The Useless Critic 2.0

You Need to Hear This Stuart Newman "Music has always been around in my life," Stuart Newman, an acoustic folk-y singer-songwriter from Brighton (UK) reflected in a recent email interview. He is the sole moving force behind his operation: he is responsible for not only the writing and composing of his music, but the artwork as well. Not to mention the music itself, which is a hefty job indeed. Growing up, he heard 60s-influenced music, a lot. "The Beatles featured heavily in that," he said. He taught himself the piano growing up ("I really didn't like the 'lessons' part") and the guitar was conquered at the age of 17. From then on, Newman's life began to drift more in a musical direction. "I started thinking seriously about songwriting later on in my university life, and since then I’ve been doing the best I can to get my music out there." Thus leading to the internet. Stuart Newman's music- and his debut EP, "Single but ...

well last night, shortly before midnight, I drew The Time Traveler's Wife to a close. wow- I have to say, that book annihilated my expectations. that's to say I was being kind of an elitist and like oh ho this book is adored by the masses TOO SACCHARINE FOR MY TASTES right? noooooo. now I see why it was/is so popular! it was an incredibly well-written book. Audrey Niffenegger? I now safely have faith in her as a writer. books like that are impressive, though, and seem to come about (for me at least) once in a blue moon. green moon. some kind of moon! the type of book you fear putting down and have to carry around you everywhere, even in the car where the motion makes you sick. and then I have thoughts, in between reading: WHOA, THAT OLDER LADY IN THE PARKING LOT HAD GLASSES, BROWN HAIR AND WAS GIVING ME THE EYE. MAYBE SHE'S ME FROM THE FUTURE? :o you know you've had those thoughts! okay....maybe you haven't. but yeah, an analogy occurred to me when I was getting to...

Over the past 9 hours I have been listening to the song "Magic" originally recorded by vintage rockers Pilot over and over and over again. You know it. It's been used in plenty of movies and commercials. Ho, ho, ho It's magic, you know Never believe it's not so It's magic, you know Never believe, it's not so The reason for this soar in Magic popularity is because teeny-bopper, Selena Gomez from Wizards of Waverly Place has covered the song on her show's soundtrack. And it's been getting a lot of press. Here is the new version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJHaJNV4H3k QATFYG: I want to take a poll and see what you guys like more. The original by Pilot or the remake by Selena G? I'll start it off and vote for the.... ORIGINAL!! The remake is way too toned down. Not enough Umph!

I first heard Florence and the Machine over a year ago, back when the band has less than 1600 plays on last.fm. First I came across "Girl With One Eye" on the Hype Machine, then I listened to "Kiss With A Fist," and then the acoustic cover of Cold War Kids' "Hospital Beds". Every song was amazing. I searched the Hype Machine every week for new tracks - and never found them. Then a combination of events occurred, I forgot about the band, and I only just got hold of Florence's new album, "Lungs," earlier this week. The band now has over 1.6 million plays on last.fm, a #2 album in the UK (just behind Michael Jackson - damn him for dying and messing up Flo's chances of getting to #1!), and every single released has charted, with "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" the highest at #12 in the UK. My, how things have changed! Let's put it like this: I've listened to the album non-stop for the last three days. "Rabbit Heart (Ra...

Today is the day when I have finished my Asian History class for the summer semester. To celebrate I will be drinking generic cola with the calories this time...no more diet sodey water for me today. And having one last hoorah with some Asian Music. The Nepali National Anthem: This is about as Asian as it gets. Blind Pianist, Nobuyuki Tsuji. He's playing some western stuff, but he's still really good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9MlN-ZudKo And Shahrizoda: My personal favorites. When I found out about them I showed their videos to everyone I could. They're from Uzbekistan, but ethnically, they're ughyurs from Western China. They're poppy with both middle eastern and Chinese sound in their music. Well they are from Uzbekistan. QATFYG: What is your Asian celebration music?

Marc Blucas, a.k.a "Riley" from Buffy, got married last Saturday on the Erie bayfront. We know this is heartbreaking for you. what upsets me is that there were REESE WITHERSPOON SIGHTINGS IN TOWN and guess what? I was so exhausted from work Saturday I went to bed at like, 9. fuck! fuck fuck fuck! apparently his new wife is Christian Slater's ex. all the best, Marc! INVITE ME TO THE ANNIVERSARY DINNER AND SEAT ME NEXT TO REESE!

Finally, after toiling through it for half the year, I finished Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, a book that won tons of accolades from the New York Times and others upon being released a few years back. which was not a bad book by any means- the translation from Norwegian to English by Anne Born captures a lot of, what I imagine to be, Scandinavian minimalism of the original. it's a very simple but elegant read, no overwriting to be had here. I don't know, it was like the literary version of looking at (good) landscape paintings. the thing is, though, I feel like I should have liked it a lot more than I did. towards the end, I was so bored and tired with it. I managed to read a few other books while trying to get through this and they all captured my attention much more fervently than Horses . A lot of it, I would think, was the extreme masculine sentiment of the book, the relationship between sons and fathers. You know, stuff I don't deal with it. and fishing, and h...