Lots of musicians tweet — but all that Twitters is not gold.
That’s why you’ll want to check out SPIN.com every Friday to see whose tweets we’re reading this week-then update your TweetDeck! (Obligatory Self-Promotion: …while you’re at it, be sure to follow @SPINmagazine!)
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- B.o.B.
- @bobatl
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Why You Should Follow: Hip-hop artist B.o.B.-otherwise known as Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr.-makes music that’s out of this world. Literally. His Ziggy Stardust-esque Twitter bio reads, “I am from a planet not too many light years from the planet called Earth currently residing in Atlanta making music for the masses.” The masses do, in fact, love his music-his songs “Nothin’ On You” and “Airplanes” (which featured vocals from Paramore’s Hayley Williams) both peaked pretty high on the Billboard 200. Last week, it was announced that B.o.B. would be performing at the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards and that he would provide the main support for Paramore during their November U.K. tour. Follow him as he travels the world, ponders life’s great questions (“Does stewie griffin have a twitter?”), and hangs out with Rivers Cuomo and the cast of The Hard Times of R.J. Berger–at the same time. Bonus points: He often uses Twitter to communicate with fans-and the people who tweet-hate on him!
Best Tweet of the Week: “@yelyahwilliams Im ready whenever you are!!!”-in reference to practicing “Airplanes” for their upcoming tour.
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- M.I.A.
- @_M_I_A_
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Why You Should Follow: You don’t want to get on M.I.A.’s bad side-otherwise she’ll turn to Twitter to get her revenge, like she did when Lynn Hirschberg (who also famously invoked the rage of Courtney Love) recently wrote a somewhat unflattering piece about the genre-defying singer for the New York Times Magazine. M.I.A. tweeted the writer’s cell phone number, then later released a song called “Haters” that directly challenged Hirschberg with lyrics like “Why the hell would a journalist be thick as shit?” She’s since taken the number down, but her tweets remain as fierce and in-your-face as ever. While promoting her new album, Maya, which dropped last month, she wrote, “whoring myself on letterman tonite… gold slippers check! white sockx check! camo jeans check! tie die tee check! shades check! red lips check! middle finger check!” Her Twitter rants often include tirades against sound teams (“money doesnt buy u shit! i thought more money means better sound guys in america///! i was wrong, the higher u go , they turn u lower!”) and U.S. intelligence (“THE SAME U.S INTELLIGENCE FINDS MY MUM WHO WORKED FOR MIN WAGE @ A SUPER MARKET & AS A SEAMSTRESS IN ENGLAND FOR 20 YEARS THREATENING!!”), and she doesn’t tweet much unless it’s punctuated with a ton of exclamation points. Follow her for a little taste of rebellion.
Best Tweet of the Week: “I want hard core, grime core, metal rock indie gore dub core fuck da law mosh pit !!!!!!!!!!!!!”
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- The National
- @The_National
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Why You Should Follow: This Brooklyn-based band recently performed at SPIN’s 25th anniversary celebration in New York City and debuted a new song, “You Were a Kindness,” during a performance on a Minnesota public radio station, the Current. Could a new album be in the works? Only time-and a close watch on their Twitter page-will tell. The band tweets intimate glimpses at their life on the road, from the Christmas lights they like to see backstage (“There can never be enough”) to the piles of laundry they accumulate to the wine and coconut milk they request in their rider. They also tweet photos of late-night basketball sessions and festival performances, like this amazing shot of the band performing against the Chicago skyline at Lollapalooza. Bonus points: The band sometimes uses Twitter to introduce fans to members of the National’s team they might not know, like Terry, their monitor engineer, who they write “has a love affair with dolphins.”
Best Tweet of the Week: This photo, which was taken and posted at 3:21 a.m. in Strausberg, France.
