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Thanks to Tony for introducing us to NoEmotion! Hot indie business, although some of the lyrics are outrageous!

Apakalypse Record — Masta Buildas.

Still good. BBD was helping out ABC, which made the production quality of their music way better. This song hit #1 on the “Hot Dance Club Songs” when it was released in 1990. Big ups to David for reminding us of this jam.

So, the premiere of MTV’s new show, I Just Want my Pants Back is premiering tonight at 11 pm after Jersey Shore. I had been seeing the advertisements for this show for months, but I did not know until recently that it was based on a book. I stumbled upon the book in the free book menu on my Kindle and I started reading it. Although I am only halfway through, I have to say that I am curious to see how it is going to be interpreted. I’m sure that MTV will take some libeties with plot lines, but from what I can tell the characters are going to remain basically the same. I feel like Jason comes off a little whiney and immature in the book, but maybe his tv version will be more adult. All of the characters are pretty relateable and fun, so I think it should translate perfectly to MTV’s audience. I am going to continue reading the book to see, if in fact, he does ever get his pants back, although he should really just buy some new ones.

I Just Want my Pants Back premieres tonight at 11 pm on MTV.

This article about genres is long overdue. First off, we’re tired of all the blanket genre labels that keep popping up. Take the genre “electro,” for example. Wikipedia lists so-called “electro” artists such as DMX Krew, Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, Cylob and even Cat Stevens as artists related to the genre. Electro isn’t listed under any of Cat Stevens’ main Wikipedia page genres, and rightfully so. Apparently he dropped some album called “Was Dog a Doughnut,” that was allegedly a precursor to the “electro music genre of the 1980′s.”

At the end of the day, what is electro? Just some bullshit (for lack of a better adjective) commercial term that was developed by record labels to try and put various artists in a box. When artists are nicely packaged in a box, it’s easier to say what kind of music you like, and therefore figure out what kind of music you’d purchase. However, does that mean it’s accurate to do so?

Ever ask someone, “Hey, what kind of music do you like?” Only to get a response like, “Oh, I listen to everything,” or “Oh, I listen to everything but country,” or everything “but rap,” etc. Everything but country. Why’s that, because country is “uncool,” in some circles? It could also be that country is extremely popular in the US, and was the number one genre of music before hip hop or “rap” took its throne. Calling hip hop “rap,” really is kind of inaccurate as well, because “rap” refers to “rapping,” which is a trend in hip hop music. Calling hip hop “rap,” is kind of a thing of the 90′s though, back when music stores were still brick-and-mortar and not overtaken by digital storefronts.

I actually designed the font for the “rap” genre header on the Universal Music Group page back in 2008, just with a handwritten then digitally edited font, because theirs was struggling. Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot of my font on their genre header:

Here’s what their previous genre headers were…

Yes, I took time away from studying for law school finals to work on a genre font for UMG. Why not?

Also, just because I’m a digital packrat and nerdy enough to save screenshots of my desktop, here’s the full shot of my desktop at the time as well as the rough font sketch.

Of course, UMG has since revamped their site–after all it has been four years–but graphic design bragging-rights tangent aside, the mainstream labels package music in genres for sales purposes, even if what genre a musician’s songs fit is debatable. It goes beyond that though, mainstream genres are not even correct or accurate anymore.

The genre “electro” is garbage, and referring to hip hop as “rap” is also lamely imprecise, but let’s take a look at the “chillwave” genre. Aside from being a terribly cheesy name for a genre, since any reference to music with the word “chill” in it has always made us cringe, even the musicians at the forefront of the alleged “chillwave” genre do not even classify their music as such. Back to Wikipedia,

The Wall Street Journal quoted Alan Palomo of Neon Indian on genre, “Whereas musical movements were once determined by a city or venue where the bands congregated, ‘now it’s just a blogger or some journalist that can find three or four random bands around the country and tie together a few commonalities between them and call it a genre,’.”[5] Despite the stylistic similarities listed above, Palomo and other artists have questioned whether chillwave actually constitutes a discrete genre.

So there you have it, now we have random people on the Internet trying to put music in boxes as well, and those genres can become “real,” in that people actually use them? Come on! It’s bad enough that genres are imprecise as it is, but now anyone with a web site that gets traffic can create them?

