It’s been eleven years since the last Lilith Fair toured the country, and it’s interesting to note who’s still making relevant music over a decade later: past performers Sheryl Crow, Tegan & Sara (they played one date of the last incarnation), Erykah Badu, The Indigo Girls and Lilith Fair founder Sarah McLachlan are all coming back for the return of the ladies-only music fest. (Paula Cole and Meredith Brooks, however, are still MIA.)
The newcomers include top names from across the spectrum: soul songstresses Mary J. Blige and Jill Scott (and pop-soul android Janelle Monae), country firecrackers Sugarland and Miranda Lambert and pop dolls such as Sarah Bareilles and the ever-so-quotable Ke$ha. (Who wants to be the one to tell her Jack Daniels isn’t a sponsor?) Check out the first group of artists on the lineup after the jump. More »
Last night’s 30 Rock season finale closed out with a grand parody of one of those celebrity-studded benefit songs, a la “We’re Sending Our Love Down This Well” and “What’s Going On ’01.” “Kidney Now!” saw Cyndi Lauper, Michael McDonald, Mary J. Blige, Elvis Costello, Norah Jones, and a slew of other well/sorta-well-known musicians warbling in honor of Jack Donaghy’s dad (played by Alan Alda)’s nephorotic needs. There’s even a splashy mini-site with a karaoke version of the track to go along with it–although Clay Aiken fans are probably going to get a bit riled up, given that its list of participating celebrities somehow managed to exclude their hero, perhaps because of his alleged relation to Kenneth the Page. (Take heart, Claymates: Mike D got left off the list as well, and he doesn’t even have your insane completely devoted fanbase!) Clip after the jump. More »
Ringo Starr has been added to the lineup of next month’s concert benefiting The David Lynch Foundation For Consciousness-Based Education And World Peace, which already had Paul McCartney and Eddie Vedder (and, sigh, Sheryl Crow) on its bill. The meteorologist-slash-director has a goal of teaching one million children to meditate; “In today’s world of fear and uncertainty, every child should have one class period a day to dive within himself and experience the field of silence-bliss-the enormous reservoir of energy and intelligence that is deep within all of us,” he says in a statement on the foundation’s Web site. (Which has me thinking about the boredom/bliss divide that the late David Foster Wallace wanted to probe with his final work of fiction, not to mention how excited I am to be staying in a hotel that doesn’t have TVs in its rooms next week.)
Ad Age reports that celebrities trying to earn some extra scratch from their name’s wattage might want to start looking somewhere that isn’t a fashion “partnership” with a retail outlet, what with the economy continuing its long, slow swoon and chains all over the country struggling to keep their lights on. Tough break, musicians who want to avenge those rejected FIT applications!
What were the 80 most important musical recordings, artists, trends, events, and performances of 2008? What were the eight things this year that broke our hearts—or, at least, our ears? We’re happy to announce 80 ’08 (and Heartbreak), Idolator’s year-end overview. The list is below the jump.
My drummer once said, “Two Les Pauls, locked tight through a Marshall stack, makes my dick hard.” For me, it’s a tight vocal harmony. And so, generally speaking, at least two or three tunes from any of Sheryl Crow’s six albums cannot miss.
My friends, the Idolator RSS reader is rough, rough going during the waning days of August. To give you a sampling of the “news” items I can write about right now:
From the looks of Google Trends, it would seem that people are much more interested in Sheryl Crow’s new jeans line, Bootheel Trading Co., than they are in her music (the term “sheryl crow jeans” is No. 2 on that chart right now; meanwhile, sales of her album Detours, which came out in February, just hit the 350,000-unit mark). Which makes sense for two reasons: one, people actually need clothes more than they need Crow’s sunblasted version of lite-rock; and two, the clothes are actually not all that bad, with relatively reasonable prices (tops range from $26-$48, while the jeans’ price points are between $62 and $64) and a “green” message (all the cotton used is fair trade). I would maybe consider buying the jeans at left if Crow’s name wasn’t visible–hey, I have some standards–although I have to warn you that the tops fall far outside the realm of what makes me happy:
Something tells me that Sheryl Crow was thrilled by the almost-five-hour duration of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, if only because each half-inning that passed without a team bringing a run home meant even more time between her mewling version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the game… More »
