Final Track: 10 Things That Happened This Week in Music


It’s impossible to cover every relevant music story, often about irrelevant people, during the week, so beginning today and on every Friday for the foreseeable future, we’ll be doing an end of the week music roundup. It’s called Final Track and we’ll briefly discuss 10 music-related stories we didn’t mention during the week. And we promise never to use the words “chillwave” or “Madonna.”

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Swiss band Yello, best (only) known for their song “Day Bow Bow,” a.k.a. “Oh Yeah,” are contemplating legal action against an anti-Obama ad released by Karl Rove’s Super PAC American Crossroads. According to BuzzFeed, “The commercial titled ‘Cool’…mocks President Obama for being an ineffectual ‘celebrity.’ Throughout the ad, a deep-voiced ‘Oh yeah,’ similar to the one in Yello’s song, is repeated three times.” But, after doing some research, I think the real story here is: Yello released an album in 2009?

You know that noise you heard earlier in the week, the one that sounded like a million overly emotional white people rejoicing/crying at the same time, while a gentle, whimsical melody played in the background? That hum was the result of Fiona Apple releasing a new single “Every Single Night” from her upcoming album The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, due out June 19th. I was one of them.

The Smiths: not reuniting. Blur: maybe reuniting. WHY ISN’T ANYONE ASKING WHEN LIPPS INC IS GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER???

This is depressing:

At first, they were just crates full of records, numbering in the thousands. But after digging through their contents, Jeff Bubeck learned he’d stumbled upon something special: what he says is the personal record collection of late Detroit hip-hop producer J Dilla.

“Is it even possible?” That was Bubeck’s first reaction when he learned the 7,000-8,000 records he acquired from an abandoned storage unit in Clinton Township last month may have belonged to Dilla, the celebrated producer and founding member of Slum Village who died in 2006 at age 32 due to complications from lupus. (Via)

It’s not that anyone did anything wrong here; rather, what’s sad is that a record collection belonging to the great J Dilla, who produced albums from A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and Busta Rhymes, should be in a museum somewhere. Can’t the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have that instead of Bono’s guitar?

“Somebody I Used to Know” is a Billboard-topping success and has made Gotye a household name, but in an interview with NME, he said, “Sometimes I feel like I’m a bit sick of it…there’s only so many times you can listen to the one song.” Gotye now knows what God feels like: he’s sick of his own creation. Except Gotye gets paid every time his song’s on the radio; God has to sit up there in the clouds, crying like a little bitch (rain is tears, right?).

Rihanna’s had a busy month. First she was razzed by two Australian DJs, Hamish and Andy, who (rightly) claim that the singer used a beat they came up with for her song “Man Down.” Both sides laughed the potential awkwardness off, though, and to her credit, Rihanna is clearly embarrassed and meant no ill-intent. She also revealed she originally wanted James Franco for her “We Found Love” music video and the world went apesh*t when she posted a makeup-less photo of herself on Twitter. So courageous!

On the 10-year anniversary of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes’s death, the remaining members of TLC, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, announced that they’re working on a new album and will go on a reunion tour – with Lopes, who will “be gracing the reunion tour stage through [archival] image projections on a big screen.” I’m fine with all this, assuming condom eye patches don’t become a thing again.

Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” isn’t a great song, and her popularity seems to be falling by the hour, but the video…you’ll have to excuse me for – oh, shouldn’t be longer than two minutes.

The Weeknd (the stage name of Abel Tesfaye) is likely the biggest name in R&B right now, or at least the most up-and-coming. But one thing’s for sure: he’s the smoothest Canadian ever. Sorry, Snow. He just made his first ultra-hyped live appearance (at Coachella, no less) and will appear on Wiz Khalifa’s next album, O.N.I.F.C. In related news: Wiz was arrested for marijuana possession this week…in a Holiday Inn. Luckily it wasn’t a Motel 6. That would have been undignified.

This is the best song released this week. Off! kick so much ass.

Also: some guy wrote an article called “Eight Pleasantly Plump Female Musicians We’d Like to Get Down With.” He got in a lot of trouble.

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