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Rebecca Black Might Sing Like A Robot, But That's Just Proof She Has Evolved Beyond Us. Her Vocal Is Just A Slightly Exaggerated Version Of The Robot Glitch-twitch Stutter That's Been Mainstream Pop Vocalese For The Past 10 Years Or So.

-Rob Sheffield

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Rebecca Black Might Sing

Rob Sheffield

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Rebecca Black Might Sing Like A Robot, But That's Just Proof She Has Evolved Beyond Us. Her Vocal Is Just A Slightly Exaggerated Version Of The Robot Glitch-twitch Stutter That's Been Mainstream Pop Vocalese For The Past 10 Years Or So.

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But Bringing People Together Is What Music Has Always Done Best.

Julia Louis-dreyfus Is Just Perfect In 'veep.' She Gets To Show Off The Spiky Claws Beneath Her Patrician Finesse. The Obvious Way To Play 'veep' Would Be To Make Louis-dreyfus A Folksy Heroine, One With More Common Sense Or Populist Heart Than Her Enemies. But She Isn't One.

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But The Rhythm Of The Mix Tape Is The Rhythm Of Romance, The Analog Hum Of A Physical Connection Between Two Sloppy, Human Bodies.

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The Stones Suggested That If You Dabble In Decadence, You Could Turn Into A Devil-worshipping Junkie. Paul Mccartney Suggested That If You Mess Around With Girl Worship, You Could Turn Into A Husband. So Paul Was A Lot Scarier.

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Rebecca Black Might Sing Like A Robot, But That's Just Proof She Has Evolved Beyond Us. Her Vocal Is Just A Slightly Exaggerated Version Of The Robot Glitch-twitch Stutter That's Been Mainstream Pop Vocalese For The Past 10 Years Or So.

'drive,' That's The One. I Love Dozens Of Songs By R.e.m., But That's The One, Even Though It Took Me 7 Or 8 Years To Start Liking It.

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One Nice Thing About Growing Up Catholic Is It Makes You Open-minded About Other People's Religions, Since Ours Is Nuttier Than Yours.

It’s The Same With People Who Say, ‘whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger.’ Even People Who Say This Must Realize That The Exact Opposite Is True. What Doesn’t Kill You Maims You, Cripples You, Leaves You Weak, Makes You Whiny And Full Of Yourself At The Same Time. The More Pain, The More Pompous You Get. Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Incredibly Annoying.

God Bless America - What Other Civilization Would Give Patrick Dempsey Another Shot To Rule As A Sex Symbol, Twenty Years After 'meatballs Iii: Summer Job?' His Reign As Dr. Mcdreamy On 'grey's Anatomy' Is Proof That There's Nothing We Love More Than Giving Eighties Celebs A Heartwarming Second Stab At Life.

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The Way I Pictured It, All This Grief Would Be Like A Winter Night When You're Standing Outside. You'll Warm Up Once You Get Used To The Cold. Except After You've Been Out There For Awhile, You Feel The Warmth Draining Out Of You And You Realize The Opposite Is Happening; You're Getting Colder And Colder, As The Body Heat You Brought Outside With You Seeps Out Of Your Skin. Instead Of Getting Used To It, You Get Weaker The Longer You Endure It.

There Are All Kinds Of Mix Tapes. There Is Always A Reason To Make One.

In The Old Days, When A Star Left A Still-thriving Hit Show, They'd Celebrate By Killing Him Or Her Off. But 'the Office' Dispatched Michael Scott In A Crueler And More Final Way: They Made Him Normal. Since We're Talking About Michael Scott, 'normal' Might Be Stretching It, Obviously.

When I Started Out As A Music Journalist, At The End Of The 1980s, It Was Generally Assumed That We Were Living Through The Lamest Music Era The World Would Ever See. But Those Were Also The Years When Hip-hop Exploded, Beatbox Disco Soared, Indie Rock Took Off, And New Wave Invented A Language Of Teen Angst.

Love Dies In Many Different Ways, And It's Natural For The Grass To Seem Greener On The Other Side. But It's Not A Competition; There's Plenty Of Pain To Go Around.

...some People Aren't Worth The Trouble Of Being Kind To, Because They Have Neither The Brains Nor The Power To Make Something For Themselves Out Of Your Kindness.

Seeing Taylor Swift Live In 2013 Is Seeing A Maestro At The Top Of Her Or Anyone's Game. No Other Pop Auteur Can Touch Her Right Now For Emotional Excess Or Musical Reach - Her Punk Is So Punk, Her Disco Is So Disco. The Red Sequins On Her Guitar Match The Ones On Her Microphone, Her Shoes And 80 Percent Of The Crowd.

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When We Die, We Will Turn Into Songs, And We Will Hear Each Other And Remember Each Other.

A Song Nobody Likes Is A Sad Thing. But A Love Song Nobody Likes Is Hardly A Thing At All.

Big Star Invented A Vision Of Bohemian Rock & Roll Cool That Had Nothing To Do With New York, Los Angeles Or London, Which Made Them Completely Out Of Style In The 1970s, But Also Made Them An Inspiration To Generations Of Weird Southern Kids.

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Madonna Was So Flamboyant In Terms Of Her Look, Her Style, Her Public Pronouncements, Her Religious Taboo-smashing.

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The Dilemma Of The Eighth-grade Dance Is That Boys And Girls Use Music In Different Ways. Girls Enjoy Music They Can Dance To, Music With Strong Vocals And Catchy Melodies. Boys, On The Other Hand, Enjoy Music They Can Improve By Making Up Filthy New Lyrics.

