pop (all love)

2007-10-23T21:07:00.002-04:00

THE ARCHIVES
February 28 The Commons: Leader in absentia
March 1 The Commons: A purely hidden agenda
March 2 The Commons: Week in review
March 5 'Can he be forgiven?'
March 6 The best defence is a good offence
March 12 If a tree falls in the forest...
March 12 The strength to stand alone again
March 14 Chewing on his words
March 19 The Commons: Flaherty saves the world
March 20 The Commons: Complaints department
March 21 The Commons: Bullshit
March 22 The Commons: Divide and conquer
March 23 The Commons: Week in review
March 26 The Commons: Baird to the rescue
March 27 The Commons: When logic fails
March 28 The Commons: The Bill Matthews Fan Club
March 29 The Commons: Whose scandal it is, anyway?
March 30 The Commons: Week in review
April 5 Who's the fairest of them all?
April 18 The Commons: That icky feeling
April 19 The Commons: Come on give us a try
April 23 Now more Britney than Britney
April 23 The Commons: I read the news today, oh boy
April 24 The Commons: On the defensive
April 25 The Commons: Chicken v. Dog
April 26 The Commons: Everyone's losing something
April 27 The Commons: In crisis, there is Guergis
April 30 The Commons: Happy birthday, Mr. Prime Minister
May 1 The Commons: Changing the channel
May 2 The Commons: He said, she said, who said?
May 2 The Commons: Selective memory
May 3 The Commons: Let's call the whole thing off
May 7 The Commons: Happy days are here again
May 8 The Commons: Civility and other such nonsense
May 9 The Commons: Our buffoonery runneth over
May 10 The Commons: A poet who knows it
May 11 The Commons: Dropping trou
May 14 The Commons: Welcome home, Gilles
May 16 The Commons: Mr. Boring, meet Mr. Arrogant
May 17 The Commons: A drunken punch-up
May 28 The Commons: Giving peace a chance
May 30 The Commons: Where the truth lies
May 31 The Commons: A new standard
June 1 The Commons: Turn on, tune out
June 4 The Commons: Giggling towards the finish line
June 5 The Commons: Peter Van Loan Week rolls on
June 6 The Commons: No place for a gentelman
June 7 The Commons: Questioning the questioner
June 11 The Commons: He left his heart in Heiligendamm
June 12 The Commons: The fine art of public shaming
June 13 The Commons: Very small things
June 18 The Commons: 'The time is for the truth'
June 19 The Commons: Behold, the future
June 20 The Commons: And so it ends
July 2 Rock stars to the rescue
August 8 Defending Iggy
August 13 Gangsta rap out of south Ottawa
August 17 My movie date with Stephane Dion
September 28 Felix and Oscar
October 4 From a great height
October 10 A thinker and a fighter
October 11 Did I pay too much for the Radiohead album?
October 16 The Commons: A bedtime story
October 17 The Commons: Losing the room
October 18 The Commons: A Hallmark moment
October 23 The Commons: Computational politics

2007-10-12T01:15:00.000-04:00

That's nice. But is it any good?
As my editor pointed out this morning: in between whining and faux philosophizing, I didn’t actually say much about the new Radiohead record, In Rainbows. Good and valid point. [MORE]

2007-09-11T22:45:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part 16
And so it ends. Two more hours of Canadian Idol. Then Canada gets a winner. And the winner gets a fleeting glimpse of a kind of fame. For the sake of the historical record, a full accounting of the proceedings follows... [MORE]

2007-09-11T01:10:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part 15
How scared are Canadian Idol producers that Jaydee Bixby might win this competition? It is difficult to quantify this, but I would suggest a considerable amount. [MORE]

2007-09-06T16:56:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part 14
At the end of Tuesday night's show, Zack Werner said that Canadians were guaranteed to embrace Carly Rae. This just moments after Canadians had specifically chosen to not embrace Carly Rae. [MORE]

2007-08-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part 13
There's no reason to feel sorry for Paul Anka. He's probably richer than Nicky Hilton. He once guest starred on an episode of The Gilmore Girls. Life is probably pretty sweet for Paul Anka. But, all the same, consider how eternally screwed he is. [MORE]

2007-08-23T17:23:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part 12
Approximately five people came to Macleans.ca yesterday looking for "brian melo karma police." So here it is (at about the 6:30 mark, right after Carly Rae). [MORE]

2007-08-22T16:44:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part 11
Like any over-sensitive writer, I often find myself questioning my purpose, my utility. Most of the time I'm shaken from my malaise by a kind word, a random moment of generosity or a new issue of Stuff.

