“We just did the two nights at Shea last year,”… More »
There are two reasons that I’m glad I kept putting off my treatise on the very unfortunate Bob Dylan vs. will.i.am smackdown in honor of Pepsi: First, MTV News’ James Montgomery pretty much summed up my thoughts on the overall “the present is kinda crappy, let’s just OD on sugar” feel of the ad; and second, I found out that the Coca-Cola-sponsored collaboration between Cee-Lo, Patrick Stump, Janelle Monae, Brendon Urie, Travis McCoy, and Butch Walker had debuted online today. Guess which one is about 50 million times more pleasurable to these ears? I’ll give you a hint: It’s the one without Shrek in its attached video. Embeds of both tracks after the jump.
It probably shouldn’t be too surprising that Billy Joel took some time out of a recent show to pay tribute to AC/DC—after all, the two artists have been sharing playlist space on the Long Island rock-radio bastion WBAB for some time—but, well, I was shocked by the headline “Billy Joel covers AC/DC” when I scrolled past it earlier this afternoon. After the jump, video of this semi-momentous event. (I should note here that Joel’s roadie took the vocal duties while he played rhythm guitar, and according to Blabbermouth this is actually the second time this happened in his long live-music career—the first time, in 2002, the Piano Man was joined by Brian Johnson and Cliff Williams.) Is this cover the result of some synergistic impulses between members of the Sony Music family, or is this little air-kiss to hard rock an oblique sign that a reissue of the Attila album is coming soon?
When 2008 started, I was sure it was going to be awesome. “It’s going to be two-thousand-great,” I told anyone who would listen, ignoring the various signs (MTV ringing in the New Year with Tila Tequila, hints of economic collapse, etc.) that things wouldn’t exactly go as planned. Or even be much good at all. But at least there was music to help the seemingly endless parade of bad news plod along a bit more jauntily, right?
THE GOOD: Getting back into R & B full-throttle thanks to Ne-Yo, Erykah Badu, Estelle, and Solange; Ida Maria’s twitchy “Oh My God,” which I am going to try and have every person I know hear at least once over the course of the coming months; Prince and Jarvis Cocker owning gigantic open spaces; Ne-Yo turning girls into goo.
THE BAD: You don’t want to hear about the bad aspects of my 2008. (And honestly, typing a blow-by-blow out would just depress me all over again.) So instead I’ll note that I often hate making lists because even though they’re supposed to be overviews, they’re inevitably of the specific moment at which the list was made, which means that completely worthy entrants will get slighted, or pushed out by space limitations, etc. Here’s a “sorry” to Black Mountain’s In The Future, the Air Miami demos that were reissued by Teen Beat, Panic At The Disco’s Pretty. Odd., Deastro’s “The Shaded Forests,” The Academy Is…’s Fast Times At Barrington High, Jazmine Sullivan’s “Bust Your Windows,” and the Robin Thicke record that was mysteriously forgotten about by everyone.
THE WHAAAA? Before August, if you had said that I would have put Billy Joel on any list that didn’t count down the reasons my ninth-grade social studies class was completely absurd (hi there, three-day lesson on “We Didn’t Start The Fire”), I would have laughed so, so hard. And yet, his show at Shea Stadium was totally solid, not only because of his undeniable showmanship but for the ways it stoked my nostalgia about growing up on Long Island.
Ah, but how should Mr. Joel have responded? Business consultants have a few suggestions for how to deal with online criticism. These are for businesses rather than celebrities, but they might apply here. For example: “engage by responding in the same context with some constructive advice or acknowledgment of the issue.” And don’t let them get to you. “Rule #1: DON’T start a flame war. You can’t win. In the end, you must take a high road, even if it hurts a little. If a customer is upset with you—LISTEN and show empathy. How you would like to appear to others reading the posts?” To put it more simply: Be Kanye–or, rather, be the Kanye who, yesterday, responded to criticism of his comment that he doesn’t listen to rap at home.
Last week, the lit blogger Ed Champion posted an ostensibly innocent request for a song ID. When it turned out to be Billy Joel’s “A Matter of Trust,” Champion promised to “track down Mr. Joel and get him to answer for this atrocity.” Well, apparently he was successful, because Joel (or someone claiming to be him) responded succinctly: “Here’s my ‘ouvre’ – Fuck You. Sincerely, Billy Joel.” Champion replied with another mocking post (“Yes, it can’t be easy to take some constructive criticism when you’re sitting on millions of dollars. And it can’t be easy when you’re a major pop star now relying on AutoTune to sing the national anthem on live television.”) and the exchange then continued, getting into issues of pitchiness, performance, and past Joel hits:
In news that will send many an ex-drama club member’s heart a-flutter, Elton John announced on The View this morning that his world tour with fellow ivory-tinkler Billy Joel, which begins in March, will last for “at least” two years. Think of it as a recession special: “It’s two people for the price of one,” Sir Elton told ABC’s class in chattering. “Our ticket prices are the same as you’d see anyone else, but there’s two of us. In this day and age, we hope to be getting people value for their money.” Now that is a message that anyone can get behind! After the jump, a few Joel/John collaborations from years past. (Hey, I got over denying my roots this summer, you know?)
Yes, the one show that a good chunk of the… More »
It’s 7 a.m. here in Los Angeles, the news wires have been shocked into silence by the news that Britney Spears will try to become famous for something besides driving around this city, and I just hit Apple-Q when I meant to hit Apple-W, thus losing a (kind of long!) post that I, like an idiot, did not save neither early no often. What better time to post Randy Newman’s semi-sardonic love letter to the City of Angels, “I Love L.A.”–which I always get in my head when I visit this town, against my will–and ask you to talk about your favorite songs that double as snapshots of the world’s burgs, large and small?
Far be it for me to call anyone lazy (I have a couple of editors who’d like to introduce me to the concept of a met deadline), but while it’s certainly excellent that the Library of Congress is honoring Stevie Wonder with its second Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, please note that the first winner, from last year, was Paul Simon. Perhaps it’s a coincidence that Simon, in accepting his Album of the Year Grammy Award in 1976, for Still Crazy After All These Years, thanked Stevie Wonder for “not making a record this year,” but both men dominated the Grammys during the ’70s. Simon nabbed AOTY twice, in 1971 (for Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water) and ’76, as well as being nominated in 1974 for There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. And of course Stevie won three times: 1974 (Innervisions), 1975 (Fulfillingness’ First Finale), and 1977 (Songs in the Key of Life). What, then, might this mean in terms of future Gershwin Prizes? Let’s take a look.
