Fuck.

To the surprise and immense disappointment of everyone who happened upon and quickly fell in love with last year’s The Turquoise—including many CMG staffers, who voted it into our Top 50 Records of 2010—the Pop Winds played their final show this past weekend in Montreal. Needless to say, despite the promise of a few new tracks in the coming months, as well as solo material from members Kyle Jukka (as Flow Child) and Devon Welsh (as Majical Cloudz, whose excellent track with Grimes is currently making the blog rounds), we’re pretty bummed about this.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Pop Winds

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Who did it first is irrelevant. Numerous 4chan-types have taken credit…but ultimately it’s just a Justin Bieber song really slowed down. The drums break like waves beneath his cherubic syllables, their pure Auto-tuned tone granted beauty through reverb. Each simple chord is a revelation—especially the F of the chorus. Bieber becomes a more disciplined Panda Bear or Jónsi, tightening every screw as if in recognition that some day, some anonymous genius would come along to test the integrity of each one. No wonder it’s spread so quickly and virally.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Justin Bieber

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As pointed out in her latest post, “sometimes blogs lead to good things.” This in reference to All Time Coloratura (alltimecoloratura.wordpress.com) blogger Cecily’s recent hiring as Social and Interactive Media Coordinator for the Canadian Opera Company, but the principle passes both ways: a good blog opens doors onto unfamiliar subjects and brimming dialogues of alien vocabularies. Words like “libretto” and, erm, “Coloratura,” begging for an afternoon spent on Wikipedia.

⊙ Keyword Tags: All Time Coloratura

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Wriggling through a hole formed by recent silence from Lil’ Wayne and Kanye and deflated interest in Gucci and Hova, Eminem, he most recently of the career-tanking Relapse (2009) effort, has sort of wriggled himself upright and crawled through said hole, and in a few small strides become one of the most essential rappers on the planet. Stranger things have probably happened, but the brain struggles to recall them.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Eminem

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Rejoice kiddies: the 2010 baseball season is upon us. Hope springs eternal, and, as of this writing, both the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees have currently identical win/loss records. Fathers will bring eager sons to the ballpark, 16 ounce Coors Lights will be sold for $7.75, and upon hearing the sounds of the overloud PA systems used in modern ballparks, a vital question will be raised-why do professional baseball players always have such shitty taste in popular music?

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C’mon, tell me that upon hearing that Tool/A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan was branching out into the field of winemaking you didn’t groan too. Surely, even for a guy who places as much of a premium on quality control as Maynard does (provided you, uh, like Tool), this seemed like a trendy cash-in—nonchalantly slapping the devil horns onto someone else’s bottle of grape and watching ’90s prog-metal fans lap it up.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Tool

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In a post on his website last week (franznicolay.com), Franz Nicolay reports that he has left the Hold Steady. The mustachioed keyboardist was easily the most flamboyant and unmistakable member of the band after Craig Finn, and on catalogue highlights like “Stuck Between Stations” and “Sequestered in Memphis” his muscular piano style was keenly felt. His explanation is respectfully brief, and we can hope that the actual split was as drama-free as his announcement.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Hold Steady

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re: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/12/the_50_worst_so_43.php

It’s very easy in all the hullabaloo about democratization and access to forget that internet-enabled communications, which are supposed to provide direct access to music’s true taste-makers, have less mitigated than enhanced our species’ ability to churn out brain-hemorrhaging garbage. What’s impressive about this Village Voice article—and unintentionally appropriate, given this discussion about quantity over quality—isn’t only the scope and comprehensiveness of a list ostensibly dedicated to the absolute worst of an industry that, at any given time, is about 96% comprised of utterly worthless music, but the sheer weight of material dedicated to the topic. Every single entry of this top (bottom?) 50 list is exhaustively commented on. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think of a Top-X-of-Decade list from the last month or two that matches the Voice blurb for blurb in terms of monolithic pop-cultural awareness. Truthfully, I haven’t heard of most of these songs. The pure geek audacity of the thing is breathtaking.

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Billy Corgan may have lost a drummer in the last year, but he’s gained a Simpson. The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Corgan and fellow has-been Jessica Simpson were “officially” an item. Rumors that the pair were first spotted having dinner with an Epic A&R executive were hotly denied by another source. “Do you have any idea what would happen to Sony stock if word of such a meeting got out,” the source asked. “Please. I have a family. The girl needs braces. Oh God, please don’t print this.”

⊙ Keyword Tags: Billy Corgan, Jessica Simpson

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Cheeky and informed blog-about-town Torontoist announced yesterday the formation of yet another Weezer cover band in a world full of Weezer cover bands. Here’s why you should care:

- This band contains CMG fav and kalimba enthusiast Laura Barrett, who is photoshopped in the Rivers position. For someone perhaps best known for playing keyboards in the Hidden Cameras and the thumb piano in her solo outfit, Barrett is not the most likely candidate for the bespectacled power-pop fire starter, and yet it’s an incredible idea.

⊙ Keyword Tags: Dana Snell, Laura Barrett, Sheezer, Weezer

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