As we all make the inexorable march towards the crushing void that is death, we pay attention to music news, because knowing what’s up the people who make the recorded sounds we enjoy is interesting, and its triviality distracts us from the fact that we’ll all die some day. Still, you might have too much stuff on your plate to pay attention to what’s really important, so we went ahead and found everything you need to know about and wrapped it up with a nice dose of cynicism.
Oh by the way, are people going out in Halloween costumes this weekend? Halloween’s on Wednesday this year, which is kind of a bummer for those of us with jobs, and Wednesday is a neutral day and therefore can’t be pinned to a weekend. If Halloween was Thursday, for example, it’d be totally obvious that we were supposed to go out in our costumes next weekend rather than tonight, but it’s Wednesday so literally everyone is confused. Still, just bit the bullet and put on a costume this weekend rather than be the one dweeb not wearing a cowboy hat at the rodeo, so to speak.
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Anyways, here’s a bunch of stuff that happened in music this week:
—Kanye West performed in New York City Wednesday night at like one in the morning, and didn’t really tell anybody about until after the fact. However, the people who he did tell about it said it was awesome, and also his performance somehow about phones. This is important, because this marks the “album cycle” for his next album Cruel Winter, which Pusha T is claiming to anyone with a voice recorder is going to be a collaboration with Q-Tip. Knowing Kanye’s intense desire to do hyperbolic shit that will please as many people as humanly possible, this is a possibility, but also Pusha T seems generally full of shit.
—In a total piece of non-news that I got tricked into clicking on because I am dumb, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift had a phone conversation about her song that sounds like it was stage staged. However we’re pretty into the new Taylor Swift album, to the point where we made a drinking game about it:
—So, Justin Timberlake recently got married to Jessica Biel. Everyone is disappointed, because Justin Timberlake was supposed to marry all of us in one massive Fela-In-’78-esque ceremony. In preparation for the wedding, he, Biel and their friends made a video poking fun at homeless people for some reason. It’s important to remember that while his music is beautiful and FutureSex/LoveSounds was an actual groundbreaking pop album, Justin Timberlake is also rich and famous, so therefore probably a dick.
—The Chicago Rapper Lil Reese, who is famous because he is friends with Chief Keef, recently assaulted a woman on camera and remains apologetic about it. Fuck that guy.
—Axl Rose appeared on Jimmy Kimmell the other night, and Kimmell voiced exactly what all of us were thinking: “What are you doing here?” Turns out Axl Rose is a cool guy now that he’s old, but he still looks like a corpse.
—T.I. is coming out with his next album Trouble Man soon, and claims he’s got a song sampling Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know.” In case you’re wondering, the correct joke is calling it, “Somebody That T.I. Used To Know.”
—Now that we’re all up to speed on all things music and music-related, let’s talk about some motherfucking charts. Jason Aldean had the number one album this week. He is a burly man who sings populist country songs that are mainly about trucks and altruism, so you probably have not heard of him. Trust me, I’m from North Carolina and he’s popular. Now that I’m thinking about it, the secret about pop-country is that it’s actually the best. The folky, boring chart juggernaut that is Mumford & Suns clocked in at number two, but the big one you should probably care about is Brandy, whose Two Eleven debuted at number three. The album is good, so you should buy it. Other important Chart Things: Miguel is still in the top ten, which is a good sign for him/R&B/pompadours, some kid from American Idol has a Christmas album out already, and Dethklok—which is a heavy metal band about a cartoon that is about heavy metal—squeaked in the Top Ten at Ten.
And yeah, that’s about it. See you next week, when Taylor Swift probably sells a million albums and yet another celebrity named Justin does something embarrassing in public.
