Articles by Mark Zip

“Peak Personality Pop (2015 Edition)” OR “Has Diplo Finally Jumped the Shark?”

“Older” Superstar Singer? – Check “Younger” Superstar Singer/Rapper? – Check Superstar Producer with some remaining street cred? – Check Self-referential title? – Check Easily chanted chorus? – Check Filterd synth climbs? – Check Serrated noises guaranteed to annoy anyone who “remembers real music”? – Check “Chopped and Screwed” references? – Check BDSM Artwork? – Check Bonus stupid/smart lyric: “I poured a beer into my shoe and got my freak on” Bonus pedestrian lyric: “The neighbor’s pissed and says he’s gonna cal the five-oh”


Duncan Clark Poop 2014

    Buy New or Used via Amazon           Rent via iTunes [?] 1. BECK – Morning Phase: I only own two cd’s by Beck- the two morose folky albums which I guess says a lot about me. That said, this is a beautifully constructed and recorded song cycle.     Buy New or Used via Amazon           Rent via iTunes [?] 2. THE WAR ON DRUGS – Lost in the Dream: This was drugs for the ears. I kept hearing bits and pieces that just wormed their way into my brain. I love…


Jim Meyers Poop 2014

The Events The biggest musical event of my year was The Boston Calling music festival. I’ve avoided festivals for the last 20 years or so and approached this with some trepidation, fearing a sweaty mass of humanity and my hysteria level of claustrophobia. The Replacements though, I had to go. My fears were assuaged immediately upon entering the beautiful and comfortable brick and concrete park smack in the middle of downtown Boston. Neutral Milk Hotel were great but a bit pretentious. As I expected. The Hold Steady had the unenviable task of playing under a searing sun and a heat…



Got a spare $10,000? – Moog “re-issues” three modular synthesizers for you

Moog Music Inc. today announced their plans to recommence a limited run manufacturing of three of their most sought after 5U large format modular synthesizers: The System 55, the System 35 and the Model 15. These three modular synthesizer systems were originally created and manufactured by Moog in 1973. Start saving now! Limited editions! 55 of the System 55 at $35,000 each, 35 of the System 35 at $22,000 and 150 of the System 15 at a very affordable $10,000.


Mark Zip Poop 2014

Sleaford ModsDivide and Exit
No chops, No solos. Only the barest rudiments of “musicality”. And most of all, no space. Just a soundscape filled with life. And the things that make you shake your head, anger you, frustrate you and make you laugh.



If you go to live gigs, it’s never too soon to wear hearing protection

A post from 2009 at NoiseAddicts.com allows you test at which frequency your hearing loss starts. I wish I had learned my lesson earlier than I did. I went to see Tackhead and Georgia Satellites in the same weekend (Spring 1990?). I’ve worn earplugs ever since. The page has a bunch of frequencies ranging from 8 kHz to 22 kHz and you play each of them until you cannot hear one. I can hear 16 kHz, but not higher. How about you? http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/can-you-hear-this-hearing-test/



In Music, Uniformity Sells

If it works, throw more of it at them… Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, scientists found that the more popular a musical style grew, the more generic it became—partly due to the glut of artists that flock to a burgeoning sound and the drop-off in innovation that tends to accompany demand. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/01/in-music-uniformity-sells/384181/



POop 2014 – Call for Submissions

From our Beloved Fearless Leader: To the POmpous and OPinionated: Do NOT think because I’m a week late in getting this out that the deadline is going to be a week later. Get that out of your head. Now. If you’re getting one of these for the first time, POOP is our annual exercise in self-importance wherein we compile “Best Of 2014′ lists, to be published in a print edition as well as online. A refresher about the rules and deadlines is in order: Limit yourself to what would be 2 sides of 8×11 paper. Leave a slight margin so…


The case for CDs

Compact discs may be more out of vogue than ever, but some albums will always sound best with lasers Steven Hyden at Grantland makes the case for CDs.\


Bad brains: some people are physically incapable of enjoying music

The Verge reports: For most people, the mere suggestion that a favorite song fails to evoke an emotional response in another human being sounds preposterous. Sure, that person might not like that song as much as you do, but they’ll definitely feel something — right? Not necessarily, says Josep Marco-Pallerés, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Barcelona and lead author of a new study that explores why some people feel indifferent to music. “Music isn’t rewarding for them, even though other kinds of rewards, like money, are,” he says. “It just doesn’t affect them.” As far as I can…


Skinny Puppy demands compensation after learning music used for Guantanamo Bay torture

Vancouver band demands compensation after learning music used for Guantanamo Bay torture. Cevin Key, the band’s keyboardist, says the band at first planned to design an album cover based on an invoice for the U.S. government, rather than sending a physical invoice. But after learning that the government had allegedly used their music without permission, Key says the band was told it could bring a suit against the Department of Defense. Amount of damages sought? $666,000


Main Poop Analysis 2013

Dear POOPster: I know you’ve been waiting with bad breath for the front-page POOP analysis and tabulation. So on this occasion, the 27th annual foray into the realm of the POmpous and the OPinionated, I present to you the combined musings of pretty much the same gaggle of blowhards, 28 of them to be exact. For reasons that both escape and annoy me, we are once again an almost entirely male sampling of swillmeisters; it’s getting right testosterony up in here. Talk about fitting the record geek profile. . . Anyway, to the Price-Waterhouse stuff. As usual, I’ve attempted to…





Explore the history of Pop — and Punk, Jazz, and Folk — with the Music Timeline

The Google Research Blog has a really interesting visualization of changing trends in modern music. It’s based on the albums uploaded by uses into their Google Music accounts. This link is to the description of the data, the methodology and the caveats. You can search by artist or album, or just glide along the timeline to see the changes. And this link is to the actual visualization itself Explore the history of Pop — and Punk, Jazz, and Folk — with the Music Timeline.