Teach Me How to Thom Yorke

If we have learned anything about Thom Yorke in the past three years, it's that the Radiohead and now Atoms for Peace frontman has a very unique way of dancing.

The humorous NME blog teaches Yorke's moves in Atoms for Peace's "Ingenue" step by step like an 80s Richard Simmons VHS tape. Though that analogy may seem inaccurate to some, the truth is Yorke shares some similarities to Simmons.

Yorke recently said in an interview that he practices yoga for at least an hour each day—no wonder why he can dance into those contorted positions.

Lucy Jones' blog is not only witty but also filled with timely cultural references:

"Screw shuffling, twerking or the Harlem Shake—you've got a whole day to learn some new moves to whip out in the club on Friday night."

However, while analyzing one of Yorke's quirky moves she calls "the lean back," she gives credit to Lloyd Banks for originating the move when, in fact, Fat Joe was the original don of "Lean Back" in 2004. Banks only remixed the song later on.

This is not the first time that Yorke has busted a move. His interpretive dancing was featured in the video for Radiohead's "Lotus Flower" in 2011.

Yorke's unorthodox dancing has also been parodied by Fred Armisen in a Saturday Night Live skit, which features Michael Bublé collaborating with various artists for a Christmas album.

Hosting a house party or going out to the clubs this weekend? Well then "the Thom Yorke" is the perfect dance move to bust out if you're tired of "the shopping cart," "the lawn mower" or the "Weekend at Bernie's" dance.

Rolling Stone's Best Foo Songs a Sin for Fans

While reading a Rolling Stone list article online of the 10 best Foo Fighters songs, I was excited to read the article — until a blatant mistake ruined the entire article for me.

The introduction paragraph to the article was explaining the unexpectedness of Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl to become one of the most vital and reverent rock stars of the next two decades following the suicide of Kurt Cobain. Though a good point, Rolling Stone said this later in the paragraph:

"But in the months following Cobain's death Dave Grohl recorded a demo tape under the name Foo Fighters; later he recruited Germs guitarist Pat Smear and the rhythm section from Sunny Deal Real Estate and began touring clubs."

The error rooted within the article is that there is no such band called "Sunny Deal Real Estate." The correct name of the band is Sunny Day Real Estate, which is a Seattle-based band formed in 1992 and whose album "Diary" is the seventh best selling album released by Sub Pop.

As a fan of Sunny Day Real Estate, I was extremely disappointed in Rolling Stone's careless mistake. They also did not give mention as to who the members of Sunny Day Real Estate's rhythm section were — Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith.

The list of songs they chose were decent, though I disagree on the order in which they were presented. Each song contained a brief description of what made them so memorable and popular. Rolling Stone did an average job in these short song synopses; however they made another mistake on No. 9 of the list.

No. 9, which was the song "Learn to Fly," contained an error about the music video for the song. The humorous video that took the band to a new level of stardom features Tenacious D disguised as airplane janitors; however, Rolling Stone misidentified Grohl and Mendel as the janitors.

It is an easy mistake to make though, seeing as Grohl plays six different characters in the video:

• a flamboyant flight attendant
• the careless pilot
• an overweight woman who can't quite seem to fit in her seat
• himself
• a young girl with ponytails starstruck over Grohl
• the FBI agent that catches Tenacious D

The error has since been corrected in the article; however, the band Sunny Deal Real Estate still exists out there in the music world for some reason. Readers have commented on the mistake under the article as well. One reader by the name of Stephanie wrote, "*Sunny DAY Real Estate." She clearly shares the same level of disappointment as I do.

Was this the result of poor knowledge and research or just a careless typo? Whatever the reason, the unknown writer of this list article should have proofread his work. How many different people at Rolling Stone did this go past before it was published online? The writer of this article should make his own version of "Learn to Fly" and call it "Learn to Write."

Why You Should Appreciate Baauer's "Harlem Shake"

A member of a military drill team is dancing as everybody else is standing stiff at attention. "Con los terroristas," a female sings over an electronic beat. A deep voice then commands everybody to "do the Harlem shake" and chaos ensues as the entire drill team begins to flail their arms. One member is on skis while another falls out of a window.

This is the effect of Baauer's "Harlem Shake," a meme that is the latest YouTube craze and spreading to colleges across the U.S. The man behind the song, 23-year-old Brooklyn producer Harry Rodrigues, has just reached No.1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.

