“This fake grunge turd is an aural kick in the taint… I’ll personally piss on the First Amendment if we can ban this song.” Why yes, they are talking about Collective Soul’s “Shine” — kudos for guessing it right. The staff of Decibel, metal music’s magazine-form bible (a Satanic one, natch) prove with The Deciblog that writing about metal can be funny as, er, hell. Case in point: last week’s entries include the aforementioned commentary taken from their nominees for “Worst Rock Song Of The ‘90s”; “The Metal Olympics” (self-explanatory); and this closely shorn writer’s sentimental favourite, “Bald Eagles of Death Metal” where they describe Anthrax frontman Scott Ian’s various goatee styles — “the staple red dye, the twin facial flames, the classic braid and the carefully sculpted genie-pubes”. The self-described “Truest Corner of The Blogosphere” makes sure that if you’re a metal star, or worse, a ‘90s alt.rock icon, the truth hurts. (www.thedeciblog.com)
DON’T CROSS THE TRAK
As an MC and FOA (Friend of Akon), Kardinal Offishall gets all the press, but Montreal’s A-Trak —DJ for Kanye West, Fools Gold label co-honcho, musical director for Jay-Z — might be Canada’s most well-connected hip-hop export. Nike+ commissioned his first legit piece of original music, Running Man, and though it’s got a lingering blog-house vibe that in a way already sounds dated, Trak has enough solid programming ideas that the gulliest heads can rock to this without fear of unfashionability. (iTunes Store)
MP3 OF THE WEEK
Lykke Li, “Little Bit (Loving Hand remix)”: It’s the balance between Li’s girlish vox and little touches like the cracking percussion and the Hercules and Love Affair-esque horns that Loving Hand (DFA producer Tim Goldsworthy) drops into the mix that make this possibly the nuevo-disco cut of the year. (http://tinyurl.com/lykkeli-dfa)