Jay Reatard, gone but not forgotten.

​It is depressing but accurate to note how inexorably the internet bends toward death, and how much of the work of professional critics these days is announcing it, verifying it, and making sense of it (often in that order, unfortunately). Michael Jackson, as in so many other things, proved prophetic in this regard; as we wrote last year, "the TMZ-led, wall-to-wall coverage of Jackson's last hours proved to be an augur of what, by August, was being dubbed the 'Summer of Death'--a phenomenon abetted if not entirely created by the ascendance of Twitter, where user avatars tinted green in solidarity with Iran's dissenters solemnly announced the passing of everyone from David Carradine to DJ AM to Gidget the Chihuahua." That's as true as it ever was. But it also bears remembering at the end of the year--work aside--how many of our best that we've lost. Sometimes it's easy to forget, but let's not. A brief roll call:

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​This right here is nuts. Starts off with interview footage of Mclaren recounting his chance meeting Afrika Bambaataa. Gets into the Sex Pistols, "Buffalo Gals," Bow Wow Wow, Yes, the Art of Noise, etc. etc. etc. Yes, Yes. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" just sounds different when Premiere plays it.

​Sex shop entrepreneur, artist, Sex Pistols Svengali, and new wave child pornographer Malcom McLaren has died, reports the UK's Independent. He was 64; cancer was the cause of death.

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