Bloglander

MUSIC

Tons of releases this week in music, including new Times New Viking, Explosions in the Sky, Of Montreal, Prefuse 73 and the immortal Bootsy frickin Collins.

The one getting the most press, though, is Poly Styrene's Generation Indigo. The album got a good deal of early release buzz because it was to be her comeback. The punk icon died before the album came out though, though, and so today has morphed from release date to a time of public memorial.

Pop critic/legend Robert Christgau made Poly his cause célèbre today in a column on NPR.com, discussing how, even in the midst of a counter-culture, she broke from the norm:

Female in a male world, heavy in a skinny world, African in a white world, flaunting braces that looked like they could dent a lorry, she stood out as well for her fashion sense, which favored Day-Glo colors rather than basic black.

She died of complications from breast cancer, at the age of 53.---

VIDEOGAMES

Mostly motion games and unremarkable downloadable content this week, kiddos. Wait, no. Make that 100-per-frickin-cent DLC and motion games. Gah. Suckfest.

Use this time of sorrow to go out and buy Portal 2 — which released last week on all platforms (including PC, excluding WII) to the kind of rave reviews usually withheld for the games of Hideo Kojima and the miracles of Jesus Christ (see video).

Also released last week, and not to be missed if you're 1) a nostalgic, 2) a big Japanese RPG fan and 3) you own a PSP (a much more limiting factor than either of the first two), you can go buy the reworked and expanded Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection, a game that, in 1991, defined almost every now-classic JRPG trope, from epic story arcs to real time battle schemes.

DVD

The following is not hyperbole: this may well be the bleakest week for new DVD releases in the history of DVD releases. Listen to this: ZERO major studio releases, ZERO important indie releases, basically no important television releases. Super rad concert DVDs? Try back next week, pal.

The highlights, in reverse order of coolness*:

Knockout
Steve Austin, former WWE badass, really stretches his range, becoming a boxer. Straight to DVD

Blood Out
Val Kilmer 50 Cent Val Kilmer. Straight to DVD

South Park, Season 14
The one where Kenny dies every episode ... oh wait ...

Growing Pains, Season Two
The one before Kirk Cameron became a banana-wielding Jesus freak.

*"coolness" here being highly, highly relative