Posted 7/15/08 1:46 pm ET by MTV News in Amy Winehouse, Disturbed, Katy Perry, Lil Wayne, MTV News, Mariah Carey, Nas, Santogold, Slipknot, Spencer Krug, T-Pain, girl-talk, the-ting-tings
With the biggest names in baseball flying into town this week for what will be the last-ever
All-Star Game to be played at New York's legendary Yankee Stadium, we here at MTV News' New York offices have been stricken with baseball fever. It's hard to escape baseball this week. No matter where you turn, there's some sort of reminder that the fastest fielders, the strongest arms and the biggest bats in the game are all here, to ensure home-field advantage for their respective league in the fall classic.
All this baseball in the air got us thinking about music's all-stars — the artists who've shattered sales records this year, produced hit after hit and have been packing out arenas coast to coast. If music had an all-star game, who would we want to see in the dugout? After careful consideration, here are some of our picks — and feel free to let us know who'd go in your team in the comments section below. So, here goes.
Read more...
By Matt Harper
Hardcore fans of pop culture have been waiting with baited breath for the latest Girl Talk album, Feed The Animals, which is like a musical spot-the-reference game. I am one of those people, so I was over the moon at the opportunity to spend a day hanging out with the man behind Girl Talk, Gregg Gillis, in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
Here's a quick bit of background if you're not familiar with Girl Talk:
· He's not really a DJ — technically speaking, he's a "laptop producer."
· He uses music samples to create something completely new and amazing. Technically his songs are mash-ups, but that's not giving him proper credit: At a rough estimate, there's somewhere around 300 music sources in Feed the Animals, (which drove our James Montgomery crazy on a recent transcontinental flight), maybe more.
· His last album, Night Ripper, was one of the best releases of 2006 (and not just according to me: Pitchfork, Paste, and Rolling Stone all put it on their "Best of the Year" lists).
Anyway, we started the day off at the Coal Hill Steakhouse at the Grandview Saloon, where we had a beer, talked about his start in music, and reminisced about some of his more memorable performance experiences — my favorite being the time he brought $500 worth of Taco Bell to a show to give out to his fans. Read more...