But last week, deep in just such an existential crisis, I was ready to give up hope. Thankfully, before I could decide to drop out of society to pursue life as a sherpa or a monk or an associate editor at Stuff, I turned to a last refuge, my Maclean's e-mail account.

And lo, there waiting for me was an e-mail. And not just any e-mail. But an e-mail from a reader alleging to detail the hotel porn habits of a Canadian Idol personality.

Bless you selfless reader.[MORE]

2007-08-15T17:16:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Ten
So, where were we? Ah yes, Ben Mulroney thinks you're an idiot. [MORE]

2007-08-12T19:30:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Nine
I didn't mean to not write about last week's Canadian Idol results show. It just took me a few days to properly come to terms with what I saw. [MORE]

2007-08-09T16:59:00.000-04:00

Press release poetry
A collection of random words and phrases taken from an e-mail I just received announcing MuchMusic's fall line-up. It's like salvia in your inbox. [MORE]

2007-08-07T12:24:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Eight
It's Queen Week on Canadian Idol. Or at least Queen + The Guy From Bad Company Week. Either way, Brian May's here and he's wearing a silly shirt. [MORE]

2007-08-01T18:46:00.000-04:00

Searching for Be Mulroney's Soul, Part Seven
Despite my otherwise excellent cable service, I do not yet receive Tolo TV, the biggest network in Afghanistan. This did not strike me as a grave injustice until yesterday afternoon, when I read this dispatch from Kabul.

Most upsetting is the fact I've been forced to watch The Hills, while Afghanis were delighting in Because the Mother-in-Law Was Once the Daughter-in-Law. (For future reference, this hereby answers all questions as to whether progress is being made in Afghanistan. Before we invaded, there was no Because the Mother-in-Law Was Once the Daughter-in-Law. Now, every night at 8pm, Afghanis can gather together in front of the television and watch a show called Because the Mother-in-Law Was Once the Daughter-in-Law. Obviously we should invade more countries.)

Also troubling: my previous lack of exposure to Afghan Star, the local version of American Idol.[MORE]

2007-07-30T19:02:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Six
Before we get to Canadian Idol, let's talk about Mindy McCready. I dare say we're witnessing - or, actually, ignoring - one of the top five greatest runs in the history of rock debauchery. [MORE]

2007-07-20T17:59:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Five
Twice on Wednesday night's Canadian Idol results show, Ben Mulroney touted Rihanna as the owner of seven number one singles. Now, for the sake of reference, the Beach Boys topped the Billboard Hot 100 a grand total of four times. Indeed, according to Wikipedia's tally, seven number one singles would put Rihanna ahead of Eminem, Guns N' Roses, INXS, Bob Seger, Avril Lavigne and LL Cool J... combined. [MORE]

2007-07-18T16:09:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Four
So, where were we? Ah yes, I was going to write about Canadian Idol on a semi-regular basis. About that... [MORE]

2007-07-05T22:45:00.000-04:00

'Art should be pure'
Ah, for the long ago days of 2004. Chantal and Avril were like sisters, staying up late at night, braiding each other's hair, writing songs. [MORE]

2007-06-26T21:51:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Three
So the shocking news this week was that one contestant has left for personal reasons and been replaced by an equally anonymous also-ran. [MORE]

2007-06-20T13:36:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part Two
I know it's altogether boring and lame to complain about the judges on these shows, but seriously. If I wasn't concerned that he'd bring Robin Black with him and then refuse to leave at the end of the evening, I'd love to invite Zach Werner over to watch an episode of Canadian Idol with me. [MORE]

2007-06-11T21:11:00.000-04:00

Richard Schickel is smarter than you
When I wrote this, I had not yet read this. Thankfully, a colleague passed it along today. And now I feel that much smarter. Or dumber. Or something. [MORE]

2007-06-11T21:09:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul, Part One
I'll try not to waste too much time comparing Canadian Idol with American Idol, but I must say that so far I haven't found our crazy, talentless losers as endearing or entertaining as their crazy, talentless losers. [MORE]

2007-06-06T21:55:00.000-04:00

Searching for Ben Mulroney's Soul
For as long as I last, I'll be blogging the latest season of Canadian Idol. [More]

2007-05-30T00:42:00.001-04:00

Feist on Kimmel on a bus
This is a couple weeks old, but still rather cool. [MORE.]

