HOT: Nickelback Trumps Trump
While measuring the favorability of presidential candidates recently, the Public Policy Polling group added a round of questions that asked if voters hated Donald Trump more than a series of other terrible things. Joining traffic jams and root canals on the comparison list was Rock punching bag Nickelback. Trump was deemed less-hated than hemorrhoids and roaches, but a majority of those polled said they viewed Nickelback, lice and almost everything else on the list more favorably than the GOP candidate. While this is seemingly good news for Nickelback, it elicited a fresh round of merciless mocking, which caused Nickelback's singer's ex-wife Avril Lavigne to go on a Twitter rant about how many records the group has sold.
WARM: Tale of the Tape
A PR stunt concocted by Electro Pop group YACHT earned a lot of publicity, but not the kind it was seeking. The band announced that someone had stolen a private sex tape featuring members Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans, then later said they were going to sell the tape themselves to keep others from profiting off of it. Two days later, it was revealed to be a hoax designed to promote a new single and video called "
I Wanna Fuck You Till I'm Dead." The strange song-less "sex tape" meant to stir up interest is mild, before it goes into a horror-movie-like twist; the actual music video uses just some of the non-explicit footage and was premiered through comedy video site JASH's Facebook page. The internet outrage machine accused YACHT of exploiting and making light of real victims of “revenge porn.” After making headlines on most major music sites, YACHT apologized on Facebook … and linked to the music video.
COLD: Inauspicious Biz Introduction
Self-recording and posting nearly a dozen albums on Bandcamp, Will Toledo (aka Car Seat Headrest) and his lo-fi Indie Pop gradually attracted a lot of attention from fans and the industry. He signed with Matador Records and recorded his first album in a traditional studio, but Toledo now might be pining for his DIY days. The studio-recorded Teens of Denial is out Friday, but not on CD or vinyl. Weeks before the release date, the label was told that the negotiation with a publishing company to use elements of “Just What I Needed” on a track was nixed by the song’s writer, Ric Ocasek of The Cars. Therefore, the thousands of already pressed vinyl and CD copies are legally required to be destroyed. Toledo reworked the song that caused all of the problems (it is on the digital version) to make it less infringement-y; originally titled "Just What I Needed/Not Just What I Needed," it's now fittingly just called "Not Just What I Needed."
Here's an entirely different track from the new album, "Fill In the Blank":