October 2, 2007

Tuesday’s a Bruising Music News Day

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Common

  • Artists expressing solidarity with the so-called “Jena 6” include Common (above), Mos Def, MC Lyte, Talib Kweli and Pharoahe Monch. The rappers joined the call for a classroom walk-out yesterday in support of the six black students charged with second-degree murder after a fight stemming from a racial conflict at Jena High School in Louisiana. See Mother Jones‘ coverage of, well, having mixed feelings over the whole Jena thing here.

  • Radiohead‘s Web site slows to a crawl after fans start pre-orders of the band’s new album, In Rainbows. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood wrote a kind-of apology on the site, saying it was “busier than they expected,” I guess referring to the rest of the band, but not himself, is he pulling an “I-told-you-so” here? Incidentally, the Billboard story refers to the magazine’s “Buzz” chart that measures, er, blog popularity. I didn’t know they had a chart for that. More “High School Musical” posts coming right up.

  • The Police were honored with the Order of Arts and Letters at a ceremony in Paris on Monday. French Culture Minister Christine Albanel presented the high honor to the band, saying she expressed “France’s full admiration and recognition.” Sting, replying in French, said “we are very happy to be among your knights.” That’s right, he replied in French. Gotta love that guy.

  • Ugh. In the saddest development yet in a pretty sad story, Britney Spears has lost custody of her kids in a hearing Monday. Kevin Federline will take care of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, “until further order of the court.” Is this even music-related in any way?

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    THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

    At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

    It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

    But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

    So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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