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We see them outside our office, angry people carrying pitchforks, torches, and signs that say “Limey Go Home.” Someone from Votefortheworst.com is at the front. People are jumping on the “American Idol”-bashing bandwagon left and right. And frankly, we’re tempted to join them. But not quite yet. Yes, we’re still mad as hell that “the public” chose Blake Lewis and Jordin Sparks over the clearly superior Melinda Doolittle. I, for one, have stopped watching the show after last season’s finale, and I’m pretty sure that if Mike Farley didn’t have to blog it for us, he would have stopped watching too after Mindy Doo’s ouster. Not good timing, then, for Randy Jackson’s Music Club Vol. I, where the onetime Journey bassist plays Clive Davis for a day and assembles a compilation album filled with the top of the pops. His leadoff single – whether he wanted it to be or not – is fellow “AI” judge Paula Abdul and her song “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow.” It’s her first single in 12 years. Things have, um, changed a little since then. How will she adapt? Much to my surprise, rather well. Adbul only had a couple of really killer singles – “Knocked Out,” “The Way That You Love Me” and “Cold Hearted” were my personal favorites – so to compare this to the rest of her work is pointless; most of that stuff just wasn’t very good. This song isn’t great either, but it’s also not exactly terrible, which Paula should take as a major victory. Even more surprising is the video, which features some of the neatest choreography I’ve ever seen. The whole singer/backing dancer stuff has been done to death, but Paula does something different here. Most of the time, they move like a single organism. It’s pretty damn cool. The other two set pieces, however, do not fare so well. The shots of her with the band look laughably inauthentic. They’re clearly here so Randy can pluck a little bass, but there is just no way those musicians are making the sound we’re hearing (especially that ridiculous drummer). The other set piece is a close-up of Paula in what appears to be a wind tunnel with red drapes. She’s always looking to the left and right of the camera, as if she’s forgotten the lyrics and she’s trying to find the teleprompter. Not her best money shot. But still, we had every reason to expect something as god-awful as that Gwen Stefani yodeling song, and Paula delivered something that, if not genre-busting, is better than it has a right to be. So good for her. I’m still not watching “American Idol,” though. Filed under: Pop and Radio and Rock Babes and Songs and Artists and Videos and American Idol and Seen Your Video Comments: None |
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I usually reserve this slot for new songs by relatively new bands, but since the music industry shuts down for a good two months at year’s end, we have nothing to promote but Christmas records from guys like Keith Sweat and Christopher Cross, neither of which I want to inflict on an unsuspecting public. Instead, I am going to take a cue from our local modern rock station, which has unveiled the top 2008 “most requested” songs in its history. The songs they’re playing are awesome, but the order of these songs, in all objectivity, is freaking ridiculous. Today they played Crowded House’s “Mean to Me,” which ranked somewhere around 1,200 or so. Now, I love, love, love Crowded House, but I don’t buy for a minute that the station has received that many requests for Crowded House, not for a station that began in 1990. For starters, they almost never play the band, and when they do, they play “Don’t Dream It’s Over” just like everybody else. If they actually received that many requests for “Mean to Me,” you’d think that they play the song more than once a year. Second, they played Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” yesterday, and Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” the day before. Are they really telling us that they’ve received more requests for a Crowded House song, ANY Crowded House song, than they have for “Paranoid Android” and “You Oughta Know”? Not bloody likely. Personally, I think they take the entire lineup from 101 to 2008 and shuffle them, and I’m perfectly fine with that. It makes the first week of the year the most enjoyable week of the year. Hell, I heard Shakepeare’s Sister’s “Stay,” the Lightning Seeds’ “Pure” and Elvis Costello’s “Beyond Belief” almost back to back. How the hell do you beat that? I can only imagine how awesome this station would be if they actually played those songs (or Robyn Hitchcock’s “So You Think You’re in Love,” which I heard yesterday afternoon) more frequently. But hey, they’re still pretty awesome as modern rock stations go (they don’t play Evanescence and they love Muse, Kaiser Chiefs and Hard-Fi), so take the good with the bad, I suppose. But back to the video. The scene where Paul Hester points the trick gun to his head is more than a little disturbing now. Sigh. Filed under: Rock and Pop and Alternative and Radio and Songs and Videos and External Music and Seen Your Video Comments: None |
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Tune in this Monday to your local WABC affiliate as Don Imus will be returning to the airwaves. If anything, it should make for interesting listening to hear what Imus’ take on his whole firing and the aftermath will be (if he chooses to indeed say anything on the matter). |
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Look at the following track listing for this upcoming tribute to forty years of the BBC’s Radio 1 - the station begun in 1967, so they’ve gotten current artists to go back and cover one song from each year that they’ve been on the air - and see how far into it you can get before clicking on the big red button on the album cover and ordering it from Amazon.co.uk.
