October 30, 2007

Tuesday Coos, “Music News Day”

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News

  • Dead Elvis knocks dead Kurt Cobain out of the top spot on Forbes‘ list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. Actually Kurt drops out of the Top 12 entirely. Other late musicians on the list include John Lennon (#2), George Harrison (#4), Tupac Shakur (#8), James Brown (#11), and Bob Marley (#12).

  • Rapper Nas defends his decision to call his upcoming album the N-word (which I typed once in the last story and now I just feel too queasy about it to do it again) in a convoluted statement connecting Barack Obama’s presidential run to the recent spate of noose-related hate crimes. “It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable,” he says about the album’s title. You think?

  • Arcade Fire’s Win Butler responds to Sasha Frere-Jones’ New Yorker article pointing out the band’s, er, “whiteness.” Butler begins with a serious discussion of Arcade Fire’s musical heritage, but once he correctly points out that American music is already so racially mixed-up it’s hard to tell what’s what any more, he seems to realize what the rest of us have as well: Sasha Frere-Jones is kind of crazy, and why are we spending any time worrying about this?

  • Blog Brooklyn Vegan collects pictures of this year’s hot Halloween costume (something you’ve already noticed if you went out at all over the weekend): Amy Winehouse. Fine, but jeez, ladies (and gentlemen): at least have someone else draw the tattoos on your arms so it doesn’t look like the scribblings of a 5-year-old.
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    WE'LL BE BLUNT

    It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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    Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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