Stereogum

Hello, hip young music listener! Do you remember that band you thought was cool a couple weeks ago after Pitchfork gave them a 7.2? Do you want to be alerted whenever one of them sneezes or is recorded sneezing in slow-motion for their very arty music video? Do you want to sigh wistfully when you find out that this band has "made it big" and is going to be playing on The Tonight Letterman Hour? Well, you're in luck, because Stereogum is right on top of that mediocre act that you're sort-of-following and is ready to tell you the latest hot scoop! Stereogum is even more worthless than the usual review site that, even if you disagree with, you can at least say, "well, at least it provoked some discussion." Stereogum will, at best, provoke a half-hearted "oh, so that's what they're up to these days." Unlike sites with some sort of integrity, they don't even bother telling you about a new cool band more than once a week... oh wait, nevermind, they've done all of one of those since February. I wish I could critique all of the ballsy opinions that Stereogum gives on new music, but there aren't any. They used to have a handy though wordless feature of albums they had been listening to lately, but I guess that seemed too objectionable for a demographic that just wants to nod at a band name they've heard when they're mentioned on NPR.

You might think I'm being a little harsh on a harmless music news site... but I'm getting thrown off my usual game by the latest news story. It's about the fucking Beatles. In Two Thousand Fucking Nine. This might be excusable if it was just, say, a little tidbit that the remasters your dad is going to spend another $200 on have all leaked, but oh no! That would be journalism, since it's talking about a thing. Instead, Stereogum pops in to inform us that Entertainment Weekly, the must-read of the music savvy, has determined their Top Fifty Best and Ten Worst Beatles Songs. Maybe I'm overusing the initial caps, but Beatles Lists In Two Fucking Thousand Fucking Nine Fucking are way too important for anything less. Have some balls, Stereogum. Tell us in a terse story that people need to stop talking about, thinking about, and above all caring about The Beatles. Did I mention the year yet? Better yet, surprise us with a little bulletin that Ringo just died. Would anyone even notice, or would they get too distracted by the fascinating story that Ted Leo is, get this, working on another album?

If you're going to go through all the effort of saying, well golly, a band has an album that they are working on/set to release/making videos for, at least have the common decency to come back and inform us whether you were wasting our time updating us on an album that no one should have paid any attention to at all. It's like giving someone a menu to a restaurant, then not telling them whether or not the food is any good or just a mound of MSG on a plate, like Bright Eyes.

I was about to see if the one obscure band they've covered since February of this year was any good, but he looks like this:

and there is absolutely no way I am going to subject myself to the sounds of anyone that looks that incredibly wacky. Oh wait, my bad, there was another one, but it's a singer-songwriter using their real name with a self-titled album so no way in hell on that either.