The 35-second audio clip of Baauer's single has everybody making their own rendition of the signature dance first started by YouTuber Filthy Frank. There's even an Exorcist version that shows doctors frantically running up a flight of stairs to find a possessed Regan doing the Harlem Shake. 

Though the viral video trend began a few weeks ago, the song was released eight months ago in May 2012. The single was released through Jefree's, a division of electronic artist Diplo's Mad Decent Label for free. Baauer experienced little to no airplay; however, this week the single was downloaded 262,000 times compared to the 1,000 downloads it sold during the first week.

Baauer's No. 1 presence on the Billboard charts has caused the methodology for calculating the chart: you guessed it, YouTube plays. Previously, the chart was determined by radio play, on-demand audio streaming, online radio streaming and the Nielsen SoundScan download sales reports.

YouTube has secured its spot as a major player in the music industry thanks to Baauer's huge hit as well as the "Gangnam Style" craze that holds YouTube's record for most plays with an astronomical 1.3 billion views.

Spin magazine's coverage of the phenomenon is well reported, using numbers and statistics to show just how big this craze has actually become. Philip Sherburne's anecdote he uses to describe Rodrigues' luck is not only original but also colorful. "It's like he scored big on a scratch-and-win card and pocketed all but a single dollar, which he invested in a Megabucks ticket — and then won that, too."

If the "Harlem Shake" has taught us anything, it's that it only takes one guy with a tight pink jumpsuit to turn a man's dream into a reality.

Climate Change: Why It's Not Changing the Minds of Weathercasters

With over 700 heat records broken in June and the ferocity of Hurricane Sandy, one would think weathercasters would address the possibility and threat of global warming. The reason for this, Rolling Stone's Jeff Goodell believes, is the weathercaster's refusal to accept the evidence of global warming made apparent by climate scientists.

Goodell argues that most weathercasters do not have advanced credentials and are just bright personalities like Al Roker. By ignoring global warming, they are failing to fulfill a scientific duty on a nightly basis. More than a quarter of today's meteorologists call global warming a "scam."

Co-founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, has said that global warming is "a fictional, manufactured crisis." How does somebody required to know a great deal about weather and its now unpredictable patterns not believe clear and close to indisputable evidence of global warming?

Another example of contradiction is weatherman David Bernard, who has gone on to call global warming "a global wealth redistribution." Bernard, a weatherman for a CBS affiliate in Miami, is now moving toward network television with CBS as a severe weather consultant. Bernard, however, found it more important to post 131 pictures of his dog on Facebook in June rather than pictures that should have been of the extreme high temperatures that month.

What we must do is incorporate and address global warming in our weather forecasts. Though it is difficult to incorporate it within such a short segment, weathercaster Jim Gandy has found an audience for the subject through his segment titled "Climate Matters" in Columbia, South Carolina.

Global warming is not a new idea. Why then do people, yet alone weathermen, still not understand that human activity is causing abnormal climate patterns? The solution to educating society about global warming is simple: it must be incorporated in weather segments by experts, not meteorologists with a bright personality.

Songwriting: A Weapon of Choice

For the past decade, a treatment other than a copious amount of antidepressants and anxiety pills has been sought for returning soldiers. This treatment lies in musical expression, and it is working.

Songwriters Darden Smith and Radney Foster are working side by side with veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder by helping them write, compose and record the music that they make during their stay at the Texas retreat.

Smith has released over 12 country albums since the 1980s, and Radney has created hits for himself along with stars like Keith Urban and the Dixie Chicks.

More and more fathers and husbands are coming home with battle scars as well as emotional scars. With feelings of severe depression, anger and anxiety, veterans don't have an outlet other than alcohol. What Smith and Foster are doing is saving lives. 

Sgt. Josh Hartman, a soldier whose vehicle ran over an IED in Baghdad, has found comfort in writing and recording songs about his traumatic experiences during his two tours of duty in Iraq. The finished product, "The Soldier Game," was the first of ten tracks recorded alongside fellow soldiers Staff Sgt. EJ Obregon and Sgt. First Class Scott McRae that weekend. 

"To take those things we were talking about and all of a sudden, it's music, that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. That's the best therapy I've had since I've been home," says Obregon.

The story and mission of Smith and Foster's retreat deserves to be Spin's spotlight article, the very first story the site's viewers see. Readers are usually welcomed by some underground, hipster indie artist trying to make it to the radio waves, ultimately ending the whole hipster image. The point is, however, that music publications must sometimes put artist profiles on the back burner for musicians making a difference.

