Billy Corgan made the great lost record. 3:28 pm // Saturday, June 23, 2012
Posted by jjb in amusing, analysis, billy corgan, chicagosongs, interview.comments closed
During a Los Angeles meet-and-greet yesterday, this exchange (video) took place between KYSR-FM deejay Darren Rose and Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan:
Billy Corgan: If I told you my real opinions of every album, you’d probably laugh.
Darren Rose: Do you have a favorite?
Corgan: Not really, no. Honestly, I think the best album I’ve ever made I haven’t released. It’s sitting in a can at home. I did a solo acoustic record about my hometown of Chicago. And I played one show, and I thought the show was amazing, and then I went on like an idiot the next day and read what the fans were writing and they said ‘Can he just please pick up an electric guitar again? Screw this acoustic music, we don’t want to hear this shit, dadadada.’ And I said OK, and I put the album back in the can and it’s sitting there to this day. People who’ve heard it say it’s some of the most beautiful work I’ve ever done. It’s just sitting there.
The album in question, known as “ChicagoSongs” or “ChicagoKid” or both, dates to the 2002-2004 period and encompasses about fourteen or fifteen or seventy-two (yikes!) songs.
While Corgan seems to blame “the fans” for the album not having been released, another possible reason is that Corgan has to be his own best editor. If he’s putting out something, it’s a decision he’s made, and sometimes it doesn’t have anything to do with musical quality. It has to do with personal satisfaction. He’s earned the right to fucking suck.
Also, exuberance from Corgan about his yet-to-be released records (e.g., Zeitgeist, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, Oceania), as well as negative comments by Corgan about released records that the public has not embraced (e.g., Zeitgeist, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope), are par for the course.
RESEARCH UPDATE: On October 19, 2004—exactly six months after the “one show” Corgan played—a Toronto radio DJ asked him (audio, at 3:55) to “Tell us about the [ChicagoSongs/ChicagoKid] DVD.” Corgan replied: “It’s in the can. It’s all acoustic. There’s been about thirty songs recorded. And we’re just starting to cut it together, and hopefully that’ll be out by the end of next year.”
Big-box retailer, Clear Channel promoting tiny Pumpkins gig in NYC 11:45 pm // Monday, June 11, 2012
Posted by susan in amusing, marketing, news, radio, tour.comments closed
Appliance and electronics retailer P. C. Richard & Son piped up today to reveal, via Twitter and Facebook, that Smashing Pumpkins will be giving a small private performance in New York City on June 19, the day their album Oceania hits stores.
P. C. Richard & Son is the sponsor of the “iHeartRadio Theatre,” a tiny venue that puts on intimate concerts seemingly just so iHeartRadio (read: Clear Channel) network stations can run ticket giveaways. Pumpkins fans can enter for a chance to win tickets via an app on P. C. Richard’s Facebook page; one might presume that some New York area Clear Channel station(s) may have a few tickets to give away, as well. For those not among the chosen 200 spectators, judging from the recent appearances by Carrie Underwood and B.o.B., the performance may be streamed live online.
Pumpkins smell the buzz, partner with Coty for ‘Oceania’ fragrance 12:01 am // Sunday, April 1, 2012
Posted by susan in parody.comments closed
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Mere weeks after Billy Corgan asked attendees at a SXSW Interactive panel, “Would you rather have me in a record deal than selling perfumes?!,” a new report says the Smashing Pumpkins will in fact begin marketing a bottled scent during the third quarter of 2012. According to Women’s Wear Daily, Corgan will partner with Coty Prestige to create “Oceania: The Fragrance,” which Coty is describing as the first-ever (cough) “album perfume.”
In a separate press release, Corgan’s partners at Coty (who are also authoring scents for Madonna and Lady Gaga) described the scent:
Oceania: The Fragrance serves as an essential part of the full album experience that is [the Pumpkins' upcoming record] Oceania. Oceania is designed as all-encompassing sensory experience that will transport fans aurally, visually, and olfactorily. Oceania, the album, whose theme is that essentially, deeply human crisis, loneliness; loneliness, whose only counterweight is spiritual enlightenment and, if one is fortunate, the love of a woman from Down Under. Oceania: The Fragrance is inspired by these same questions, as well as the Australian state of Queensland, energy vortices, and the Colossus of Memnon. Oceania: The Fragrance features a rich blend of indolic flowers, native Queensland Bridal Veil Orchid, and sweaty musks—the swirling, heavenly heights of white blooms, tempered by the basest human fears. Only by copiously applying Oceania: The Fragrance will Smashing Pumpkins superfans truly understand the mystery of Oceania: the album.
