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Does Free Streaming Help Album Sales? It Worked for Daft Punk, At Least.

On Wednesday, May 29, Steve Knopper of rollingstone.com detailed Daft Punk's domination of the Billboard album chart with the release of its eagerly awaited Random Access Memories. The article moves into territory deeper than simple retail numbers, though. Knopper dug into the number of Spotify spin ... More >>

What are the Legal Rights of a Compilation Curator? The Debate Over Yellow Pills: Prefill

This week's RFT Music feature story is about St. Louis power-pop connoisseur Jordan Oakes and Chicago label Numero. Mike Appelstein unpacks their disagreement over a compilation album Oakes curated and Numero released in 2003. See also: -Pain Pills: The heated copyright debate over a St. Louisan's ... More >>

Pain Pills: The heated copyright debate over a St. Louisan's power-pop compilation

Google Music: The Future Home of Independent Musicians?

There has never been one place you could go to find out everything you needed about any band anywhere. Imagine: One resource that operates like an instantaneous card catalogue for current music. Among the many that have tried, none has the potential of Google Music Artist Hub. Google Music made it ... More >>

Local Booksellers Racing to Fill Borders-Shaped Hole

If you've been one of the many circling the carcass of the Borders in Brentwood at its going-out-of-business sale (and, judging from the length of the lines, which are Christmas-length, you probably are), you may have observed this leaflet on the checkout counter: ​This is not an act of corpo ... More >>

Monsanto Tenth Most Innovative Company in U.S., Forbes Says

​Monsanto is a huge, environment-contaminating, organic-seed-modifying beast, sure, but the company must be doing alright. After all, Forbes loves them. The business magazine recently released its list of the country's most innovative companies, and Monsanto hits the rankings high, at No. 10 ... More >>

Borders: The Fallout

image via​Borders has finally decided to put itself out of its misery and allow itself to be liquidated. By the end of September, all the remaining 299 Borders stores (including the six in the St. Louis area) will be gone, leaving 11,700 booksellers, baristas, store managers and corporate empl ... More >>

Harry Potter's Over. Cope With Some Themed Eats.

Calm down -- just because the Harry Potter movie franchise comes to an end this weekend with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the Hogwarts kids will live on in these wizarding-inspired eats. Until they're devoured. Then commence moaning like Myrtle. Of course, for the f ... More >>

iCloud is the Shiniest, Newest Time-Waster for Apple Store Customer Service

Courtesy of AppleLet the chatboards begin.​Being Steve Jobs must be pretty awesome. It seems like the man makes more announcements than Obama does, though the negative implications of his are usually just that the newest version of the iPad completely trumps the one you bought only this mornin ... More >>

The Get Motivated! tour that barnstormed into St. Louis last week is as American as a get-rich-quick scheme

"Did You Know All Women Are Easy?" Why, No. Please Enlighten Us.

When wearing just a thong to bed in February, most women would also prefer a blanket, or at the very least another warm body.​Daily RFT received this missive a few days ago, but we held onto it so the information it contains will be fresh in your mind when you head out to the Friday night meat ... More >>

Ex-Rams player Kyle Turley rolls to the Super Bowl as a musician, not a player

American City: St. Louis Architecture Gets a Coffee Table Book

The intake tower at the Chain of Rocks bridge serves as the cover image for Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren's new book about St. Louis architecture.​Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren came here in 2006 on a discreet assignment: to report for the New York Times on yet another plan for the St. Loui ... More >>

You think the Americans with Disabilities Act has leveled the playing field? Try walking in my shoes.

Energizer Debuts Inductive Charger to Solve Multiple Cord Blues

It looks the world's best Scrabble word -- but St. Louis-based Energizer says its new "Qi"-enabled device is actually a way for users of cell phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players to simplify their lives.Ingenious.​As Energizer explains, the Wireless Power Consortium developed Qi standards so t ... More >>

Illegal

Read a penetrating chapter from former Phoenix New Times investigative reporter Terry Greene Sterling's book: ILLEGAL: Life and Death in Arizona's Immigration War Zone

So Where Do You Get a Vuvuzela in This Town?

