Monday, November 29, 2010

Baths - Cerulean

Album Review
SPIN
January/February 2011
Link 
6/10














L.A. beatmaking scene finds one-man Passion Pit

Will Wiesenfeld says he picked his nom de synth because, as a kid, he really liked baths. Though often lumped in with chillwave's warm, watery return to the womb, this singer-producer -- a classically trained pianist -- shows no signs he's bullshitting on his precociously excitable Anticon debut. Glitchy beats, hyperactive strums, gawky vocals, and eclectic samples pile up like notes in an augmented chord. Songs suit their titles: "Maximalist," "♥." How was Baths to know there was a chill-out party going on?

SEC Proposal Would Add to Funds' Disclosure Burden

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Ignites
November 23, 2010
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Despite Reg FD Crackdown, Selective Disclosure Could Persist

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November 22, 2010
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Investor Group Predicts ‘Limited’ Use of Proxy Access

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November 22, 2010
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Monday, November 22, 2010

Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday

Album Review
SPIN.com
November 22, 2010 
Link 
7/10

 












Nicki Minaj has been putting the boys in their place with a series of schizoid guest verses, but on her pop-oriented debut, she rewrites the rules.

Nicki Minaj will not be contained. Not to 16-bar verses. Not to one persona. Not even to hip-hop. Brought up in Jamaica, Queens, and taught to be a star at New York City's "Fame" school (LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts), the MC born Onika Maraj has more alter egos than most pop stars have nicknames. With three promising mixtapes and a streak of spotlight-hogging guest verses, she's established herself as the best (avowedly bisexual) female in hip-hop's "no homo" boys' club. But anyone who comes to her official full-length, Pink Friday, expecting more of the raw, terrifically unhinged rhyming that stole Kanye West's "Monster" will be disappointed. Rap's most hotly anticipated debut works best if you don't think of it as a rap album at all.

That's no accident. No shame, either. Like fellow Young Money sluggers Lil Wayne and Drake before her, albeit with less Auto-Tune and a lot less innuendo, Minaj turns toward frothy, hooky pop on her new album. That means you'll hear her singing, which is nothing exceptional, as well as rapping, which is still spectacular: cartoonish, clever, and endlessly flexible. This move to the mainstream has led to speculation about dark corporate shenanigans. But it's really nothing more -- and nothing less -- than Minaj's latest reinvention, one she agonizes over here from start to finish. With savvy '80s-tinged samples, simple but convincing emotions, and a feature list that reads like a Billboard chart summary, Pink Friday is as self-aware is it is fiercely entertaining.

As an MC showcase, though, the album falls short, with no verses as memorable as those she dropped for Robin Thicke, Usher, Trey Songz, Ludacris, or Mariah Carey. But this self-styled Harajuku Barbie certainly can compete with the big boys, and she doesn't let anyone forget it. "I am not Jasmine / I am Aladdin," Minaj declares over pulsating Swizz Beatz strings on "Roman's Revenge," employing her Roman Zolanski alter ego to try and out-nasty Eminem. Slim Shady lands a knockout blow with an epic metaphor involving "two pees and a tripod"; his use of an anti-gay slur on gay-friendly Minaj's track signals the bout is no-holds-barred. But she proves almost as twisted, brashly reclaiming another derogatory slang term ("cunt"), before veering off into an outlandish British accent. Minaj's best rapping comes over the whirring synth drone of the Bangladesh-produced "Did It in On 'Em," where she pulls out an imagined "dick" and pisses on a washed-up rival.

But Pink Friday makes a point of shifting the terms of engagement to less-macho terrain. Opener "I'm the Best" floats on triumphant synths and snapping drum programming from "Bed Rock" hitmaker Kane; it's at once origin myth and glass ceiling -- "I'm the best bitch doin' it" lacks the oomph of boss Weezy's "best rapper alive" boasts. Minaj appends a possible clarification: "I ain't gotta get a plaque / I ain't gotta get awards / I just walk up out the door and all the girls will applaud." In other words, if male hip-hop heads don't clap along, that's okay; Minaj is poised for something bigger: the pop realm.

"You sing along with a pop song, you turn into a girl," Rob Sheffield writes in his recent book, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. On "Your Love," Minaj's highest-charting single, she basically does just that. Goofily doo-be-doo-ing along with Annie Lennox's "No More I Love You's," Minaj redirects her own absurdist elan into uncomplicated bubblegum: "When I was a geisha, he was a Samurai / Somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai." Yup, Thai. Ballad "Right Thru Me" winningly reveals this brain-eating rapper's vulnerable side, though she's no Stephin Merritt when it comes to pop songcraft: Check the rote inspirational platitudes on Rihanna-assisted "Fly," or Natasha Bedingfield's forgettable hook on finale "Last Chance." Still, even the corniest tracks -- take will.i.am's Buggles-sampling "Check It Out," which could be second-tier Black Eyed Peas -- have her charismatically colorful, larger-than-life personality all over them.

