“You don’t need a bus pass/ You need to bust your ass”

“I’m beneficial/ I’ve been official”

“Real Gs move in silence like lasagna”

“I got through that sentence like a subject and a predicate”

Lines like these are thought provoking in that they provoke me to think the following: “Hmm. That’s what you settled on? Or, was that a placeholder that you forgot to change?”

Then again, there’s also pure gold, like “Mind so sharp I fuck around and cut my head off.”

In the categories of “in on the joke” and “how is this only happening now?!?” comes another new release. This one features a collaboration between Insane Clown Posse and… you guessed it… Mozart.

At Jack White’s request, the clownly ones rapped over the lyrics and melody (sung in operatic German of course) from Mozy Moz’s old-school (originally released in 1782) piece, “Leck Mich Im Arsch,” which translates to… you can probably guess.

After Violent J spits, “Mozart, dope for the most part/ Respected, ’cause he knows art,” the duo gets deep. Wolfgang “Kill Them All” Amadeus Mozart would be proud. I mean confused.

Find out more from Third Man Records.

Have a great weekend, and remember, like Lil Wayne said, “Don’t fuck up with Wayne, ’cause when it Waynes, it pours.”

She’s now ready with a brand new full length album, “Ours,” and we’re excited to bring it to you.

Right-click here to download Ours by Billy the Kid & the Southside Boys, and click here to check out Billy The Kid’s official site.

Horace Pinker has updated their summer tour.

The confirmed gigs are:

They are about to drop their new album “Local State Inertia” in Europe on Arctic Rodeo Recordings.

Listen to the live stream here.

If there’s one thing we can depend on, it’s that Bjork will always seek to expand on her Bjorkishness.  Swan dresses and beating up Thai TV reporters is passé,  Apps are where it’s at.

Bjork’s new venture is entitled Biophilia, which is described as an interdisciplinary multi-media project that involves a standard studio album, a series of apps, a new website, instruments custom-made for the project, a tour and even some educational workshops.  And we’ll need some educations because the goal of this project is to explore the universe and its physical forces, “particularly those where music, nature and technology meet.”

The press release goes on to say that project “is inspired by and explores these relationships between music structures and natural phenomena, from the atomic to the cosmic.”  In other words, a giant mash-up of quantum theory, Newtonian physics and music.

Ambitious, yes.  She worked with scientists, writers, inventors, musicians, instrument makers and app developers.

The first single, “Chrystalline,” is available through iTunes with Biophilia-related apps coming soon.  The live show premieres tonight (June 30) in Manchester.

Here’s more from the press release.  But be careful.  This could make your head hurt.

Biophilia comprises five elements:

I. ALBUM:

The songs from Biophilia will be released as a traditional 10-track studio album later this year, available digitally and physically across standard formats. The songs will also be featured within their accompanying Biophilia Apps, but with a more stripped-down structure for educational and game purposes, mixed by Damian Taylor and Björk. The album’s first single, “Crystalline,” is available now. The groundbreaking director and longtime Björk collaborator Michel Gondry is creating a music video for the song.

II. APPS:

The Biophilia Apps are a collection of ten apps, one for each song, which will be available via the central Cosmogony “mother app,” coming from Nonesuch Records/Warner Music Canada. This platform will serve as a three-dimensional galaxy in which the initial apps appear as constellations, and the others are added to the collection at regular intervals thereafter.

Every app has its own theme (in connection with its corresponding song) and combines a natural element with a musicological feature. The layers of content in each app include: an interactive game based on the song’s scientific and musical subject matter, a musical animation of the song, an animated score, lyrics, and an academic essay. The game enables the user to interact with musical elements of the song and to learn about different musical features while creating their own version; the musical animation and animated music score bring together conventional and innovative ways of representing music visually; and the academic essay explores the ideas behind each song and app and how they are realized musically.

The Biophilia Apps have been developed with a team chosen by Björk, comprising ten of the most groundbreaking and commercially successful app developers working today. The team is lead by Scott Snibbe Studio, creator of the bestselling apps Gravilux and Bubble Harp, and includes the creator of Sim City, TouchPress (pioneering designers behind the two top grossing apps Elements and Solar System), and a host of award winning designers, animators and leading experts in coding and encryption.

