The Null Device

2002/2/8

Meme of the day: Enron as the U.S. Al-Qaeda. (via New World Disorder)

(And yes, I know this is isn't an online personality quiz or anything; look up "meme" in a dictionary sometime, or read The Selfish Gene.)

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We. Are the robots: A bar staffed entirely by robots has opened in Berlin. Everything in the Automaten bar is automated, and the jukebox only has electronic music.

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A piece on the decline of music journalism, and in particular papers like NME.

Q is now a glowing example of all that is wrong with the music press. It's the pop industry's answer to Hello!, a glorified fanzine that gains access to big-name musicians because of its bland non-critical approach. This is a magazine that is just as happy to have Robbie Williams on the cover as it is REM, where Sting is afforded the same levels of respect as Kurt Cobain. With Q dominating the monthly market, it's no wonder that readers are losing faith in music journalism.

I'm not surprised; looking at the NME website, full of tabloid celebrity gossip and adulation at the "brilliant" new releases from various cookie-cutter R&B/pop groups, it's hard to reconcile this new Smash Hits with the legendary paper that set out to challenge the status quo and instigated things like the C86 compilation. (via VM)

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