Trey Parker and Matt Stone & Reviews of New Order and Parquet Courts

Trey Parker and Matt Stone - the creative minds behind South Park and The Book of Mormon - discuss the intersection between music and comedy. Plus, a review of new albums by New Order and Parquet Courts.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker
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Justin Timberlake played a social-media mogul in the movies, but can he do it in real-life? The JT-backed social media site MySpace recently re-launched with a sleeker design and a 50 million-plus song library. The company says it's the internet's largest legally streamable song library. Or is it? A group representing indie labels like Merge, Domino, and Beggar’s Group is alleging that MySpace has its members' music up without permission. Will MySpace be able to work out a deal? Given the site's 27 million unique visitors a month, Greg's betting the indie labels will find a way to compromise.

Jim always suspected rock ‘n’ roll was a hazardous occupation. Now experts at Britain's Health Department have weighed in, and guess what? It's true. A study of 1,500 artists across genres concludes that 9.2 percent of rockers die earlier than regular folks. Not only that, but solo artists face twice the death-risk of artists in bands. Researchers speculated that bands provide an extra support network for at-risk stars. Turns out we really do get by with a little help from our friends.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone

It's time to "Man Up" for a visit from Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They are the dynamic duo behind South Park and the hit Broadway musical The Book of Mormon. "What are they doing on our rock and roll show?" you ask. Well, some of the greatest moments of satire (see last week's show) on South Park are musical. In fact, check out our favorites here.

Plus, you could argue the show itself is quite punk rock with it's no holds barred attitude and lo-fi animation. The show even spawned a Rick Rubin-produced album. Now we have an equally outrageous musical, The Book of Mormon. It tells the story of two Mormon missionaries sent to a remote village in northern Uganda. It's even "bluer" than South Park, but despite this, or

perhaps because of it, it's a smash hit. Trey, Matt and collaborator Robert Lopez have won a slew of Tony Awards and a record-breaking slot on the Billboard chart. So, how'd two Ween, Primus and Prog Rock fans from Colorado end up the toast of Broadway? Trey and Matt explained this and their songwriting philosophy during their visit to our studios. They were in town for the Chicago opening of the play.

Lost Sirens New Order

Lost Sirens

At the beginning of the New Order review, Greg calls the English band's latest album Lost Sirens almost a collection of "leftovers." That can't bode too well for it. New Order's music in the 1980’s was undeniably influential. There'd be no LCD Soundsystem or Radiohead without their electronic  pop innovations. But, Jim doesn't hear anything that evokes their Madchester  greatness on this effort. He says Trash It. Greg really liked the tracks "I Told You So" and "Hellbent", so that bumps up his rating to a Try It.

Light Up Gold Parquet Courts

Light Up Gold / Tally All the Things That You Broke

Who knew Denton, TX was a rock capital? There's Midlake and Neon Indian. Sly Stone was born there! And now we have Parquet Courts. With its 2nd release Light Up Gold, the garage quartet has relocated to Brooklyn and is getting much wider attention. The album is a perfect combination of expert pop craftsmanship and slacker-punk attitude. Jim and Greg grinned through this review, so Parquet Courts gets a double Buy It.

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