Saturday Night Live is coming back to NBC’s airwaves on Sept. 26, and fresh off dropping of one of its least objectionable cast members, the show’s announced its first four host/musical guest pairings. U2 had previously been announced as the season premiere’s musicians-in-residence; the other three announced acts will, it seems, be holding it down for the single ladies. More »
The first musical guest on this season of Saturday Night Live: U2. Ooh, playing “count the BlackBerry ads” is going to be a fun game! [MSNBC] More »
Since everyone’s feeling contentious today, here’s an argument for the ages: Which wore out its welcome more quickly, the Coldplay iTunes ad from last summer, or the U2 Blackberry ad that’s running on TV now? My vote is for the U2 ad, for two reasons: First, it seems to be on TV all the time, and second, its opening line about generations always, always makes me think back to Fury In The Slaughterhouse’s 1993 alt-rock also-ran “Every Generation Has Its Own Disease,” a song that haunted my freshman year of college and still reminds me of the worst parts of the rise of Q101-approved rock. In case you’ve somehow missed one (or both) of the spots, they’re after the jump! More »
Perhaps realizing that a good chunk of the people who still care about its brand wouldn’t know a 3OH!3 from a GaGa, MTV has added a new, retro-tastic category to this year’s Video Music Awards: Best Video That Should Have Won A Moonman, in which an overlooked clip from years gone by gets its space-statue due. (I do wonder if the presentation of said award will be shown on VH1, if only because it can then be blown out into an hour-long special about Loving The Videos That Lost At The Video Music Awards or somesuch.) There are 10 clips up for this honor, and they hail from eras as long-ago as MTV’s earliest days and as recent as the YouTube Age. My biases in this category are probably given away by the above screen grab, but you might think* differently! More »
Jay-Z’s artwork for his forthcoming Blueprint 3 was released to the world today, and it’s something like a Rorschach test: Everyone sees something different in it! More »
U2’s claw-like stage for its current world tour has been something of a boon for the band, at least as far as opening up formerly obstructed seats. But for people living near the tour’s stops, the custom-built stage—and its attendant video equipment—have caused literal headaches, thanks to their taking a really long time to set up and take down. Residents near Croke Park in Dublin, where U2 just wrapped up a three-night residency, got so mad, they got to picketing. Which apparently is in the process of throwing off the band’s plans to head to Sweden for shows this weekend! More »
It’s been 25 years since The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame began enshrining rock stars, and inspiring many arguments from people who are just as conflicted about their favorite bands being snubbed by the museum’s higher-ups as they are about the idea of a museum honoring an allegedly still-vital artform. So clearly it’s time for a party! The party won’t take place in Cleveland, where the actual physical museum is located, but at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. And because the Rock Hall is devoted to embodying the idea of rock at its fullest, the American Express-sponsored shows will even have “once-in-a-lifetime VIP Benefit Packages priced from $25,000 to $100,000”! (Those funds are going toward creating a permanent endowment for the museum—or at least the cash for a move out of Cleveland.) Who could be on a bill that’s worthy of a six-figure ticket price? The full lineups after the jump. More »
U2’s animated video for “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” is a sweet little animated affair that has visual reach-backs to Elevator Action and Edward Hopper, among other famous scenes. The clip, which is threaded around a barely there plotline about people being lost and then found, is directed by Internet-famous animator David O. Reilly,; his style here is much less crude than the Octocat clips that made him a YouTube-tributable entity. (Confession: I’d never heard of him, or his clips, or their attendant homages, before the press release about this video landed in my inbox. But I’m still laughing at Keyboard Cat, so.) Video after the jump. More »
Surely I am not the only person who, while watching yesterday’s epic Wimbledon men’s final, did a double-take when a commercial featuring the music of U2 first flickered on the screen. “Wait, is that an iPod ad?” I thought as a series of lens flares flew around my TV, behind Bono and his band of merry men. As it turns out, I was wrong–but not that wrong. More »