Human nature makes us want to put everything in a box, from music to gender, even though life can’t just all be lumped together. Trying to simplify the world this way is a terribly unintelligent idea. If someone sees a baby boy on a train dressed in pink clothes that are arguably “girly” it can frustrate them because they can’t tell if the kid is a boy or a girl. That’s straight from the professor of a graduate level anthropology class. The tendency to want to see things in black and white is because it’s just easier that way, aside from that fact that human nature is completely irrational.

People who don’t care about music very much don’t listen enough to actually be able to discern differences between different genres and I also cringe at the number of times I’ve heard people say “it all sounds the same,” about a genre when if you actually follow that type of music, you will notice differences that are substantial enough to split into all kinds of sub-genres. Even then though, with experimental music, and even new music that is more conventional, it is best to classify music with multiple genres and sub genres.

The only reason to use sweeping genres that lump together a bunch of pre-existing genres that truly are different is to dumb things down for people who don’t really listen to music, but just skim through it. That’s right. I’ve heard people refer to all electronic music as “house” or “trance.” Again, come on! Really? It’s those same lazy people with typically dull taste in music that use commercially created terms like “electro” and “chillwave.”

So IDM is a stylistic origin of chill wave? Really? As someone who has been listening to IDM since the 90′s, that sounds absurd to me. This Autechre track, “Gantz Graf,” is IDM. So then, shouldn’t we be able to hear some influence from it in Neon Indian’s music? I can’t.

Just because Autechre used a lot of editing in the sequencer and digital sound processing to make that track doesn’t really make it anything at all like Neon Indian’s music. Think back to that person who goes around telling people “Uh, yeah, I listen to a little bit of everything, except country.” For reals? So, we might find them in their car rocking out to the Autechre track above? Doubt it. They probably don’t listen to anything that’s experimental at all. Oh the things we say that are driven by our insecurities.

So in conclusion, the question we pose is this: are you a dumbed-down herd follower of a person when it comes to music? Do you actually have enough passion for music that you spend a reasonable amount of time seeking it out, listening to it without talking over it, and enjoying it? If so, maybe then you will hear enough differences from one musician to the next that it will feel completely wrong to throw a musician in a smorgasbord sack of shit genre. <3.

Birth of a Star from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

“This movie presents a visualization of the star-forming region known as S106. This unique three-dimensional view illustrates and emphasizes that many of the objects contained within astronomical images are not at the same distance, but, in fact, spread across light-years of space. The Hubble image is augmented with additional field-of-view from the Subaru Infrared Telescope. The stars and the lobes of glowing gas from the Hubble/Subaru two-dimensional image have been separated and sculpted using both scientific knowledge and artistic license to create the depth in the movie. Of note, the relative distances between stars and the nebula have been greatly compressed.”
-NASA

“This devastatingly beautiful image shows the birth pangs of a massive star. Called IRS 4 (for Infrared Source 4; it was first seen in IR images), it’s the really bright star just below center where the two blue lobes come together. It’s a bruiser, an O-type star with at least 15 times the Sun’s mass — 30 octillion tons! — and is a staggering 10,000 times as bright. It’s still in the process of forming, but it’s nearly there.

Located about 2000 light years away, IRS 4 is surrounded by an enormous cloud of gas and dust that may have a mass as high as 25,000 times the mass of the Sun. When the star first ignited, fusing hydrogen into helium in its core, the vast amount of energy it started pouring out lit up the cloud in the immediate vicinity around it. Most of the cloud is still dark and cannot be seen here, but everything within a few light years of the star is being illuminated, if not ionized, by the fierce ultraviolet light from the star.”
- Phil Plait

If you want to get the song “Funeral Canticle,” it’s an iTunes Album Only purchase, but probably worth the $10 for the 23 minute song. Tom Lowe is awesome too.

If you don’t know, Tom Lowe won 2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year.

TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

It would be amazing to own a Red MX camera. The resolution is so high that it easily rivals movies made with film, and even though it costs $25,000 USD, it is actually cheaper than using film for any production. Most directors are switching to using Red digital cameras, except for ones like Woody Allen, where they basically have enough clout to use whatever they want. Digital will always dominate in the future.

Michael Clarke’s footage of a private jump session after the Sammy Calson Invitational was a fail due to poor weather conditions. Skip the BBQ stuff if you want to see some amazing air!