2007-05-29T13:30:00.000-04:00

White people are funny
For the first time since I started keeping track (a couple minutes ago), there is a tie atop the standings for My Favourite Canadian Rap Video of the Moment. [MORE]

2007-05-28T13:28:00.000-04:00

National Anthem of Nowhere
From one tawdry music-related competition to another... I recently received an e-mail confirming that I again get a minor say in the Polaris Music Prize, the prestigious award that turned Final Fantasy into a household name for a couple minutes last year... [MORE]

2007-05-11T16:34:00.000-04:00

I Do Re-do
I trust everyone else is as captivated by this MTV show where American kids not yet old enough to legally drink get married despite the explicit and implicit objections of their friends and family. It's called "Underage & Engaged." Or "Engaged & Underaged." Or "Watch As Young People Do Serious Harm To Their Personal Lives And Futures." Or something.

Anyway. In the interests of narcissism, there's some more links at right - reviews from Now, the blog at Maclean's, a couple music stories from the magazine and the daily sketch of Parliament that actually pays my bills (the link should, in most cases, take you to the most recent column).

In other news, this guy is now arguably the most subversive rock star in the history of Canadian music. Sorry Matt Good.

2007-04-20T16:39:00.000-04:00

Wolf Blitzer is hurting America
Purely for the sake of laziness - and not at all because I've signed my life away in the interests of half-price cable TV - I've directed my blogging energies toward this group effort at Macleans.ca. It's just like reading my inane opinions here, only now with 700% more pictures of Conrad Black. Here, like those cram sessions MTV runs, is a short anthology, organized by subject, for those who aren't already avid readers (it's all right, I don't cry anymore).

Fall Out Boy (Here and here)
Michael Jackson (Here and here.)
American Idol (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
The Junos (Here and here.)
Keith Richards snorting his dad.
Old people listening to Joanna Newsom.
Guilty pleasures.
Snitching.
The Spider Man musical.

I suppose at some point I could start posting to both that blog and this blog. But I refer you to my earlier point about laziness.

And, yes, there are no comments allowed as yet at Macleans.ca (unless you're a former Liberal cabinet minister). I suppose you could write me angry e-mails. Maybe I could start a weekly mailbag or something. Some dude did just e-mail me about his girlfriend's underwear... (I'll get to that later.)

-Wherry.

2007-02-26T23:10:00.000-05:00

'My voice has settled down now and I can still sing in pitch; just with a more lower range.'
Marc from Torontoist brings news of a recent interview with Meryn Cadell, who I once suggested would make an ideal candidate for an all-celebrity edition of Canadian Idol. That Meryn is now both a dude and a university professor only emboldens me in this belief.

I'm also now offering five Canadian dollars to the first reader who can track down the current whereabouts of Kish.

HOLY CRAP UPDATE... Reader Terry (in the comments) unearths Kish's new career as a voice over guy. Here's Kish doing some TV promos, here he is doing some random commercials and here he is narrating various movie trailers (because you haven't really lived until you've heard one of the pioneers of Canadian rap hyping The Ringer). This site describes his talents thusly: "Cool & Hip, Natural and Very Real w/Touch of Urban--Japanese-British accents and a great range of characters." And according to IMDB, he's lent his talents to the Snoop Dogg episode of E! True Hollywood Story, various video games, an animated series and six episodes of Beef.

This is fantastic news.

2007-02-26T22:58:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson Comeback Watch, Day 472
Good news. The Jackson 5... are getting back together! I can't imagine how this could possibly go wrong.

(In other news, a national magazine recently decided to publish a 1,500-word consideration of Michael Jackson's pending forgiveness. Good for them, I say.)

2007-02-22T20:22:00.000-05:00

How Many Newspaper And Magazine Editors Have Dispatched Writers To Prepare Britney Spears Obits?
Anybody who hasn't, probably should.

