Here’s info on the annual celebration of putting the needle in the groove. It’s increasingly a lost art, but still, no one’s going to ever feel as fondly about the cassette tape or the CD, are they?
Pop Culture Diary
Your daily look at the effluvia worth looking at
Category Archives: Awesomeness
Sequestered in Winterfell? The Hold Steady Helps Soundtrack Game of Thrones
During this past Sunday’s HBO premiere of Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 3, a group of rogues sang a song called “The Bear and the Maiden Fair,” a boisterous drinking song popular in Westeros. After the episode’s dramatic SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT conclusion, an especially boisterous, fully-rocked-out version of the song played over the closing credits, courtesy of The Hold Steady — in a hipsters-meets-Lannisters treatment previously journeyed to via The National’s “Rains of Castamere.” Wired explores the phenomenon smartly, and reveals the news that the Hold Steady’s version will be available in our world’s version of celebrating Ye Olde Mystical Tymes — for Record Store Day on April 20.
Speaking in My Official Capacity as a Pulitzer Prize Winner, Your Movie Sucks
In honor of the life and career of game-changing film critic Roger Ebert, a delicious highlight reel (as it were) of some of his all-time classic digs at bad movies. Our favorite line? “Add it all up, and what you’ve got here is a waste of good electricity. I’m not talking about the electricity between the actors. I’m talking about the current to the projector.”
What Is Not To Love: NPR’s “Wait, Wait” Crew Tries and Skewers Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos
The apocalypse is nigh.
This. Is. Amazing.
It’s the NPR “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” crew in their Sandwich Monday feature on The Salt (NPR’s erstwhile food blog) — tackling the “sandwich” that is the new Cool Ranch Doritos Loco Taco. Best quote is a toss up between, “Is there such a thing as Don’tritos?” and the observation, “If grown-ups put “cool” in front of something, teenagers will automatically NOT eat it” followed by Peter Sagal (fresh from his SXSW appearance) cracking, “Is this why my kids refuse to sit and watch PBS Cool Newshour with Cool Lehrer with me?”
Also, read of last week’s outrage in which Taco Bell fans were deprived of the latest offering because social media jumped the gun and said Wednesday when they meant Thursday. Easy there, ‘Merica.
Let Everybody Know!: Cold War Kids Might Very Well Be Back
The perhaps back-in-form Cold War Kids.
Cold War Kids give their first glimpse of the pending April 2 release of Dear Miss Lonelyhearts with a (cue Rock Critic Adjective Generator) soaring, anthemic, urgent song called “Miracle Mile.” After the commercial-leaning, glossy disappointment that was 2011’s Mine Is Yours, which laid in sharp contrast to the brilliance of their earlier, rawer work.
There are some generally encouraging video hints to other album tracks here, with their arty black-and-white aesthetic fully intact.
Between this and the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs (more on this tomorrow), we may just spend April under headphones.
Happy Valentine’s Day from Porter Wagoner!
Going waaaaay back for this one — so, so wrong, and yet so, so right. No one writes lyrics like classic country artists, ya know?
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