III. LIVE SHOWS:

The Biophilia live show will have its world premiere on 6/30 as part of the Manchester International Festival and continues as a three-year world tour of six-week residencies in eight different cities. In each city Björk will perform Biophilia twice a week, using the apps to play live a set of custom built musical instruments and evoking an atmosphere similar to being inside the app itself. For the rest of the week the venues will host a series of music-education workshops in collaboration with local schools.

Björk has commissioned a set of unique musical instruments to accompany her on the live tour. The team who created these instruments include an English inventor, an Icelandic organ builder and a graduate of MIT Media Lab. Among these creations are four 10-foot pendulum-harps, in which the swinging motion plucks the strings and illustrates the songs’ gravitational subject matter. There is also a unique 10-foot pin barrel harp called the Sharpsichord, a midi-controlled pipe organ and celeste (re-fitted with bronze gamelan bars), twin musical tesla coils, a hang player and an award-winning 24-piece Icelandic female choir. The Biophilia Live Show takes place in specially chosen spaces and museums, rather than traditional music venues. Björk will perform in the round to audiences of less than 2,000 people to create an intimate experience in which all audience members are within 20-feet of the stage.

IV. DOCUMENTARY:

A 90-minute documentary on the Biophilia project is currently being filmed by Pulse Films. The film will be an exploration of Björk’s creative process as she puts together the different elements of the project. Here we will see her at work in the rehearsals for the live show, in the studio working on the album, and through observational footage, interview and demonstration we will discover how the project was conceived and realized. Along the way we will also discover more about the fascinating relationship between music and the natural world. The climax of this element of the film will be the unveiling of her project; the premiere live performance of Biophilia. The documentary will be broadcast later in the Biophilia campaign.

V. WEBSITE

www.bjork.com has been re-launched for Biophilia, using the very latest HTML5 technology. The site is now uniquely animated and interactive to provide an artist website experience totally unlike any other. It features a unique immersive 3D galaxy with versions that can be enjoyed on almost all devices, and will be the hub for all Biophilia information.

If you’ve made it this far, here’s a song.

Things were very, very good for the first 1 1/2 albums.  Then came Born This Way.

For the first week, it seemed that Lucifer would continue to deliver.  The album sold 1.12 million copies and debuted at #1.  But then the fickle public lost interest.  Here are the latest numbers out of the US:

• Week 1:  1.12 million
• Week 2:  174,000
• Week 3:  105,000
• Week 4:  68,000
• Week 5:  49,000

If you’re Lady Gaga, you’re wondering “What the F*CK?!? Where ARE you, you Little Monsters bastards?  Why is my record tanking while that fat, laryngitis-ridden limey keeps selling 100,000 albums week after week?”

Some may suggest that Adele gave Beelzebub a better deal on her soul, so he tore up the Gaga contract.  Or maybe the public isn’t as dumb and as tasteless as some feared.  Discuss.

* * *

Overall sales are down by 1% here in Canada over last week, despite a hoped-for bump from the MuchMusic Video Awards.  A little pacing ground has been lost, too, with sales now running just 2% ahead of last year.  At least digital sales are running hot by 36%.

Adele’s 21 is back at #1 in Canada, selling 15,000 copies and maintaining it steady pace.  Simple Plan’s Get Your Heart On! was a close second with 13,000 units.  And despite her appearance on the MuchMusic Awards, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way slipped by 10%, selling under 10,000 copies and falling to #5.

The biggest digital single of the week? “Give Me Everything” by Pitbill with 23,000 downloads.

Looking south,  it’s nice that Jill Scott debuted at #1 with her Light of the Sun album.  But the real story is Bon Iver’s debut at #2, selling an amazing 104,000 copies.  That’s about 2,000 better than Adele managed this week.  Nice work, Justin.

Katy Perry had the #1 digital track in America with 215,000 downloads of “Last Friday Night.”