Corgan’s squeeze Jessica Origliasso has already expressed her approval for the scent on Twitter, saying, “Lovers, I smell like angel’s breath & Queensland orchids Xx”
Corgan’s biting remarks at SXSW contrasted the public’s expectations that mainstream pop artists will market products to them with the expectation that alternative and indie artists will eschew money-making opportunities. Declaring in one forum that “marketing is the new money,” Corgan was also quoted as saying: “If I have to sell cologne to make my music vital, then that’s what I have to do…not that anyone would buy it.”
Oceania: The Fragrance will be available in 50 and 100 mL Eau de Parfum, in a globe-shaped, resonant crystal-topped bottle; a 10 mL purse spray will be exclusive to Sephora.
Leaked Resistance Pro script reveals Corgan-Brown ‘reconciliation’ 12:00 am // Sunday, April 1, 2012
Posted by jjb in parody.comments closed
[For more April Fool's Day posts, read through the "parody" category.]
The one-sided Twitter ‘feud’ being carried on by rock producer Kerry Brown against Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is merely an elaborate setup for a professional wrestling storyline, according to documents obtained yesterday by Hipsters United from a source inside Corgan’s Resistance Pro organization.
Brown surprised Pumpkins fans on December 7 by announcing that his working relationship with the band had ended, and in recent weeks he has tweeted a series of increasingly aggressive jabs at Corgan. But now it appears that Brown’s tweets are part of an angle orchestrated by Corgan in his role as the creative director for Resistance Pro. A “master plan” for the promotion’s May 11 event at Teamster Auditorium in Chicago calls for Brown and Corgan to ‘reconcile’ during a brief skit:
KERRY BROWN suddenly leaps the railing and gets into the ring, meaning to address the mixing of Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. He doesn’t like it. He wants the microphone to talk to CORGAN. CORGAN comes down and says “fuck” a lot, then tells [D'ARCY] DIXON to let BROWN speak. BROWN launches into a diatribe about how shitty “Widow Wake My Mind” is and how phony the Smashing Pumpkins’ official Twitter account is now. BROWN even tells everyone that the Pumpkins were part of a hippie cult where they took strange new names and that’s what Billy is doing now with the R-Pro wrestlers. BROWN then ends by apologizing for everything he said. CORGAN totally accepts the apology. Then security escorts BROWN out.
EDITORIAL NOTE: We ourselves owe a real apology, in light of the preceding, to the staff of Crestfallen.com; as it turns out, they are entirely correct in judging our initial report on the Brown-Corgan ‘split’ to be unnecessary gossip.
Conspiracy theorist to release hour-long interview with Billy Corgan 11:36 pm // Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Posted by susan in amusing, billy corgan, news, politics, radio.comments closed
Today on his radio program, conspiracy theorist and info-warrior Alex Jones announced that he will be releasing an hour-long video interview with Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan tomorrow evening for subscribers of Jones’s prisonplanet.tv news service. Corgan and his girlfriend, Jessica Origliasso of the Veronicas, spent time with Jones last week while in Austin for various South by Southwest events.
According to a post on the official Smashing Pumpkins messageboard by the user BlueSkiesBringTears (who seems to be a regular Alex Jones listener), after its exclusive premiere behind paywall, video of the interview with Corgan will soon make its way to Alex Jones’s official YouTube account.
