Apparently the United Kingdom has no interest in buying incredibly cheap CDs, DVDs, video games, and other electronics, as Best Buy has announced (via a report on Billboard) that it will be closing all 11 of its UK stores by the end of the year, even though none of the stores had even been open for more than two years.
Best Buy began its European Expansion in 2008 when it partnered with Carphone Warehouse (a UK cellphone company) to form Best Buy Europe and opened its first British store in 2010 in Thurrock, Essex. Best Buy is projecting to lose as much as $144 - $160 million in store closure and operating losses and is anticipating nearly 1,000 layoffs.
“The eleven Best Buy U.K. ‘Big Box’ stores have performed exceptionally at the level of customer satisfaction, but they do not have the national reach to achieve scale and brand economies,” said Carphone Warehouse CEO Roger Taylor before returning to his giant carphone-filled warehouse-home.
However, Best Buy, who doesn’t like to lose money, has also announced that they will be buying full control of Best Buy Mobile (from Carphone Warehouse) for $1.3 billion so that they can “focus on emerging mobile phone markets” and continue to make plenty of money off UK citizens, even if they refuse to go into the physical stores.
Ever since Radiohead made an announcement on Monday that changed the way we think about North American tours forever, fans have been speculating as to what the deeply silent next 24 hours could mean for the future of the band. TMT was refreshed over 23 times on Tuesday by Radiohead’s most loyal fans, but with each new story came the sinking feeling that Thom and the boys were either in grave danger or terminally ill. Thankfully, the events of Black Tuesday are now in the past, and we’re happy to report that Radiohead are back in the headlines with a brand-new video product available soon, entitled The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement.
Now that we’re more casual here in the second paragraph, I can admit that calling this “brand-new” is a stretch, but then again, is there anything quite like the smell of a freshly pressed DVD/Blu-ray? Never owned a Blu-ray, but I’d guess the smell is even more satisfying. So on December 19, the entire 55-minute From the Basement performance will be available to watch in breathtaking high definition from the comforts of your own iTunes, while the DVD and Blu-ray versions will ship in early 2012 (or potentially by Christmas if you preorder from the band directly) with a download code included. The songs are all taken from their least-hailed-since-Pablo-Honey album The King of Limbs (TMT Review), along with their most-hailed-since-In-Rainbows songs “The Daily Mail” and “Staircase.” Also included since everyone’s already seen this shit a thousand times on YouTube is a bonus performance of “Supercollider,” their needlessly longest song to date from that Record Store Day 12-inch that I’m not going to say something mean about.
And there you have it. The dust settles on another Radiohead announcement and the world goes black until their next peeping on Friday. Be strong for me.
The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement tracklisting:
01. Bloom
02. The Daily Mail
03. Feral
04. Little by Little
05. Codex
06. Separator
07. Lotus Flower
08. Staircase
09. Morning Mr. Magpie
10. Give Up the Ghost
BONUS TRACK. Supercollider
Since its release, the reaction to Lulu (TMT Review), the Lou Reed and Metallica collaboration, has been… well, not so great. Actually, make that pretty fucking terrible. The unlikely pairing of the aging metal band and the aging guy-named-Lou-Reed shocked fans and critics alike, as trash metal music under Reed’s raspy-voiced poetry is not the easiest to digest.
To quote pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman, “It might be a successful simulation of how it feels to develop schizophrenia while suffering from a migraine, although slightly less melodic.” Yet, Reed is no stranger to getting negative reactions to his work (see: everything he’s ever put out), and true to form, he once again doesn’t give a damn. In fact, Reed told USA Today that despite the album’s reception, he is actually interested in further collaborations with Metallica: “They are my metal blood brothers. No one wants Lulu Part 2, but on Radio Lou, in my head where I hear these songs, I want more of it.”
However, a second album might not go over so well with the band’s fans, who have had some trouble coping with the release of Lulu. “[Metallica fans] are threatening to shoot me,” Reed said, seemingly unfazed. “They haven’t even heard the record yet, and they’re recommending various forms of torture and death.” We suggest locking him in a room and making him listen to Metal Machine Music on a constant loop.
Deathbomb Arc has decided to totally embrace the future of music (Mp3’s, who woulda guessed?) and, spurred on by the success of last year’s digital singles club, have announced early information and subscription details for year 2.
Year Two starts promptly on the first-ever Monday of 2012 and keeps on deathbombing you with digital singles until the exact last moment of the year; subscribers can expect to receive “at least 2 previously unreleased tracks every other week (plus bonus weeks!)” all at the stupidly low price of only 10 american dollhairs! So, if you’re one of those people who “believe the experience of receiving music online can be as exciting as getting a new 7” in the mail” then you better fucking sign up or you’ll get deathbombed by more than just digital singles!
As of 6:03 AM on November 9, 2011, the confirmed acts for Year Two include: R. Stevie Moore, AIDS Wolf, Dustin Wong, Buff Chix, Moses Campbell, Kevin Blechdom, ALASKAS, No Babies, Totem Terrors, Broken Shoulder, and the debut of Stupid Future, featuring members of Male Bonding, Foot Village, L.A. Vampires, and tik///tik. Lastly, each single will be given its own unique tiny-sized website featuring animated artwork by Isaac Hicks and hi-res, Mp3, and streaming versions of each track.
More information, and the path to subscription, can be found here. And read some comics here.
Heavy D, the former leader of the hip-hop group Heavy D and the Boyz, has died at the age of 44. The rapper was rushed to a hospital in Los Angeles earlier this afternoon and was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. PT. Police are investigating his death but there are no signs of foul play.
Heavy D, born Dwight Arrington Myers, broke into the music industry with Living Large, his first record with the Boyz, in 1987. He went on to even greater success with the hit “Now That We Found Love” in 1991, and recorded theme songs for the television series In Loving Color and MADtv. In recent years, D recorded a series of reggae fusion albums.
C. Spencer Yeh — violinist, vocal contortionist, and avant-garde mastermind behind Burning Star Core — has a new CD coming out, unsurprisingly for an artist with such a deep and constant discography. 1975 is finally officially released this month in an edition of 500 through Intransitive Recordings, and the prolific Yeh describes the album as like nothing anyone has heard from him before.
According to Yeh, “One thing is I really wanted to focus on a certain feeling of stasis. So much of what else I do just kinda pushes and pushes forward. 1975 is more vertical than horizontal, even though one can’t escape the horizontal completely.”
1975 is unlike the noisy cacophony of Burning Star Core, unlike his previous violin improvisations, and far from his recent foray into pop music on De Stijl. The record achieves a new sensual sense of ambience unheard on Yeh’s other projects while still maintaining some recognizable trademark elements. For those of you that follow Yeh’s many live performances throughout New York, much of this material will sound properly in place to his recent directions. And of course, the album features some incredible tracks of Yeh’s signature voice manipulations. Look for it soon.
