My loyal readers, Yes, that time has come. If you hadn't figured out from the month-long absence of bloggery on this site, I've been doing some thinking about the future of VLM, and myself as a writer. And after some careful thought and reflection on why I write and what VLM means to me, I've decided that it's time to move on to something new. The post you're reading right now will the be the final one on Viva La Mainstream! But before you break out the Kleenex and wonder what you'll read in its absence, [...]
"I look at [Foo Fighters, and their Greatest Hits album] now like it's the end of chapter one, this is the first 15 years..." - Dave Grohl to Time , 2009 If the prematurely released Foo Fighters Greatest Hits album marked the end of the band's first chapter, then it would follow that Wasting Light , the band's seventh studio album, starts chapter two. With that in mind, Foo Fighters' second chapter begins in much the same way the first [...]
Last night Chris Cornell brought his acoustic Songbook tour into the suburbs of Philadelphia, and yours truly was there to take it in. OK, before going further, I have to admit something; I had questions about what kind of show I was going to see. I'd heard recordings of Cornell as frontman for his multitude of bands from various stages of his career, and I was skeptical that this live performance would live up to what I had built up in my head. But playing to a predominantly older crowd (for a rock n' roll show, anyway), Cornell [...]
This past weekend Incubus announced that the follow-up to 20062s Light Grenades is to be released this summer. If Not Now, When? , Incubus's seventh studio album is slated to come out July 12, and today we heard the first single from the new album. At first listen, "Adolescents" sounds like a throwback to the breezy, carefree Incubus of albums past. You'd be forgiven if you thought this was a B-side from Morning View . For most Incubus fans, who were largely put off by Light Grenades [...]
It's hard to blame the haters for not being sold on Vices & Virtues , the third studio album by Panic! At The Disco. With half the band departing to form The Young Veins (including primary lyricist Ryan Ross), alongside the questionable decision to continue on as a duo instead of replacing the wayward members, there were more than enough reasons to doubt Panic!'s ability to put out a quality album. That said, while Vices & Virtues isn't nearly as disastrous as some might have anticipated, too often it feels like the band are trying to recapture [...]
First things first: If you're not watching Community , the show from whence Donald Glover , aka Childish Gambino, gets the money to fuel his rap career, you're doing television wrong. Easily the funniest show on television. Watch it Thursday nights (trust me, you won't miss The Big Bang Theory ) and make your life just a bit happier. Now, then. Childish Gambino is in many ways the embodiment of all the things hip-hop has shunned in recent years. Even before getting to the allusions to The Office , Pearl Jam, and the admissions [...]
The first time I listen to a Radiohead album I hate it (that goes for every album of theirs I've listened to, including OK Computer ). Usually by the second listen I can admit that I might just not get it. By the third or fourth listen I can start to hear something good in there, and appreciate what they did. It's not till the fifth listen that I really feel like Radiohead's music really makes sense to me in a way worth talking about. Well, after nearly a month and a almost a dozen listens, it's time for [...]
A few months back we brought you footage of Green Day performing "Cigarettes and Valentines" , the oft-talked about but never heard title track from the aborted album that eventually led to the American Idiot sessions. At that point we already knew that a live album was in the works, but now we have the actual, official video from that performance: That performance and others will appear on Awesome as Fuck , due out on CD and DVD March 22. Live albums have never [...]
Wikipedia tells me I am several months behind if I'm only hearing this song now, but alas, I only heard this song in its entirety today. SportsCenter has been playing the chorus to it in some of its highlight reel, but given that when I watch SportsCenter it's generally when I've been awake for less than half an hour, it took me awhile to recognize the chorus as being a riff on "Float On" by Modest Mouse. Anyway. The story surrounding the pending release of Lupe's third album is a long, rather [...]
After months of cryptic images, weeks of secret west-coast shows playing the full album front-to-back, and incalculable hours of foaming at the mouth on my part, we finally have all the details surrounding the seventh full length album by the Foo Fighters. The album will be titled Wasting Light , and will be out April 12. As previously reported, the first official single is "Rope", and it'll hit radio stations next week. If you're one of those ethical types who want to wait to purchase the song, you can do that through all the major digital outlets [...]
