Articles tagged "kanye west, music, marketing, culture, consumerism"

Books Review

Cracked Media: The Sound of Malfunction by Caleb Kelly

by Richard Elliott

[18.Nov.09] :. Kelly's study provides access to some fascinating theories of, and experiments in, the "wrong" uses of technology as explored by some important sound artists of the phonographic era.

Recent Book reviews

News

Country Music Awards: Taylor Swift cleans up

by Jon Bream [Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)]

[12.Nov.09] :. Kanye West did not crash Taylor Swift’s party at this awards show. In fact, the Country Music Association Awards not only honored Swift on Wednesday — with two live performances...

PopWire

Music Review

Bell Horses: The Loves Last Time

by Saxon Baird

[11.Nov.09] :. For better or worse, Bell Horses debut of melancholy electro-pop goes down like water and acts like a sleeping pill.

Recent Music reviews

Mixed Media

We Were Once a Fairytale dir. Spike Jonze (short film)

by Tyler Gould

[20.Oct.09] :. Kanye West jumped the shark in a lot of people’s minds when he shanghaied Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance speech to lavish praise on Beyonce, but maybe his boorishness is an affliction,...

Mixed Media

Books Review

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro

by Christopher Guerin

[15.Oct.09] :. Kazuo Ishiguro’s first collection of short fiction, though more grounded in everyday experience than his recent novels, is tinged with his sense of the strange and sad, and, new for him, the humorous.

Recent Book reviews

Mixed Media

Why? - Eskimo Snow (new album / tour dates / video)

by Eleanore Catolico

[22.Sep.09] :. Why? Eskimo Snow (Anticon) Releasing: 22 September Bay Area art-poppers Why? release Eskimo Snow today on Anticon. This time around, their music has a more folksy panache...

Mixed Media

Kanye West: No Sign He’ll Ever Learn Anything

by AJ Ramirez

[18.Sep.09] :. The reaction to rapper Kanye West’s interruption of singer Taylor Swift’s MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech had snowballed in interesting ways. Even the President of the United...

Sin Fang Bous Announces North American Tour (tour dates / video / MP3)

by Eleanore Catolico

[16.Sep.09] :. Stop it Sindri! I keep getting lost in your dewy eyes. Sindri Mar Sigfusson, bandleader of the whimsical pop-folk group Seabear, has just announced North American tour dates in support of his solo...

Kanye West adds drama to Leno debut

by Maureen Ryan [Chicago Tribune (MCT)]

[15.Sep.09] :. The most compelling moment of the debut of “The Jay Leno Show” (10 p.m. EDT Monday-Friday, NBC) would be several seconds of silence, during which you could have heard a pin drop in...

Juliette Lewis Talks and Sings on Ferguson (tour dates / video)

by Eleanore Catolico

[14.Sep.09] :. Juliette Lewis is like that woman in the bar who’s gotten into fights (and won) and ain’t no fool to a man’s game. She infuses this feral power into her high octane rock...

Soundscape of the Body Politic: The Songs of Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Inherent Vice’

by Eleanore Catolico

[10.Sep.09] :. Interpolators of literature always try to figure out how we, as readers, glean the book in our hands. Arguments between the likes of Harold Bloom and the New Critics in the ‘50s, whose polemics...

Micachu & the Shapes - “Turn Me Well” (video)

by Eleanore Catolico

[10.Sep.09] :. Mica Levi’s Jewellry has garnered accolades because of its beautifully constructed bizarreness, a synecdoche of pop atonality.Yesterday, the 21-year-old Levi, performing under the stage...

The (Indie) Music Industry Is All Right

by Liz Colville

[31.Aug.09] :. The media is too preoccupied with the funeral arrangements of the mainstream music industry to celebrate the life that is happening elsewhere.

Happy! Candy! Fun! Shonen Knife’s Rock Euphoria Returns (video)

by Eleanore Catolico

[28.Aug.09] :. Your favorite Japanese-all female-banana chip lovin’-pop punk trio is back. With new bassist Ritsuko Taneda added to the lineup, alongside lead/guitar Naoko Yamano and drummer Etsuko Nakanishi,...

Black Gay Marriage

by Diepiriye Kuku

[24.Aug.09] :. Listening to ‘A Spirited Debate on Gay Marriage’ from the Michael Eric Dyson Show

Kanye West - “Paranoid” (Live @ iTunes Festival) (video)

by PopMatters Staff

[20.Jul.09] :. Kanye West played London’s iTunes Festival (how’s that for corporate branding) this weekend. Here’s some great footage from...

To Serve God and Wal-Mart by Bethany Moreton

by Rob Horning

[19.Jul.09] :. As conservative Christianity focused more intently on reaffirming that a woman's real work was domestic and reproductive, Wal-Mart became an ideological ally.