So thanks to me, we saw (and published) this Billy Sorrells video when it was at a wee 200k+ views. Oh, is it at 6.5 million views now? HYFR.

What’s even better is that the other day I heard this Drake song on Pandora while driving to work. Seeing the Billy Sorrells video, then hearing the song that inspired it, was really a game-changer for a song that was already good. And I say hell yeah. Hell yeah.

Not sure what Wayne means when he says, “My nuts hang like ain’t not curfew,” though.

Drake – “HYFR”

Snoop // Wiz Khalifa’s record:

Pretty much everything Snoop says in this “Nemo’s Advice” show is funny, especially his thoughts on Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries.

Snooki’s boyfriend, Jionni, on MTV’s Jersey Shore has a similar predicament…

There’s no reinvention in party time. In fact, time doesn’t even exist anymore… except for party time.

Saw this on MTV earlier and it’s so bad. Normally, we keep it positive about the musics, but this song and video are ridiculous. Will.i.am is like junk food for music. Think about all the reasons you wouldn’t eat junk food then think about this song and how weak sauce it is. Will.i.am was working on a business deal with Universal Music Group and we heard he’s a fairly opinionated dude. Not just like strong convictions, but opinionated in a pretentious way. Don’t ask how we know that.

Will.i.am shouldn’t have to tell us how hard the beat is, really. The beat should just speak for itself. Come on buddy!

Then there’s the whole involvement of Mick Jagger. Seriously? Jagger should be thanking Ke$ha right now because since she and Maroon 5 wrote tracks playing on the words “swagger” and “Jagger,” which seems to have created an unfortunate ripple-effect. Now we have to listen to and more horribly see Mick Jagger still performing. Yes, the Rolling Stones made awesome music, but that was years ago, and unfortunately their time has passed. In the entertainment business, sometimes retirement really isn’t such a bad thing. Rather than going hard, Jagger should just go home!

We’ve got that crisis like Jagger, because this song reeks of an older dude trying to be cool for Jagger. You’ve got to know when to fold them, just like if you’re on a casino online. It’s so tempting to go hard though and try to win big when you’ve got money to burn, isn’t it? Call us what you will, but when we gamble, we like to get our video poker on. When we can’t make it to Vegas we hit up: http://www.casinotop10.net/video-poker.shtml, keeping it legal, of course. Unfortunately, much like Mick Jagger, we don’t always know when to fold ‘em. Two words: human nature.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Swatch Love Collection.

Wear your heart on your sleeve with two adorable Original Gent watches. Catch My Heart is ruby red and features a small white figure, emerging from a scarlet rose sketched on the dial. To give love an extra chance, the red silicon strap also bears the words “Only you!” Positioned just beneath the dial, near the beating heart of the watch, the message hugs the wrist.

It is also time for romance with Lovely Mine, the second Original Gent, with its delicate pink design. The pink dial is home to a cute character in a rabbit costume, the ears of which join to form a heart shape. The little guardian of feelings kept secret becomes the messenger and whispers the sweetest words to the chosen one. The pink strap confirms the tender declaration with “I love you!” written below the dial.

The Swatch Love Collection is completed with stainless steel 316L bijoux, embellished with faceted red crystals. The Glamorous Love trio comprises a heart pendant nestled in steel, which dances on a delicate chain; a simple, pure ring studded with tiny hearts that sparkle with incandescent light; and a set of heart-shaped earrings. The bijoux flash with fiery red, like love.

We’ve always known Swatch for their high-quality, durable watches, but style and holiday spirit are also brought to the table for the Swatch Love Collection. Following are a few links for browsing // purchasing the watches that tickle your fancy or you think would make a good gift for your sweetheart this year, as well as a gallery of photos of these cool timepieces. You can count on the same durable quality for Swatch’s ever-growing catalog of jewelry.

Lovely Mine ($60)
Catch My Heart ($60)
Glamourous Love Jewelry

More spectacular video from Michael Clarke.

For their Fall Collection Jiberish (jiberish.com) decided to venture outside of their traditional lookbook and create a video to showcase a few pieces through film.

I am a former Jiberish athlete who now does freelance video work out of NYC. Jiberish asked me to create a short that captures the vibe and style of some of their good friends wearing their favorite Fall 2011 pieces on a classic autumn day in Denver.

