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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Money Mike

  • New Music: Pink’s “So What?”: Pop’s Baddest Attitude Returns

    Perhaps it’s my general love of slightly salty women (Courtney Love and Amy Winehouse would certainly fall into this category), but I LOVE Pink (or P!nk, or whatever she’s called). Not only is she in possession of a truly great singing voice, but there’s a sense of authenticity in her music that’s not present in the music of most of her pop peers.

    Hard to believe, but she’s about to release her fifth album this fall. It will be the follow-up to the Platinum-plus “I’m Not Dead”, an album I got right away but it took the general public a little more time to appreciate. The first single, “So What?”. finds her a little feister than usual and being more candid than usual about her personal life, directly referencing her recent divorce from motocross star Carey Hart (no, not the “Sunglasses at Night” guy. That’s COREY Hart). Although it’s slightly reminiscent of “Dead”‘s breakthrough hit “U + Ur Hand” (with a little “Stupid Girls” thrown in…witness the sideways jab at Jessica Simpson), it’s still more awesome than the average retread. Check it out for yourself.

  • Strawberry Fields Forever: The Ultimate Beatles Mix

    A few Beatle-related personal factoids for you:

    *I think I knew who Paul McCartney and John Lennon were individually before I knew who the Beatles were collectively. I remember first being cognizant of Paul around 1980, when “Coming Up” was a hit. I obviously found out who John was shortly after: first via “Double Fantasy” and then via his murder. It must have been a couple months later when I saw “Yellow Submarine” on TV and either put together the fact that John and Paul were in a group together (with two other guys) or someone mentioned it to me.

    *I first really discovered The Beatles’ music back in 5th grade. Hmm, it might have been 6th. Nope, it was 5th. At any rate, I had a teacher named Mr. Duffy who was the coolest. He had the musical version of Trivial Pursuit and we used to play it in class. He even let me bring him a cassette and recorded “Rubber Soul” onto it. To this day, I have no clue how I was able to listen to it (my folks wouldn’t allow me to listen to music of my own in the house…another story for another therapist), but I was immediately enraptured.

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  • New Music In Stores & Online 8-5-08: Is It September Yet?

    I mentioned the “dog days” in last week’s column, but this week’s set of releases appears to be just as, if not more lame than the one that preceded it. Anyway, since we’re about making lemonade out of lemons here, here’s this week’s hotlist.

    The cover of Conor Oberst\'s self-titled new album.
    The cover of Conor Oberst’s self-titled new album.

    Conor Oberst “Conor Oberst”-Since Conor Oberst basically is Bright Eyes, isn’t this a little like Trent Reznor making an album as “Trent Reznor”? I dunno. I can’t say that I know much about Bright Eyes except for the fact that the rock press loves him. Tons of friends have tried to get me into him on mixtapes and I just don’t get it. Too pretentious for me. But you can go ahead and like him. I won’t hate you.

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