You can listen to Jones’s announcement of Corgan’s appearance here. Jones’s remarks about Corgan occur about 33 minute into the program. BlueSkiesBringTears also took the time to transcribe the announcement, which appears below with slight corrections:
Billy Corgan. Tomorrow night. Hour-plus in-studio interview I did with him, what?… last Thursday. Billy Corgan, of course, of The Smashing Pumpkins, but also [a] prolific songwriter… one of the most successful in the last 50 years. That’s … he’s not really known for that, but that’s, that’s the facts. Amazing political mind. He was in-studio with us. That’s gonna premiere tomorrow evening, 7:00 Central, 8:00 Eastern, prisonplanet.tv. And it’s great to have people like Dave Mustaine reach out and want to come to town and be interviewed. And when Billy Corgan was in town… through Mancow, learned that he wanted to talk and that he was a listener — really flattered, he’s been listening for five or six years. Really intelligent fellow. Kind of a whiz-kid growing up, and a Renaissance Man throughout his life. His great girlfriend, who I had a chance to meet, who, of course, is one of the twin singers of the Veronicas, another, you know, big mega-band in its own right… because… it, it, it… again, it just lets you know how many people are awake, if prominent people are coming out of the woodwork. And when I say, ‘Out of the woodwork’ — people like Billy Corgan and Dave Mustaine have the courage to come on this show. Some people I’ve talked to have courage, but…
As a resident of Austin for almost seven years now, I have long been aware of Alex Jones, who is something of a local celebrity. I admit to finding Jones highly entertaining, though we perhaps do not share all the same political beliefs. So I find myself waiting with bated breath for this interview whatever its potential newsworthiness. Besides, watching Jones’s interview with Dave Mustaine (of Megadeth) from earlier this month, they discuss music quite a bit. Here’s hoping!
UPDATE: BlueSkiesBringTears posts that the interview will now be aired on Monday, March 26th so that it can be promoted more extensively before airing.
Can reissue booklets reveal, or must they conceal, ‘the real lyrics’? 1:14 am // Thursday, December 1, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, analysis, gish, lyrics.comments closed
Open your eyes to these mustard lies
She knows and she knows and she knows
—from lyrics to “Rhinoceros” printed in booklet for the reissued Gish
For the sake of argument, assume with me for a moment that the first time Billy Corgan had the thoughts that were to manifest themselves again every time he would sing or otherwise proffer the words to “Rhinoceros” over the subsequent 20-plus years, what would become the line quoted above instead surfaced initially into his consciousness as:
Open your eyes; to these, must I lie?
This line ‘makes more sense’ in that it does not seem to invoke a dishonest condiment. But it is also maybe a bit too intense, precious, or ‘embarrassing’ for Corgan the Braincrusher to have rolled with and felt comfortable about every night on stage in front of detached crowds. So maybe he changed what he had to something dodgy that sounded similar, and even that preserved some of the meaning, but would pass as ‘arty’ or whimsical or flip.
Perhaps, though, that all still does not mean the more sensible line deserves to be tagged as the ‘original’ (or ‘real,’ etc.) lyric—for when does a surfaced thought become a lyric? Is it as soon as the thought hits? Or is it when it is sung aloud or jotted down in private, when it is shared with another person or collaborator, when it is performed in public, when a recording is given to the Library of Congress or sold in stores, or when it appears in a booklet from a publisher? Or…well.
And whether one decides to say the line in question was already a lyric or still only a thought at the time it changed, there’s also the question of when that was. Maybe it wasn’t in 1989 in Corgan’s bedroom, but at some later point. Possibly the line is one of a few ketchup gags created exclusively for and packaged inside every copy of the reissue of Gish. Maybe the opening line of “Rhinoceros” was actually “planned a show” through every single studio take and live performance before Corgan read a tweet sent by Lauren Bethany Hawkins of Norwich, England on August 19, 2011. Who knows? He knows, and we don’t.
Don’t think for a second. 4:57 pm // Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, analysis, billy corgan, interview, oceania.comments closed
Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan says that his band’s new album “stands up with [his] best work,” but don’t take his word for it—audiences on tour are responding well even to the record’s lengthy title track, he tells Joe Bosso of MusicRadar.com:
Corgan: I’ve been very surprised at how positive the response to the song ["Oceania"] has been and how people are getting it right away. I might have expected that they wouldn’t, but the fact that they are is great. Hearing people go “Yea!” to a new song is a welcome change. I’ve had a lot of “Hmm…” the past few years. You get used to “Hmm…”
Bosso: But how did you deal with “Hmm…”? That couldn’t have been easy.
Corgan: It wasn’t. When I was younger, I got really angry. Then I got sort of bitter, like, “This sucks. Shouldn’t I be given more of an opportunity here?” Eventually, I realized that you have to trust the public’s opinion. Even if they’re wrong, they’re right. You know what I mean? If they like Justin Bieber, you can’t say, “No, don’t like Justin Bieber.” They’re going to gravitate towards what they want, and you have to accept that. Looking back at where I’ve gotten it right at the highest level, the public has always responded positively. [...]
