Ukulelehead, Or Why Amanda Palmer Represents the Future of the Music Industry

Last week, Amanda Palmer released an EP entitled "Amanda Palmer Performs The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her Magical Ukulele." Which, aside from the reputed yet unverified mystical powers of her instrument, is exactly what the title suggests. The seven-song collection includes renditions of singles "Idioteque" and "No Surprises," two live versions of "Creep," and more. It is Palmer's first fully independent release since her very public split with Roadrunner Records earlier this year.

She's emulating Radiohead in more ways than one, offering the record through her website and giving fans the option to pay as little as 84 cents for a digital version (to recoup licensing and other costs), and more if they choose. My guess is that most buyers will at least round up to a dollar.

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don't block her shine, shawty

I have sold out. I admit it -- I'm a slave to the capricious whims of pop music. (I'm a Slave 4 U, Britney.) And like the stunning nike7up (who is subject to a forthcoming Soldout feature), I have a love/hate relationship with the idols I place on the pop pedestal. Lindsay Lohan is no different.

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autotune: how ke$ha will save us from ourselves

If you don't love Autotune with all your heart, I will fight you.

So-called music critics, hipsters and professional pop haters spend a lot of time and energy looking down their noses and tugging their trendy beards, aghast at how Autotune is used as a "cheap crutch" when an artist "can't sing." A few of these haters may have cut their teeth on Cher, and sneered a lot at T-Pain, but really began to warble when Kanye dropped 808s and Heartbreak, an outrageously solid album inexecusably missing from Pitchfork's Top 200 Albums of the 2000s. 

Indie darling Nick from the Islands tweeted that "non-stylistic use of Autotune was ruining music, and also I can't remember the words to my own songs, and have you any cocaine for me, dear sir?" (Maybe I'm paraphrasing a bit.) 808s was the most appropriate use of Autotune to date: Kanye West suffers for all of us, chief among his outrageous arrows the pain of losing his humanity. (Spike Jonze famously showed us a video of Kanye surgically removing his soul.)

The way I see it, the arguments against Autotune have nothing to do with style.

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