The Valentine’s Day episode of Saturday Night Live was a somewhat painful affair, with the normally reliable Alec Baldwin locking his gaze with the teleprompter a lot, perhaps because he wanted to get awful skits like the “Wii makes you look like you’re jerking off” one* over as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, musical guests the Jonas Brothers suffered through the painful sound system during the sorta Andrew WK-ish “Tonight” and the jaunty “Video Girl,” and were apparently compensated by being allowed to appear in a few skits. Andy Samberg‘s reimagining of the three Jonases as poofy-haired glam rockers called Property For The Queen was a treat, though, perhaps because the songs in the short had the advantage of being professionally mixed before they were broadcast. Clips after the jump.
Yesterday’s Observer had a piece on the musical tastemaking enterprise within the UK TV show Skins, which chronicles the debauchery-filled lives of nihilistic kids who represent “Broken Britain.” The good thing for the music business: They’re partying to the likes of Crystal Castles as they spiral ever downward! Which may mean record sales, or at least that elusive currency known as “awareness.” Sure, the whole thesis of the article can be summed up by one statement about five-sixths of the way down—”In the UK, we’re coming round to the notion that instead of another doomed attempt to make music TV popular, a more profitable use of time would be trying to fit music to TV that already is popular”—but there were some other choice lessons along the way.
The producers of American Idol hastily booted major-label refugee Joanna Pacitti from its semifinalist pool early yesterday morning, after the final Hollywood Week episode, complete with Pacitti celebrating her victory, had aired on Fox affiliates around the country. Why did the show’s higher-ups wait so long to give Pacitti the hook, given that many of the people making those decisions were, presumably, the same 19 Entertainment employees with whom she enjoyed close relationships? Ryan Seacrest has a theory! Although it’s sort of faulty.
Well, after the early-morning scandal involving Joanna Pacitti sliding out of the competition because of “impropriety,” recapping last night’s episode of American Idol seems a little bit anticlimactic. So all I will say about the “judges’ mansion” episode is that I can’t believe Tatiana and Von Smith are still around. Also, the whole blue-collar sing-off between Matt Breitzke and Michael Sarwer at the end of the show was kind of gross, and it underscored the producers’ myopia that led them to thinking yet another major-label refugee could credibly make it through the Idol process—namely, that it’s so shocking that people with actual jobs, instead of failed attempts to make it in the business, actually have good voices, that we have to pair them up in a convoluted attempt to get to the heart of America. A list of the top 36, with a few initial impressions of the more memorable ones, after the jump.
Last night’s American Idol was the third in the suite of Hollywood Week episodes, and it was filled with rapidfire montages of the remaining contestants singing new standards like “Bubbly,” “Since I Ain’t Got You,” and, “Tattoo.” (Really? “Tattoo”?) At the end of the episode there were 54 contestants left, and that pool will apparently be winnowed down to 36 on tomorrow night’s show. People who made it through: the oil rigger, the major-label refugee, the guy with a split personality, and the guy with the really big mouth. More music, less chatter, after the jump!
What with him being one of the few sports bloggers out there to also have a Grammy, Lil Wayne was invited to appear on the ESPN yakfest Around The Horn yesterday. Of course, the thing about Lil Wayne being on ATH is that the show’s general format consists of the most annoying sportswriters out there competing in a tic-off, from the wide-eyed dyspepsia of Denver Post Woody Paige (who had a 1:1 “bad Lil Wayne joke” to minute ratio) to the guylinered bloviations of AOL chatter Jay Mariotti. So he won pretty handily, only being evenly matched at the very end, when he faced off against fellow ESPN pundit Michael Smith. A montage of Weezy’s moments after the jump.
The verdict is out: TV On The Radio sucked on Saturday Night Live. The acclaimed critics’ darlings, the band whose last Brooklyn show caused The New York Times to boast it was “complete ownership of its sound,” the band fresh off a 28-date tour, the band whose sound design is so pristine that it made even Scarlett Johansson wanted to cuddle up with a buncha Billyburg beardos. Yeah, they sucked. Just like Ashlee Simpson, and Kanye, and Fleet Foxes, and Taylor Swift. And, I’m no R. Buckminster Fuller but, is there a pattern here? Maybe since the pattern is “music bloggers passionately taking about how they never miss an episode of Saturday Night Live,” and NBC would have to be pretty short-sighted to actually do anything about the musical performances’ lousy sound quality instead of just basking in the free publicity. Thanks for taking the bait, suckers! Here’s a video of Andy Samberg on a boat!
Yesterday, catchphrase-sparking MC Snoop Dogg announced that he had parted ways with his label, Interscope. After few murmurs here and there about just how he’d release his next record, and whether he should even bother at this point and just become a full-time celebrity, news that he’d found a new partner for his musical efforts broke. That partner? None other than MTV. (Yes, that one.) In a move that I guess is supposed to be the network’s way of saying “See, the ‘M’ does stand for music sometimes,” the two entities are going to team up for some last-days-styled vertical brand integration.
TV on the Radio were the musical guests on Saturday Night Live this weekend. They’re a seasoned band whose live show tends to get rapturous reviews, and they were slated to play songs from the album that got the top spot in the most recent edition of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics’ poll. You would think, then, that the performance would be a triumph—but instead, it was a trainwreck. The dude with the beard (note: I am not a big TVOTR fan) had his vocals reduced to a thin chirp, the bass lacked any bottom end, the handclaps were seen but not heard… and then the horns came in.
