The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop music critics' poll was unveiled last week. As expected, Kayne West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy stomped the competition, garnering nearly twice the points as the No. 2 album, LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening, resulting in the largest ass-kicking in the poll's 37-year history.

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As CityBeat’s Assistant Music Editor for the past three months, I’m the person behind most of the music listings—those microscopic items printed in the middle of the newspaper every week. With the assistance of Real Actual Music Editor Mike Breen and a crazy little interface called Zipscene, I make them appear there and on the Web site.

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I hate to talk shop but I think it’s worthwhile that you understand the lengths the media goes through these days to bring you our opinions on the music that gets released each and every week. Three of this week’s reviews in my weekly online column for CityBeat, I Shall Be Released, are there for no other reason than a blogger out in webworld saw fit to post the music. Setting aside the natural “downloading is stealing” paradigm for the moment, it should be noted that if I hadn’t found the titles posted on a blogger’s site, I wouldn’t have been able to review them at all, because neither the label nor a publicist could be bothered to send me the discs for that very purpose. And they were asked to. Repeatedly.

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Michael Jackson's dead — what more can we say? The response to Jackson's death has made me revisit a long-running question that's rolled around my squishy mind for a few years now: Is it possible to separate an artist's personality and deeds from his or her creative work?

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The Hank Williams family Country music legacy is fairly remarkable when you consider how three generations of men have built up audiences that would likely stand aghast at one another. Hank Williams, Sr., is a founding father of Country and Honky Tonk Music as we know it and, rightfully so, a certified historical figure, institutionally and critically bestowed with all the respect due our revered cultural heroes by the Time-Life crowd.

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Lately, we’ve been ridin’ this down-home Folk/Americana/Indie wave in the Queen City music scene. Jake Speed. Wonky Tonk. Frontier Folk Nebraska. Wussy. Fairmount Girls. Gul'durnit, we love ‘em!

Maybe it’s our hospitable river-town tendency to have a big, open heart for such middle American tunesmithery. Maybe it started with our love for the Ass Ponys and their AltCountry ways back in the ‘90s. Who knows?

Nothin’ wrong with any of this, mind you. But I’d like to take a moment on this here blog to clue you into a small contingent of freaky, confrontational local bands from the past that were the furthest thing imaginable from such comparatively downright friendly musical acts.

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"AAAANND welcome to 97.3 The Wolf!”

Um, what? I wouldn’t preset a Country station on my car stereo if my life depended on it. I flipped around frantically, trying to find The Sound instead of the bumpkin bonanza that was currently wreaking havoc on my speakers. Zilch. Gone. I later found out that The Sound, which enjoyed popularity in its early broadcasting stages but was forced last fall to move from 94.9 FM to 97.3 FM after its rankings plummeted, is now available only on HD radio due to continued low ratings.

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The Internet, ALLEGEDLY, does have more to offer than just porn and “social networking.” The ’Net, for music fans, has been a total blessing, though it has its downside – there’s way more shit online to wade though than there is just skimming through racks at the record store.

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After successful MidPoint Music Festival and the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, there is no question that Cincinnati is a music town. Our vibrant local scene thrives on a huge range of innovative and talented bands and artists, as well as on a diverse and supportive collection of venues. Cincinnati now needs a place for musicians online ... (drum roll, please).

We are pleased to present MusicTown, a new forum for Cincinnati musicians and music lovers.

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Let me start by saying that I know complaining about the Grammys is about as effective as complaining about Grandma’s driving at night. And I know it’s about as tired as bitching about people driving while talking on their cell phone.

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