Giuseppe Zangara

What I want to know now is who were the five people who clicked on the thumbnail in the first post so they could get a better look.

POWER AMBIENT Stars of the Lid's And Their Refinement of the Decline is one of my favorite albums from this year.

So intent was I on saving and uploading that pic that I left out a verb in the title.

Okay, listening to this for the first time. There's a really nice melody in the chorus, but the cheerleaderish chanting and count-off are just a little :eyeroll:, ya know? It also could benefit from better production values, not that that would disguise the fact that the song is little more than an indie pop trifle. We all benefit from the vocals being buried low in the mix/effects-laden, as I can testify to singer/guitarist Reggie Youngblood being incapable of a carrying a fucking tune to save his life. I say this with confidence as, a few years ago, he was the frontman for this totally awful bunch of Cure-rip-offs called Cubby, whom I had the misfortune of seeing live a handful of times.

Lengthy song titles are not exclusive to Moz-aping youngsters. No one was thinking of the Smiths when, a decade ago, Don Caballero were giving songs names like ""In the Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step Out of the Way of the Charging Bull" and "No One Gives a Hoot About FAUX-ASS Nonsense."

I still follow newer music, but I'm far from caring about checking out whatever new band gets blogged about or written up in Pitchfork. There's a total homogeny in indie rock now—good for you if you can honestly tell apart Rogue Wave from Blitzen Trapper from Tapes n Tapes from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah from etc. but it's all the same whiny-voiced, infectiously hooked swill to me.

Big reason why I gave up trying to follow contemporary music. I wasn't really absorbing anything; I just wanted to have an opinion on whatever people were talking about. That isn't being a music fan; it's status. A pose.

Speaking as an aging hipster, that Idolator article is mostly spot-on. Mind you, I've yet to hear anything by this band—hometown represent!—but no band that's only recorded a handful of songs and played not many more shows is worthy of the kind of hype Black Kids is getting.

Why were these two bands lumped together?

I've still never knowingly heard any of her songs. If it wasn't for the internet, I wouldn't know she exists.

I figured that's what you meant, which is why Kinetic's suggestion of Phil Collins was off base. The songwriting amongst the trio-incarnation—a period of the band for which I'm no great fan—was pretty evenly split amongst Rutherford, Collins and Banks; even if all you know of 80s Genesis is the singles, you could stand those against Collins' solo singles of the same period and see that Banks and Rutherford must've reigned in Collins's sappier, saccharine tendencies.

It's a common misconception that Genesis suffered upon Peter Gabriel's departure; the first two post-Gabriel albums, A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering were every bit as good as the Gabriel-era stuff. Also, it's a bit questionable to call Collins, at any point, the "center" of Genesis, unless you mean "center" as simply being the band's most famous/prominent member. If that's the case, you really couldn't call Peart the "center" of Rush.

The third-wave ska movement from a decade ago managed to sour me for years on ska in general. Only recently have I been able to give bands like the Specials and the English Beat a fair shot.

This wasn't what I was getting at. No matter. I wish I went with my original idea for a post, which would've had no picture and have simply read: "God, I bet her pussy smells wonderful."

Barely perceptible stink lines emanating from her cunt.

Speaking as someone who's birthday is four days after Christmas, the answer is "yes." As a child, I never had a birthday party. Furthermore, no sympathy from my mother, as she and I share the same birthday and she claimed she never had a party, either.

Scratch that. I just noticed Sound of Silver got a nod.

The Distant Future is the best of any of the nominees.

I ended up starting with this over W&P. Roughly 80 pages into it and it is very, very good.

I got a new turntable recently, so I've been listening to nothing lately but items from my rather small record collection. Here's what today and yesterday consisted of: EDIT: I failed to mention an aborted attempt to listen to The Clash's Give 'em Enough Rope. I made it through side one just fine, but side two was too warped to listen to. I wouldn't have thought it possible that one side could be unlistenably warped while the other side was unaffected. EDIT, AGAIN: One last album before I call it a night:

Those two Get a Life dvds brought me a combined total of $76. Real talk.

Cover art became increasingly irrelevant in the CD-age, so it's bizarre that people have a fondness for images that are even smaller than the compact disc insert.

Who gives a shit about cover art when you're listening to mp3s? Does it make the music more "real" to you? Also, what's some people's beef with iTunes? I like it well enough, though I say this as someone who just uses it to, you know, listen to music.

LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends" Sound of Silver is the best album of 2007, too, but you knew that.