News in Impenetrable Formats

By David Thorpe

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A new development in Neil Young not ever wanting us to hear his Archives project—the scheduled February 19th release date has been scrapped due to technological issues. Ready for this? He's not releasing it on CD. The set will be issued on DVD/Blu-Ray only, which is the preferred audio format for nobody listening to anything ever. You may recall that Young has a decades-long snit with CDs due to their audio limitations, which no one in history except him and Steve Albini and guys who spend 40 grand on cashmere speakers and quantum-balanced turntables and other idiot nerd placebos have ever actually noticed. Instead, he chooses to issue his long-awaited collection on a format that sounds great, and is so inconvenient that he may as well release it on a fucking greased-up pig.

R.E.M. have started up the press hype on their upcoming Accelerate, which promises to be a return to the band's "stripped-down, fast-paced rock roots." Good news, right? Last time R.E.M. promised us a straight-ahead rock album, we received Monster, which still endures as one of the all-time most popular titles among used CD shop bargain bins.

Morrissey got sick and left a gig after only a few songs, and his pussy fans, instead of asking for their money back, acted all concerned for his well-being and probably cried a little.

This week's misleading NME.com headline: "Busta Rhymes escapes prison." Doesn't that sound like a badass story? Well, guess what.

There's apparently some drama over UB40's recent breakup—the singer says he was forced out, the band says the singer left to pursue his solo career and there was no forcing involved. Either way, music fans the world over now mourn the loss of 52 words of precious Burn Unit column space.

New Kids on the Block: Reforming! Assuming there's a block involved, they've still got one out of three going for them.

Marshall Mathers, who has reportedly grown quite corpulent and pathetic during his many months of depressed reclusion, has been offered a sponsorship deal by Slim-Fast, although I think they might just be trying to make fun of him. Rapper Trick Track, who recently worked with Mssr. Mathers, refutes the fatness rumors: "He ain't walkin' around obese," he says.

The Charlatans UK (do we still have to do the UK thing, or are we pretty much over the Dan Hicks version?) have announced that they'll be giving away their next album for free online. It's just like the Radiohead "pay-what-you-think-it's-worth" business model, except that they already know what everyone thinks it's worth—free-99. Later, they'll release the album on CD, vinyl, and a limited box-set edition pressed on a shit-ton of 45s (because more vinyl = more collectible, right?).

Amy Winehouse; Britney Spears.

The Sun reports that Lenny Kravitz hasn't had sex in three years. I stopped reading after that, because he'd probably say something about how he needs to cleanse himself and remain clear-headed and shit, and that might seriously jeopardize my fantasy of women rejecting him because he sucks.

Gary Glitter has diarrhea in Vietnamese prison, which his funny because he has sex with kids.

A product called Qtrax shook up the tech/music news establishment with their cocksure claims that they'd struck deals with the four major labels to distribute their catalogues free of charge on their new peer-to-peer download service. The only problem is that Qtrax had deals with exactly none of the major labels. When confronted with this inconvenient fact, abashed Qtrax executives claimed that major labels hadn't exactly inked deals, but had actually once told them that the service was a good idea in principle, maybe. Early adopters of their revolutionary distribution client logged in to find that the ability to actually use it to do anything was "coming soon."

Meanwhile, the "unofficial" Qtrax blog posted enthusiastic endorsements of the product, links to their creatively exaggerated press releases and mind-boggling information about what a great idea it is to buy Qtrax stock.

Weezy was recently arrested for possession after police searched his tour bus and found one of each illegal thing ever.