December 31, 2008
2008 Year-End Summary & Fester's Lucky 13s
It's been unavoidable that writing about the year in music has focused almost entirely on the business end, ever since the industry started it's whiney handwringing tradition eight years ago, causing panic with dire predictions of the death of the album, and criminalizing their best customers (those who download a lot of music also tend to buy a lot of music). Let's set the record straight. Albums, like movies and books, aren't going anywhere. Movies have survived cable tv, vcrs, video stores, on demand, DVRs, Netflix and bit torrents. Books have survived used bookstores, libraries, and the Kindle. Formants come and go, profits ebb and flow, and retailers open and close. It's the nature of business. Get the fuck over it.
According to World Wide Albums.net, the top selling albums were from Coldplay (6,570,400), AC/DC (4,627,000), Duffy (4,422,320), Mamma Mia! Soundtrack (3,768,240), Metallica (3,477,000), Madonna (3,339,680) and Lil' Wayne (3,216,240). Over 40 albums sold more than a million copies, including The Killers which has only been out a few weeks. Continue...
TV On The Radio, Dear Science, (DGC/Interscope
TV On The Radio's second album, Return To Cookie Mountain (2006) divided its audience. Some were disappointed, others think they'll never top it. It was an oppressive wall of sound that accomplished exactly what it set out to do. It was a dark, prickly, heavy album that took me two months to properly absorb, and still holds up two years later. Dear Science, is just as complexly layered, but more immediate. The melodies are sweeter, and there's more air between the layers, making instruments and vocals more discernable. I see it less as flaws in David Sitek's production, but rather the band's evolution. On the first couple listens it was obviously catchier, funkier, even sexier. Polished but still rough where it counts. My third listen on headphones is what floored me. After finishing it I felt wobbly with catharsis, like I'd spent a day traveling in an unfamiliar country with a lover, having deep conversations, getting drunk, arguing, and ending the night at 3 a.m., exhausted from intense make-up sex. Continue...
January 20, 2008
Fast 'n' Bulbous Redesign (In Progress)
Since IE7 decided to make my venerable, long suffering site look broken, I decided it was finally time to make the conversion to CSS. Some of you recall I started working on a redesign in 2005 for its 10th Anniversary (eek). I tried dozens of fonts and logos to base it on and wasn't happy with any of them. The current logo is still a temporary placeholder, while an amazingly-patient-and-generous-friend to whome I'll be forever indebted makes a nicer one. The color palette is not set in stone. I'm trying out the old dark green background combined with a sufficiently evil (\m/) black main content area, neon (meate dreams of an octafish) green headers and orange links. Feel free to compare the 
changes with the old site and give feedback via my email listed on the lower right, and I might try other things. Click on the image to see suggestions my friend John kindly made.
Neon Meate Dreams of an Orange Octafish
Lighter Dreams
Poopy old site
Magnet Magazine: Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of Magnet, the best music magazine in North America (I'm not just saying that cuz they reviewed me, really. I've been a subscriber since issue 3).
The Wire Magazine: Adventures In Modern Music. Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the February 2001 issue of The Wire, a British magazine that covers "electronica, avant rock, breakbeat, jazz, modern classical, global and sounds from the outer limits."