Radiohead have returned. No, I mean it. For real this time. It took a bit longer than we expected, but Radiohead will release their follow-up to 20072s In Rainbows this Saturday, February 19. The new album is entitled The King of Limbs , and will be available as a standard digital download on Saturday, and also as what the band are calling a "newspaper album", containing: Two clear 103 vinyl records in a purpose-built record sleeve. A compact disc. Many large [...]
Alright, here we go with VLM's coverage of the 2011 Grammys, coming to you live from the couch in my parents' living room, laptop in its rightful place, and a Heineken sitting next to me. Let us commence. 7:39 PM: Haven't turned on CBS yet because I don't have much desire to watch 60 Minutes . But while we're here, kudos to Them Crooked Vultures and The Black Keys for already taking home hardware this evening. The Vultures' "New Fang" won Best Hard Rock Performance while the Keys terrific new [...]
So, unfortunately I probably don't need to tell you that The Black Eyed Peas' halftime performance at the Super Bowl last night will go down in history for all the wrong reasons. None of the four members could find a key they could agree on, let alone the right one. The guest appearance by Slash, who when paired with Fergie usually isn't half bad, was disastrous, and yet also the second best thing about the show (first being the dancers). And worst of all, BEP surpassed Dancing With The Stars for "Worst Exploitation of Patrick Swayze's Memory". In [...]
Before going further, yes. I know this song came out a couple weeks ago. But it's getting coverage now on account of having access to a computer now. Rise Against are set to release their sixth studio album Endgame on March 15, and not long ago they released the first taste of the record. Never ones to back away from speaking out on the topics of the day, "Help Is On The Way" was inspired by the band's trip to the Gulf Coast this past summer, amidst the ongoing BP [...]
After thirteen years and six albums, The White Stripes have announced that they are no more. An official statement from Jack and Meg White went live on the band's website within the last hour: The White Stripes would like to announce that today, February 2nd, 2011, their band has officially ended and will make no further recordings or perform live. The announcement goes on to say that a myriad of reasons led to the duo's split, but it was brought on by a desire to keep what was beautiful and [...]
OK, everyone. Apologies for the disappearance; shortly after we came bursting back out of the gate in 2011 the official VLM laptop saw fit to commit seppuku and needed to go in for repairs. But within the last 24 hours the Foo Fighters ramped up promotion for their new album, and not even a blown hard drive can keep us from reporting on the actions of Dave Grohl and company. Late yesterday, after much anticipation, the Foo Fighters played a secret show in Santa Barbara, during which they played the entire yet-to-be-titled new album start to [...]
Today saw two bands with highly anticipated albums due for release in 2011 tease fans with new music. First, the newly re-exclamation pointed Panic! At The Disco offered up a thirty second clip of "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", from their upcoming third album. Check it out below: The song, the first song written by Panic! frontman Brendon Urie, comes from Vices and Virtues , due out March 8. It'll be the band's first full release since the departure of Ryan [...]
This was intended to go up late last week, before the film cleaned house at the Golden Globes, but 'twas not to be. At any rate, my thoughts on the film are certainly unchanged. It's no secret that Aaron Sorkin and his work ( The West Wing, Sports Night, A Few Good Men , among others) are a tremendous influence both on my writing and in my life. While television and film seem perfectly content encouraging audiences not to think too hard about what they're watching, Sorkin's work is dedicated to raising the bar. Even his [...]
Social Distortion's first album in six years Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes will be released next Tuesday, but the band is making the album available for streaming right now. You can check it out here or just below this paragraph. And Social Distortion are trying to make it worth your while. Social Distortion - Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes by Epitaph Records In an effort to discourage piracy and reward fans excited for the years-in-development, Social Distortion, in conjunction with amazon.com, are offering a $1 [...]
We've hoped for it for years, we've been excited about it for months, we've been chomping at the bit for it for days. And now, we finally have our first taste of Watch the Throne , the forthcoming collaborative album between Kanye West and Jay-Z. "H.A.M." (which stands for "Hard Ass Motherfucker") sounds exactly as grand as you would expect a song between two of the greats of rap music to be. But as cool as it is to finally hear the results of the much-teased project, you'd be forgiven if [...]
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