He’s tried John Cougar Mellencamp. He’s tried Chuck Berry. He’s even tried ABBA (sez McCain: “”Nobody likes them, but they sold more records than anybody in the history of the world, including The Beatles. But everybody hates them. You’re a no-class guy if you like ABBA. Why does everybody go see ‘Mamma Mia?’ Hypocrisy! Rank hypocrisy! I’m not embarassed to say I like ABBA, ‘Dancing Queen.'”) But nobody seems to want John McCain using their music as his campaign theme. What, doesn’t one of those Hillary Clinton fans who swear they’d rather vote Republican than for Obama own a worthwhile copyright?
I slogged through the first half of last night’s main-stage-closing set by Roger Waters–which was billed as “Roger Waters Dark Side Of The Moon“–partially out of masochism, partially in the interest of sociological research, and partially because I didn’t feel like dragging my ass over to the stuffed-to-capacity-all-weekend dance tent to see Modeselektor, who were the only other act playing for the first portion of Waters’ set. While it was interesting in a “so this is who he lured out to the desert” sort of way, it was also infuriating, and at one point a friend said to me, “I can hear your eyes rolling back from here.” But no portion of the evening filled me with more rage than the pre-show, which had as its visual an old-timey radio, a model airplane, and a tumbler of whiskey; every so often, a hand would reach into frame to change the station and/or refill the glass, and the stations that the hand hit on, for the most part, had a playlist that lulled the classic-rock fans in attendance into a state of self-righteousness: Bob Dylan, “Hound Dog,” and “My Funny Valentine.” There was also a “humorous” bit when the radio somehow was all-ABBA, all the time, and hand man couldn’t escape from the tyranny of radio! ABBA! I mean, could you believe the nerve!
Authorities were called in after the body of Ola Brunkert, drummer for pop giants Abba, was discovered in his Spanish garden over the weekend, but rather than uncovering foul play, they learned that Brunckert had merely “hit his head against a glass door in his dining room, shattering the glass and… More »
The Village People are the latest artists to team up with the Web Sheriff, the exceedingly polite antipiracy company that roams the plains of the Internet, looking for people who are violating copyrights. And it’s not for reasons related to sheriff-themed costumes! Instead, the suited-up disco group is planning on joining Prince’s lawsuit against the overly self-impressed Swedish BitTerrorist haven The Pirate Bay. More »
That’s not to say that this video of the six musicians sitting around a circle, hanging out, and forgetting the words to Beach Boys songs–while Olivia is on snare drum!–isn’t completely charming; it is, particularly the little filigrees of keyboard that punctuate the between-song conversations. More »
You know, if we had gotten that Swedish-pop bureau we asked for months ago, we wouldn’t have missed this story from yesterday: STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Swedish tax officials want former ABBA star Bjorn Ulvaeus to pay $2.1 million for undeclared royalties from the supergroup’s… More »
Time to another installment of the Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files, in which we acknowledge the near-hits that never relegated to the remainder bin of history: Artist: AbbaSong: “Watch Out,” 1974What happened: Shortly before they began their still-ongoing campaign of world… More »