Image source​The rise of the vuvuzela has been nothing short of astonishing. Last week, nobody outside South Africa had even heard of the things. This week, they have spawned outrage and jokes and even iPhone apps. Next week, they may even be banned. What a trajectory! Of course we all know t ... More >>

Rent a Wreck: For a former video-store giant, not such a blockbuster decade

Boxee Announces Boxee Beta and a New Box

Boxee made an announcement this week that makes the idea of ditching cable service for Internet-distributed video a much more tempting proposition. The announcement was a twofer: a new version of their software that provides a cable-box-like interface for Internet video and new hardware that will ru ... More >>

Tomorrow! Mad Art Hosts Preview of Book, Paintings and CD Involving Pre-War St. Louis Blues

madart.com​St. Louis artist, author and one-time RFT cover illustrator Kevin Belford is a man on a mission: to assert St. Louis' rightful place in the history of blues music. Belford's new book, Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St. Louis, is out next month from Virginia Publ ... More >>

RIP, Missouri Terrorist, er, "Minuteman"

Over at the Columbia Daily Tribune, columnist T. J. Greaney has composed a strange tribute to Robert Bolivar DePugh, leader of an anti-Communist militia group (or a domestic terrorism cell, depending on your point of view) called the Minutemen. DePugh died June 30 in his basement apartment, beneath ... More >>

Thriller Night at the Bookstore, or How I Met Michael Jackson

flickr.com/photos/15373713@N06I must begin this story with a confession: I was probably the only kid in the 80s who didn't like Michael Jackson. Definitely the only kid at my school. (This was verified by a poll.) I listened to my friends' copies of Thriller and it did not move me.Part of this ... More >>

Kirkwood Woman Pens First -- and Only -- Biography of Hallmark Cards Founder

flickr.com/photos/whinendineSix years ago, Margaret Benedict remembers being riveted by an article in Investor's Business Daily on the life and times of Joyce Clyde Hall, the highly-driven founder of Hallmark Cards. At the time, Benedict was reaching the end of a long career as a fifth-grade ... More >>

Post-Dispatch Put Sylvester Brown on Paid Leave over Alleged Pay-to-Play, Till Today When He Said, See Ya

Columnist Sylvester Brown says his employer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, put him on paid administrative leave on Friday, March 27, and locked him out of the building over allegations that officials in East St. Louis paid for a trip he took to Washington, D.C. Photo: Nick LucchesiAsked about who he ... More >>

The "Most Powerful Man In Prostitution" Arrested

This juicy little item slipped through the cracks when it happened last week but it's worth Maricopa County Sheriff's Department mug shotmentioning now, if only to shed a little light on the life of a kingpin from the Internet's seedy underbelly.David Elms, creator of the popular escort Web sit ... More >>

St. Louis Has Its Playboy Back!

Wow! You hear the news? Beer scion August Busch IV divorced his wife Kathryn Lisa Busch (formerly Kathryn Thatcher) on Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court. The couple married just over two years ago. Busch is 44. His ex-wife just 28. I, for one, am glad to hear that Busch IV is back in the f ... More >>

Unreal plumbs the flavor of French vodka, consults our advice-giving pastor and ponders the Tao of Patrick Swayze

Unreal cleans our sidearm and champions Phyllis Schlafly

Fist City: Rockwell Knuckles aims to punch through St. Louis hip-hop's glass ceiling

Bookplates: The Whale Warriors

Sweet Old Lu

Lucinda Williams enjoys the fruits of her labor.

Lucinda Williams and the Y Chromosome

Dream into Action

Jennifer O’Connor’s unexpected career path has helped her land among the stars.

Jazzercise

B-Sides covers, well, the covers repertoire of the Bad Plus and learns about Todd Mosby's newfangled imratgitar.

Must Love Dogs

Misty wants your affection (um, not that kind). Plus, one St. Louis man teaches us how to come back from vacation alive, while another reveals our dishonesty.

Read All About It

Another independent bookseller gives up the ghost

Last Year's Model

It might be the last dance for St. Louis' independent record stores.

Coping Mechanism

Citizen Cope turns hip-hop on its tail

The Friction Tape

Especially when it casts Fred Friction as Susan B. Anthony

Die, Jeff Buckley, Die!

It's time to put a bullet through the head of the Jeff Buckley zombie

The Importance of Being Ernesto

Motorcycle Diaries explores Che Guevara's formative years

Queer Eye for the Country Guy

Cowboy crooners are putting some metro-sex into their rural images

Series/Festivals

Week of February 26, 2003

Roll Over, Tutankhamen

Pyramids, death metal and a roadie with the mummy's curse? Meet Nile.

War on War Books

Donald Miller has (re)written one of the best books on World War II, but will anyone care?

God Complex

With its fireworks and fanfare, Opera Theatre's Hippolytus and Aricia is a worthy and wonderful season finale

The 2001 RFT Slammies

Homeboy superstar Nelly tops the list of readers' favorite local musicians

Twisp of the Tale

When C.D. Payne stopped writing ad copy, he created a revolutionary teenage hero

LEFT BANK HOLIDAY

St. Louis' last independent full-service bookseller, Left Bank Books, celebrates its 30th year of supporting progressive politics and serious culture

Border Patrol