The rock singer had a long struggle with addiction. More »
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.
Perhaps realizing that breaking new artists in the music-stuffed, nostalgia-mired world of now was impossible, many a band that made their mark on the world back in the 1990s got back on their collective horses and rode the wave of “remember when?” this year, from Stone Temple Pilots to My Bloody Valentine to Ben Folds Five to even Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. As you might expect, results were mixed overall, although they were probably better than those that would be realized by any new endeavors by the parties involved.
If only as many people cared about Velvet Revolver’s music as they did about the machinations behind the sorta-supergroup, which sort of imploded back in April when Scott Weiland was pushed out of the band by former Guns N’ Roses members Slash, Duff, and Matt Sorum/jumped to cash in on a Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour. In the ensuing months, while Weiland was falling into drum risers and making porny videos, pretty much every male hard-rock singer between the ages of 31 and 49 was rumored to have been a favorite for the vocalist gig. A look back on the top contenders after the jump.
It’s been a while since we heard of any disasters on the Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour, but last week’s concert in Phoenix brought Scott Weiland and his bandmates back on the trainwreck path. It got off to an unfortunate start, as you can see from the above video, with Weiland mumbling an introduction to “Big Empty” before being propelled backwards and into the drum kit of Eric Kretz, no doubt because of the power of his inebriated yarl. (The fall comes at around the 1:23 mark, although the intro really helps contextualize things.) And the mishap must have jumbled things up in his brain even more, because he then went on to forget and alter the lyrics to the track. A description from an Arizona Republic writer who saw the whole thing go down in non-pixellated form follows:
The Los Angeles Times‘ Chris Lee has provided a little bit of gross context for his Stone Temple Pilots profile on the paper’s blog. At the same time Weiland was giving the writer quotes like “I live my life the way I live my life. I don’t have to make any apologies,” he was also launching “huge green” loogies at the wall behind the DeLeo brothers, who did not seem ruffled by the sudden appearance of expectorate. While I admire Weiland’s indignation (“hey, how does it feel to be going to jail for six hours?” is indeed a douche move), Lou Reed knows that while loogies may not be forgotten by those who witness their deployment, retorts along the lines of “What are you, a fucking asshole?” read better in print.
Oh, those canny DeLeo brothers. When Atlantic released them from Stone Temple Pilots’ recording contract, the label probably thought they were just getting out of having to promote whatever Talk Show/Army Of Anyone crap these guys were going to come up with next. A Stone Temple Pilots reunion? How likely was that? Weiland would either stick with a good (for him) thing like Velvet Revolver, or die. But now that the unthinkable (or at least un-particularly thought about) reunion has occurred, the remaining members on the contract (Weiland and Eric Kretz) are claiming the old deal’s invalid. (and I’m guessing the reason is more “LiveNation” than “Radiohead.”) Not only does Atlantic want the court to state that Stone Temple Pilots still has one to three records left to make for the label, they want the band to pay their label fees. But when the bands sees the fans yelling “do ‘Plush!'” it’s all worth it.
