According to early reports, Nas has managed to pull off the seemingly impossible task of keeping Lil Wayne and Coldplay from the top spot on the Billboard albums chart. More »
All the positive mind powers that come with being “clear” couldn’t push Beck to a No. 1 debut on next week’s album charts. More »
A front-line act with a months-old album decides to push his most obvious hit-bound song to radio–a song heavily reliant on a prominent sample of a deathless pop hit. But, bucking the day’s prevalent trend, he decides not to release the song on the most popular singles medium, forcing most customers to buy his album.
It’s a risky move, because the Billboard Hot 100 is dominated by songs that scale the chart by amassing sales as well as airplay. But the song is so mindlessly catchy, the act’s people figure it’ll be a big chart hit anyway with radio alone.
I could be talking about M.C. Hammer’s 1990 smash “U Can’t Touch This,” the “Superfreak”-sampling hit that made the Top 10, even as Capitol refused to issue it as a cassingle.
But I could also be talking about Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long,” a mashup of Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” and Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” that debuts on the Hot 100 this week at No. 80 despite his lack of interest in releasing it digitally.
Can the erstwhile Robert Richie pull off in 2008 what one Stanley Kirk Burrell pulled 18 years ago?
Michael Jackson is collaborating with New Kids On The Block? Are they for real? Assuming he doesn’t still think Donnie et al are still in their teens, the only reason he’d team up with a group he wouldn’t have been caught dead with 20 years ago is that he really misses 20 years ago. And it seems he’s not alone. We’ve got Sonic Youth filling most to all of their sets with Daydream Nation, Public Enemy taking a nation of millions back in time, Dinosaur Jr. reunited, R.E.M. showing off a drummer, My Bloody Valentine acting like ain’t a damn thing changed, Lloyd and Lil’ Wayne sampling “Ashley’s Roachclip,” and Pretty Ricky rocking giant shoulderpads. While it’s no news that nostalgia can run in twenty-year loops, it’s possible that no one who pushed product back in the day, and is still trying to do so now, wouldn’t mind hearing it was 1989 again. Are any artists actually in a better state now than they were then? I could think of very, very few.
Kid Rock must know better than anyone that “All Summer Long” would cross over bigtime if he’d just bounce across our TV singing it while earbud-accessorized silhouettes dance around him, but in the name of Fats Domino he must refuse. “Back in the day, we all know the stories of the Otis Reddings and Chuck Berrys and Fats Dominos who never got paid…I will be on iTunes eventually because I can’t avoid it, but I like to always stick to my guns and prove a point and do something original and because I believe in it.” This might help explain why the song has yet to hit the Hot 100, and has only scraped a few peripheral charts. At least he’s OK with you stealing the fucker so you can sing along at shows–this way, he doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of a weak royalty rate.
I’ve bitched about this song and will continue to bitch, but I have to grudgingly admire anything that takes the License To Ill obvious sample pile-up aesthetic and updates it for deadbeat dads with beer guts. More »
Our quest for the No. 1 song of summer 2008 continues today with a face-off between two songs that seem to have been expressly designed for maximum June-September listening, Kid Rock’s Warren Zevon homage “All Summer Long” and Tyga’s Harry Nilsson-inspired “Coconut Juice.” The clips, the defenses, and the all-important poll after the jump.
America, please resist. It’s going to be tough, but I need to ask you to say no to a song that mixes “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Werewolves Of London” and “Night Moves” into a new “Summer Of ’69.” More »
Since many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock, welcome to “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of Billboard‘s rock charts. This time around he looks at the return of nu-metal in the guises of Disturbed and oddly rap-free rap-metal.
Well, as usual all the scintillating SXSW coverage has obscured one of the week’s more important stories: Kid Rock has made his peace with the folks of Waffle House, almost six months after he was arrested at one of the breakfast chain’s Georgia locations for getting into a “physical altercation” with another customer. And at this news, the people they did come from far and wide, and not just for the Grilled Bacon Texas Cheesesteak Plate.
Contacted by the chain with an eye on mending corporate/mook-rock fences, the initial plan was to have Kid slinging hash to hungry Georgians himself this week, but a scheduling conflict (and/or laziness) forced him to simply scribble autographs with proceeds going to charity. And autograph hounds, fans, and the mildly horny curious descended on the House, the mom-daughter teams and the families with children setting up camp at 3:00 a.m. (and somehow not having Children’s Services called on them), some from as far away as West Virginia. Kid brushed off the initial incident “silly,” but noted that if he got in another dust up at a popular chain eatery and was then guilted into signing autographs for locals as a PR move, he would try to make it a Hooters. For the fans.