[W]ith Mellon Collie, which became a huge album, I had to be talked into releasing “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” by Phil Quartararo, who was the president of Virgin Records at the time. I wanted another song to be the first single.
Bosso: Which song was that?
Corgan: “Jellybelly.” I thought that was more in line with how the Smashing Pumpkins should be represented. This was after eight months of work. And nobody ever talks to me about “Jellybelly,” yet every night when we play “Bullet” people yell and scream and jump all over the place. Just because I’m the artist doesn’t mean I always know. The public will tell you when you’re right.
Now, if you are blessed with memories of the past year, you may be recalling at this moment that Billy Corgan himself is the best evaluator of his ability and his skill set. But that doesn’t mean it is for him to tell when he’s right, at least not at the highest level. Sometimes he needs to do the okay song to get to the great song, but just because he’s the artist doesn’t mean he always knows which song is which.
And then, if that leads you to believe that the public might provide input valuable to Corgan with regard to what songs he should release, realize that Corgan has to be his own best editor. If he’s putting out something, it’s a decision he’s made, and sometimes it doesn’t have anything to do with musical quality. It has to do with personal satisfaction. He’s earned the right to fucking suck. [laughs]
Topspin Media preps for your questions on Pumpkins’ reissues 10:01 pm // Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, customer service, gish, news, siamese dream.comments closed
The most powerful direct-to-fan platform on the planet is working on its “Smashing Pumpkins FAQs” document in anticipation of the re-releases of that band’s Gish and Siamese Dream albums. Here are their answers to some questions they believe you will be asking frequently:
Will I get a digital version of the DVD if I purchase the deluxe edition digital package?
No, the DVD is only included the physical 2 CD/DVD deluxe edition.
When will I receive the my digital purchase?
All digital downloads will be delivered to you on midnight on 11/28.
When is my order shipping out?
All physical products will ship out and arrive on or around 11/29. If you have any specific questions regarding the shipping details of your order, please reference your live receipt for the most up to date tracking information.
When will I receive my autographed deluxe package?
All autographed deluxe packages will arrive on or around 12/22.
Smashing Pumpkins cut kicked off “Footloose” soundtrack album 12:36 am // Saturday, September 17, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, movies and film, news, releases.comments closed
Contrary to announcements made in August by Atlantic Records and Warner Music Nashville, the Smashing Pumpkins song “Window Paine” will not appear on the soundtrack album for the remade movie “Footloose.”
The album’s twelve tracks can be previewed now at digital music sellers iTunes and Amazon, and eleven of the twelve match up with the advance tracklisting publicized through Entertainment Weekly on August 8. The lone exception is “Magic in My Home,” attributed to Memphis singer Jason Freeman and slotted into the tenth track in place of the expected Pumpkins number. A tracklisting for the compact disc format given by leading U.S. retailer Walmart is no different.
The music of “Window Paine” does see use in the film as screened for test audiences around the country this month, with director Craig Brewer saying “It really works.”
She’s been the underdog; she’s ready for the stage 10:47 pm // Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, lisa harriton, news, video.comments closed
Touring with the Smashing Pumpkins in 2007 and 2008 was “a life changing experience” for Lisa Harriton, the serious jazz musician who rebounded from the Pumpkins by dallying with CHR hustlers Adam Lambert, Ke$ha, and Natalia Kills.
Harriton and her vintage keyboards now may have found lasting work licking lollipops and sounding great among the rock stars of nascent L.A. pop band Diamond Baby, who have made one video.
Internet fans: James Iha less important to TSP than Slash is to GnR 3:48 am // Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Posted by 34 in ac/dc, analysis, beatles, d'arcy wretzky, ginger reyes pooley, guns 'n' roses, james iha, jimmy chamberlin, led zeppelin, satire.comments closed
According to some highly non-scientific research (i.e. paging through google search results of “not $BandName without” queries), James Iha ranks above John Bonham and Bon Scott (not to mention any other former TSP member), but lower than Jimmy Page, Ozzy Osbourne or Slash, when it comes to “it just isn’t Band X without Member Y” fan opinion. Check below to see who “matters” more to a band’s sound/identity (or perhaps merely which bands’ fans are the most vocal about lineup changes).
