I represent South African culture… This place… a lot of different things. Blacks, whites… Coloureds, English….

So begins Die Antwoord’s debut album, $0$. That’s right, dollar signs. Representing Zef culture, South Africa’s white, post-Apartheid redneck community, Die Antwoord makes shiny, grimy world party music.

How to describe their sound? Let’s take M.I.A.’s electro-African beats, the trailer-trash soul of a Kid Rock music video, with a little old-school 90‘s Aqua (think “Barbie Girl”) on top. Die Antwoord, Afrikaans for “The Answer” strikes each of those notes. Recently shaking up the blogosphere via Hipster Runoff and Pitchfork, this South African rap group has entered the music scene via the gimmick route, but they be here to stay.

To be honest, I don’t always know if I like all of their music. At times they seem to exude a type of world-conscious cool, the songs bursting with synthesizer blips and tinny drum machines, with a solid array of guest rappers from the South African hiphop scene. And their music is perfect for dancing.

At other times, they seem a little, well, gross. Like rat-tail gross, or baloney and white bread without flossing gross. What from afar seemed to be so goofily glitzy seems sweaty, sun-baked and tacky, as Ninja raps about masturbating, pelvic thrusts on video (his junk flailing wildly under his boxers) and says things like “drop tha muthafuckin’ beatbox, dog.” Yo-Landi Vi$$er, who’s pretty despite her one-inch bangs and mullet, sings in a high-pitched, metallic chirp and all but strips in the music videos, the results painfully unsexy.

But their best song, “Beat Boy,” seems to be strongest when they combine the elements of world-party awesome and trailer trash. Over stellar couplets like “look in the mirror, you can see it’s true, two nice boobs and a penis too” and the most painful beat-box intro I’ve ever heard, the song evolves over its eight minutes into a solid dance track. Though a little light on the bass end, the production makes up for it in style, and may be a well-needed break from your standard Justice muscle-flexing.

Along with making a case for the talents of Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er and DJ Hi-Tek, the music speaks from a post-Apartheid South Africa. The layers of race and class concerns are astounding: music empowering an underprivileged class of white descendants of slave owners, displaced by a genuine need to break the half-century of legally imposed racism. Holy shit! A room full of cultural studies majors couldn’t navigate the politics of this band.

But the politics are just a tiny part of this puzzling, awkwardly funny band. Watch some of the videos circulating on youtube (I recommend “Zef Side,” which has mock interviews and a minute or so of “Beat Boy”) and you’ll feel like they’ve taken a permanent lease in your brain. What starts as revulsion will keep you coming back, sometimes dancing, sometimes amused, but ever curious to figure it out.

One last note on their puzzling entry: watching their videos, your inner hipster will think “next Chocolate Rain,” but remember early 80’s Prince? His music was disgusting. He wore nothing but sequined jackets and bikini bottoms and sang about fucking his sister. And it was awesome.

We get there and the cover is eight bucks, which is a pretty quality price for an awesome band like Young Widows. I haven’t seen them in a year, I’m excited. We shell out the cover and go to the bar. A tallboy of PBR is four dollars with a weak tip. The first band hasn’t started playing yet. The bar is starting to fill up. We go back outside to smoke a cigarette. A guy with a moustache looks at me and laughs to his friend. Go back inside. Let’s have another PBR.

We manage to get the big important booth normally occupied by women you can’t have. My friend gives me a back rub. It feels pretty good. Hot girl at the table across from me makes “bleh” face at her friend. Get up, enter bathroom. Nobody around me, score, easy pee. Exit shitter, walk towards bar. I see cute girl from history class. She has a nose ring and studies “gender shit.” I told a bad joke first day of class and never talked to her again. I walk by and she glances at her wrist. Another PBR. First band is up. They’re mathy, angular, clear and accessible. Guitar is delayed and bass is dirty. They’re really good. One rhythm sounds exactly like “Formerer” so rest of set spent shit-talking band with friend. Cigarette. Girl from history class comes outside and smokes cigarette into a wall five feet away from me. I talk all loud and smart to my friends.

Go back in. Words like “moog” and “alesis” are scattered all about the stage. Big afros, big facial hair. Eerie lights. PBR, Yukon. They start and I know I’m supposed to be scared. Oscillating vocals and guitar solos and big, old music machines and the drummer is standing up, dude. Incredible; sends ocd-addled brain into powerdrive. Slam half of friend’s PBR. Cigarette. Brain going wild, bar super full. Everybody here is much, much cooler than I am. Lungs hurt. Throw up in road. Take a deep breath.

