nuTsie News

iTunes Top 100 Round-Up

dave dederer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:36:44 +0000

Yo Gotti displays his 401(k) investment

Not a lot of change in this week’s big 100. Lady Gaga is still up there, as are her poppy peers Owl City, John Mayer, Britney, Miley and the like.

Given the stagnation, we’re devoting this week’s post to a few of the smaller fishes in this biggest of musical ponds.

You can keep your John Mayer — give us Luke Bryan, the Georgia-born country boy who enters the 100 for the first time with his new single “Do I.”

Another new kid on the 100 block is rapper Yo Gotti, who jumps into the 100 with his club hit “5 Star (Remix).” A new song in what appears to be an aging genre, but the kids love it nonetheless.

Speaking of aging, Reba McEntire herself has graced us with her ginger presence at #83 with “Consider Me Gone.” Reba, we’ll consider you back.

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Post tags: britney spears, iTunes Top 100, John Mayer, Luke Bryan, Miley Cyrus, Owl City, Reba McEntire, Yo Gotti

Before She Was Gaga

dave dederer — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:51:14 +0000

We’ve featured — and poked fun at — Lady Gaga here at nuTsie in the past.

Turns out before she was Gaga she was Stefani Germanotta, yet another talented but painfully earnest young singer/songwriter. Here she is performing at a dorm at NYU just a few years ago — little did the audience know she was just biding her undergrad time until fully prepared to perpetrate her SUPER FREAKY alter ego on the world.

Pretty amazing transformation if you stop to think about it.

Top 100 Surf Rock Songs

dave dederer — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:47 +0000

Bitchin' USA

nuTsie Top 100 Surf Rock Songs

We’ve noticed that whenever we’re having a bad day or, as is so common this time of the year in the Jet City, it’s 41 degrees Fahrenheit and pouring down rain, nothing puts the pep back in our step like some surf music.

The Beach Boys, Dick Dale, Jan & Dean, The Ventures, The Surfaris and the rest of the best are all featured in our nuTsie Top 100 Surf Rock Songs.

It’s a musical tube ride. Take off yer clothes, turn up the heat, pop the top on a cold stubby…and party like it’s 1964.

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Post tags: Dick Dale, Jan & Dean, Misirlou, The Beach Boys, The Surfaris, The Ventures, Wipe Out

Beck, Wilco, Feist Collaborate…

dave dederer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:00:45 +0000

…and rock critics everywhere jizz in their pants.

Record Club: Skip Spence “Little Hands” from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

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Post tags: beck, critic top picks, feist, jeff tweedy, rock critic, rock geek, wilco

Oasis, The Who, Aerosmith — Family Feud!

dave dederer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:41:40 +0000

Taken during a break between rounds

What do these three bands have in common, other than kicking arena-rock arse?

They all feature long-running feuds between their two key members.

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have been at each other since the earliest days of The Who. Pete, it would seem, has always been pissed off because Roger has pulled all the chicks while singing songs Pete wrote. Worked out OK for them — the latest stop on their path to rock immortality is the halftime slot at this year’s Super Bowl.

Steven Tyler quit Aerosmith! Joe Perry doesn’t care! Wait, Steven Tyler’s back in the band! Three stories in one! These guys haven’t stayed on top for 30+ years by being stupid.

Likewise for Oasis, in which brothers Noel (with the eyebrows and the guitar) and Liam (the good-looking one what used to shag Patsy Kensit) continually take the piss out of each other backstage, onstage and in the press. And sell a lot of records in the process.

We sense a theme…

© dave dederer for nuTsie News, 2009. | Permalink | Leave a comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Aerosmith, Joe Perry, liam gallagher, noel gallagher, oasis, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Steven Tyler, the who

iTunes Top 100 Round-Up

dave dederer — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:30:19 +0000

yo yo yo tally ho -- I'm from England

It’s good to be Jay. Megastar Jay-Z and the lesser-known Jay Sean both chart in the top 10 this week (with “Empire State Of Mind” and “Down,” respectively), not to mention placing a few more in the heavy 100.

While Jay-Z needs no introduction, his counterpart just might. Jay Sean (real name Kamaljit Singh Jhooti), is a British rapper/singer/mogul who can now lay claim to being England’s first male urban artist (read: not-white British dude who sings and rhymes) to top the Billboard charts across the pond.

We’ll still take Jay the First (that’s right: Jam-Master) over Jay-Z, Jay Sean or any other Jay out there.

Ke$ha also made an impression on this week’s 100, holding on to her #3 spot with “TiK ToK.” For those of you who don’t know her, picture this: Ashlee Simpson lookalike (pre-nose job), Lady Gaga soundalike (pre-record deal), yet somehow looks and sounds worse than both.

In other news, Creed’s “Rain” and LMFAO’s “Shots” have joined the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” as our nominees for Worst Song of 2009. Creed? WTF?

For the record, we think Ashlee was way cuter before the nose job.

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Post tags: Ashlee Simpson, Black Eyed Peas, Creed, Jam-Master Jay, Jay Sean, Jay-Z, Kesha

Rock Stars Are Fans, Too

dave dederer — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:18:10 +0000

Yes, that's his wife

Friend of nuTsie Duff McKagan waxes poetic in his blog this week about Them Crooked Vultures, a new band made up of one of his idols and two of his contemporaries.

You’re never too huge to be a fan:

“When I first heard that John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme were forming a band last spring, I must say that I was jealous. Are you kidding me?! These three mega-talented and unique figures playing hard rock in a unified and focused group? I was excited, to say the least, from a player’s perspective AND as a fan. Then came the inevitable “supergroup” tags.

Lazy journalists like to put a tag on anything they can in an attempt to sum up a whole genre or movement with a quick phrase…I think it is a cheap way out.”

Read more…

Rock and Roll = Novelty

dave dederer — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:49:00 +0000

Liverpool pop group known for its novelty tunes

Today we’re happy to feature our 100 Greatest Novelty Songs playlist.

Just because we’re featuring it doesn’t mean we understand it.

What’s a novelty song, anyway? And how did “novelty” become a derogatory term for a pop song?

There are two Frank Zappa songs on the list. Zappa wrote and performed some of the most sophisticated and demanding (to play and to listen to) music of the rock era and also was one of its greatest guitarists. Is he relegated to novelty status just because most of his lyrics consist of ham-handed, sophomoric attempts at being funny?

How about The Beatles?: “Yellow Submarine,” “Bungalow Bill,” “Rocky Racoon”…some of the most delightful and memorable novelty songs of all time.

Isn’t the whole idea of rock and roll to be novel? Weren’t Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly novelties? And Hendrix, The Sex Pistols and Madonna?

Novelty is dead! Long live novelty!