First Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar fame joins Obama’s Office of Public Liaison, and now Prince is rumored to be knocking at the door of the White House, looking for a job. The White House’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Van Jones, told Jet magazine that celebrities including Prince and Russell Simmons have contacted him in an effort to partner with Obama’s team.

While celebrity enthusiasm for and involvement in the White House is nothing new these days, it is interesting that Prince has chosen to align himself with Obama after he refrained from voting in the last presidential election. He justified his abstention from voting by saying, “The reason why is because I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and we’ve never voted. That’s not to say that I don’t think Barack Obama—President Obama—is a very smart individual and he seems like he means well. Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.”

Written By Phillip Mottaz

Dedicated to those songs that I can’t stop playing, humming, or thinking about; the 4+ minutes you fall head-over-heels in love with. Past instances have included The Ramones’ “Indian Giver,” R.E.M.’s “Me In Honey,” and Van Halen’s “Beautiful Girls.”
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In the world of downloadable music, the 40-minute album is obsolete. It took six years and the latest Illinois release to make me realize this, but here I am. In fact, with the deterioration of radio along with the eradication of physical properties entirely, pop music’s ties to tradition are the demons of the art itself to slay. Simply said, if you make a 3+ minute pop tune nowadays, you only did it because everyone else did so before you. By this logic, the sans-time music world should allow unstoppable song-making machines like Prince to release an album (or whatever could be quantified as an “album” now) every week. It also makes me question the motives of artists today: Why do they wait until they have 40 minutes of material to release a “full” record any more? Can they only fill 40 minutes? Or were those just the best 40 minutes of 80? Are they happy for the resurgence of vinyl, so they can have a physical limiter of their material? The whole system is in flux and it’s freaking me out.
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In March, the editors over at Nerve posted their picks for the Forty Sexiest Frontwomen in Rock History, and after receiving a bit of flack for their picks, the editors have struck again; only this time (more importantly) with the Forty Sexiest Frontmen in Rock History.
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In the grand tradition of telling your record label where to stick it, Amanda Palmer (of The Dresden Dolls) has foregone the subtlety of a temporary face tattoo (a la Prince) and gone for something a little more, shall we say, blunt. She wrote a little ditty for RoadRunner Records that is probably not safe for work. Unless, of course, you work for RoadRunner.
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