October 30, 2007

Tuesday Coos, “Music News Day”

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News

  • Dead Elvis knocks dead Kurt Cobain out of the top spot on Forbes‘ list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. Actually Kurt drops out of the Top 12 entirely. Other late musicians on the list include John Lennon (#2), George Harrison (#4), Tupac Shakur (#8), James Brown (#11), and Bob Marley (#12).

  • Rapper Nas defends his decision to call his upcoming album the N-word (which I typed once in the last story and now I just feel too queasy about it to do it again) in a convoluted statement connecting Barack Obama’s presidential run to the recent spate of noose-related hate crimes. “It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable,” he says about the album’s title. You think?

  • Arcade Fire’s Win Butler responds to Sasha Frere-Jones’ New Yorker article pointing out the band’s, er, “whiteness.” Butler begins with a serious discussion of Arcade Fire’s musical heritage, but once he correctly points out that American music is already so racially mixed-up it’s hard to tell what’s what any more, he seems to realize what the rest of us have as well: Sasha Frere-Jones is kind of crazy, and why are we spending any time worrying about this?

  • Blog Brooklyn Vegan collects pictures of this year’s hot Halloween costume (something you’ve already noticed if you went out at all over the weekend): Amy Winehouse. Fine, but jeez, ladies (and gentlemen): at least have someone else draw the tattoos on your arms so it doesn’t look like the scribblings of a 5-year-old.
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    WE CAME UP SHORT.

    We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

    That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

    So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

    Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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