Fresh: A Perishable History by Susanne Freidberg

by Lara Killian

[9.Jul.09] :. Is it a good thing to have a refrigerator full of produce we call “fresh” even after it has been sitting around in climate controlled storage for days or even weeks?

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture (book trailer)

by Sarah Zupko

[12.Jun.09] :. Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Atlantic correspondent and journalism professor Ellen Ruppel Shell is an engaging and compelling look at the ramifications of...

Keri Hilson: In a Perfect World…

by Quentin B. Huff

[19.May.09] :. A "diva" is a female version of a hustler, and as interchangeably indistinct as the males.

Catalog by Robin Cherry

by Rob Horning

[13.Apr.09] :. Absurd as they frequently are, catalogs have a good chance of surviving longer than the magazines of which they have long seemed so derivative.

The-Dream: Love vs. Money

by Tyler Fisher

[26.Mar.09] :. Although perhaps the most album-like R&B album in recent memory, typical R&B pitfalls bring Love vs. Money down from the excellence The-Dream has proven capable of producing.

Who needs to read tea leaves? Political micro-targeting nails it

by Frank Greve [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[10.Mar.09] :. WASHINGTON - Remember when credit card applications flooded your mail? You see fewer of them now because credit card companies pre-screen candidates and pester only those who are likely to use a...

M.I.A, T.I., Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, & Kanye West - “Swagga Like Us” live at the Grammys (video)

by PopMatters Staff

[9.Feb.09] :. Rap royalty joined the extremely pregnant M.I.A. for a turn through “Swagga Like Us” last night....

Word-of-mouth advertising gets boost from networking sites

by Brad Talbutt [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[5.Feb.09] :. BOISE, Idaho - With little money for marketing, specialty food maker Donya Schweizer struggled to spread the word about the products in her Donya Marie’s Beyond Chocolate line of gourmet...

R&B star John Legend evolves

by Jordan Levin [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[30.Jan.09] :. Since he exploded onto the music scene in 2004, John Legend has broken ground by going back to basics. The 30-year-old former session player writes sharply crafted songs that are packed with emotion,...

John Zorn by John Brackett

by Michael Patrick Brady

[28.Jan.09] :. One must be willing to risk being consumed by the dark, cabalistic world Zorn has created around his art.

Culture: Culture and the Deejays at Joe Gibbs 1977-1979

by Timothy Gabriele

[16.Dec.08] :. A collection of rare 12" disco singles which extend, and in some cases enhance, the early catalogue of the brilliant Culture with guest DJ slots.

More companies use social media for marketing

by David Ranii [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[16.Dec.08] :. RALEIGH, N.C. - During the summer Olympics, PC maker Lenovo used social media marketing to enhance its corporate sponsorship of the games. The company gave laptops and digital cameras to 100...

Kanye West: 808s and Heartbreak

by Dave Heaton

[1.Dec.08] :. On 808s and Heartbreak, West might be making his own hip-hop version of a concept album where the concept is sadness. But he isn't fitting a cookie-cutter mold, he's innovating.

Who Says Country Can’t Hip-Hop?

by Juli Thanki

[26.Nov.08] :. Poverty, crime, disenfranchisement, sinning, saving, and no-account women: Stereotypical subjects of the average country song, or the average hip-hop song?

Kanye West turns ‘808s and Heartbreak’ into his most personal disc

by Greg Kot [Chicago Tribune (MCT)]

[24.Nov.08] :. Uh-oh. Kanye sings! That’s sort of like hearing that Michael Jordan wants to play baseball, or Elvis is going to take up acting - and we know how those ventures turned out. Kanye West’s...

John Legend: Evolver

by Mike Joseph

[5.Nov.08] :. Evolver is one of the better R&B albums of 2008, and Legend goes a long way towards proving himself as a jack of all trades.

Songs in the Key of Rap

by Quentin B. Huff

[23.Oct.08] :. The relationship between singing and rapping has had a transforming effect on hip-hoppers and singers alike.

Joe Gibbs: Scorchers from the Mighty Two

by Timothy Gabriele

[17.Oct.08] :. When listening to a compilation like Scorchers from the Mighty Two, ownership of a certain piece of music seems like a quaint and inconsequential idea. There's a communal spirit that reigns.

Kanye West, Ani DiFranco, The Last Shadow Puppets…

by PopMatters Staff

[8.Sep.08] :. Kanye West Love Lockdown [Video] Ani DiFranco Emancipated Minor [MP3] (from Red Letter Year releasing 30 September)       The Last Shadow Puppets...

Activity Placement: Why Kanye Needs Us and We Need Him

by Thomas Hauner

[14.Jul.08] :. Kanye West is a bona fide hit-maker. But his real genius lies in his ability to match songs to consumer behavior, marketing his music less as a product and more as the perfect accompaniment to the activities of daily life.