Pink Friday directly addresses the gap between Minaj's present and past selves on the beguiling "Dear Old Nicki," acknowledging, "In hindsight I loved your rawness and I loved your edge…but I needed to grow." And grow she has. Ultimately, the album is a budding artist's love letter to pop -- well-wrought and exuberantly penned, with skulls and crossbones in the margins and little pink hearts over the i's. Maybe the divide between underground rapper and pop starlet will be her most compelling split personality yet. The men don't know, but the little girls understand.

Calpers Reconsiders Corporate Engagement, Focus List

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November 15, 2010
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SEC Website Guidance Raises Transparency Questions

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November 15, 2010
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SOX Section 404 Adverse Opinions Fall to Lowest Ever

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November 15, 2010
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Global Accounting Body Seeks Strategy Input

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November 15, 2010
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US Chamber of Commerce Lobbying for FCPA Changes

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November 15, 2010
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SEC Chair: Financial Rules to Proceed Despite Election Results

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November 15, 2010
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HSBC: UK Pay Rules Hampered Recruitment

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November 15, 2010
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Dodd-Frank Likely in Resurgent GOP’s Cross Hairs

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November 8, 2010
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DOL Proposal Could Threaten ISS

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November 8, 2010
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SEC Gives Update on Accounting Convergence

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November 8, 2010
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Comments Pour In for ‘Proxy Plumbing’ Plan

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November 8, 2010
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Employee Benefits Top Financial Bosses’ Concerns

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November 8, 2010
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Monday, November 8, 2010

We Hate Music #4

Audio / Interview
We Hate Music podcast
November 7, 2010
Link
 
Marc HoganDon't Hurt 'emAnnie!Dawes

More Boards Tap Own Ranks for CEO

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November 1, 2010
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Big Employers Pour Extra Cash Into Pension Funds

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November 1, 2010
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SOX 404 Compliance Lowers Misstatement Risk: Study

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November 1, 2010
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Accounting Boards’ New Leaders Face Challenges

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November 1, 2010
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Berkshire Shares Fall Amid Succession Jitters

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November 1, 2010
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Activists’ Concerns: Relocation, Relocation, Relocation

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November 1, 2010
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Corporate Donors Back US Chamber of Commerce Efforts

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November 1, 2010
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Monday, November 1, 2010

Säkert! - Facit

Album Review
Pitchfork
October 27, 2010
Link
7.6

Facit












"Good writing cannot permit itself to be contained within checkpoints and borders," English novelist Zadie Smith writes in the preface to a recent European short-story anthology. If nothing else, unlikely Swedish pop star Annika Norlin is a very good writer. Her albums as Hello Saferide, both 2005's Introducing... and 2008's tellingly named More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide, demonstrate an unusual aptitude for pitch-perfect fictions. Norlin finds the sublime in everyday life and shows strength by being unafraid to bare weakness. Her first Swedish-language album as Säkert!, an eponymous 2007 release of homespun indie pop, went gold in her native country and won two Swedish Grammis, including an award for lyricist of the year.

Norlin returns to the Swedish language on her second Säkert! album, and once again her songwriting deserves to transcend cultural boundaries. Musically, Facit is more richly arranged than its predecessor, but also darker, with minor chords even among the fast songs. Henrik Oja, who again produces and now also gets co-writing credit, can count free jazz among his recent work; here he favors a dusky, approachable jangle that puts the focus on Norlin's conversational vocals. So sooner or later you're going to have to try to understand what she's singing about, whether a holy misfit with the same first name as the prime minister, a young rebel who reminds the narrator of her own faded idealism, or an insecure woman who can't help but go back to a former lover, like Liz Lemon returning to loser boyfriend Dennis Duffy in old episodes of "30 Rock". Non-Swedish phrases jump out here and there: Rosa Parks, Lonely Planet, Rotary. If you can watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with subtitles, then you can wring a whole lot of enjoyment out of Facit, but it sure helps to follow along by mousing over the lyrics in Google Translate.

It turns out there's a wedding song, "Dansa, fastän", where horns, handclaps, and Daniel Berglund's subtle drumming nicely frame Norlin's romantic disillusionment. There's a funeral song, "När du dör", where a whispery Norlin imagines a dead lover turning into a tree, so future generations can meet him, or else that tree getting cut down to make paper, in which case she'd write letters with pen again-- she'd write poetry. And best of all, there's an unrequited-love song, "Får jag", where a couple go to a Stockholm bar called Dovas, watch hockey on TV without watching hockey, and lean in close to each other right when the score reaches 2-0 versus Finland: a stomach-tingling moment that, like the inland simplicity to which it hearkens, is doomed not to last. There was a minor Swedish media frenzy this summer after a magazine reported that Norlin would be quitting music. She has since dismissed such rumors, but Facit makes it easy to see why people might want to believe them. Although obviously crafted with great care, the songs here feel tremendously naked and transparent, even to someone who doesn't speak the language.

Political Donations Spark Campaign Against Audit Chair

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October 25, 2010
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Towers Watson Rolls Out Say-on-Pay Offering

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October 25, 2010
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