Song is “The World” by Charles Bradley

Drake is unstoppable. It’s really all about the intro. here.

We are so down with this new brand of men’s underwear we discovered. It seems like all the comfortable underwear is overpriced. Some people don’t care about their drawers and shop wherever for them, but we’ve been burning cash on expensive underwear to satisfy our picky comfort needs. However, that fire has been extinguished by the Undz company. W’ll be hosting an undz.org giveaway in the near future. Details on the way.

About Undz:

Undz.org was founded in 2008 by street wear addicts, inspired by overpriced goods in the mens underwear world. Thats when they recognized the need for trendy, low cost and colourful mens underwear. They quickly set out to reinvent the mens underwear philosophy for rest of the World.

Our promises

Undz.org’s goal is to give every client all the live help possible to make for a top-rate shopping experience. We abide by our 60 minute policy, which means that we will return any inquiry within one hour. We love our customers and want to hear from you if you don’t experience the best.

Here are a couple of the styles we like from Undz.

Who knew freestyle skiing could be so awesome?

Phace & Misanthrop – “What’s Wrong:”

Phace & Misanthrop – “Out of Focus feat. Spor:”

Fairly raw. Would you expect any less from these producers though?

Admittedly, I haven’t been paying attention to Arcade Fire for a long time. The last time I listened to them was in 2006, and it seemed their only reasonably decent song then was “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” Yet, even that song is kind of boring. Not into the whole Modest Mouse pitchy voice thing either. In 2006, when “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” was released, I knew two people who talked about how awesome the band was. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, always, but those same two people also enjoyed bands like Rascal Flatts, Pete Yorn and Lifehouse, which doesn’t really need further explanation.

The more recent Arcade Fire song “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” is actually surprisingly good. What happened in five or six years? Now Arcade Fire is actually good? Wow. Stop paying attention to a band and they get better? That’s somewhat unusual. So, kudos to Arcade Fire for stepping their game up, whenever that happened.

*Begin tangential story*

I will say this though: back in ’06 I actually purchased a Lifehouse song per the request of a girl who also raved about Arcade Fire. Can’t remember what song it was, but yes, I actually personally supported the band with a $.99 contribution. This was back when iTunes still sucked and had exclusively 128kbps mp3s (low quality) available for download. How dare Apple? Selling compressed-ass, lossy quality music at $.99 a song. This dude over at TweakHound breaks down audio quality differences in a pretty straightforward way… if you’re interested. Yes, iTunes was terrible for audiophiles, or anyone who prefers CD quality sound, even a full five years after its launch in January 2001!

Anyway, I couldn’t believe this girl liked Lifehouse and asked, “Ha! Is this song for you?” She tried to cover it up by saying “It’s for my roommate.” Mmmmhmmm. Sure gurl. Didn’t mean to make her feel insecure about her taste in music there, but these things happen. At least she was smart enough to have no iTunes account at the time. Maybe she was an audiophile too! Needless to say, the song was promptly deleted from my music library after burning it to disc for her.

More background: in the brief one and a half months I hung out with this girl, she kept talking about some guy she was clearly hung-up on. The story went something like: “We met at a party and had sex eight times in one night. How does that happen? Who does that?” I didn’t care so much that she slept with some random guy from a party but instead kept wondering what would cause a couple to bone eight times in one night. Of course, her obsession about the dude continued to resurface in our chats–even though she insisted she was over him–and she eventually told me his explanation for rejecting the idea of dating her. His reasoning? He “couldn’t date [her] because dating as an official couple is so conventional and overrated and why do people always have to put a label on things anyway?”

I responded to that by saying, “This guy is basically telling you ‘Thanks for the fuck. It’s been real!’” Enough time had passed for that conclusion to be a fair one. Oh, that phone call ended nice and cordially, but that didn’t stop her from calling me up a few days later while drunk only to scream about what an insensitive bastard I was for making such an inconsiderate statement about a guy she’d had relations with. In that entire call I think I only got to say two things: “I thought you were over him?” and “Sorry about that!” The rest was me getting chewed-out. That was the last I heard from her. Give someone a little taste of reality and they get all mad about it. Oblivion might be blissful, but delusion isn’t.

*End tangential story*