by Tim Williams - A&SB Contributor

Welcome to the 0th anniversary of the Fairly New Music Anti-Listicle Listicle! Herein, I choose eight or some other convenient number of mostly recently released popular (or not) music sensations, sort of at random, but not really, because if the song is kind of boring I’ll pretend I thought I was about to sneeze and thus overcompensated and clicked the wrong track. Then, I will arbitrarily weave these threads into a sweeping narrative, with all the pandering and pseudo-relevance of a Rolling Stone listicle and the self-importance and digression of a Pitchfork album review. Everyone wins. Except for James Taylor.

Or does he? A James Taylor covers album titled, for extra laziness, Covers, seemed ripe for skewing. Especially after Taylor greeted my visit to his website with a Telethon-style video, imploring me to sign up for an e-mail newsletter and punctuating his every word with a hand gesture (for unknown reasons, but maybe it’s like how old people feel the need to shout into telephone receivers when they’re calling long distance).

It didn’t help his case either that the two most palatable-looking songs on Covers were On Broadway and Hound Dog. But as I listened, a terrible conflict in me came to a head, which can only be explained through extended personal anecdote.

I was recently aptly described as a pop-culture overcompensater. This is mostly the fault of my father’s undying love for James Taylor. Though, even in my rebellious youth, I can’t say I was ever strictly offended by the uncoolness of it. But the bland, bright-eyed lyrics and the same light jazz drum accompaniment to every song of the never-ending collection of repackaged hits were enough, especially when Alanis Morrisette was the alternative, to put me off from pop music for a good decade.

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by Andrew Bates - A&SB Contributor

The more I go to the movies, the more I’m seeing a very successful genre expand itself - the raunchy 20 something comedy with a good underlying message. We’ve seen it in films like Knocked Up (commitment for the benefit of others) Superbad (friendship through the craziest and hardest times) and more recently Zac And Miri Make A Porno (a love story disguised in hilarious crude behavior). While certainly less crude than the aforementioned films, Role Models brings the same positive message to the table through a hilarious onslaught of potty mouthed tomfoolery.

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by Tim Williams - A&SB Contributor

In the theater world, which is a lot like our own but with more petticoats, there is the singular phenomenon called the “problem play.” Why only plays, and not other narrative mediums, are allowed identity crises is only a mystery to those who have never taken part in one. I said in my first column (which hopefully piqued your interest enough to read several hundred more words about a video game) that Mother 3 was a Shavian tragicomedy. Specifically, it’s Heartbreak House, one you won’t find in many anthologies. Mother 3, too, is about smiling at the apocalypse.

“Willing suspension of disbelief” is easily invoked when people question why the titular character can talk on the moon in Le Petit Prince. But when you have to walk the talk yourself, the giant gaping details that come from a writer’s universe, not honed like ours to mundane absurdity over billions of years, suddenly seem infinite. It is in that infinite, however, in the irrational, that we can enjoy art as art.

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$10 Buy | Myspace

With precision eerily reminiscent of Coldplay, Copeland has created an album in which every tiny note is a deliberate step toward an atmosphere - You Are My Sunshine - that carries all the joy of this phrase and it’s solemn dependence.

Copeland’s latest is a box of pop treats from a group of guys who have mastered the technical wizardry required to make an epic modern rock disk. But sometimes, you can’t help but think you’ve heard this album before.

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$0 Download

By Andrew Bates - A&SB Contributor

Mashups aren’t anything new to the world of music, but rarely do we get to hear a truly well produced and well crafted set of songs. In the case of Viva La Hova, Terry Urban and Mick Boogie do a fantastic job showcasing some of the best songs from Jay Z’s library to date, by meshing them with the smooth sounds of Coldplay. The result is undeniable satisfaction resonating through the listener’s earlobes.

Viva La Hova is a collection of twenty mashups, several produced by Boogie and Urban, and the work they do here is fun to dive into. Things get moving quickly with “Public Speeding” as Jay-Z’s infectious beats chime in with the introductory lines “Allow me to re-introduce myself/ My name is Hov’, OH, H-to-the-O-V/ I used to move snowflakes by the O-Z/ I guess even back then you can call me/ CEO of the R-O-C, Hov’!”

