Idolator: satellite party

A Reminder: You Only Have A Few Days Left To Vote In The Final Round Of The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament

jharv — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:30:13 EST

The battle royale between Ted Nugent and Satellite Party ends Monday at noon ET. That's a little less than three days from now, and if you've waited months to help decide the "winner" of our tournament, now's the time when every vote counts. Plus don't forget that you can also still decide who takes home third place, Megadeth or Helalyn Flowers. Voting for the bronze medal winner will also close Monday at noon.

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament: The Final Round
Who Will Place Third In Our Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament: The Final Round

mjohnston — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:00:10 EST

And now, the poll that has been weeks in the making: Idolator's Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament final. And what a showdown it is! Ted Nugent vs. Perry Farrell. Crappy script fonts vs. crappy script fonts. An ominous-looking shadow vs. blatant abuse of drop shadow. Women-as-meat misogyny vs. some weird concept of a party in space that I don't have the time to lay out in detail right now, but that does have Nuno Bettencourt on its guest list. An oddly placed guitar vs. an oddly placed wife. Which is truly the worst, though? That's up to you to decide. Voting is after the jump; polls will stay open until noon ET on Monday, after which we'll send a Spirograph to the "winning" label's art department.

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament: The Polls Are Still Open, Even If You Want To Close Your Eyes

mjohnston — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 10:00:00 EST

Our Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament is counting down to its inevitable close, but those of you who actually had off on Monday may have missed your chance to vote in our semifinals. The last four covers standing are above—ain't that tableau a beaut?—and we'll be holding their respective polls open until 11:59 p.m. ET, so get voting! Only you can help create a world in which Dave Mustaine and Perry Farrell—or the chick on the Love Grenade cover and Helalyn Flowers' metal-hungry duo—fight for the title of 2007's biggest aesthetic horror show.

Semifinal 1: Ted Nugent vs. Megadeth: Vote here.
Semifinal 2: Satellite Party vs. Helalyn Flowers: Vote here.

Semifinal bracket [PDF]

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament Brings A (Semifinal) Tear To Our Eyes

jharv — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 13:00:56 EST

You know, last week I really thought dark horse Helalyn Flowers might actually go all the way in our tournament, but then I woke up this morning and saw who they were up against in the semifinal round. There's no way this Satellite is gonna crash now. Perry F. and crew will go on to tussle with the Nuge in the final round for the real bloodletting. Still, I'm actually a little sniffly over Helalyn's (presumed) loss, but maybe you will prove my pessimism wrong by voting for the scrappy goth duo that no one expected would come so far.

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament Is Under Attack By The Photoshopped Purple People Eaters

jharv — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:00:11 EST

The final battle in our Bad Photoshop bracket is dominated by a certain color, but which pukey purple powerhouse will go on to be crowned the winner? Personally, my bet's on Perry Farrell payload of pure puce poo-poo, one of the few covers in our tournament that can make the vile violet of Blake Lewis' Audio Daydream look pleasing to the eye.

Avert Your Eyes: It's The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament's Elite 8

mjohnston — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:45:11 EST

Above, your quarterfinalists in our Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament. Themes that I am noticing are common: Inappropriate chewing; the color purple; clouds and stars (but no green clovers); more bad fonts than you can shake a copy of The Print Shop at. Also of note: only one of the cover subjects is smiling, although it is Toby Keith, so you know that he's just doing it to be an ass.

Here's how the final three rounds are going to work: Today and tomorrow, we'll have the bracket faceoffs. Christmas Eve will kick off the semifinal round—because what's more suited to the holidays than looking at some aesthetic travesties?—and voting for that round will close at 11:59 p.m. next Wednesday, Dec. 26. Then the finals will begin next Thursday at 10 a.m., with voting closing—and a winner being declared—sometime around noon on New Year's Eve. (Jess and I have a half day and I'm certainly not going to spend my first minutes of 2008 mucking around with our poll software.) Anyone have thoughts on a prize that we can send to the No. 1 offender's art department? Perhaps a Spirograph?

Earlier: The tournament so far

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament Advises You To Put On Some Sunglasses

mjohnston — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:00:51 EST

We turn now to the "Bad Photoshop" bracket of the Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament, which should probably be temporarily named the "My Eyes" bracket in honor of the aesthetic travesties facing off in this installment of the contest. Yiiii! In one corner, we have Satellite Party's Ultra Payloaded, which shows that Perry Farrell's facility for titling albums is almost as bad as his ability to not abuse the drop shadow. And in the other, we have Britney Spears, who continues her quest to be the queen of Google News with the blink-and-you'll-be-blinded cover of Blackout. Which deserves to make it on to the next round? Vote after the jump!

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament 2007

The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament: Welcome To A Very Expensive, Very Purple Bash

mjohnston — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:00:17 EST

It's a new day, so let's put politics aside and move on to the "Bad Photoshop" bracket in Idolator's inaugural Worst Album Cover Of The Year tournament. In one corner, we have the No. 8 seed, Jennifer Lopez's $60,000 ode to the power of sparkles. And in opposition, we have Perry Farrell's Satellite Party, which shows that Mr. Farrell's computer-art skillz are almost as good as his taste in guests. Whichever one wins, we know one thing: Staring at the above one-two punch means that our field of vision is going to be tinted purple for at least the next six hours or so!

50 Cent's Latest Collaborators Not Really Helping Elevate His Status

mjohnston — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:32:16 EDT

Oh, 50. We know you want to get a lot of exposure before Curtis' Sept. 11 release date, and we're sure that the idea of doing a song for ESPN's Saturday night college-football telecasts seemed like a good way to pump up your "brand awareness" among the jock-jam crowd. But with things being so precarious for you these days, maybe you should be a little bit more careful about who you're working with next time, because both Kelly Rowland—whose long-delayed Ms. Kelly, while passable, is sliding down the charts and Satellite Party aren't exactly beacons of success this year, you know? What the heck inspired this—an extra-classy Photoshop from Perry?

