The Dismemberment Plan
...The Dismemberment Plan played together from the late 90s to the early 00s. The sort of people who care about bands like this REALLY cared about this band...
Sour
...Sour have released a new music video. Incidentally, the word “released” in that previous sentence could easily have been replaced by a verb like “uncorked”, or perhaps “unleashed”. The project deserves that much drama – it’s less of a video and more a state-of-the-art web extravaganza...
AKB48
...Part of the reason for the band’s omnipresence is their strength in numbers: that “48″ isn’t meaningless. Never mind media coverage, they practically have enough members to visit each fan in person. Their music videos are a cuteness overload on par with a puppy-dog stampede. There are enough bright colours and dazzling smiles to give you a migraine...
Using English
...The implied meaning is that music without comprehensible lyrics is as pointless as an inflatable dartboard. But where does that leave your average Japanese artist, or indeed any musician whose native language is less universal than English? If the listener is foreign, do a band’s songs become worthless? If a Japanese tree falls in an American forest, does it make a sound?...
All Tomorrow's Parties
...November’s best music news was the announcement of All Tomorrow’s Parties’ first Tokyo concert. If you happen to be a British music nerd then you already know who they are – a company named after an old Velvet Underground single that consistently books the bands you thought you’d never get to see...