You could get the Mendoza Line and Koufax in on technicalities.

No, you are thinking of The AV Club.

Maybe instead of merely aping the sounds, they could take a page from DM, NO, et al and come up with some goddam hooks or some unusual lyrical or thematic ideas.

That is NOT a "legacy" in your hand.

I wrote that sentence poorly - I really meant, "every other reference in the article" (meaning the OP author writes it as "Surfers", over and over again). Both T&G staffers quoted in the piece (Rusk and Roche) use "Buttholes" as, indeed, many people do.

Yeah, I think they've done the best they can do - they express remorse for not realizing how personally Touch & Go would take the decision, and I think they feel bad for the fact that what they felt they needed to do for their label/artist, kind of hurt employees at a related label (due to history, business…

That said, if you want a steady paycheck - if you are East River Pipe or Lambchop or whatever, someone who is a critical darling but will never be a "rock and roll star" - then an indie that believes in you is the way to go.

Well, the short version is as I outlined - Merge used to do handshake 50/50s with artists, and now I am pretty sure there are contracts (don't know the split though).

The only thing that might remotely make sense as to why they haven't built better/stronger bridges between the towers is that their internal politics are so unstable that it's beneficial to be able to cut off access to one tower or another at a moment's notice. I've only read the first two books though, so not sure…

He did it as a GOOF, guy!

This all makes a lot of sense, and per your edited addendum, it's those "jackpots" that screw everything up. BS were never going to be a pop success story, "Pepper" was a fluke, and the fallout from that jackpot arguably damaged both band and label.

Theoretically handshake deals in the indie world can be profitable for both parties IF they are both ethical and trust one another - like a marriage or a good friendship, boundaries and such can be equitably re-negotiated on the fly per changing conditions (financial and otherwise), without literal rules-lawyering…

"But they just want MONEY! It's a CONSPIRACY!"

Michael Richards as Master of His Domain.

Ser Mix-A-Lot

I like that "Happy" basically reuses the riff from "Something's Wrong", a song from an album that ITSELF reuses the "Be My Baby" drumbeat three times. The JAMC did not give a fuck what anyone thought, and if something ruled once, they'd just use it again.

I'm retreating to my snowy bunker now.

2016 needs to be stopped. Can we just skip straight to 2017 now?

This comment is very late to the game so no one will read it, but who cares.

Upvoted for best username/avatar I have seen in a while.