Re-enter hell where a drummer has been playing the same beat for 10 minutes. PBR. Bass has been playing for three. Guitar for zerHOLY SHIT THAT’S THE LOUDEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD his guitar looks just like STEVE ALBINI’S dude. Right ear = tinnitus. Bassist repeats “there are others like you” over and over and over again. This show rocks. Girl with nose ring still at bar. Tall guy standing up next to her, talking loudly. She looks up at him expressionless. Gotta pee. Middle slot open. Gotta cig. Pee on side of Turf Club. Cough. Cough, cough.

Re-enter. She’s finally here. Pretend not to notice. Air drum until band ends. Our eyes meet. She’s drunk so she talks to me. She’s wearing blue jeans and a bright shirt. She does not have a nose ring. I sit and for the first time tonight, I’m psyched. How’ve you been? Good. We laugh about I don’t know what and then she talks to my friend. Get out of here. PBR. Cigarette. I’ll do it myself and I don’t care who comes with me. Young Widows are up. I go up front. Thick bass shuts everyone up. Those cabinets are huge and have lights in them. Guitars cut through the crowd like a rusty saw through a stray dog. It hurts. The crowd stands still. Nobody knows the words. Everything hurts. I’m instructed to Just Forget ‘Em. I turn around for a final look. She’s in the forbidden booth yelling loudly into friend’s ear. Girl with nose ring is nowhere to be seen. Guy at the bar yells “sad dude sausage party!” Entire band looks at bar. I look at myself. “Nothing new, right,” replies the guy holding the coolest-looking guitar you’ve ever seen.

In early January, OK Go revealed the second stitch in their line of unique, contagious music videos. To the tune “This Too Shall Pass,” the alt rockers marched in the uniform and style of the University of Notre Dame Band, beating their drums and mimicking the step with relative success. And when the video started bleeding interest almost a minute in, a company of actual marchers appeared in camouflage, blasting their horns. At this moment, two things became clear. First, that only the likes of OK Go could summon the Notre Dame band out from their camouflaged dwellings in the brush to record a song from their new album and second, that you needed to circulate this video to all of your friends.

After that, should it really be any surprise that the foursome would follow up with a second video for the song? One with a Rube Goldberg machine that was more stunning and ambitious still than its predecessor? Not really, considering that after their low-budget, choreographed video productions for “A Million Ways” and “Here It Goes Again,” OK Go are regarded as something approaching music video demigods. Dancing demigods on treadmills, yes, but demigods all the same. And after this newest release managed to bring their ingenuity to a new level while maintaining their trademark OK Go charm, yet another revelation presented itself: The feathers in the band’s proverbial caps were amassing.

Really, there’s no better evidence of the strong correlation between the effort a band puts into their work and the success they meet. Take Las Vegas natives The Killers, for example. Frontman Brandon Flowers is known to none too modestly regard his band as one of the harder-working groups around. The Killers have a colossal fan base, an international tour schedule, and four full-length albums to show for it, not to mention an exhausting supply of videos. The band won NME magazine’s 2008 Best Indie/Alternative Band of the Year award.

The same holds true on a smaller scale. Blind Pilot, a Portland quintet growing rapidly in popularity, has only one full length, yet they work endlessly to promote it and refine their songs. Any song played at their Minneapolis concert in April last year sounded distinctly different just two months later at their show in Madison. And while many bands change their songs, few could brag that they’ve twice toured the western coast of the U.S. by bike. They knocked on doors to find gigs and lodging, and hauled their own equipment the whole way, with no van to back them up. Was the dedication worth it? An iTunes “Single of the Week,” a Starbucks “Pick of the Week,” and thousands of devoted fans would suggest so.

It’s worth mentioning, then, that OK Go’s newest music videos ricocheting around the Internet this year are, at the least, promising for the band. Add to that frontman Dameon Kulash’s online announcement about the band leaving Capitol/EMI records to form Paracadute, its own label, and the news of a national tour starting in April, and the future is looking bright for OK Go.

Maybe being a rock musician is harder work than it looks. This isn’t to say the famous mantra of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll is a misleading lifestyle; perhaps it just works best when you take it easy on the first two and go nuts on the third.