1967 - ‘Flowers In The Rain’ (The Move) covered by Kaiser Chiefs (For the record, I think 1975 was finally the breaking point for me. When you can actually hear the cover in your head at the moment you read the pairing of artist and song, it’s time to suck it up and break out the credit card. And I guarantee that even if Medsker thinks he can hold out, there’s always 2004 to make him go, “Oh, goddammit, now I *HAVE* to get it!” Filed under: Rock and Pop and Alternative and Radio and Songs and Artists and External Music Comments: 5 Comments |
 Meg White of the White Stripes is suffering from “acute anxiety,” prompting the band to cancel its upcoming US tour that was set to begin this week. Refunds are available at points of purchase. So far, the Stripes are still planning to tour the UK beginning October 24. Word is that this year’s American Idol tour of the top 10 finalists didn’t do so well. Maybe it was the cost of concert tickets, or maybe it was the declining interest in the show as a whole. But the fact is, this show keeps pumping new pop artists into the system like no other medium. A few of the more popular alumni from the show are now in the early stages of planning a spring 2008 tour: Season 2 champ Ruben Studdard, as well as Clay Aiken and Kimberley Locke. After winning the VMA for Best Group, Fall Out Boy is planning some intimate shows to give back to their fans. Since the shows are unannounced, we have no information to announce, but that’s the beauty of events like this. Bassist Pete Wentz says that the shows will be in some small venues, and will be primarily acoustic versions of FOB songs as well as some covers. After being on the road for two years, The Fray are taking a break and recharging their batteries. Plans are in place to tour Europe in the fall, and the band is also working on their next album. After postponing a bunch of tour dates this fall because they wanted to finish recording, The Cure has announced it will head back to the US in the spring of 2008 beginning May 9 in Washington DC. Tickets for the postponed dates will be honored for the newly scheduled shows. In addition, shows were added to the tour including stops in Kansas City, Phoenix, Austin, Fort Lauderdale and Cleveland. The concert to raise funs for a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial at the National Mall in Washington DC this coming Tuesday has added a few more high profile artists: Ludacris, Talib Kweli, and Wyclef Jean. Among the other acts already confirmed are John Legend, Robin Thicke, Stevie Wonder and Joss Stone. Another band foregoing a US tour to work on new material is the Kaiser Chiefs, who will still be playing their New York and Austin shows but canceling the dates in between. Here is the updated (more…) Filed under: Pop and Alternative and Hip Hop and Concerts and Radio and Indie Labels and American Idol Comments: None |
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First off, go read this article, which has a parenthetical subtitle - “It ain’t good news” - that’s likely to win the award for Biggest Understatement of 2007. If you’re too lazy to click on the link…well, first off, that’s embarrassingly lazy. But since I’m nothing if not an enabler, I’ll summarize for you, anyway: the Copyright Royalty Board has made its decree on the royalty rates that are to be paid by internet radio stations. Per Orbitcast.com, the ruling is on a “per play” basis - so Internet radio stations will have to pay the cost of one song to one listener - effective retroactively for 2006, plus an additional fee of $500 per channel per year. The rates to be paid are: 2006 - $.0008 per performance Can anyone explain to me how one of the largest music-related organizations in the country can be run by people who are apparently not diehard music fans? Internet radio is such an awesome tool for people to discover new music…and this royalty schedule is likely to kill it stone dead, or - at the very least - knock out those participants who tend to offer the widest variety in their playlists. This strikes me as a move no less damaging than removing the limit of radio stations any one company can own in an area; it immediately blows the little guy out of the water, which inevitably results in less choice and more stations interested in business over an actual interest in music. Disgusting. |
