It’s a good time to be a music video fan with a DVD player. Seems like every time I look around, there’s a new video compilation to snatch, and for kids like me who have an ample amount of grainy little MPEGs on their computers, usually encoded by god knows who and probably obtained from a junk server of dubious legality, it’s nice to upgrade.
The present is also a wise time to release a DVD of definitive Wu-Tang Clan videos: ODB’s death has …

Louder Now, the third album by Amityville, New York emo kids Taking Back Sunday, isn’t really “louder now.” In fact, I’m tempted to say that it might actually be more sugary than their first two albums – it’s riddled with hints of pleasing a younger, more pop-driven audience. Not that Taking Back Sunday’s earlier releases were shrouded with cryptic, brooding, off-center hymns, but there was a sense of originality and that genuine feel I got when I heard those older songs that just …

For a lot of girls, there is always that one best friend they can count on. The friend who you’ve had since at least high school, who knows everything about you. The friend you’ve done really stupid things with; the friend who, even in the midst of a giant storm of annoyances, you automatically called when everything was going wrong; and the one friend (who you aren’t fucking) that you can stay up all night with and not get grumpy. So imagine a day …

Lately, there seems to be a formula for making a radio hit album. Give it a Franz Ferdinandesque backbeat, a sprinkle of whiny lyrics, and a shitload of influences that will please the shaggy-haired kid who still buys vinyl (assuming, of course, he even listens to the radio). And then, the final touch to our peachy keen delicious dessert: add a thick layer of shiny, saccharine production that could have been slowly forced out of a Duncan Hines red and white frosting cup.
This is …

In 1929, Luis Bunuel directed a film called Un Chien Andalou. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: co-written with then-Surrealist artist and provocateur Salvador Dali and possessed of an infamous opening sequence that still shocks today, it was met with admiration in artistic circles but with much more widespread revulsion from the general public – though not, as is often apocryphally claimed, with the riots which would eventually greet Bunuel’s second collaboration with Dali, 1930′s L’Age d’Or. Look at the first two films by this …

Anarchism is, perhaps, the world’s most misunderstood and most frequently misinterpreted political philosophy. Throughout American history, anarchists have been persecuted at every possible opportunity. Often scapegoats for a nation enduring a crisis, they have been jailed, deported, and, in the case of the legendary Sacco and Vanzetti, executed for crimes they did not commit. It is true that other radical groups endured similar fates, especially Communists. Yet, while most high school students in the United States are made at least somewhat familiar …

Conventional wisdom says that the ’80s weren’t kind to rock. For the most part, that’s a bit of an exaggeration; any decade which managed to yield classic albums like Fire of Love, Rain Dogs, Imperial Bedroom and Surfer Rosa couldn’t be all bad. What the ’80s really weren’t kind to, however, was Rock with a capital “R”: those graying, fading superstars who had seemed so hip and dangerous in the 1970s, only to be revealed ten years later as charlatans in banana-yellow slacks. …

Babies in America usually have their choice of a million dangling toys of all shapes and sizes. They can range everywhere from platinum shiny to electric colors invented in the ’80s. These toys can do anything from playing melodies to imitating animal noises to producing the most irritating flatulent squeaks. Yet despite the hundreds of dollars spent on these toys, these aren’t the things babies prefer to see. Most scientists agree that what newborn babies most prefer seeing is the human face. …

Yesterday, the Pea Pod staff attacked Clear Channel’s underwater fortress. Aaron took advantage of his diminutive stature by climbing into a heating duct. He crawled through the castle walls until he came upon the secret radio control room, which was filled with guardian robots. Aaron poked his head out of a ceiling vent and coated the robots with molten lead. In the uproar that followed, the rest of us Podders were able to shoot, stab, and knee-face-bash our way to …

Some great voices are instruments of artistry. Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye — these are all composers, pop artistes; their legendary vocals just one element of their equally legendary visions. Other great voices, however, are something else entirely: they, themselves, are the instruments. Otis Williams belongs decidedly to the second category. A founding member of legendary soul quintet the Temptations, his powerful, melodic baritone sounded great on classics like “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and “Just My Imagination”…but it was arguably …