvis knocks dead Kurt Cobain out of the top spot on Forbes‘ list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. Actually Kurt drops out of the Top 12 entirely. Other late musicians on the list include John Lennon (#2), George Harrison (#4), Tupac Shakur (#8), James Brown (#11), and Bob Marley (#12).

  • Rapper Nas defends his decision to call his upcoming album the N-word (which I typed once in the last story and now I just feel too queasy about it to do it again) in a convoluted statement connecting Barack Obama’s presidential run to the recent spate of noose-related hate crimes. “It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable,” he says about the album’s title. You think?

  • Arcade Fire’s Win Butler responds to Sasha Frere-Jones’ New Yorker article pointing out the band’s, er, “whiteness.” Butler begins with a serious discussion of Arcade Fire’s musical heritage, but once he correctly points out that American music is already so racially mixed-up it’s hard to tell what’s what any more, he seems to realize what the rest of us have as well: Sasha Frere-Jones is kind of crazy, and why are we spending any time worrying about this?

  • Blog Brooklyn Vegan collects pictures of this year’s hot Halloween costume (something you’ve already noticed if you went out at all over the weekend): Amy Winehouse. Fine, but jeez, ladies (and gentlemen): at least have someone else draw the tattoos on your arms so it doesn’t look like the scribblings of a 5-year-old.
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