Lots of musicians tweet — but all that Twitters is not gold. That’s why you’ll want to check out SPIN.com every Friday to see whose tweets we’re reading this week — then update your TweetDeck! (Obligatory Self-Promotion: …while you’re at it, be sure to follow @SPINmagazine!)
This week’s winners:
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- Beastie Boys
- @beastieboys
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Why You Should Follow: The Beasties don’t do much actual tweeting. Instead, they use Twitter to link fans to their very entertaining Tumblr, where they post graffiti pictures, musings about Michael Jordan’s mustache, and odes to the New York Knicks and some of their favorite bands and musicians, like Brazilian group MPB4. Their next album, Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2, is due out in May, and they’ve posted sneak peeks of the cover art and an mp3 of the first track. They won’t retweet you, but you’ll often be tempted to retweet some of their Tumblr posts… so go ahead and put a little Beastie in your Twitter feed!
Best Tweet of the Week: After Hot Sauce‘s first single, “Make Some Noise,” leaked to the Internet, they posted the full mp3 with the disclaimer: “This wasn’t really part of the plan, but since this track is out there we wanted to let you hear it here first, or maybe second. Enjoy.”
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- Foals
- @foalsfoalsfoals
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Why You Should Follow: This British electro-funk band is all about their fans. They’re constantly tweeting back and forth with the people who love their music, exchanging witty banter, answering questions about tour stops, and (jokingly) angling for fifth anniversary presents like this nearly $50,000 guitar. They also post links to children’s music videos and Twitpics of Foals-brand beer in Japan, Justin Bieber fan mail, and the adoring crowds at their concerts. If you’ve got something to say to the band – or if you have a Foals tattoo (see: here and here) – go ahead and tweet at them, because there’s a good chance you’ll hear something back! Also, you might want to keep an eye on their Twitter as they head to Coachella next weekend and make appearances at England’s Wireless and Latitude festivals this summer.
Best Tweet of the Week: “can you imagine waking up as jared leto every morning? god DAMN that must suck.”
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- Spencer Tweedy
- @tweedyson
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Why You Should Follow: The 15-year-old son of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is a Twitter celebrity in his own right: He runs a successful blog, plays the drums in a band called the Blisters (which debuted at Lollapalooza in 2007), and is an exceptionally entertaining tweeter. When he’s not sharing stories from the high school cafeteria (“My school’s battle of the bands is making the bands buy tickets to their own gig. Unrelated: it’s put on by the fencing club”), he’s embarrassing his dad (“So You Think You Can Be A Foot Model? … is the show my dad wants to try out for”), posting awesome Twitpics of snow mountains and oceanscapes, relaying his thoughts on pop culture (“Stephen Tyler on American Idol = best thing to happen to tv since Queen Latifah dissed Wilco”), and dispensing useful life advice (“Moral of afternoon: do not play Monopoly with eleven-year-olds”). He’s a lot more hip than your average teenager – with great taste in music, naturally – but he isn’t too pretentious for Justin Bieber (he went to see Never Say Never in the theater!).
Best Tweet of the Week: “My mother just told me I have a porno mustache.”