(more…)
Jive Records act reclaims chant of “tonight, tonight” for party people 10:03 pm // Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, video.comments closed
“Tonight Tonight” is the title and key lyrical motif of this, the current and first noticeably successful single in the career of a pop act called Hot Chelle Rae. Said to hail from Nashville, the group is signed to Jive Records, historic home of hitmakers such as A Flock of Seagulls, A Tribe Called Quest, Schoolly D, R. Kelly, ‘N Sync, and P!nk.
Happy ‘Gish’ day 7:44 am // Saturday, May 28, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, gish, history.comments closed
Twenty years ago today, Caroline Records released the first Smashing Pumpkins album, a happening of which neither I nor most Pumpkins fans have any personal recollection.
Above: Silent film actress Nicole Fiorentino.
Landmark 1971 albums such as Blue, Led Zeppelin IV, and Bill Cosby Talks to Kids About Drugs were released closer in time to Gish than was the landmark 2011 album Born This Way.
Bring your best game… 2:42 pm // Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Posted by susan in amusing, news, video, wrestling.comments closed
Wrestlers Melissa Anderson and Shelly Martinez released promos yesterday in advance of Friday’s taping of the Smashing Pumpkins’ video for Owata. Anderson (AKA: Cheerleader Melissa, Alissa Flash) and Martinez talk some smack and reference their past rivalry as well as Raven’s involvement. It looks like things might get personal… for both the wrestlers and the 65 lucky fans who got seats for the sold-out taping.
Kerry Brown: “4 x 1 = 2 + 0 + 1 + 1.” 9:09 am // Friday, April 1, 2011
Posted by jjb in parody.comments closed
[For more April Fool's Day posts, read through the "parody" category.]
On Twitter this morning, Smashing Pumpkins producer Kerry Brown passed knowledge of a numerical oddity concerning the date along to his almost 4,000 followers.
“WOW! RT @OMGfacts Today the product of the month and day equals the sum of the digits in the year,” Brown typed. “This coincidence will not happen again for another 279 days!”
This is the second time in recent weeks that Brown has been stunned by a natural phenomenon, the first being his observance of an unusual weather event on the drive back to Los Angeles from the South by Southwest music-industry conference held in Austin.
9:07 am // Friday, April 1, 2011
Posted by jjb in parody.comments closed
[For more April Fool's Day posts, read through the "parody" category.]
Nicole Fiorentino: “I was born in 1979.”
Corgan announcement: “Just got word that ‘Teargarden’ is over.” 12:01 am // Friday, April 1, 2011
Posted by jjb in parody.comments closed
[For more April Fool's Day posts, read through the "parody" category.]
In posts tonight to Twitter and his new Facebook account, Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan says that his band’s ambitious Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project is ending prematurely.
One of Corgan’s 64 Facebook friends, HU reader Jonathan Monte, has chosen to violate the singer’s trust by posting to the SmashingPumpkins.com message board a copy of the full ‘note’, in which Corgan tells of his disappointment at the news.
“I know I said 44 songs, but seems like it’s just going to be nine,” he wrote. “That’s what I’m told, anyway.”
“If you think about it, though, there actually have been 11 songs,” Corgan continued, ostensibly referring to Teargarden‘s two vinyl-only tracks. “Eleven is the root or whatever, factor of 44, and 33, yadda yadda, so maybe there is a logic to it. All part of the big guy’s plan, I guess. Or God’s.”
Reaction by the news media has been swift and predictably harsh, though tinged with relief in some quarters. Pitchfork’s Tom Breihan wrote, “Billy Corgan says that his ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’ project is now done. I guess he didn’t get the memo when we all agreed we were done with it after the second song.” Shortly thereafter, BuzzMedia’s Stereogum.com posted a reblog of Breihan’s commentary illustrated with the word DONE superimposed in Impact font over a picture of Corgan.
Though Corgan’s tweet promised word of new plans for the Pumpkins, in the Facebook note he seemed hesitant. None of his bandmates were ‘mentioned’ in the note — the sole denizen of Facebook to receive that honor was Pumpkins manager Irving Azoff — and as for a new musical direction, Corgan gave no specifics beyond “lots of Big Muff” and “no ukelele.”