Radney Foster embraces Staff Sgt. EJ Obregon

I applaud Spin for its in-depth coverage of a music retreat literally saving the lives of veterans. The personal and graphic stories told by the soldiers featured in David Peisner's article give readers a sense of how skewed reality is for soldiers returning home with PTSD and a lot more baggage than they originally left with.

I'm Political in My Songs, but I Don't Vote

"I don't vote...do what you do. Do good with your people and live your life because what's going on isn't really in our hands," rapper Kendrick Lamar told Truth Is Scary.

Lupe Fiasco, who criticized President Obama's actions during the Gaza Strip bombings, admitted during a CBS interview this year that he does not vote.

Why are current rappers openly blazoning their views in public as well as their songs? When Barack Obama first won the presidency in 2008, the rap industry celebrated the election of America's first African-American president with songs like Young Jeezy's "My President" and "It's A New Day" by will.i.am.

In a Nov. 8 Spin blog, Brandon Soderberg investigated why a wave of political apathy has surfaced in rap. Soderberg confessed in the blog that the only time he had been afraid at a rap show was at the Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, N.C. when the audience cheered and applauded for Killer Mike's delivery of the line:

Ronald Reagan was an actor, not at all a factor / Just an employee of the country's real masters / Just like the Bushes, Clintons, and Obama / Just another talking head telling lies on the teleprompter

One can argue that Kendrick Lamar's music, especially on good kid, m.A.A.d city, contains an underlying sense of community which is good and all, but this is strikingly similar to Mitt Romney's approach to Hurricane Sandy when he said he once helped clean up a trashed football field with some buddies.

"Some things are too big for even a determined group of individuals to fix, and both Lamar and Romney must know that," says Soderberg.

Obama has influenced rappers like Jay-Z to help significantly reduce the misogynistic message portrayed in rap music. At Obama's final campaign rally, Jay-Z altered his hit "99 Problems" and took a stab at Romney. "I've got 99 problems but a Mitt ain't one."

Some thought it was cheesy, and others thought it was uncalled for and offensive to conservatives; that's besides the point though. The point is, he dissolved Mitt Romney with the forcefulness of poetry in lyric form.

Because Obama endorses the careers of rappers like Jay-Z, less prominent and established rappers like Lupe and Kendrick are trying to gain publicity by making controversial statements about the president in interviews and their work.

Though there is no doubt hip-hop helped make its listeners politically conscious when it went through a political phase driven by Public Enemy, those who refuse to vote like Lupe Fiasco and Kendrick Lamar have no right to criticize or even question politics through outspoken, cut-throat statements.

Dave Grohl Retakes the Drum Throne

Queens of the Stone Age front man Josh Homme confirmed during a BBC interview that Dave Grohl, ex-Nirvana drummer and singer of the Foo Fighters, will rejoin QOTSA for the band's new album set for release sometime in 2013.

Spin and Rolling Stone also broke the news of the Grohl addition, both attributing the departure of drummer Joey Castillo for Dave's return. Their coverage of the story, however, was very dry and lacked details surrounding Castillo's departure.

Dave appeared on the band's 2002 album Songs for the Deaf which peaked at  #17 on the US Billboard 200 chart. He toured with QOTSA, headlining internationally at festivals such as Glastonbury in England in 2002. The band will perform at the 2013 Download Festival in England June 14-16 with Iron Maiden, Rammstein, Alice in Chains, the Gaslight Anthem, Motörhead and more.

It is not clear whether Grohl will once again tour with Queens of the Stone Age, but the break from the Foo Fighters makes it seem promising.

"[Grohl] and I have this wonderful musical relationship which we don't have with other people. It's a very cool and comfortable position," says Homme.

Both Homme and Grohl performed in the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures alongside Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones in 2009.

Dave's drumming contains influences from the heavy drum hitting of John Bonham who helped usher in the heavy metal genre. Like Bonham, Grohl has played a key role in the music industry by helping foster the grunge subgenre of rock & roll as a member of Nirvana.

                                                John Bonham "Moby Dick" drum solo live 1970

The addition of Dave Grohl to Queens of the Stone Age may bring back the commercial success the band experienced with Songs for the Deaf which many critics consider to be one of the greatest rock albums of the 2000s.

                             Dave Grohl in the music video for Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows"