I’m a two-blog man now.
As some of you know, I write and produce Hotnewz.tv, the best darn news show for college kids on the web. We recently started a blog where we talk about some of our favorite segments. After the jump is something I wrote for it, on the enigma that is Andrew WK.
Cross-posted from the Hotnewz Blog:
There was a time when I thought Andrew WK made dumb frat boy music. Dumb frat boy music for frat boys who found Smashmouth too complex. And I wasn’t the only one.
But the funny thing is, serious musicians love the guy. Artists as different as Sightings and Lee “Scratch” Perry wanted him to produce for them. The Yale magazine Volume recently profiled him alongside minimalist composer Phillip Glass. And here he is performing with indie darlings Vampire Weekend. So basically, Pitchfork hates him, but bands that Pitchfork loves love him.
Andrew WK does make dumb frat boy music, but only in the way Jackson Pollack paints something a five-year-old could make. As his four-hour lecture at NYU makes clear, Andrew has a Philosophy, and simple, irresistible party music plays a role in it.
I don’t claim to understand exactly who this person named Andrew WK is, but I believe that above all, he wants us to be happy. Don’t believe me? Go here, start the video, and skip to about three minutes in, when he really gets cooking. You will be happier, I promise.
That’s awesome. Andrew WK is sweet. Thanks for those good links too. People should just enjoy life.
I only sort of pay attention to David Schuster, but Hotnews isn’t the news channel that he has featured a few times this week in his “Lighter Side of Politics” segment, is it? If I remember correctly, somebody got a low rating from him, so they challenged him to a debate a day or two later or something like that…
How could you even doubt Andrew WK for a moment? It should be patently obvious after listening to sixteen bars of his music that the guy is awesome. Especially when those bars repeat eight times :-)
Seriously though, Andrew WK is the man. You can see his approach to music as a precursor to Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and pretty much the entire culture of rock today that isn’t fixated on lame emo bullshit.
So his music is just a rehashing of everyone else’s???