Shiny Objects — No. 7

Once again, long time between installments. All I can say is I have never been busier with family, work and school. But here are a few things that have caught my attention since our last visit -- and you shouldn’t be surprised that music is the constant that keeps me going in these long periods between posts.

1. “Play On: Power Pop Heroes, Vol. 1 and 2”

Author/musician Ken Sharp has released the first two installments of a planned three-volume history of power pop music. I’ve finished the 520-page Volume 1, which covers the mid-1960s to 1974 and am a third through the beastly 772-page Volume 2, which covers the golden age of power pop, from the mid-1970s through mid-1980s. For afficionados of power pop, this is heaven.

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Shiny Objects -- No. 2

Here are a few of the more interesting things that have distracted me this past week:

1. Buzz-Fueled Media Startups

Wired has an illuminating article on how digital news startups like Buzzfeed is reshaping how we deliver and consume news, moving from the concept of a traditional destination-centric news site to organic vehicles that use everyday people to deliver the content for them. Here’s a key graf:

"But the thing is, the media isn’t just competing with your little sister—it’s co-opting her, using her as a vector to spread its content. She is the new delivery mechanism. We don’t learn about the world from The New York Times, we learn about it from the Times stories that our family and friends share or that show up as push notifications four minutes before one from The Guardian does. Thirty percent of American adults get news from Facebook, according to the Pew Research Center, and more than half of Americans got news from a smartphone within the past week, according to the American Press Institute. And these metrics are just going up, up, up. The question for news publishers is no longer how to draw an audience to their sites, it’s how to implant themselves into their audience’s lives."

2. Pitch podcast: “The Clearmountain Pause”

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Review: U2 "From the Ground Up"

I’ve been a fan of U2 since snagging the 45 single of “I Will Follow/Out of Control,”  one of the greatest A/B sides ever. 

Over the years, my interest has come and gone post 1987 as the band grew into global superstars and  experimented and pursued a variety of influences and projects (“Achtung Baby” and “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” good, “Rattle and Hum” and “Zooropa“ bad). 

Frontman Bono (Paul Hewson) can be insufferable with all his look-at-me/hep-the-world work, but at least he acknowledges that in promoting truly life-changing projects. What keeps me coming back, however, is the group dynamic: four childhood friends from Dublin who remain tight, equal, and genuine. 

That comes out in “From the Ground Up” U2 360° Tour,” a glossy, thick-stock 256-page photo book chronicling the biggest, boldest tour in rock history, a three-year journey that ended in 2012. “From the Ground Up” includes tons of photos and good behind-the-scenes observations from Dylan Jones. The photos get stale after awhile (you can only capture the band and set in different views so many ways), but the quality is top-notch throughout. 

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