Google “Obama is a racist” and you’ll find 7m pages—four times as many as you’ll find for “Bush is a racist”. Take out “Beck” from the Obama search, and you’ll still find 4m pages saying Obama is a racist.
(Courtesy of the Economist’s ‘Democracy in America’ Blog)
I actually was making these complaints in 2006, albeit regarding the fact that they weren’t using more extreme forms of metal. However, the IRL use of Rage Against The Machine still gives me a soul-woody. Sometimes, The Onion accidentally commits journalism.
I can’t remember exactly where I heard this, but I think the US Government might actually owe royalties for using the music.
And by “God not existing,” I mean New Moon grossing over $90.0M during its opening weekend.
A pretty accurate picture of how those numbers are crunched.
I don’t even pay close attention to how much movies make in the theaters anymore—although these days, a theatrical release is more a mark of prestige and most are net losses in their theatrical run.
Back in 1996, Paul Saffo, a director of the Institute of the Future, predicted the web would mutate into “something else very quickly and be unrecognizable within 12 months.”
| — | Bertrand Russell |
since they haven’t seen it.
They didn’t believe me at first.
Then they started yelling about how stupid that fact was.
Lulz ensued…
I wish I could get the aircheck tape of it.
Carrie Fisher (you know, Princess Leia) flipped the bird on live TV while being interviewed by Hoda Kotb & Kathy Lee on Today.
Cedric from At The Drive-In circa 2000, bringing real talk on the notion of selling out that still applies in a profoundly on-point way today.
Amen. Sadly there’s even less of a choice today when it comes to what’s being fed to the mainstream, although the digging is easier.
The weirder thing is that even the digging has all this innate suspicion built in these days. I always have this feeling where it’s like “Is Dirty Projectors really the best we can do/is it the thing that resonates most truly with me? Are they just friends with editorial?*” I don’t know, I sometimes wish MSM was undeniablly worth a damn (or that I was more blissfully ignorant) just so I could just say(to lift a lift from Beasties**) “It’s got a funky beat, and I can BUG OUT to it!” as if that sufficed to cover my entire love of music.
*No diss on my music writer heads, but it’s weird to see how deep the hype/criticism cycle now twists; sometimes even within one person!
**Soon, the notion of “good” will have to cut through 3 levels of self awareness, this will probably happen before we return to the moon.
What astonishes me is how the concept of “selling out” has mutated over the years.
Back in 1972, the term was used by Roger Waters specifically to describe an artist using their clout to endorse an unrelated product (e.g. Pink Floyd hawking French soft drinks). But since then, in the wake to the punk rock explosion/implosion along with the underground rock that survived through the 80s, the term basically has come to mean “belonging to a mainstream label,” which is an odd sentiment because all the pre-1977 bands which tend to be cited as influences on underground music were on notable record labels in their day.
Still, his point is valid, although I wonder what he’d think of today’s major label/MTV fodder.