Here are the facts:

• Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other sold 16 million copies.
• When Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water came out in 2000, it sold 1.5 million copies in its first week.
• In total, Bizkit has sold 35 million albums.
• They were one of the notorious highlights of the 1999 Woodstock Festival in Rome, NY.
• A show they headlined at the SkyDome in Toronto attracted 65,000 people.
• Fred Durst was considered such a genius and visionary that he became an executive at Bizkit’s record label.

So with all those impressive credentials, why is this comeback album being greeted with the same enthusiasm we saw with the return of Creed?

Here’s my theory:

• Much of the music of the late 90s (including nü-metal) just hasn’t aged well.  It sounds terribly dated in the era of the indie-rock band.
• Many of us are a little embarrassed with the way nü-metal’s über-arrogant mega-testosterone culture was embraced by music fans looking to fill that vacuum created by the death of grunge.
• It’s the hat.

Still, here we are with a fifth Bizkit album, featuring the classic line-up of Fred Durst, Wes Borland, Sam Rivers, John Otto and DJ Lethal.  What do they have to offer with Gold Cobra?

Introba (1:21): More and more unintelligible voices appear over a foreboding bass throb until it sounds like a pit of condemned victims in hell.  A calling card, not a song.

Bring It Back (2:18): Borland cranks up the crunch–sounds good–before DJ Lethal comes in with some beats.  Fred loses me 33 seconds in with this couplet:  ”Oh, lemme get that/Lemme get that party song/Let me turn this place into another motherfucking danger zone.”  More gratuitous and fatuous profanity follows, none of it particularly poetic, even when Fred mentions Slayer and Wikipedia in the same verse.  Yeah, we get it, Fred: You’re back.  Awesome.

Gold Cobra (3:54): Good riffage off the top followed by more poetry:  ”Waking up/Aggravated/Super shit/Man, I hate it/Bitches lyin’, bitches cryin’/Suicidal/Get in line.”  Not a bad chorus, though, and the rhythm section is super-solid.  Then Fred rhymes “hatin’” with “bacon.”  Bridge almost saves it.  Almost.

Shark Attack (3:27): John Williams will be proud (?) with the first 9 seconds, which is straight out of Jaws.  Much talk of disrespect and talking shit.  Fred boasts that he’s a maniac with the ruthlessness of a Great White. References Freddy Krueger (Really, Fred?  Have you looked at a calendar?)  ”Swimming with sharks ain’t easy/They just want to kill and eat me.”  No, I did not make that up.

Get a Life (4:54): Fred addresses his critics.  ”Stick shift/Fuck the automatic/Rolling up in third gear/Guess it’s just a habit.”  More references to bitches.  ”My flow is cold like the weather in Siberia.”  ”All the turkey MCs want to gobble me.”  ”B-boy with a taste for the metal/If you don’t like it, you can scratch upon these nuts, bitch.”  Warnings not to be Fred’s enemy because he’s made it and you’re just jealous.  After all, he’s “always leavin’ with the best bitch.”  Chorus makes me think of a pit of sweaty adolescents moshing to “Break Stuff.”  And what’s the purpose of those last 30 seconds?  The music is nice and crunchy, but those lyrics…

Shotgun (4:43): The album version of the first single, which had 30 seconds lopped off for the radio edit.  Perfectly good intro–thanks, Wes–but then Fred comes in and…well, you know.  Suddenly, it’s 1998 again.  Did this kind of alt-rock really rule the world back then?  What was wrong with us?

Douche Bag (3:42): Pot?  Meet kettle.  Sample lyric from the chorus:  ”Douche bag!/I’m gonna fuck you up/Fuck you fuck you fuck you up.”

Walking Away (4:46): Ah, bringing it down a bit.  Nice un-Bizkit sounding intro.  Fred sings (not raps, sings) what an acceptable emo-ish verse into a rather majestic and epic chorus followed by a screamy bridge with hardcore-style vocals.  God help me, but I like this one.

Loser (4:54): Low-key beginning with Fred coming in with this line:  ”I’m a loser/Yes, it’s true.”  It’s actually a plea to a woman in an effect to forge a deeper emotional understanding of the relationship.  (Hint:  Stop calling women “bitches” in your songs, dude.)

