RIFF MARKET

Riff Market Got Crizzed

EW put together a Best Music Websites list. Here are a few they missed:

Peanut Butter Words and Ha-ha Breath

This is that guy Mike Powell who said he didn't like Gang Gang Dance via a brilliant recourse to architecture theory, and suddenly found himself the target of the internet's biggest anti-academic squeams--the kind who go anti-academic only after they realize they're incapable of going the opposite. Smart, highly readable rants and extended thoughts on pretty much all things music and crit.

Shallow Rewards

Chris Ott scours eBay and elsewhere looking for obscene music memorabilia/rare vinyl/etc auctions, explains the history and context of the auction item, then in something of a fuck-you to collector culture, posts a song from the auction item as an MP3. The posts are always well-linked, well-researched, and as much as Shallow Rewards is a slam on music fetishization, I always feel like there's an understood respect for the collectors--at least they're not blowing through bands, idolless, etc.

Puritan Blister

This might be the MP3 blog parody out there--something like an MP3 Tantalus. Every day William Bowers posts not one or two but often 30 or 40 different MP3s, no descriptions except covers, mash-ups, originals--dispensing with the formality of "justify the download with a description," as if most people go to MP3 blogs for anything but the wares. It's information overload, and you can't get through all the MP3s each day let alone decide whether you like some and dislike others, but that's the point.

XXL Blogs

Kris Ex, Noz, and Byron Crawford all post daily about hip-hop--Crawford does (has been doing) the reverence in irreverence thing, really uncomfortable "rap needs more misogyny" type posts that work more times than not.

Robert Christgau's Podcast

Each week Christgau picks the best and worst music events in NYC. If you like his writing, wait till you hear his voice.

Tim Sweeney's Beats in Space Podcast

Still something of a secret, Beats in Space is easily the best way to find out about new disco/house/electro/techno tracks, often months before they come out. Lots of old, more obscure stuff too. Sweeney DJs live, with special guests pretty much every week, and then posts the tracklists to the shows.