NPR’s All Things Considered took a look at Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” this week, which is not only the lone song my wife will sing at karaoke, but a popular target for actual musicians as well. (It was also performed by an unnamed fifth grader at my son’s elementary school talent show last week. When a song hits the talent show playlist, you know it’s moved into “classic” territory.) “It’s a great chord progression—people love that ‘Jolene’ lick,” Parton told NPR. “It’s as much a part of the song almost as the song. And because it’s just the same word over and over, even a first-grader or a baby can sing, ‘Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.’ It’s like, how hard can that be?” Parton’s version, as well as some notable covers, below the cut.
From The Basement, the Nigel Godrich-produced music performance series that’s featured bands like the White Stripes, PJ Harvey, and Radiohead in the past, will become a cable-TV staple in September; IFC is adding the series to its new programming block Automat, which is apparently designed to… More »
From The Basement, the Nigel Godrich-produced music performance series that’s featured bands like the White Stripes, PJ Harvey, and Radiohead in the past, will become a cable-TV staple in September; IFC is adding the series to its new programming block Automat, which is apparently designed to… More »
Jack White may have been a little down on his hometown in interviews lately, but don’t think he doesn’t have love for the Motor City. The Raconteur may have said that Detroit’s “super-negative” music scene was part of what drove him to move to Nashville in 2006, but “those expressions of mine have never been a representation of my feelings about Detroit the city, a town that I have strong feelings about … nor were they expressions about its citizens.” To prove his devotion to the city that gave us Ted Nugent, General Motors, and some of the most successful white rappers in American history, he has crafted a poem. A series of stanzas that includes references to “malt from Stroh’s and Sanders,” “frescoed families strife fractured,” and “The water letter carrier, bringing prose to lonely sailors.” Surely the fear of another lyrical waxing of this kind will keep locals from ever daring to question his spiritual solidarity again.
This week’s American Idol will be devoted to the songs of Dolly Parton, a theme that will allow for lots of Dolly facetime on the broadcast and Kristy Lee Cook saving herself for another week with a good-old-girl performance of a country song. While there are some song choices that seem to be gimmes (does anyone think that Syesha Mercado won’t bring Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” to the table?), others are more mysterious (what the heck is Michael Johns going to sing–“9 to 5”?). But one thing’s for sure: If David Cook whips out a take on “Jolene,” get ready for White Stripes fans far and wide to complain about one of their favorite covers being massacred by this guy–and for the Idol judges to wax rhapsodic about how “original” old Davey is because he draws inspiration from Chris Cornell and Incubus instead of Clive Davis and his proteges for the 10,000th time. I’m not going to assume that Simon, Randy, and/or Paula are reading this little blog, but if one of their interns does happen to keep tabs on it, please, bring the YouTube clip embedded after the jump to your bosses’ attention, if only to make them at least kinda look like they’ve been aware of music that was made sometime over the last 10 years.
Ed. note: Chris “dennisobell” Molanphy, our resident chart guru, looks at the upward, downward, and lack of movement on this week’s Billboard charts:
* OK, so one of these acts is, like, president of the United States and the other the president of American Samoa. I’ll get to the White Stripes later…
Yesterday on Idolator, Maura brought up a subject I’ve been downplaying here since 2008 began: mediocre pop-rapper Flo Rida’s depressing death grip on Billboard‘s Hot 100. Mostly, I’ve avoided a deep discussion of his T-Pain-assisted No. 1 smash “Low”–now in its 10th week atop the chart, matching last winter’s run by Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable”–because there’s not much to tell. Its sales have been massive since fall, it has led in radio airplay since mid-January, and no single has seriously challenged it for No. 1 all winter.
But as Maura noted, we’ll have to pay mind to Mr. Rida now that his followup single, the Timbaland-assisted “Elevator,” is making a fast break up the chart. The thought that “Low” would be succeeded by another Flo Rida song is enough to make one swear off Billboard forever.
Don’t despair. There are a lot of ways for this story to play out, and I’d say it’s less than 50-50 that Uncle Flo will succeed himself at the top. Let’s run down some scenarios.
We’ve already reported on the sudden, shocking rise of the ukulele taking over British schools, but it turns out that guitars are actually what’s “becoming the instruments of choice in the classroom,” while “orchestral instrument lessons are in decline, according to researchers from the Institute of Education in London.” Apparently Jack White is to blame? And also this means Britney is dead, according to the guy who wrote Cats.
This week, The New Republic somehow sold enough ad space to let a bit of wankery about the Led Zeppelin reunion by music writer David Browne into its pages. You can probably guess what the piece’s “angle” is from its subhead–“Explaining Led Zeppelin’s enduring hold on our collective conscious”–but here’s a rundown: OMG LED ZEP REUNION, by the way the White Stripes canceled their tour, Led Zep is “ageless” and so is Nick Drake, “‘The Crunge’ could almost be a rap boast,” and hey, those kids today really do seem to like the Arcade Fire. (Also: Radiohead!) And then there’s the closing graf, which tries to tie together the legends of Led Zeppelin and the White Stripes in a horrifically clumsy way:
When I first mentioned the sudden popularity of the search term “meg white sex tape” to a friend of mine Sunday night, we had the following exchange:
maura@idolator: so do you think the meg white sex tape is legit
unidentified_lurker: oh my god where did you see that?
unidentified_lurker: i mean i’ve seen it
maura@idolator: it was on google trends
unidentified_lurker: i’m saying who is purporting it’s legit
unidentified_lurker: it’s a message board joke
unidentified_lurker: i was thinking about forwarding it to you
unidentified_lurker: as a funny joke
unidentified_lurker: it’s great to have a video on the internet for indie rock people to jerk off and pretend it’s meg white tho
And we all know how that turned out. Anyway, The Daily Swarm plumbed the archives of the message board Hipinion and found where the clip was born–the mind of a poster named Itsmecraig:
Since today seems to be a slow enough news day that people will believe almost anything, let’s turn to the case of the alleged “Meg White sex tape,” which has been burning up Google since news of it first surfaced over the weekend. I watched it and am pretty unconvinced of its veracity–the necklace she’s wearing is of the letter “D,” the images are worse-than-webcam blurry, the whole thing seems to be set in a dorm room–but then again, my vision kind of sucks. (UPDATE: Meg’s publicist is saying that it definitely isn’t her in the tape.) So I turned to an ad hoc panel of semi-experts–a.k.a. “writers who are on IM right now”–and got their take (anyone who used the old “well that girl had rhythm so it had to be fake” chestnut was summarily deleted from my buddy list):
