Mötley Crüe’s clothing-optional drummer Tommy Lee is sitting out a few shows in the coming days because he burned his hand last week… while playing with a set of sparklers. (Perhaps he was celebrating the Fourteenth Of August?) Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx addressed his bandmate’s injury in a blog post that recalled the best bits of the band’s classic tell-all The Dirt, and announced that a dude from Sevendust would be filling in for Lee for the coming shows: More »
Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry is being reissued, the latest example of getting every piece of pop music every made back out there before the recorded-music industry goes tits-up, and the press release about the new version touts the fact that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was a member of the Filthy Fifteen. That was a list of songs put together in 1985 by the Parents’ Music Resource Council, the group of moms who were pretty much the driving force behind the now-ubiquitous “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” stickers on albums deemed too hot for young ears; they put together a playlist of songs that in their mind glorified sex, drugs, and violence in such a way that one had to conclude that The Pop Music Was Killing Our Kids. Given that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” seems positively benign right now, I decided to remind myself of the list’s other contents. The artists whose songs were cited fall into two categories for the most part: Heavy metal bands and people who worked with Prince, including the man himself. All 15–complete with some filthy-in-85, safe-for-work now clips–after the jump! More »
Amazon has entered the world of charging $1.29 for certain songs, following the lead taken by iTunes yesterday and rendering somewhat irrelevant the snarky remarks of Diggsters. By and large, iTunes’ pricing scheme has resulted in popular songs having their prices jacked up; in contrast, if there’s some logic to which songs saw a hike on Amazon, I’m certainly not seeing it.
Remember that Iggy Pop biopic starring Elijah Wood? That Marvin Gaye biopic starring the guy from Law & Order? Kirsten Dunst playing Debbie Harry? Zooey Deschanel (or was it Melissa Etheridge) as Janis Joplin? Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix? Lenny Kravitz as Hendrix? What about Laurence Fishburne as Hendrix? You probably remember none of those movies, because after tons of buzz, they all faded away into the veritable Bermuda Triangle that is music-biopic development. Why do so few music biopics actually make it through development, when they usually go onto success and acclaim, whether they’re put out by Hollywood (Ray, Walk The Line) or indies (24 Hour Party People)? Variety lays it out.
Weezy had his week and those Brits in the funny military thrift outfits had their chance, but next week’s chart will be the true test of what style reigns supreme: slightly insane rapping or newly avant-garde sensitive balladry. More »
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 “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he takes a look at a couple of old reliables who have re-entered the rock charts.
From time to time, we round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. This time around, we look at the writeups for Mötley Crüe’s ninth album, Saints Of Los Angeles, which hits stores today.
“”MTV has become bogged down in its own way. It’s a channel that used to be hip and has now actually become unhip. We signed with them because we believed they were right, but they haven’t come to the table. We need to find the right partner. They are not the right partner.” More »
iTunes and Amazon haven’t been great to the new Motley Crue single, but the gamers who Crue fans would have previously beat up after school are keeping the band alive. More »
