Beats by Dre Headphones

Okay I am seeing this more and more, and I think I read somewhere that somehow Beats by Dre headphones have achieved popularity. Indeed, apparently LMFAO wore "million dollar Beats by Dre" headphones at the superbowl.

How to explain this? 1. People are stupid. 2. They like spending money on ostentatious crap. 3. People put a lot of money into their music players these days, since they have no money for anything else. 4. An ostensibly "high end" headphone set is maybe a complement to a good player, except that the "high end" in this case is just branding.

Jesus, dig this USA Today writeup from earlier this week.

So far, Beats has been the main driver behind the high-end headphones market, which now accounts for about 42% of the $1.2 billion spent on headphones in 2011, according to market research firm the NPD Group. Headphones priced at $100 or more make up only 7% of unit sales, up from 3% in 2010. But because of their premium price tag — most Beats headsets, for example, cost upwards of $300 — high-end headphones account for a chunk of revenue.

Respected electronics companies such as Sennheiser and Klipsch have always marketed premium headphones, but Beats made the segment cool, says NPD's Ben Arnold. "It is definitely about sound quality, but it is equally about the brand," he says. "You didn't really see that before."

8 year old's first hardcore song

Am trying to figure out how to present this one.

Do you go with:
"Fucking hipster parents raising their kids to like this music will only cause them to rebel and listen to Bieber"

Or:
"The fact that you can download this single off itunes is going against the grain of the original intention of hardcore"
(I mean, how offensive is this: Now available on iTunes!
T-Shirts and Singlets now available, visit: http://www.myfirsthardcoresong.com to pick one up, limited availability, grab one while they last!
http://www.facebook.com/myfirsthardcoresong
Visit and like Juliets Facebook page to stay up to date with all Juliet merchandise and news!

Maybe:
"Has this 8 year old ever been in a pit? No? Then this song is ironic? She is too young to be ironic about hardcore. She should be listening to Bieber."

Tyler the Creator

We've been having a few Youth Decoder discussions lately as we wonder what Kreayfish's next move will be. Here is a video. I really don't know what to make of this dude, but I like how negative and weird he is without wallowing quite so much in the moronic cliches of, e.g., Rick Ross-style posturing. I also like how these guys just beat the shit out of ... a shopping cart.

QOTSA Channels Goo-Era Sonic Youth

I was looking for Queens of the Stone Age videos to see if I could figure out why QOTSA feels like a solid band to me while Forever the Sickest Kids, operating in a nearby genre, feels so thoroughly shlocky. But I was diverted by another issue: isn't it wild how the verse of this QOTSA song sounds exactly like a Sonic Youth outtake from the Goo period? The phrasing is exactly what Thurston Moore would have used, and the somewhat monotonous melody too. The chorus is maybe a little more pop, though not a whole lot.

Adventures in Extremely Bad Commerical Autotuned "Power Pop"

Good lord. Forever the Sickest Kids mug and hop, acting out all the appropriate "rock" gestures to accompany their synthetic shitstorm "Woah Oh."



I can see why this would be successful . . . as a deodorant ad. I can also see why it would work as an act in a package of bands of a similar type, since one would not need to focus too closely on any particular aspect of the music. Sometimes, though, it's hard to see what it is in a band that ever allowed it to get to a level of professional success in the first place. This is no less bogus and packaged than Hannah Montana or MBLAQ, for example, and in many ways it's considerably more cringe-inducing because of the faux-rebelliousness that these guys attempt to display as part of their aesthetic. Was there a point in their career, perhaps several years ago, where there was sincerity in the songcraft, or has it been this way always? Hard to say.

Incidentally...

Is there any time in the last 15 or so years when rap artists were not complaining about "the state of hip hop"? This relentless whining about how bad the music business is, how shady record companies are, and how weak the current musical fashions are has got to be one the biggest lyrical cliches in the genre.

Grieves - The Elliott Smith of Hip Hop?

I'm just going to embed this without even listening to it, because I heard another tune by this dude and thought it was great. Kind of a random connection to this guy: reading about the rock band The Hold Steady (whom I also like) on Wikipedia, where the lead singer mentions that he is a fan of Brother Ali from The Rhymesayers, so I'm like "who are the Rhymesayers?" ... Rhymesayers website has a tune from Grieves, Grieves is on YouTube, etc. Random connections. White guys doing black art. The potential for cheap commercial bullshit, see Justin Bieber in the previous post. But it seems to me, based on 90 seconds of one song, that Grieves is real.

I wish, though, that people doing hip hop could get beyond the sort of gestural vocabulary of hip hop, if that makes any sense. This tune (okay I listened to it now) is intensely painful, right? So why is this guy gesticulating like he's the Shit on Toast? I mean, yeah, that's what rappers do. But it's sort of a stylistic cage, is it not? (But what else would ya do, on the other hand? Might be kind of strange to make head-nodding music and not acknowledge that you're feeling it.)

Unedible from Griff J on Vimeo.

Here's the first tune I heard. How fucking great is this? Sad too. Reminds me of one particular point in my life, but now that I'm old and boring my pains are different and more vague.