33 Things is back! Every month, we will compile the best, weirdest, most interesting music and sound news from the past 30 days and serve it up to you in one handy, easy to digest list. May we present 33 Things that happened in August? This list is brought to you by our wonderful 33 1/3 Intern, Michael Elmets, as a parting gift on his last day at Bloomsbury.
1. The MTV VMAs happened. Some people won awards.
2. Miley Cyrus was one of those people, but she had a much less eventful evening than she did at last year’s awards ceremony.
3. More importantly, Beyonce performed. People seemed to think she did a pretty good job
4. More depressingly, Weird Al Yankovic performed at the Emmy’s. People seemed to think he was pretty obnoxious.
5. Ok, this was kind of cool though. It didn’t happen in August, but still…
6. In festival news, the tenth annual Afropunk Festival took place in Brooklyn’s Commodore Barry Park on August 23 & 24.
7. The big news from the festival: D’Angelo is back. Yeah, you read that correctly.
8. In what I personally consider to be the greatest news ever, it was announced that the artist who taught us what it feels like when doves cry will be releasing not one, but two full-length studio albums on September 30.
9. It seems that the-artist-currently-no-longer-formerly-known-as-Prince’s collaboration with Zooey Deschanel won’t be making it onto either of the albums
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uivs-kt5h1Q]
10. Whether the gem alluded to by Kevin Smith in this video will make it out of the legend’s famed “vault” remains to be seen…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_cLJ19HMg]
11. Prince’s “Dead On It” was also featured on The Guardian’s list of “Pop’s five oddest sexual lyrics.”
12. In non-Prince related news, Taylor Swift released the music video for her song “Shake it Off” this month.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM]
13. The video was pretty good, but Beyonce’s performance at the VMAs was one of the greatest of all time. I’m sorry…
14. There was some actual old Beyonce-related news that resurfaced this month. Apparently Beyonce’s father doesn’t think that the Solange-Jay Z elevator altercation was all it was cracked up to be.
15. Daft Punk also made headlines this month, announcing the cancellation of their 2014 American tour.
16. The duo did offer us a little bit of consolation in the form of a “Human After All” remix album, though.
17. Not to be outdone, Aphex Twin also announced an upcoming album (though the release date has yet to be confirmed).
18. As usual, James Murphy is up to something that sounds strange, but that will probably wind up being at least moderately awesome.
19. The events in Ferguson, MO have dominated news cycles this month, and numerous musicians have made statements expressing their outrage over the murder of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.
20. Rapper Nelly, a longtime resident of nearby St. Louis, has been among the public figures most closely associated with the protest movement that sprung up in the wake of Brown’s death.
21. The list of other rappers that have expressed their support for the protests includes T.I., J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, Diddy, and Talib Kweli.
22. Long among the most politically-active members of the rap community, Kweli presented a strong criticism of the media’s coverage of the protests in an on-air interview with CNN Host Don Lemon.
23. There have also been a number of musical responses to Brown’s killing, including this one by G-Unit and 50 Cent.
24. And this one by Lauryn Hill.
25. August also saw John Lennon’s name return to the news, if only in relation to his assassin’s parole board hearing.
26. It’s also been a major month for album anniversaries.
27. Among the more notable is the 10-year anniversary of Arcade Fire’s Funeral, but not everyone is so excited.
28. At least we can all rally behind The New Pornographers new album.
29. And the announced upcoming release of Bob Dylan’s complete Basement Tapes.
30. We can probably be prepared to be disappointed by Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming release though.
31. Lord knows we’ve already been disappointed by this one-time movie star’s attempts to venture outside of the medium in which he achieved his fame.
32. The jury is still out on Rivers Cuomo’s upcoming foray into network television.
33. The band from the Nickelodeon show Pete and Pete’s upcoming tour seems more promising.