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It still seems The Dixie Chicks can’t get a break as country radio stations are still refusing to play their music. This despite their Grammy slam dunk. Look, people who have your heads buried in your behinds over this matter: it’s time to get over it and move on. If you haven’t noticed lately, the president’s approval ratings are completely in the toilet, and even many of his Republican yes men are starting to turn on him. Oh wait, I forgot. The only “America” worth living in is the closed-minded kind where everyone agrees and is still living in the backwoods Dark Ages. Being a free-thinking adult sure is a bitch, huh? |
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Around this time each year, LA’s most well-known rock station, KROQ, puts on a benefit concert that they call “Acoustic Christmas.” I’ve gone twice, including the great show last December. There are two nights - here’s the lineup: Night One: Foo Fighters, AFI, Incubus, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Papa Roach, 30 Seconds to Mars, +44, Wolfmother, Saosin Night Two: Foo Fighters, The Killers, Beck, The Raconteurs, Evanescence, Panic! At The Disco, Angles & Airwaves, Gnarls Barkley, Snow Patrol, She Wants Revenge For me, Night Two is infinitely better than Night One, though I would like to catch Wolfmother eventually. Beck, the Ranconeurs, the Killers and Gnarls Barkley make the second night more than worthwhile. So why is KROQ killing me? Usually, they send out an email to their “Street Team” announcing a presale which gives me a reasonable shot at landing tickets. This morning, they announced that this year tickets will go on sale (on TicketBastard) when they play “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters. Well, I guess that’s all well and good, but play the f’ng song already! I’ve been listening all day, heard more AFI and My Chemical Romance (and other Foo Fighters songs) than I would otherwise listen to in a lifetime, and I still haven’t heard “Everlong.” To make matters worse, the late afternoon DJ (”Stryker”) said that tickets could go on sale anytime…today or two days before the show (which is next weekend). Now that the clock has struck 5 on the West Coast, I’m pretty sure they won’t play the song today. But as I type this, My Chemical Romance is playing (yet again) in the background. Man, this is irritating. |
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Sparks, the quirky team best known in the U.S. for their duet with Jane Wiedlin on “Cool Places” back in 1983, has run into a spot of trouble with the BBC. Though Sparks has enjoyed a reasonable level of success throughout Europe for the past two decades, the BBC is refusing to play their new single because of its naughty, naughty title — “Dick Around:”
Ahhh, those beloved, misguided, uptight Brits: Always trying to protect their children from the perverse influences of popular culture. But since they’re the ones who gave the world “Trainspotting”…are they really entitled to be quite so judgmental? |
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Oh, if only had been a brick of hash. Rush Limbaugh was detained at Palm Beach International Airport when the fuzz found a bottle of Viagra in his luggage that was not prescribed to him. It was instead prescribed to his own physician in an “act of privacy” or some such nonsense. Limbaugh could be facing second-degree misdemeanor charges. Oh well, at least his rabid fans now know what the rest of us have known for ages - that Rush can’t get it up. Must be what creates so much pig-headed anger in the little human knockwurst. |
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You folks who like to pay for your song downloads may want to consider living in the UK. According to the story, “British consumers are set to be the first in the world able to buy songs instantly as they listen to them on digital radio, using a download service announced on Monday by UBC Media.” That’s actually a rather groovy idea. Of course it would never fly over here, as the RIAA and corrupt terrestrial radio stations would have a shitfit over payments and royalties and how to set up such a bewildering business model in the first place. If it keeps on going like it has been over here in the States, I predict that we’ll all be listening to 8 track tape cartridges once again by 2010. |