The chorus to this mashup is reserved for the distinct vocal prowess of Chris Martin as the Coldplay song “Higher Speed” takes off in the chorus. While a strong start, the sounds only get stronger.

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by Tim Williams - A&SB Contributor

You don’t know it yet, but a certain moving picture is lurking in the dark corners of the Internet, waiting to worm (warm?) its way into your heart, and kick It’s a Wonderful Life to the curb. No, it’s not Italian Spiderman Part II. You may, however, be able to hogtie it, push it down, into some snakewater, and then illegally watch it on your computer.

This would be a travesty of justice. And not just because the Flaming Lips’ giant plastic concert bubble is starting to show its age and could use a tune-up. Also because The Flaming Lips need to make enough money on this to fund another movie.

Yes, it’s Christmas on Mars, and the universe has never felt so alive. I would summarize the plot for you, but all you need to know is: It’s the resulting explosion that would occur if David Lynch and Frank Capra had teamed up to make the musical adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Frontman Wayne Coyne has admitted as much, although with the caveat: “It’s sometime in the future; Mars has been sort of conquered, and there’s a space station on it, but the space program has gone into decline and these people are kind of stuck up there. The whole thing ends up very dilapidated, very un-futuristic, un-2001. There’s an element of confidence among the scientists, but the overall view is that things seem kind of doomed.”

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$12 Buy | Stream

From the first tones of the opening track “Genesis,” an epic makes itself apparent. Forgive Durden’s latest album, Razia’s Shadow: A Musical, is just that - an ambitious piece performed as stagecraft and backed by instrumentation reminiscent of the orchestra pit.

What stands out most, however, is the endlessly imaginative writing of Thomas and Paul Dutton, who construct a world, inflict it with love and tear it all down over the course of 13 tracks.

Indeed, Razia’s Shadow is a reminder that the best music isn’t all that different from a good book. Each builds a landscape in your mind with full characters that are enriched - not confused - by an endless smattering of new detail.

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by Alex Truong - A&SB Contributor

The duo of Joey Burns and John Convertino have been known for the range of instruments contributing to their eclectic sound. Calexico’s latest album, Carried to Dust, aspires to capture part of the struggle of the writer’s strike that has just barely left our recent memory. Part of is it a sort of folksy, adventurous tone that utilizes a lot of instruments (including an accordion!) to achieve its soulful chillness. The sound is distinctly latin-southwestern with a definite nod to Calexico’s last albums, but the tracks come out not nearly as soft and lulling as their work with Iron and Wine.

They define themselves quickly in tracks like “Crystal Frontier,” and then elaborate on that vision with tracks like “Going to Acapulco with Jim James.” Sure, the album is a collection of horn-heavy strife-ridden anthems, and the loose affiliation with an otherwise get-over-yourself type of protest comes off as a little pretentious. Despite the message, the tracks are solid and definitely worth a listen. Check it out if you’re willing to chill for a bit, but don’t want to fall asleep.

$10 Buy Carried to Dust | Calexico on Myspace

The hip hop world has a unique history of artists co-opting each others’ work, a phenomenon that probably has more to do with the process of producing a rap album than some special culture. When a rock outfit wants to pay tribute to another band, they learn the chords, do a half-assed impression of the singer’s voice and get on with it. Not so in rap, where downloading a beat and rapping the same words over it could be accomplished by a functioning moron. (We’ll ignore all the functioning morons who write their own verses for now.) Instead, rappers big and small take collections of hot beats someone else probably bought from a producer and re-write the songs to create a mixtape. But does this constant recycling of material stifle hip-hop’s progress?

Believe me, I would love to steal all of his ideas. But for now, this will have to do.

It’s time for this editor to debate the only person with the stones to take himself on. Here’s a little feature we’ll call: Challenging Opponent™.

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