Most Recent
Magazine
Cost In Translation
Nov 18, 2003Last summer, Universal Music Group -- the largest of the five corporations that produce most of the music we hear -- made headlines by cutting the list price of its labels’ CDs by about 30 percent. Universal CDs now retail for between $10 and $13, which should pressure other labels to follow suit. Universal officials said the decision was in part an attempt to stem the tide of illegal downloading. But is slashing the price of an album enough to entice a typical downloader away from Kazaa? “There’s no question that a third to half of the decline in album sales is directly attributable to downloading,” says Russ Crupnick, vice president of the NPD Group, a marketing-information firm. “When we ask consumers why they’re buying less music, price is at the top of the list every single time.”Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
Anarchy In The A.C.
Nov 17, 2003“Thank you, Donald Dump, for letting us play your castle!” Johnny Rotten snarled as the Sex Pistols stormed the Grand Cayman ballroom of the Trump Marina in Atlantic City. Rotten may not be the firebrand he was back in 1978, but as hunched old ladies pumped quarter after quarter into the nearby slots, the fact that the punk legend was stirring up some genuine anger under the gold plastic chandeliers almost made us forget that Creedence Clearwater Revisited had played this wedding-friendly venue the previous night (and that someone held up a lighter during “God Save the Queen”). Have the Pistols become a sad, spent oldies act, or are they still relevant? We turned to the crowd for answers.Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
Pink's Not Dead
Nov 17, 2003Pink looks great today, with her bleached hair slicked back and a belt buckle that says Kick Ass. She’s more curvy and womanly these days and speaks with a confidence that’s reflected on her new record, Try This. Two years ago, fighting the R&B-diva mold her label had contrived for her, Pink went multiplatinum with the dance-rock Missundaztood, on which she collaborated with her then-obscure idol, Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes. But after aborting sessions with Perry, Pink, 24, found a new creative partner in Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, who cowrote and produced nine tracks on Try This, which continues her stylistic pastiche of soul, gospel, rock, rap, and disco. Don’t worry, though: As she admits, lighting up a Newport, “I’m not that fucking evolved.”Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
Bam On The Run
Nov 14, 2003If you’re going to be drinking with Brandon “Bam” Margera, watch what you say. One night this summer, Margera was at a bar near his suburban West Chester, Pennsylvania, home when he heard his Jackass coconspirator Ryan Dunn shooting off his mouth. “He was talking all kinds of shit,” says Margera, 24, in his hyperactive Philly accent, “saying that if he was in Iceland tomorrow, he’d go over this waterfall in a barrel. So I went home and straight-up bought tickets, and we left the next morning. He pussies out for like three hours until finally he was like, ‘Dude, you spent seven grand flying us out here!’ and he powered it out and did it. And then we just went home.”Read More
3:00 AMMore About 2003-11
Magazine
Six Steps To Godlike Genius
Nov 12, 2003I’m the greatest songwriter of my generation. Granted, most of my material falls outside the conventional parameters of mainstream FM radio fare -- I like to fuse my country-tinged reggae with progressive Tejano metal -- but the songs themselves are flawless nuggets of pure pop perfection. I like to drag the listener through a mystical portal, deep into a subterranean consciousness that he or she never knew existed. I like to make audiences confront love and hate simultaneously. I like to bring the darkness with extreme prejudice.Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
Bands to Watch: The Stills
Nov 11, 2003Little-known fact: Every rock group has a puker. “I talked to a lot of bands when we were playing [England’s] Reading Festival,” says Stills bassist Oliver Crowe, “and I’d say 70 percent of them puke before a show from nervousness. Take Julian of the Strokes.”Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
Essential Funk
Nov 6, 2003
3:00 AMMagazine
The Drudgery Report
Nov 5, 2003Whether it's the Beatles, the Stones, Monty Python, or mad-cow disease, it seems like the U.K. gets its unfair share of culture before the U.S. does. Now, at least, the hit BBC sitcom The Office will get the American audience it deserves when the first season is released on DVD this month.Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
A Break From the Norm
Nov 5, 2003Remember Norm Macdonald? His sardonic delivery and O.J. Simpson-bashing spiels were the highlight of Saturday Night Live in the mid-'90s--until he got the boot when NBC exec (and O.J. pal) Don Ohlmeyer deemed him unfunny. After a short-lived ABC series and a couple of lame film comedies, he's back on the air: In his surprisingly charming new show, A Minute With Stan Hooper (premiering October 29 on Fox), Macdonald stars as a TV commentator who leaves Manhattan for rural Wisconsin. But this time, it's Macdonald who's the sober straight man and the eccentric townsfolk around him--from the diner owner to the local cheese magnate--who land the punch lines. In person, though, the caustic Macdonald can still spar like a champ.Read More
3:00 AM
Quasi, 'Hot Shit'
Nov 5, 2003Rock couples, happy and otherwise.Read More
3:00 AM
The Rapture, 'Echoes'
Nov 5, 2003New York dance punks and the men behind their curtain.Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
From The Spin Bookshelf
Nov 3, 2003By its nature, emo refuses to be categorized, but in his debut book, Spin senior contributing writer Andy Greenwald pins down the misunderstood genre and its teary-eyed, dedicated listeners. Taking its title from a Promise Ring song, Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo is an enthusiastic and exhaustive journalistic account of the music's history, tracing its roots from D.C. hardcore acts such as Rites of Spring to early breakthroughs Sunny Day Real Estate to present-day success stories New Found Glory and Jimmy Eat World.Read More
3:00 AMMagazine
Iggy Pop: My Life in Music
Nov 3, 2003All you really need to know about the way music affected a young Iggy Pop is that he had the same reaction to both Link Wray and John Coltrane: "What the fuck is this?" He's been inspiring the same response in rock fans for more than three decades, first with late-'60s/early-'70s punk legends the Stooges and later with his influential solo albums. During a break in the recording of his latest, Skull Ring, the indomitable Ig called from his Miami Beach home raring to talk records: "Can I just take a deep breath and start going?"Read More
3:00 AM
The Libertines, 'I Get Along'
Oct 31, 2003
3:00 AM
Belle and Sebastian, 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress'
Oct 28, 2003Scottish pop miniaturists Belle and Sebastian go wide-screen.Read More
3:00 AM