50 Cent, Kelly Rowland And — Huh? — Perry Farrell Team Up For ESPN Theme [MTV]

We hear that former Extreme guitarist Nuno ...

mjohnston — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:17:33 EDT

We hear that former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt has left Satellite Party, Perry Farrell's WTF-list project that went straight from the flash mobosphere to the cutout bins. Related: Today's news flow has had a rather strong resemblance to my still-in-my-closet collection of videotapes containing old Dial MTV and Headbanger's Ball episodes. (Anyone know if LA Guns did anything newsworthy in the past 24 hours? Because that would really cap the day.)

We're Not The Only Ones Recycling Satellite Party

Brian Raftery — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:34:15 EDT

Don't ask why, but we haven't been able to shake the first-week sales tally of Satellite Party's recently dumped Ultra Payloaded: 8,000 copies. Really! 8,000! Zamfir Goes To Zanzibar sold more than that.

And now that we're two weeks away from Perry and friends' auspicious debut, we can't help but ask: How many people have already sold their copies back?

So we looked at how Ultra was doing at the online ships. This is all anecdotal evidence, of course: Many of these were no doubt unwanted promo copies, or copies that fell off a truck (a terrible, terrible truck). But it's still a good look at how the album is doing so shortly after its release:

Amazon Marketplace: 52 copies
Half.com: 24 copies
Secondspin.com: No copies
Spun.com: No copies

Okay, so that's 76 copies (again, all anecdotal). But when you factor in all the brick-and-mortar stores in the country—especially Amoeba—there have got to be at least 200 or so used copies of this album floating around out there. Could this be the last straight-to-the-bins release of the physical-disc era? Or should we wait until the special deluxe edition of The Spaghetti Incident??

Perry Farrell Will Not Be Guesting On "Rock Star" Anytime Soon

mjohnston — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:00:05 EDT

Those of you who have heard Satellite Party, the new flashmobbed-up project from Perry Farrell, have probably been wondering one thing: "Why did Jane's Addiction break up?" (Okay, that probably comes to mind after "Huh??," but still.) Well, Farrell places the blame squarely on the menace of reality television:

Farrell told Launch that the idea came to him after JANE'S ADDICTION began falling apart while guitarist Dave Navarro started hosting the "Rock Star" reality series. "My band broke up basically over reality TV, and I just couldn't believe it," he said. "So I thought, like, rock and roll has never been about kissing ass and a contest. You know, rock and roll is self-expression. It's defiance. It's freedom. So I started to write about a group of people, they call themselves the Solutionists, that take matters into their own hands in this do-it-yourself world where basically the media has given up on the future."

Honestly, we're still confused over why Navarro's involvement in 'Til Death Do Us Part didn't serve as a dealbreaker for Farrell. After all, wasn't the Dave-Carmen reality series just a take on The Gift that had an actual narrative structure? Or is Perry more offended by the possibility of being associated with post-Hutchence INXS than he is by being ripped off wholesale?

PERRY FARRELL Says DAVE NAVARRO's 'Rock Star' TV Show Caused JANE'S ADDICTION Split [Blabbermouth]

The Last Word: Wait, So This Satellite Party Nonsense Is Actually Happening?

Brian Raftery — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:35:19 EDT

Every week, we round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. Today's entry is the Satellite Party's Ultra Payloaded, which makes contact with spaceship Earth today:

- "[Perry Farrell]'s still trying to loosen people up — 'Whatever's in your closet, set it free,' he urges in 'Kinky' — but there's nothing dark or scary about it, just the old countercultural creed that fun is revolutionary. Mr. Farrell has become the happy hippie that Jim Morrison never was." [NYT]
- "Despite the pretense (and his happily spacey lyrics), this is Farrell's mightiest work since [Porno for Pyros'] Good God's Urge. It throbs ('Hard Life Easy'), coughs ('Awesome') and slithers ('Kinky') gracefully with Bettencourt's razor-like leads playing Ronson to Farrell's Bowie (ca. Ziggy days)—only dirtier and slightly funkier." [Harp]
- "At least Farrell got the chance to chart new territory on the album. He sings a few windy ballads in a more conventional voice than usual. But, like everything here, it's a world best left unexplored." [NY Daily News]
- "In the end, it's all interesting." [Billboard]

Perry Farrell Throws A Satellite Party In A Bio-Dome

mjohnston — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:35:02 EDT

We had to post about the first video from Satellite Party, the Perry Farrell project in which the former Jane's Addiction frontman flaunts his ability to entice a motley crew of guests, if only because of the split-second shot around 30 seconds in, where guitarist Nuno Bettencourt looks like he's on the verge of turning into Glenn Danzig (perhaps in the follow-up clip, he'll sprout a pair of "Her Black Wings"). Is this the dark side of going green coming to light?

Satellite Party "Wish Upon A Dogstar" [YouTube]
PERRY FARRELL's SATELLITE PARTY Goes Green [Blabbermouth]

Perry Farrell Can't Contain His "Hollywood Homicide" Fandom

Brian Raftery — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:17:53 EST

As part of his non-stop campaign to get every single celebrity in the world to join his new band, Satellite Party founder Perry Farrell holds a press conference with actor (and apparent pledge-drive volunteer) Josh Hartnett. Next week, Perry goes after Tea Leoni, John Amos, and OMC.

[Photo: Wenn Photo Libray]