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Far be it from us to support any branch of ClearChannel, but a XM Radio subscribing friend of ours just sent this, and we would find it funny, if it weren’t so sad. Give ‘em hell. XM. Statement to XM Subscribers - The XM Nation Everything we’ve done at XM since our first minute on the air is about giving you more choices. We provide more channels and music programming than any other network. We play all the music you want to hear including the artists you want to hear but can’t find on traditional FM radio. And we offer the best radios with the features you want for your cars, homes, and all places in between. We’ve developed new radios — the Inno, Helix and NeXus — that take innovation to the next level in a totally legal way. Like TiVo, these devices give you the ability to enjoy the sports, talk and music programming whenever you want. And because they are portable, you can enjoy XM wherever you want. The music industry wants to stop your ability to choose when and where you can listen. Their lawyers have filed a meritless lawsuit to try and stop you from enjoying these radios. They don’t get it. These devices are clearly legal. Consumers have enjoyed the right to tape off the air for their personal use for decades, from reel-to-reel and the cassette to the VCR and TiVo. Our new radios complement download services, they don’t replace them. If you want a copy of a song to transfer to other players or burn onto CDs, we make it easy for you to buy them through XM + Napster. Satellite radio subscribers like you are law-abiding music consumers; a portion of your subscriber fee pays royalties directly to artists. Instead of going after pirates who don’t pay a cent, the record labels are attacking the radios used for the enjoyment of music by consumers like you. It’s misguided and wrong. We will vigorously defend these radios and your right to enjoy them in court and before Congress, and we expect to win. Thank you for your support. |
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Turning an about-face on its longtime strategy of attempting to drown radio listeners in a sea of aggressively bland, soulless, identical radio stations, Clear Channel has finally discovered the niche audiences that were there all along. As part of a new initiative to be announced next week, Clear Channel intends to lock horns with satellite radio, rolling out new niche channels with names like Dank (”Hip Hop and Rock all rolled up into one big spliff”), Full Metal Racket (”It’s dark, it’s edgy, it beats, and it rocks”), and Mother Trucker (”a hearty serving of the best Southern Rock”). Clear Channel will also be expanding its HD radio service to 50 cities, from its current base of 28. Can this old dog learn enough tricks to persuade people to shell out $200 for an HD radio receiver instead of signing on for satellite radio? Can the American public forgive Clear Channel for its numerous transgressions against music fans all across the country? Stay tuned to find out. |
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Don’t believe me? Well then believe me when I say that the NY Attorney General is suing Entercom Communications Corp. in a payola scandal, kiddies! That’s right, good old corporate radio has been paying off the clowns behind the boards of possible 105 stations run by Entercom with “gifts, trips, and cash.” Play some shitty songs and reap the rewards! In the meantime, send no-talent asshats up the charts, forever clogging innocent kids’ ears with all the hottest chart topping tunes! They think these are hits when they’re not supposed to be! What can we do as a nation? I don’t know! Someone tell Gerardo to start paying me off with gifts, trips, and cash for all these hot news breaking stories I crib from other sites and bring to you! I deserve it!!!! |
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Hoo-Hoo Stern is being sued by his former employer, CBS Radio. The giant conglomerate is saying Stern improperly used studio time to promote his move to Little Doggie Satellite Radio and therefore breached his contract. Hoo-Hoo had a little press conference on Tuesday trying to deflate the whole matter, but when you have $500 million, certainly paying CBS wouldn’t be too difficult, no? Oh, Hoo-Hoo. Spend that money wisely. |
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