“Which would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?” This encompassing theme spoken by Leonardo DiCaprio’s main character Teddy Daniels is just one of the mysteries audiences are left with in Martin Scorsese’s latest film aptly titled Shutter Island. The plot focuses on two detectives in 1954, Teddy and Chuck (Mark Ruffalo). They travel to an insane asylum on Shutter Island near Boston to investigate the disappearance of a patient who is considered extremely dangerous.

As the detectives dig they find that all may not be what it seems, and Teddy has secret personal motives he is slow to reveal. The film twists and turns as the investigation grows and things become strange. The search is intercut with visions of Teddy’s back-story from World War 2 and his family. It culminates with a shocking reveal from the main psychologist on the island, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley).

The film begins as a crime drama but becomes very creepy quickly. The patients have all committed violent crimes and act like zombies, making every encounter chilling. As the film becomes more about Teddy’s inner demons and less about the original investigation, the truth is revealed.

The actors carry this movie and in some spots are absolutely brilliant, never tipping their hand as to what is really going on. The screenplay is well written but the pacing in the middle of the film becomes slower and arduous. The CGI is unfortunately cheap.

Overall Shutter Island is a good movie but not great as expected from Scorsese. It holds interest but drags on a little long and drives too deep into the human psyche. The twists become too much and the focus of the film becomes lost until the dramatic final minutes. If you want some thrills, this is worth seeing but don’t expect to be blown away.

Pokémon—the cultural zeitgeist over a decade long and going just as strong—continues to run wild on the wallets of parents, kids, teens and twenty-somethings, having just come out with Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver but a few short weeks ago. Although this latest batch is just a remake of a previous round of Game Boy games, the quest to catch ‘em all hasn’t been as fun, or as addicting, for quite some time (yes, even to college kids who wax nostalgic about playing the original games when they were little children).

Both Heart Gold and Soul Silver (previously the second-generation Pokémon Gold and Silver games on the Game Boy) have been graphically updated, maxing out the 2.5D capabilities and the full color pixilation the Nintendo DS has to offer. The gameplay is, of course, centered on the neurotic quest to be the very best, to catch all the Pokémon, to overcome your rivals and to be champion of Nerdtopia, crushing all those who dare oppose your PokéGod-like powers. The gameplay has changed little from previous iterations of the popular RPG, except that the features and controls are simplified and much easier to deal with than the Diamond, Pearl and Platinum games released in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

The big draw to these games is the add-on accessory, a pedometer that you can download your Pokémon to in order to gain experience, find more Pokémon and items, and get classically-conditioned exercise. Appropriately titled the Pokewalker, it adds another dimension to your PokeSkills by finding stuff that isn’t available in the games proper. It’s yet another gimmick that guarantees addiction to the PokeMadness, but it’s still kind of neat and fun (in a very, very geeky way) and adds a new dimension that makes an otherwise semi-stagnating game franchise feel fresh and current.

It’s juvenile. It’s geeky. It’s Pokémon. Unfortunately, it’s still a lot of fun for those who remember playing the original games or even some of the recent games. While spending time playing Pokémon may garner you a few looks, Heart Gold and Soul Silver are still an enjoyable handheld experience for gamers everywhere.

If Indie Rock’s folk wing has any sort cardinal sin it would be the often saccharine level of twee-ness that seems to saturate the works of artists that are not wary of its toxicity after prolonged exposure. Anders Mattson, whose alias was originally designed to aid with a common mis-pronouncement of his name, abandoned his strict classical training on the viola during his teenage years in favor of the guitar and has found his way back to his native instrument in a similar fashion to Andrew Bird or Sufjan Stevens. Mattson’s classical training shines through in the beautiful, delicate string arrangements on Nodes of Overtones, but unfortunately that’s where the similarities between him and his colleagues stops.

Tracks like “How We’ve Grown” and “Pomegranate” start quite pleasantly, with a catchy viola melody that loops along while layers of strings and percussion are added, with Mattson’s lilting voice providing a delicate vocal melody. Quickly however, the almost limerick-like sing-song nature of Mattson’s voice starts giving the listener painful flashbacks to Barenaked Ladies. Mattson seems to almost be working against himself in a fashion, as the painful subject material of “The Icarus” seems downright silly when it’s being delivered in such a fashion, and the constant looping of the omnipresent viola wears those initially catchy melodies to death. The album’s strongest moments come when Mattson steps outside of the sing-song: “Mr. Butterfly” is a touching ballad showcasing the real vulnerability and emotion missing from the rest of the album, hopefully a sign of better things to come from the very promising Anders Ponders.

