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The Ultimate List of Free Summer Concerts in NYC

By Jay Stephens
10 Foreign Language Songs That Rule the World

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.
Q&A: Andre Nickatina on Mac Dre

By J. Pablo
French Montana's Excuse My French Almost...

By J. Pablo
Cheap Trick Care About NYC Metal/Hardcore

By Brian McManus
Meet Music's Next Superstar: Shia LaBeouf

By Brittany Spanos
LIVE REVIEW: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

By Alan Scherstuhl
Why Daft Punk Have to Keep the Masks on

By Luke Winkie
Quit Your Band ... Now.

By Jessica Hopper
The People of Googa Mooga

By Sound of the City

Idle Thoughts

Why Artists Should Stop Playing Their Seminal Albums Live

By Paula Mejia Thu., Mar. 21 2013 at 9:00 AM

Categories: Idle Thoughts

On a wispy evening last October, my housemate and I went to see GZA perform his magnum opus Liquid Swords in full at D.C.'s swanky Howard Theater. I wasn't the only one with high expectations. The crowd's hunger escalated with Killer Mike slaying his opening set, pulling out perfectly punctuated showstopper moves, pouncing directly into the crowd, taking drags from a carrot-sized blunt and passing it around for all to inhale. He closed out by simply dropping the mic and disappearing behind scarlet curtains before you could even say "damn".

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Events In Popular Music

Can Lady Gaga's "Marry The Night" Get WKTU Back To Its Glory Days?

By Maura Johnston Tue., May 17 2011 at 9:30 AM

Categories: Events In Popular Music, Idle Thoughts, Lady Gaga, Radio

"Marry The Night," the first song from Lady Gaga's Born This Way released via the uber-annoying "social game" FarmVille, is, like many of the album's other tracks that have been previewed so far, a throwback to a different time. Its minor-key stomp is accompanied by Gaga singing about how surrendering herself to the charms of New York's nightlife will save her from her heartbreak, and--perhaps in a stylistic nod to its lyrical New York shoutouts--it sounds a lot like a 2011-production-values version of the disco and freestyle tracks that used to dot the playlist of dance station WKTU before that station turned into a slightly less singer-songwritery carbon copy of its corporate cousin Z100, throwing all the old 12-inches out the window in favor of more Katy Perry. Which nobody needs! At all! This is a total longshot, I know, but it would be so great if Gaga's retro-flogging lit up the phones at KTU with people asking for "more songs like this," perhaps even name-checking a song or two from Last Dance At Studio 54, the compilation the station co-released back in the day. (The track list is pretty killer top to bottom, but Lina Santiago's "Feels So Good" is particularly notable at the moment because it's an obvious antecedent to Rihanna's "S&M.")

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