Music

It is a question tens and thousands of fans have asked themselves in recent years, as Axl and Slash continue their decade long brawl / marketing saga. The world is hungry for the follow up to the Spaghetti Incident! So hungry that they have divided into THREE PARTS.

PART 1: Iron Butterfly. Led Zeppelin. Velvet Revolver.

This part of the world believes that Velver Revolver is the reincarnation of the great rock gods of the 60s. Slash and Scott Weiland are the long lost twins of hard rock, the Cain and Abel, the Izhak and Esau. Like Bilbo Baggins, pay homage to the greats with a replica of their cock rings from your gold chain necklace. And if you idolize the Velvet Revolver, you believe that your band must be named in the Classical late Sixties style of having two contractictory elements, objects or ideas.

Part 2: Go ahead and name yourself after a God. Why not two Gods??

This part of the world wakes up every morning and asks himself or herself something along the lines of: "How much more obnoxious can the world get, now that George W. Bush has a former Fox News commentator as his secretary? " Well, name your rock band after one of the most original rock sounds ever created. Follow that word with a name that alludes to one of the most pure and innovative pop-rock albums in the history of mankind, and you've created a marketing concept so insanely low -- how could it fail?

(Oooooooohhh... on) The Beat Tip

Taking a page from Fametracker, this feature will assess a band's current perceived status to summarize why (not) a band is justifying their existence.

Episode One: James Murphy/Tim Goldsworthy/The DFA/LCD Soundsystem/Other Applicable Aliases

For the scores of people who had long abandoned Saturday Night Live since its various “hey-days,” Lazy Sunday represented a return to form for the sketch comedy show. I haven’t watched SNL since I was 15, so I can hardly judge if Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell’s rap sketch is any funnier than what the show has been doing for the last ten years. But if for no other reason, the sketch’s forceful emergence on the internet – a tool that did not exist when the show “was funny” – suggests that SNL finally connected with its audience again. What is it about Lazy Sunday that’s so funny? What is it that makes it good? I’ve heard various interpretations, but none so infuriating as that of Slate’s Josh Levin.

According to Levin, Samberg and Parnell’s rap about going to see The Chronicles of Narnia is less significant for its resuscitation of life to SNL than it is for its reinvention of hip hop. Levin writes:

"…it’s notable that these moments of goofiness and whimsy are what make Lazy Sunday work as a rap song, not just a comedy sketch. It’s hard to think of a Top 40 hit that's similarly playful."