It’s Been Ten Years Since “Chocolate Rain”

YouTube
Jason Tate

It’s been ten years since Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain” became an internet hit. BT.com spoke with Tay about the last decade and catching up with one of the first “viral” stars I remember:

Today, 112 million views would likely translate into cash, but Tay decided early on to make his song available for free download.

“I didn’t put it on iTunes,” he says, “I definitely regret that”.

Downtown Boys Pen Open Letter to Coachella Owner

Downtown Boys
Jason Tate

Downtown Boys have penned an open letter to the owner of Coachella over anti-LGBTQ donations:

Of course, to participate in this festival at all means playing a capitalist and mainstream music venture, but we can make demands within that framework, and it is totally unacceptable that money from its owners or anyone for that matter ever goes to anti-LGBTQ organizations or any efforts that endorse hate. We need to call this all out, though it can’t end there. We need to work to redistribute the cultural and economic resources so that Coahcella no longer holds so much power. We need to increase public funding for the arts so that musicians are not dependent on people like Anschutz to pay our checks.

Kendrick Lamar Debuts at Number One

Kendrick Lamar
Jason Tate

Kendrick Lamar has the number one album in the country.

Kendrick Lamar’s Damn. blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 2017’s biggest week for an album: 603,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending April 20, according to Nielsen Music. That’s the most units earned by an album in a single week in nearly a year, since Drake’s Views launched with 1.04 million units in the week ending May 5, 2016.

Paramore Talk About the Struggles of the Past Few Years

Paramore
Jason Tate

Paramore talked with The Guardian about their upcoming album and the struggles to get it made:

“What I will say is that it’s such bullshit that we’re in a lawsuit,” sighs Williams. “I wasn’t OK for a while; maybe I’m still not.”

Taylor York says that he didn’t even feel Davis’s leaving because he was so used to the pain of Paramore. “I was just numb,” he says. “It was just another drama and another example of being in a band and it being really difficult, and feeling bad about that. We have the coolest job ever but why does it have to be so hard?”

Review: Fall Out Boy – Young and Menace

Fall Out Boy - Mania
Jason Tate

This first impression was originally posted as a live blog for supporters in our forums on April 21st, 2017. First impressions are meant to be quick, fun, initial impressions on an album or release as I listen to it for the first time. It’s a running commentary written while listening to an album — not a review. More like a diary of thoughts. This post has been lightly edited for structure and flow.

I’ve done zero “single song” first listen threads, but if I was going to do one … I feel like Fall Out Boy are the band I should do it for. They’re about as big a band as we have from the music scene and they’ve got a pretty good following here still, so it just makes sense. Gotta give the people what they want!

I watched some basketball, and then got some work finished, so I’ve got a few minutes before I call it a night and go watch some Spider-Man cartoons and have a beer in bed. Not a bad Friday night.

Ok. So, few thoughts:

  1. I’ve played the song about 6-8 times already, I’m gonna play it a couple right now and write up some thoughts on it. Once the first time through, then pause and write a little, and then some closing thoughts. So it won’t be a super long thread, but it should be fun.
  2. As always I reserve the right to change my mind later, this isn’t a review, it’s just me kinda talking aloud as I listen to music and think about things and share thoughts and how it sounds.

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