Arcade Fire's The Suburbs

I've been getting kind of bored with the music I've been listening to of late. There are always new artists you can find, but it's the sound of the music that I'm getting bored with. Alt/indie, country, Americana, call it what you want, I still think it's great, I'm just looking for a little bit something more.

And I think I found it. I haven't been all that happy with old gather.com lately, with its emphasis on numbers and kowtowing to google news so it can be a a "secondary news source", which is just a fancy way of saying "bad writers plagiarizing for hits", but if you'd like, head over there and see what I'm talking about. Arcade Fire's The Suburbs is really something to listen to.

Minivan rap song goes viral, and I just don't get it

If you want to see it, you have to go over to my blog on Gather.com to see it, but a rap video has gone viral about a Toyota minivan.

Actually, it's a commercial for Toyota that I'm sure one of the many marketing/communications firms that have a finger stuck in the Toyota pie came up with and solidified the business relationship for at least the rest of this week. And I'm sure there's a producer or SVP of Creative who is feeling pretty darn cocky right about now.

But songs and videos trying to make very unhip people cool never have worked for me. And there's not getting around it: Minivans are not cool. Get it. They. Are. Not. Cool.

I wish white people who live in the suburbs with a bunch of kids in houses that are poorly decorated would just up and admit it: they cashed in the hopes and dreams they had as young people and there's no getting them back. You're wearing your Dockers and "fashions" from Talbots and you're all really nice, genuinely good people, but you ain't hip. Face it.