If you happen to be traveling by air over the weekend we hope your safety announcement go a little something like this. more ›

Holy shiznit. There are mash-up and video remixes and then there is THIS. more ›

Jon Brion does what we thought impossible and brings class to a Katy Perry (and Dr. Luke and Cathy Dennis and Max Martin) composition. more ›

A few weeks back Tankboy shared an awesome improvement of a Katy Perry song, and it seemed to us that, in order to make a Katy Perry song better, Katy Perry shouldn't sing it. So we were looking for Diversion-worthy material and asked, "Can lightning strike twice?" more ›

Someone just dialed up the awesome to immeasurably improve one of Katy Perry's typically bland musical numbers. more ›

The new season of SNL got underway over the weekend with some new cast members, including two Chicagoans. Paul Brittain and Vanessa Bayer both hailed from iO, which celebrated with a viewing party. Second City alums Tom Flanigan and Shelly Gossman had also been hired to join the writing staff. more ›

Yup, here it is, the inevitable "Best of 2008" music list (a later post centering on the top local offerings is forthcoming). In order to spare our readers the pain of reading through yet another list that tries too hard to impress with obscure releases or toe the party line on Stereogum / Pitchfork approved artists, we continue our personal decade-plus tradition of merely listing what we actually liked in 2008. That means that the albums below are the one we kept finding ourselves turning to when we wanted to kick back and enjoy some tunes. Sure, there was more artistically challenging stuff released this year than some of the selections below -- and we certainly do appreciate that sort of thing -- but our year end list reflects which music ultimately did for us what we think rock and/or roll is ultimately meant to do to any listener: it grabbed us by the heart and/or crotch and wouldn't let go. more ›