“In the Air Tonight” – Phil Collins
This is the obvious choice. It’s been popularized now as Mike Tyson’s “favorite part” of the song in “The Hangover,” but long before anybody had ever even heard of Bradley Cooper, the drum fill in this song around 3:40 had me, and everyone else in the world, waiting on the edge of their driver’s seat in anticipation and beating the shit out of their steering wheels when this totally rad moment finally arrived.

For an added bonus, look up “In the Air Tonight Live” (posted by Sportadic22) on YouTube and watch the ever-creepy Phil Collins milk the moment for all it’s worth in front of thousands of people.

“Coffee” – Aesop Rock (feat. John Darnielle)
The first time I read the track listing for this song I did a double-take. Why is lo-fi folk singer-songwriting god John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats featured in a rap song? Turns out he’s there to turn what would be a pretty standard Aesop Rock track into something way more awesome. In his typical high and nasal register, Darnielle wails in somewhere around 3:11, singing cryptically about Franzia and vampires and closing the song in a totally rad fashion.

“Olsen Olsen” – Sigur Ros
One of the only truly epic songs I can really think of, this eight-minute long song by the best Icelandic band around really kicks into gear around 4:30 when someone starts plunking out the song’s recurrent theme on a piano, followed by a Phil Collins-worthy drum fill, followed by an orchestra and what sounds like a gigantic choir joining in on that same recurrent theme for a totally rad, totally triumphant minute-and-twenty-seconds before gracefully and gradually falling apart.

“I’ve Seen All Good People” – Yes
The world’s coolest/lamest prog band Yes has a lot of songs with moments that could be considered totally rad, but this 1971 track takes the cake at around 2:44 when the band does what can only be described as a synchronized “doo-doo-doo” over and over again to the melody of the song. Though it’s hard to do it justice in text, listen to the song and you’ll know what I mean. It’s a totally rad, feel-good moment that you listen to on repeat just because it makes you feel so sickeningly happy.

“Tightrope” – Yeasayer
This totally rad moment is simple, yet effective. It happens once at 1:23 and again at 1:36 when lead singer Chris Keating somehow makes the word “nevermind” into one of the most earworm-y things in probably all of music history. I’d tell you this moment is totally rad, but I already did in line 1, so nevermind nevermind nevermind nevermind nevermi-i-i-i-ind… (Sorry.)

There is this idea that filesharing is bad for bands, which comes from a simple logical fallacy that hinges on the misguided notion that if free downloads were not available, the downloader would instead purchase the album. In reality, in most cases of illegal music downloading, the listener would not buy the album if he couldn’t download it, he would simply not listen to it at all. As a person who spends quite a bit of money supporting struggling underground bands, I can say with absolute certainty that in my case, without illegal downloads not a cent of that money would’ve been spent, because without filesharing I would never have had any idea who any of those bands were.

Illegal filesharing affords curious listeners an immense freedom to discover new bands: the whole risk/reward equation regarding trying new music shifts drastically when you don’t have to pay fifteen dollars for each experiment. This allows the listener in the age of filesharing to listen to innumerable albums which otherwise wouldn’t have been sure enough bets to gamble dollars on. Most music that is made is somewhere between mediocre and trash, and the good stuff is rarely found where you would expect it. Illegal downloads allow people interested in music to slog through lakes of shit without becoming discouraged and giving up before they stumble on hidden gems. And once a filesharer discovers something awesome, he can spread it to all of his friends via what else but online downloads.

Filesharing also erases the problem of getting signed. Underground bands no longer need a record label to distribute their music and no longer need marketing campaigns to get fans far from home. Illegal downloading allows a band to develop a widespread enough audience to tour for without spending a single cent beyond recording costs. And the most prolific downloaders have been shown time and again to go to the most shows and spend the most money on CDs and merch.

So who is filesharing bad for? The most often trotted out and most risible answer is that it’s bad for superfamous musicians. This is absurd, though true. I don’t think a single human being on this planet could work up a tear for a millionaire being denied one more million. People also argue that filesharing is causing the decline of the major record companies. This is also a silly thing to get sad about, though I hope it is true: there is nothing in the history of these companies but the repression of creativity and the denial of profits to successful artists; they are the enemies of music and musicians, and if illegal filesharing does enough damage to destroy them it will only be one more success of this method of musical distribution.

