Do you have your Grammy office pools all straight? And your face paint? And the big tub of guacamole for the nobody who’s coming to your Grammy party? And by “Grammy party” I mean “watch a few highlights on YouTube while picking pretzel crumbs from your lap”? Well, you’re ready to check out the second installment of Idolator’s Grammy Awards Awards: Laziest Nominee, which recognizes obscene laziness on the part of the artist (“Hey, I can just re-record this song!”) or the nominating committee (“Hey, Radiohead! I recognize their name!”)
Judging by the way our traffic cratered between 11:30 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. today, most of you probably saw the above clip of Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill, Gabriela Montero, and the super-cheerful Yo-Yo Ma performing at the inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama. The piece they performed, Star Wars composer John Williams’ “Air And Simple Gifts,” used as part of its foundation the melody to “Simple Gifts,” a 19th-century Shaker hymn that was used by American composer Aaron Copland in his 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring. As it turns out, Williams’ homage not only sounded pretty, it served to avenge some red-baiting that kept Copland off a pre-inaugural bill many years ago.
During last week’s discussion of Marmite artists–those artists that are so divisive, they force people to take sides, with no one left in the middle–Idolator commenter moomintroll wondered if we shouldn’t try and find more ways to classify popular bands through their analogues to various condiments. Since we figured the safe space in the fridge inhabited by your ketchups, your mustards, and your molding bottles of Hidden Valley Ranch was as good a way to make sense of the current musical landscape as any, we invited her to flesh out her theory for us. It’s after the jump!
Weezer debuted its video for the slightly catchy, too-long-by-halfish “Troublemaker” last night, and like the YouTube-happy clip for “Pork & Beans,” it too has a gimmick: It’s tried to cram as many attempts to break Guinness-sponsored world records into its three minutes and change. (Well, at least they’re going for a kind of recognition that’s a little less ephemeral.) Some of the “records” broken were sort of cheesy–like the literally dairy-enhanced The Biggest Weezer Logo Made of Nachos–while others were a bit dubious (World’s Smallest Drum Kit Played In A Video, a futile attempt that must have given Pat Wilson some crazy neckache). The full list of certified records after the jump.
Many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock. To help figure out which is which, here’s “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he looks at new singles from Rage Against The Machine’s frontman, a ’90s one-hit wonder, and Metallica:
The NME is awfully excited about the leaked Weezer track “Turnin’ Turnin’,” which appeared online without warning today. “The backdrop for the YouTube video shows the cover of the band’s recent self-titled album, known as The Red Album, suggesting that the new song may be recent!” Yup, and if they’d checked out Rivers Cuomo’s “Let’s Write A Sawng” Web experiment, they’d know that “Turnin’ Turnin'” is something he and his fan club have been working on for months. Almost as sad as the NME‘s lack of awareness is that the song, while lyrically thumbsucky (“You say I should go to school / hey man, back up, cuz you don’t look so cool!”), is a hell of a lot more enjoyable than much of The Red Album. (Remember “Heart Songs?”) Part of its appeal is that the opening arpeggios remind me of Rooney’s “I’m Shakin’,” a song from 2003 that I still can’t believe wasn’t written by Rivers and Co.
When Weezer’s YouTube-“inspired” video for “Pork & Beans” initially came out, it had one unintentionally hilarious aspect: Its official version wasn’t embeddable, a policy that was in keeping with the semi-walled garden YouTube policies of the band’s major-label overlords, Universal Music Group, but seemed odd given that the whole point of the video was for it to become a meme and garner lulz from people who still think Tay Zonday is worth a chuckle. Shortly after this bit of cognitive dissonance was pointed out, Universal took the embed blocks off the clip, “Pork & Beans” hit it big on Digg, and all was well–until Weezer’s latest self-titled album got a sales beatdown from Disturbed on the album charts. (Aww.) Fast-forward to last night, when the Silicon Alley Insider noted that the clip’s no longer embeddable! What gives, man? I thought Weezer was for the geek-children!
HITS Daily Double’s chart predictions for the coming week are slightly good news for the music industry, with five albums selling in the six-digit range, and bad news for humanity, what with Disturbed taking the top spot with around a quarter of a million copies sold of their latest album,… More »
If alt-rock ever gave us a summer album, it was Weezer’s 1994 debut. And if Weezer has ever recorded a song since that captures the sound of that classic, it’s “Pork And Beans.” More »
Our quest to find the quintessential summer jam of 2008 continues with some lighter-than-air R & B and the latest comeback single by a band every Idolator reader seems to have an opinion on. (Tomorrow, we’ll have our final two first-round polls, and then round two–which will include excitement and arguing!–begins next week.) After the jump, the poll, the clips, and the arguments.