(When she does inevitably die - either tomorrow or 47 years from or whenever - it will probably be worth at least considering that it doesn't mean nearly as much as it will be made to seem.)

2007-02-21T16:15:00.000-05:00

I'm That Guy
I don't love the new Arcade Fire record. At least not yet.

2007-02-19T22:52:00.000-05:00

With That Said
I can't help but notice that we're long overdue for news of a second season for MuchMusic's awesomely depressing VJ Search: The Series. It was a year ago this month that the legendary-in-my-house show debuted on the nation's music station and I can only assume that the lack of news since means the franchise has been abandoned. Obviously this saddens me to no end.

That the show resulted in this guy (1)becoming a national television personality does nothing to change the fact that, for a couple months, MuchMusic had a show I made a point of watching on a regular basis. I can't remember the last time I could say that before VJ Search. I was probably 12. And dreaming of a day when Bryan Adams and Tom Cochrane might put their differences aside and come together to create the greatest tour my mind could ever imagine

Those were simpler times. Since VJ Search last aired, MTV Canada has come into my world and, like either a new love or an advanced strain of ebola, it has come to dominate my day-to-day existence. I can't imagine life without it. I just finished watching both The Hills and The Hills Aftershow. And somehow that seems an entirely reasonable way to spend an hour (2).

Anyway. Before we turn the chapter on that poignant period in our history, let's take one last look back at the show that set new standards for shamelessness, entertained at least three people I can think of and challenged us to confront the very serious issues of racism, feminism, adolescent angst, democracy and Steve Anthony. We laughed, we cried and each week a little bit more of us died inside.

The following are the episode recaps variously posted on this blog last year. Assuming MuchMusic has, quite rightly, burned all film of the series, these may one day stand as the only record that VJ Search ever existed.

Episode 2: The one with Raine Maida looking bored
Episodes 3 and 4: The one that gave us "Eau De Biyotch"
Episode 5: The one with the racism
Episode 6: The one where they eliminated the guy who alleged the racism
Episode 7: The one with Molly Sims
Episode 8: The one with the subtle discussion of homosexuality's virtues
Episode 9: The one where Tim came back and we all got a little dumber
Episode 10: The one where Tim won

----------
(1) I saw him recently on an episode of MuchOnDemand and actually found the experience rather painful. His complete inability to communicate in public is no longer funny, it's just sort of excruciating. Isn't this sort of like letting a dog limp around on a broken leg? Shouldn't someone end this? How much longer can he possibly have left on his contract? Someone needs to end this.
(2) I've even moved on from VJ Leah, largely because I now have MTV Jessi, who may or may not actually be friends with a guy I know. MTV Jessi is like VJ Leah from the future. If I found out tomorrow that she was an alien or a robot I honestly wouldn't be at all surprised.

2007-02-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

Las Vegas Is No Place For Anyone
For all our mocking of various MuchMusic personalities, we'd be remiss if we didn't note that this is very bad news.

Update. Apparently she suffered a fractured skull (!?).

2007-02-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

You Can't Truly Appreciate Your Surname Until You've Heard It Screamed Repeatedly By A Russian Grunge Band
Who is this Military Jane? And should we just go ahead and declare this song - apparently entitled "Wherry" - the greatest song in the history of Russia's underappreciated response to the American grunge movement?

2007-02-12T00:12:00.000-05:00

Is Hotel California the most boring hit of the rock and roll era?
And is the lead singer of Rascal Flatts the lost member of B4-4?

2007-02-11T15:46:00.000-05:00

The Teenager Girl Sitting In The Corner Just Name-Checked Marshall McLuhan. And there is an old man walking around with a Sea Captain's hat on his head. Welcome to the Starbucks in the town where I went to university.
Despite my repeated and angry demands, NOW refused to give me the 5,000 words necessary to properly discuss the new Fall Out Boy record. Here are the 130 or so I got. After writing them I actually came to realize that my new favourite thing about Fall Out Boy is Patrick Stump's voice (1). Particularly the fact that it's not just rock-singer-good, but American-Idol-good.