Autotunage (5:00): “Let me see you rock/Turn this place into something they cannot stop.”  Sure.  Whatever.

90.2.10 (4:18): At first, I assumed this was a reference to Saturday, February 10, 1990.  What happened then?  South Africa announced that Nelson Mandela would be released the following day after 27 years in prison.  So is this an anti-apartheid song and a paean to the human spirit?  Nope.  It’s about a party with lots of naked ladies making out with each other.  Corey Taylor of Slipknot gets name-checked.

Why Try (2:51): Good question.

Killer in You (3:46): Actually includes the couplet “He’s making a list and he’s checking it twice/He was born pissed and ready to slice.”

Damn.  Is it over already?

Limp Bizkit/Gold Cobra: Nü-Metal lives!  No, wait.  It doesn’t.

Little Foot Long Foot/Oh, Hell: I’ve had a copy of this record for more than a month and it’s pretty damn good.  Contains best song title of the year:  ”Neko Case Hate Fucks Kurt Cobain.”

Marianne Faithful/Horse and High Heels: Six 60′s covers and seven new songs, all of which were recorded in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Queensryche/Dedicated to Chaos: Really?  Is this necessary?

SBTRKT/SBTRKT: Electro, dubstep, Detroit techno–vowel bereft DJ Aaron Jerome welds it all together.  And like Daft Punk and Deadmau5, he always wears a mask.

Set Your Goals/Burning at Both Ends: Bay area punk band who learned from the best of the Epitaph bands.  But why is Hayley Williams from Paramore here?

Spiro/Lightbox: They record for Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records.  That should tell you something right there.

Taking Back Sunday/Taking Back Sunday:  Same line-up as we saw back in 2002 with Tell All Your Friends.  Fans are shocked.  Pleased, but shocked.

For more new releases, go to The Tuesday Guide.

Now it’s time for an all-out all-star tribute album involving the Muppets’ greatest hits.  Weezer, the Alkaline Trio, My Morning Jacket, OK Go, Hayley Williams from Paramore and Amy Lee from Evanescence have all agreed to contribute tracks to the project.

Watch for it August 23rd.  Meanwhile, here’s the official track listing.

1. OK Go – ‘Muppet Show Theme’
2. Weezer and Hayley Williams – ‘Rainbow Connection’
3. The Fray – ‘Mahna Mahna’
4. Alkaline Trio – ‘Moving Right Along’
5. My Morning Jacket – ‘Our World’
6. Amy Lee – ‘Halfway Down The Stairs’
7. Sondre Lerche – ‘Mr Bassman’
8. The Airborne Toxic Event – ‘Wishing Song’
9. Brandon Saller and Billy Martin – ‘Night Life’
10. Andrew Bird – ‘Bein’ Green’
11. Matt Nathanson – ‘Hope That Something Better Comes Along’
12. Rachael Yamagata – ‘I’m Going To Go Back There Someday’

After weeks of very lame television, something interesting finally debuted last night.   The fourth season True Blood began on HBO.

Here’s a piece of trivia bout the show:  each episode is named after a song that the writer wants to use in that episode.  Last night’s debut was called “She’s Not There,” which meant the music supervisor had to track down either the original version of the song by the Zombies from 1964 or find someone to cover it.

They went with option B and the result is a duet between Neko Case and Nick Cave.  It’s pretty cool—and if you’re a True Blood fan (or a fan of Neko and/or Nick), the song can be streamed here.

Contest #1:

City and Colour is looking for fans to remix the single “Fragile Bird.”  If your re-imagining is the best, you’ll win $1000 and have your remix officially released through Dine Alone Records, which is City and Colour’s label.

Details available here.

Contest #2:

They Might Be Giants want you to make them a video.  They have a new album called Join Us coming July 19 and they want fans to make a video for the first single, which is entitled “You Can’t Keep Johnny Down.”

The winner will be picked by John Hodgman—the PC dude from the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” TV commercials—and the prize is $1,000 plus a pizza from the pizzeria of your choice.

More info can be found in this video.