Kanye West: Is he rap’s greatest rock star or just lost in space?

by Jon Bream [Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)]

[10.Jun.08] :. If Kanye West reads this headline, he’ll undoubtedly object. It’s not BIG enough for him. Super-size is not his style. It must be SUPA DUPA size - even if it won’t fit on the...

When They’re 65…

by Ben Rubenstein

[5.May.08] :. What will some of today's most well-known hip-hop artists be doing in 2035? Maybe they won't be running the music world, but they'll probably be doing something beyond applying Fixodent to their grills.

Barry Adamson, The Black Angels, Ghislain Poirier…

by PopMatters Staff

[2.Apr.08] :. Barry Adamson (all tracks from Back to the Cat released 31 March) Spend a Little Time [MP3]       Shadow of Death Hotel [MP3]      ...

Brand New China by Jing Wang

by Rachel Smucker

[5.Mar.08] :. Written like a college textbook and packaged like a novel, this book blurs the line between storytelling and statistical analysis, making for an interesting, complex read.

Tourists of History by Marita Sturken

by Ryan Gillespie

[18.Feb.08] :. The idea of education as liberation is a poor one; education might allow a critical perspective on cultural practices, but asserting that ironic frame helps an individual grieve, or mourn, or live a richer and fuller life, is a mistake.

Kanye West: Alter Ego

by Drew Hinshaw

[15.Feb.08] :. An opportunity for Kanye West the Self-Conscious Studio Artist to vent freely on Kanye West the Tabloid Creature.

In the Know by Nancy MacDonell

by Will Layman

[29.Nov.07] :. A fashion-heavy guide to hip that just reeks of not knowing what it is really about.

Admiring Oliver Sacks

by Jillian Burt

[19.Oct.07] :. The neurologist Oliver Sacks has an extraordinary ability to write the life of the mind. Where others see illness, dementia, a fearsome strangeness and shy away, he’s respectfully fascinated...

Culture: Two Sevens Clash: 30th Anniversary Edition

by Ron Hart

[21.Sep.07] :. Certified reggae classic celebrates 30th Anniversary inna deluxe style.

50 Cent falls to Kanye West - but remains mum on retirement

by Jim Farber [New York Daily News (MCT)]

[19.Sep.07] :. NEW YORK—Fitty better get his fishing rod ready. Sales figures reveal that Kanye West will indeed trounce first week numbers for 50’s latest CD, an occurrence Cent vowed would make him...

The music business awaits the outcome of ‘Super Tuesday’

by Glenn Gamboa [Newsday (MCT)]

[13.Sep.07] :. After millions of dollars spent campaigning, months of intense preparation and last-minute publicity blitzes, the debate over who will be victorious on so-called “Super Tuesday” has been...

Showdown between 50 Cent and Kanye West is no contest

by Greg Kot [Chicago Tribune (MCT)]

[10.Sep.07] :. Two of the biggest-selling artists of the last four years go head-to-head Tuesday in the record stores with new albums: Kanye West’s “Graduation” (Good/Roc-A-Fella) and 50...

‘Graduation’: Kanye West’s journey to adulthood

by Greg Kot [Chicago Tribune (MCT)]

[10.Sep.07] :. CHICAGO—Kanye West was sipping a mixed drink through a straw, and his loose tongue was even friskier than usual. The occasion was a listening party a few days ago at a Chicago recording studio...

Kanye West: Graduation

by Dave Heaton

[10.Sep.07] :. For all of his apparent ego-tripping, awkwardness is the key quality of Kanye West’s persona, whether he’s aware of it or not.

New CD revives Hialeah, Fla.‘s, forgotten musical past

by Amy Driscoll [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[4.Sep.07] :. HIALEAH, Fla.—Before the Miami Sound Machine hit it big and the Buena Vista Social Club became an international sensation, the future of Cuban music was being shaped in a place not generally...

Dont Panic by Cassandra Wilkinson

by David Pullar

[23.Aug.07] :. Wilkinson gives an interesting and challenging look at what's good about capitalism.

A reflection of consumerism

by Tirdad Derakhshani [The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)]

[22.Aug.07] :. Lindsay Lohan busted for cocaine! Paris Hilton: I hate prison food! Angelina Jolie takes her kids bowling—in France! We’ve become junkies—craving more and more news about a...

Chasing Cool by Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman

by Kai Bandele

[17.Aug.07] :. Becoming the "iPod of your industry" requires more than mimicking a "cool" brand.

Common: Finding Forever

by Jeff Vrabel

[30.Jul.07] :. As good as Finding Forever is -- and it's very good -- it's hard to imagine it vaulting Common into superstar status. It's the curse of being sly and thoughtful.

The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille

by Graziella Jackson

[23.Jul.07] :. The Culture Code is American to its core.

Damiera: M(US)IC

by Dave Hoffman

[6.Mar.07] :. Damiera plays hyperkinetic, angular indie rock, echoing At the Drive-In, or Coheed & Cambria without the weird prog-rock tendencies.