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Sometimes Great Tunes Happen To Bad Times, And When The Bad Time Is Over, Not All The Tunes Get To Move On With You.

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The First Season Of 'community' Stumbled A Bit Because The Plotlines Too Often Veered Into Realism, But That Is Not A Problem Anymore. Not When Prize Episodes Concern A Campuswide Blanket Fort, Or A Secret Garden With A Magic Trampoline.

Nothing Connects To The Moment Like Music. I Count The Music To Bring Me Back, Or More Precisely, To Bring Her Forward.

I'd Shut The Whole World Down Just To Tell You.

It Takes Only One Bad Amp To Turn Your Ears To Oatmeal: That's How Old Hippies Became Yanni Fans.

When I Was A Junior, My School Introduced Badminton, Which Was Clearly A P.e. Department Ploy To Get Me Away From The Wrestling Room, And It Worked, Since The First Time I Played Badminton Was Like The First Time I Tasted Sushi Or Heard The Beatles Or Read Wordsworth. This Was A Sport? This Counted For Gym Requirements?

It Was R.e.m. Who Showed Other Eighties Bands How To Get Away With Ignoring The Rules - They Lived In Some Weird Town Nobody Never Heard Of, They Didn't Play Power Chords, They Probably Couldn't Even Spell 'spandex.' All They Had Was Songs.

'american Horror' Is The Debasement Of The Suburban Family, The Way A Lonely Kid Would Have Imagined It In The Seventies.

Our Lives Were Just Beginning, Our Favorite Moment Was Right Now, Our Favorite Songs Were Unwritten.

But Mtv Relishes Its Vestigial Role As A Star Maker, So Every Year It Puts All Its Clout Into Making The Vmas The Biggest, Splashiest, Loudest Show-biz Extravaganza Of The Year, Honoring All This Music For Existing, After A Year Of Paying Barely Any Attention To It.

Ron Swanson Is More Than The Mvp Of The 'parks And Recreation' Squad, More Than Just The Funniest Character On Tv - He's The Perfect Depiction Of Aggrieved American Manhood At The Twilight Of The Empire.

When Ke$ha Tries To Rap Like L'trimm, She Sounds Like Any Ordinary Lonely Teenage Girl Stuck In A Nowhere Town, Singing Along To Her Radio And Dreaming Of A Party Where She's The Star. Ke$ha's Greatness Is That In Her Voice, You Can Hear Both The Loser Girl And The Star. All Hail The Queen Of Noi$e!

Thank You For The Music, Sleater-kinney. This Gang Of Three Was The Best American Punk Rock Band Ever. Ever.

'the Voice' Has Lots Of Singers Who Fit The 'idol' Mold Of Young, Innocent Ingenues With Psycho Stage Moms. But It Also Has Long-suffering Adult Pros, With A Whiff Of Thirtysomething Despair In Their Voices. That Adds An Edge Of Realness.

Thanks To The Greatest Invention Of Recent Years, The Mp3-playing Alarm Clock, I Can Now Choose The Song That Wakes Me Up In The Morning.

The Word 'repulse': I Hate This Word. I Believe 'repel' Is A Perfectly Good Word, And 'repulsion' Is The Noun, As Well As The Title Of An Excellent Dinosaur Jr. Song. A Compulsion Compels You; An Impulse Impels You. Nobody Ever Says 'compulse' Or 'impulse' As A Verb. So Why Would You Ever Say 'repulse'? This Word Haunts Me In My Sleep, Like A Silver Dagger Dancing Before My Eyes. Renee Looked It Up And I Was Wrong. But I Still Kind Of Think I'm Right.

She Was The First Person On Either Side Of Her Family To Go To College, And She Held Herself To Insanely High Standards. She Worried A Lot About Whether She Was Good Enough. It Was Surprising To See How Relieved She Seemed Whenever I Told Her How Amazing She Was. I Wanted Her To Feel Strong And Free. She Was Beautiful When She Was Free.

Unlike Me, Renee Was Not Shy; She Was A Real People-pleaser. She Worried Way Too Much What People Thought Of Her, Wore Her Heart On Her Sleeve, Expected Too Much From People, And Got Hurt Too Easily. She Kept Other People's Secrets Like A Champ, But Told Her Own Too Fast. She Expected The World Not To Cheat Her And Was Always Surprised When It Did.

I Had No Voice To Talk With Because She Was My Whole Language.

Like Most Fans Of 'so You Think You Can Dance,' I Wouldn't Know A Pasodoble If It Beat Me With A Rake.

Girls Take Up A Lot Of Room. I Had A Lot Of Room For This One.

'the Queen Is Dead' Is Not Merely The Smiths' Best Album, But It Is One Of Those Timeless, Perfect, Inexhaustible Artifacts That Could Only Have Been Made By A Gang Of Sullen, Sun-deprived Rock & Roll Boys Fighting Off Adulthood Tooth And Nail.

Every Mix Tape Tells A Story. Put Them Together, And They Add Up To The Story Of Life.

I Will Always Love The Clash, Because I Loved Them So Much When I Was Fourteen, And I Love How You Can Start A Conversation With Almost Literally Any Dude About The Clash.

I've Built My Whole Life Around Loving Music. I'm A Writer For 'rolling Stone,' So I Am Constantly Searching For New Bands And Soaking Up New Sounds.

If The Girls Keep Dancing, Everybody's Happy. If The Girls Don't Dance, Nobody's Happy.

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