This week’s top 12, from Tuesday’s Obamarama to the prospect of Lil Wayne throwing a turkey to the idea that maybe music writing can be saved through the power of Britney Spears’ philanthropy, after the jump.
So, the “Joaquin Phoenix rap career” experiment/celebrity press fake-out has now reached the point where the “actor to rapper following a dream” has his own MySpace page, complete with streaming jams and a concert listing for a solstice party on March 21*. There are three songs: “Pacific Dream” collects all the words that rhyme with “mediate,” yet were left out of INXS’ coda to “Need You Tonight,” over a grimy guitar-and-chimes sample; “Palisade Nights” has a similarly dark feel, with lyrics that sound like they were culled from spam and news-alert subject lines (there’s also a reference to “frozen menstruation” in there); and “Everyday” has Phoenix’s flow getting kind of rapidfire over a LeStereo-produced, K Records-inspired musical bed. Phoenix also took some time out to type up a quickie blog post (“Current mood: fermented”) regarding his fall from a Las Vegas stage last weekend:
When reading about Joaquin Phoenix’s defection from the acting world into the hip-hop realm, I often wonder to myself, “Is this all part of some elaborate joke, in which Mr. Phoenix decides to turn the tables on the press, the public, and the very notion of ‘celebrity’? And if so, is the Casey Affleck-directed documentary that’s apparently capturing all his performances for posterity going to be some sort of ‘fame and its ills’ companion piece to To Die For?” The above clip, of Phoenix falling off a teeny tiny stage while performing in Las Vegas over the weekend, may in fact be an attempt to make Affleck’s mockumentary go viral, or it just may be a PSA against the dangers of too-small stages at venues that seem like everything wrong with this decade. Whatever its intent, the viewing experience wouldn’t be complete without also getting a glimpse at Phoenix’s attempt at rapping, which I’ve placed after the cut.
In a rather awkward exchange with E! Online, Joaquin Phoenix announced his decision to pack up his acting and head back to his new first true love, music. You know, the music that he’s loved to play ever since he learned how to strum the guitar for Walk the Line three years ago. It’s a hallowed path that young Phoenix takes, one blazed by the likes of Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp, and Keanu Reeves, not to mention his siblings River and Rain. And as you remember, all of them were beloved by millions for their music. Welcome to the biz, Joaquin Phoenix! It’s a great time to climb aboard this ship!