As yet, the “Abandoned projects” section of Corgan’s Wikipedia entry has not been updated.
Pumpkins’ former employee: We found “Siamese Dream” girls in ’07 1:34 pm // Thursday, February 24, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, billy corgan, news, siamese dream, smashingpumpkins.com.comments closed
Paul Friemel, who operated SmashingPumpkins.com between 2007 and 2009, has given HU this statement and amusing image:
A week or so ago a bunch of friends were informing me that Billy Corgan had tweeted that the new SP bassist was on the cover of ‘Siamese Dream’ and I thought that’s odd because I didn’t remember either girl’s name being Nicole and shouldn’t Billy already know that? I decided to dig through some very old files and found the identity of each girl whom I had spoken with a few years ago while working on a story for smashingpumpkins.com. In fact, I had to work out free tickets & passes for Ali, the girl on the right, to meet Billy during a show in 2008 and confirmed with him and the tour manager at the time. So apparently it was just a publicity stunt or joke that the press ran away with.
A July 13, 2007 posting to SmashingPumpkins.com (no longer publicly available) read:
NEED HELP! Looking for girls from Siamese Dream album cover
There’s no one better to ask than the super fans themselves! We are trying to locate the girls that adorn the cover of Siamese Dream. As you all know, they were quite young when the photo was taken. They are not conjoined anymore, as far as we know. Any one with info on this, please spread the word and send me a private message to PumpkinsMediaMilitia [Friemel's pseudonym].
Friemel provided HU with the names of both Siamese Dream cover models on Tuesday. One of the names was Ali Laenger — the same name given by TMZ.com in a Wednesday report that featured a recent photograph of Laenger with Corgan.
Smashing Pumpkins bassist once waited tables at an L.A. pizzeria 7:42 pm // Friday, February 18, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, nicole fiorentino.comments closed
Eddie Argos, frontman for UK rockers Art Brut, knew he’d seen Nicole Fiorentino’s face before:
Argos’s claim, while uninteresting, is true.
HU’s Favorite Lists of Music Lists 2010 6:01 am // Saturday, January 1, 2011
Posted by jjb in amusing, listmaking.comments closed
We the music bloggers of Hipsters United, a blog about the Smashing Pumpkins, wish you the most pleasant of new years — and with no further delay we will fulfill our duty to look back on the year in lists of music lists that was 2010. Here are our favorites in six made-up categories.
Most benevolently dominant: Largehearted Boy’s 2010 Year-End Online Music Lists
For the fifth year running, the list-of-lists maker’s list-of-lists maker put in a massive effort — and, for the third year in a row, the “A-C” subsection of his list contains roughly 500 links. Has our music blogosphere reached a steady state?
Best mission integration: AOL Radio Blog’s Top 10 Music Lists A to Z
Lazy writers will often trot out a “listicle,” or article comprised primarily of a list, when they are temporarily out of story ideas but still paid by the word. But the bloggers at AOL Radio use lists not to rehash news as filler but to augment the news with song suggestions that move us away from reading and toward listening to music AOL Radio. And with 350 stations to promote, the blog has a pluralistic, accepting style: lists have been made of reggaeton songs, Elvis songs, K-pop songs…no list of Smashing Pumpkins songs yet, but I bet the day comes.
Fizziest: New York Magazine’s Vulture blog’s The 50 Greatest Vulture Slideshows of 2010
For staying power, many items on this list rival the champagne you opened last night.
Most dispiriting: Wikipedia’s Category:Music-related lists
List-of-lists makers prone to hubris are well advised to spend a little time drilling down here (e.g., by clicking on “Lists of anthems”) and taking notice of how insensibly scattershot is the coverage. There just ain’t no ‘ultimate directory’ to be made of this world.
Strongest proof of concept: Ranker
In the race to generate revenue from Internet users’ propensity to make lists, Ranker looks to be succeeding where Rank ’em is failing. Venture capital and a sense of humor 1, social fundraising and “fanstanding” 0.
Worst copy: The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog’s The Best Music Lists of 2010
This site’s list from last year was a good indication it would pop up again in the worst of 2010 file. If you’re like most people, you may enjoy trash talking this good, straightforward, really nice, wide-ranging and surprising list while sounding both witty and knowledgeable about music. Make fun of it with your hipster friends.
