Entries in the Category "radiohead"

Revisit the 90s with The AV Club

The AV Club has just started running an incredibly fun feature based on those ubiquitous NOW! compilation CDs. As he explains in the introductory feature, Nathan Rabin, one of the site's writers, recently was subjected to the original NOW! from 1999 and marveled at how much of a snapshot of the times it was. He writes...

A strange spirit of musical democracy pervades the CD. It’s a curious world where one-hit wonders like Marcy Playground breathe the same rarified air as Janet Jackson and Radiohead. For a brief period, they were peers, at least where Billboard and NOW That’s What I Call Music! is concerned.

This week the second feature went live, revisiting the Britney Spears phenomenon in its nascent stage, discussing whether the New Radicals' "You Get What You Give" has enough layers of subversion to be cool, and vindicating my secret belief that Semisonic was cool.

Read it--especially if you were a teen in the 90s like I was--but skip the comments section lest you get too engaged in the debate about which ironic cover of "Baby One More Time" is the best.

Travis?
Fountains of Wayne?
Bowling for Soup?
Even Tori Amos has done it!

For the record, my music taste never having been particularly cool, I never bought a NOW! CD, though if there had been a Lilith Fair edition, you can be sure I would have been all over it. Here's who I spent the majority of the 90s listening to...

lisa loeb.jpg

Oh, you mean you don't remember Lisa Loeb?

Here, maybe this will help.

Breaking my silence on the late night feud!

...I know, people were on pins and needles. I avoiding taking a position on the whole Conan O'Brien-Jay Leno feud, based solely on the fact that I didn't watch either show. In general, though, I find Leno smug and unfunny (and easily one of the worst interviewers on the talk show circuit right now). Thus, I have no problem showing some anti-Jay propaganda.

This is a real promo for the return of Leno's show, with the original music replaced by a classic Radiohead tune. Tipped by the AV Club.

Incidentally, even though Conan has collected his millions and walked into the proverbial sunset, the feud continues--now it's just a matter of rhetoric. Look at these two completely different takes on the guest lineup for Jay's first week.

No Leno boycott as celebs line up to welcome Jay back (from the Washington Post)

Sucky Jay Leno announces sucky guests for his sucky return (from the AV Club)