This is an important, if obvious, distinction. Liam Gallagher had a great rock star voice. Brandon Flowers is developing a great rock star voice (2). But neither of them would do very well on American Idol (3). Stump, on the other hand, would have dominated AI. If he entered this year's competition, he'd be guaranteed a top five finish. He has that good a voice. A great voice by the standard measure of AI, which is really more of an athletic competition than anything.

In fact, I dare say you could put Stump against Justin Timberlake and, at worst, Stump is coming out of there with a draw. In the entire history of white, 20-something male pop voices, he's probably near the middle of the Top Ten - behind the young Frank Sinatra, but well ahead of Rick Astley (4). And I can't remember the last time that kind of voice - that quality of that kind of voice - was singing for one of the biggest rock bands on the planet.

Bono has a powerful voice, but he'd get killed on AI. Chris Martin is pretty, but his voice is sort of like his lyrics (weaker the more you think about it). None of the Beatles were very good singers. Mick Jagger's singing is really just fancy talking. The Stump, on the other hand, has one of those rangey voices that tends to rule pop music in the post-hip-hop paradigm. Simon Cowell would love him (5). On his own, he could easily get a record deal or at least have fronted S Club 7. And that's not true of almost anyone who's led a (great) rock band in the past 15 years (6).

... Furthermore, Fall Out Boy might be the first rock band more influenced by NSync and Jay-Z than they are by any "rock" source or tradition. As much as I love the new Bruce Springsteen revival (7), it's intriguing to think that Fall Out Boy might be the first in a run of 21st century rock bands who aren't inspired by the Beatles/Rolling Stones/Sex Pistols/Chuck Berry/Nirvana/Pink Floyd/Clash/Pavement/Neil Young/Talking Heads/Zwan.

----------
(1) My second favourite thing: Patrick Stump's choice of hats.
(2) Note how he stretches out the word "young" in the chorus of When You Were Young. He nearly makes it an eight syllable word.
(3) Though how much would you pay to just see Liam audition? In his prime, he probably would have beaten Randy Jackson with his own shoe, spit beer in Paula Abdul's face and then slept with Simon's girlfriend. All before security even had a chance to remove him from the building.
(4) Astley had way better dance moves though.
(5) Paula would love his hats.
(6) The exception might be Maroon 5. But what will forever doom Maroon 5 is the fact you can totally tell the lead singer is a dickhead. No one will ever say as much in a review of their next record, but it's true.
(7) The highlight of the next Arcade Fire tour is going to be him making a surprise appearance on stage one night to guest on Antichrist Television Blues.

2007-02-06T21:38:00.000-05:00

'The Best Part Of Jason Was You'
The Super Bowl may have sucked and a man impersonating a spoiled, 12-year-old girl may have quarterbacked his team to victory (by default), but we can take solace in the fact that 10 years from now no one will remember anything about the game. All anyone will remember is the halftime show. Why? Because Prince's 10-minute exhibition was the single greatest performance in the history of record music. I truly believe this.

And to prove it beyond doubt, I've compiled a list of 18 reasons why.

1. Digital lightning.
2. The medley of covers in the middle. In the span of about three and a half minutes, Prince covered Tina Turner (or CCR), Jimi Hendrix (or Dylan) and the Foo Fighters. Name another musician who could both do that and make it totally awesome. Heck, name another artist who would even dare attempt that.
3. And I'm entirely convinced he was just making it up as he went along to show off to his band.
4. That the Foo's Best of You was even in there. In that instant, Prince basically canonized a slightly above-average rock song. Single-handedly. He was that good.
5. The fact that it was raining. All game, slightly-above-average-quarterback-turned-incoherent-television-analyst Phil Simms talked about the precipitation as a pivotal and dramatic development for the game being played. But it should have had its greatest impact on the halftime show, what with the electrical equipment, make-up, dancing and fragile joints. And yet, despite the huge threat of electrocution or at least breaking a hip, Prince was completely fearless. I'm not even sure he noticed it was raining.
6. Actually, if you look closely, it doesn't even look like Prince got wet. That's how freakin' hot he was - the rain evaporated on contact.
7. Throughout the show, Prince was joined on stage by twin dancers. I am told that it's these same twins who brought about the end of Prince's marriage.
8. I'm fairly certain he had sex with them immediately after the halftime show. Probably in the Colts' locker room.
9. The fact that it inspired America's foremost football writer to write "Prince, Schmince," thereby proving America's foremost football writer to be a colossal dork.
10. Because it revived a once-proud cultural institution previously feared dead and prone in recent years to relying on nearly dead people.
11. Phallic imagery. And the inevitable outrage that always follows phallic imagery.
12. Because it involved the smallest, feyest man imaginable performing in the middle of America's greatest celebration of ugly, brutal masculinity.
13. The awesome head scarf thingy Prince was wearing.
14. The fact he defiantly tossed the head scarf thingy away near the end of the show.
15. The heaving throng of women writhing at the edge of the stage. And the fact that 99% of them would sooner sleep with this man than this man.
16. The guitar solos. One of them actually collapsed the lung of a Bears lineman.
17. The fake doves the twins had to swing around.
18. The Purple Rain finale... performed in the pouring rain. And the fact, again, that this happened in the middle of America's greatest celebration of ugly, brutal masculinity. "I never wanted 2 be your weekend lover, I only wanted 2 be some kind of friend." At a football game. Sung by a man wearing blue eye-shadow.