But filesharing is bad for something, and that thing is independent labels. A label needs money to keep on running in a way that is much deeper than the way bands need it: if no records are sold, a band can still play live shows and sell merchandise; there are many bands whose albums are not the primary source of their income, and in fact bands on major labels make very little money from record sales. However, if a label doesn’t sell enough albums, that label closes down. Many independent labels are run by people who care about the music and who see their job to be raising awareness of bands they think are good; independent labels are much more likely to pay their bands a substantial proportion of the profits from their albums.

Though it may be sad to see venerable indie labels closing down and new labels struggling, it does not have real consequences for bands or for listeners. More and more bands prefer to go unsigned and give their albums limited or digital-only releases—with the internet, the major reason to try to get signed—visibility—has disappeared. You can get more people to listen to your music by giving it away than you can by marketing it or by being associated with a trustworthy organization, and, ultimately, if a band makes music for reasons other than getting that music heard, they can get fucked.

It is true that it’s difficult for a band to become financially successful in the age of the internet, but to say that like it’s meaningful implies that before filesharing it was easier, and that is simply untrue. Success is always improbable, if you care about your music you’ll make it whether anyone pays you or not, and many of the most popular musicians of all time never made a cent for anybody but their record company. Filesharing is one of the best things ever to happen to listeners and bands alike.

The Stooges – The Stooges

The first song on The Stooges is called “1969,” and its abrasive, confrontational punk spirit and sound immediately makes it clear that The Stooges are not mourning the end of the 60s. One pictures singer Iggy Pop stumbling through hippie havens, scowling and swearing, subconsciously building the momentum that would explode onto his band’s first record. This was a new kind of rebellion.

Drawing from The Troggs and The Rolling Stones, The Stooges presented a concise, brawny strain of rock that bands have been attempting to imitate ever since. Ron Asheton’s guitar switches from crisp, simple riffs to squealing, screeching, brilliantly discordant solos. Not to be outdone, Iggy Pop announces his arrival by the end of the contemptuous, swaggering first verse of “1969” and needs only the brief 34 minutes of The Stooges to show that he won’t be going anywhere, like him or not (he would probably prefer the latter). The Stooges is a lean piece of punk rock, just as vital now as it was then.

The Strokes – Is This It

In an era where too many people are trying way too hard, Is This It, The Strokes’ debut LP, is effortless. Singer Julian Casablancas’ voice evokes weariness and confidence in equal measures, but it always rolls and croaks at exactly the right times. Guitars and bass toss off perfect hooks, often several in a single song, cause why not if you’ve got a thousand of em. Drummer Fabrizio Moretti puts down such flawless, succinct underpinnings for the songs that you forget that nobody can nail it that well.

These are the kind of skills that musicians earn after tours upon tours and the bruises to prove it. Not these guys. And they’re handsome bastards on top of it.

Perhaps it’s because I looked to Lou Bega and Sugar Ray to define rock and roll for me before this record came along, but this has always been the record against which all others are measured for me. How did a bunch of slacker NYC kids make the best record of the aughts? Hard to explain.

The sound is the most immediately striking thing about Cloudkicker’s new EP: they’ve found the perfect production style for this sort of music. The record’s sound is crisp, full, huge, and dynamic. But a great sound is nothing without good riffs, and Cloudkicker’s production is suited equally well to the band’s ethereally epic style and their stern mathematical riffing. It would be hard to find a bad riff on any of these three songs: the licks follow smoothly one after the other with every section pulling its own weight.

Cloudkicker is a four-piece instro/prog/metal-ish band from Britain, and they’ve put out a slew of EPs in the last few years that are reminiscent of what Pelican could do if they sacked their drummer. Their songs move seamlessly back and forth between sections of gigantic layered feel-good chords and tightly frenetic rhythmically complex headbangers.

The only weakness evident here is structural: while every single riff in these 15 minutes is an excellent riff, there is not much order to them. A riff is played until it is done being played, at which point the next riff starts. The songs aren’t ordered into repeating sections, and there is no sense of build or climax. But Cloudkicker is a pretty new band, and they show clear talent as musicians and riffcrafters. Keep an eye out for their future activities.

Oh, and one more thing: all of their music is free. Go to http://cloudkicker.uk.googlepages.com and download yourself some.