March, 2008
You are looking at posts that were written in the month of March in the year 2008.
name that tune notes
Posted on March 28th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
I try to include a variety of styles in the Name That Tune games, and I try to include a reasonable amount of recent stuff. I've been finding it difficult to include much hip-hop, though: first, I try not to have clips with verbal vocals, because they're too easy to guess, and hip-hop is heavy on vocals and light on instrumental breaks; second, a lot of hip-hop is built on samples, and that's confusing for the players.
the unpedant squeaks
Posted on March 28th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Pedantry.
If you object to the use of "literally" as a metaphor intensifier, shouldn't you object to "veritable" as well? And "absolutely"? And "truly"?
name that tune again
Posted on March 28th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
My latest Name That Tune game goes up at Popdose in five minutes!
name that tune time
Posted on March 21st, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
My 10th Name That Tune game for Popdose goes live in fifteen minutes (12:30 PM New York). Come on over!
great band name and title
Posted on March 19th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff.
Another fake album cover:
indie rock album cover generator
Posted on March 17th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Elsewhere.
What a great idea: a slightly labor-intensive but fascinating method for generating faux indie rock album covers. The examples shown on Brainiac's page are excellent, but check out the entire archive, too.
When I get home, I'm going to make some of my own.
most visible profile
Posted on March 16th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
Early in the year, Boston's Kevin Garnett had most of the media support for NBA Most Valuable Player. Then Boston faded a bit, and they started looking around for competition. Kobe Bryant's partisans started making noise, since he is (supposedly) the best player in the game yet has never won the MVP, and the Lakers were improved, despite Bryant's preseason wish to be traded. So the Lakers' General Manager, Mitch Kupchak, pulls off the trade of the year, stealing Paul Gasol from Memphis, and the Lakers promptly rose through the ranks of the incredibly tough West to the top team. As a result, MVP support solidified for Bryant. Now, in the past when players have switched teams they've received the lion's share of the credit if the team improves. Steve Nash's questionable first MVP award is an example. But I can't remember a candidate's MVP talk skyrocketing like this when someone else gets traded to his team and his team shoots to the top. If Kobe Bryant is the MVP, why did it take Paul Gasol to make it clear?
And now the Rockets have shot to the top, beating the Lakers today for their 22nd win in a row -- the second longest streak in league history -- despite losing star center Yao Ming ten games ago (and he's out for the year). Their other star, Tracy McGrady, is a game-dominating player like Bryant, and McGrady has led his team despite losing his best teammate. Yet no one talks about McGrady as an MVP candidate. Can someone explain this to me?
not really, but
Posted on March 10th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Is "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers (1966) the first dub song? I mean, obviously not in the historical sense, but in the sense that people will call the Stooges (or the Sonics, or the MC5, etc etc) the first punk band. Here's a one-minute example. Is there any earlier hit single fooling around with dub-type studio effects like this? (Probably.) Examples solicited.
it's MIX tape, dammit
Posted on March 9th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Pedantry.
Not "mixed tape". Where did that come from, anyway? I only started seeing it recently, but now I'm seeing it more often. Maybe someone decided that "mix tape" was ungrammatical. But "mixed tape" is just silly. It is not a tape that has been mixed. It is a tape of a mix. Everyone says "mix tape", and everyone understands what it means; the idiomatic use goes back thirty years or more, and has survived into the cd and mp3 era. It's neat and natural and useful, and should not be replaced with something awkward and nonsensical. Stomp out "mixed tape"!
name that tune day again
Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
In half an hour, I'll be running Name That Tune game number nine over at Popdose. Come on over.
exterminate (a continuing series)
Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Badness.
A couple more rhetorical bugs that signal the brief sleep of the conscious mind:
"Despite ... or perhaps even because of"
"That's not to say ... far from it"
death of the single
Posted on March 2nd, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
Well, not really. The single is all about iTunes downloads now. I knew that, but I didn't know how complete the transformation is. Idolator, as an aside in a piece analyzing the current charts, notes:
In a typical week, when there isn't a new CD single from an American Idol winner or a High School Musical star, the No. 1 single on Hot Singles Sales moves as little as 1,000 copies or less.
1,000 copies! (or less!) A single selling at that rate -- a number one single -- would take nearly ten years to go gold. 1,000 copies across the whole country! That's 20 copies per state.
I grew up buying singles; that's how I became obsessive about music: buying singles and listening to the Top 40 countdown every week (and writing down the chart, naturally). The death of the physical single.... I guess I feel like folks who grew up on 78s.