(Of course, having said all this, I can't actually link to a video of the show because Universal, Prince's label, has had it pulled from YouTube. The people who run record labels are geniuses. As always, I haven't the faintest idea why that industry is struggling.)

2007-02-02T23:01:00.000-05:00

A Note To Your Future Self
Five years from now, you will turn to a friend - maybe at a bar, maybe at home while watching season seven of The Hills - and say, "Hey, remember Clap Your Hands Say Yeah?" And your friend will turn to you say, "Oh yeah, they had that one record that was pretty good, right?" And then you will both look off into the distance for a few seconds, reminiscing about a song called Yellow Teeth or Yellow Skin or something, before going back to your drinks and/or the seventh season of The Hills.

After that, you will never again think of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

2007-02-01T15:49:00.000-05:00

My Other Blog
Is also about music.

This is probably going to get weird. For the sake of establishing boundaries, I'll keep my Fall Out Boy love (there's a phrase that could very easily be read the wrong way) over there and the sweary bits over here. Feel free to read both, either or neither. I won't be offended.

2007-02-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

I Finally Figured Out Why I Like My Morning Jacket So Much
Because they sound like what I imagine a rock band made up of dolphins would sound like.

2007-01-30T21:21:00.000-05:00

When The Man Comes Around
J.D. Considine. Feb. 19, 2003.
"Don't look now, but jazz singing has quietly become the new Easy Listening. And boy is it big business... Then there's newcomer Norah Jones, who is widely expected to sweep the Grammy Awards this Sunday, and has so far sold more than four million copies of her debut, Come Away with Me... funnily enough, what these best-selling jazz singers deliver has little to do with jazz, beyond a walking bass and an occasional piano solo. Instead, their music sits squarely in the middle of the road, offering obvious melodies, a soothing mood and a veneer of sophistication... Because it's so pretty, so determinedly inoffensive, it's hard to hate this music. But it's very easy to despise the musical dumbing-down that comes with aspiring to a higher class of aural wallpaper... Billie Holiday died for this?"

J.D. Considine. Jan. 30, 2006.
"Because her critics tend to disparage her less for what she is than what she isn't -- to wit, a traditional jazz singer -- the backlash against Norah Jones must seem a bit nitpicky to those who buy Jones's albums simply because they like the way they sound. If her records sound good, who cares what pigeonhole they're shoved into?"

2007-01-26T00:22:00.000-05:00

Never Hear The End Of It
Well, this could be entertaining. Pitchfork has rendered judgement on the new k-os record and, somewhat unsurprisingly, their reviewer is not impressed.

"True to its highfalutin title, Atlantis: Hymns for Disco is a conceptual piece, a melodious corrective to two-plus years of ostensible media falsities about its author. In this light, Atlantis resembles De La Soul's sophomore detour De La Soul Is Dead, on which the MTV darlings and granola-rap progenitors attempted to shed the D.A.I.S.Y. Age warmup gear and make an early-career three-point turn. Yet while De La Soul Is Dead showcased the trio's newfound industry-related bitterness, on Atlantis, K-Os goes in the other direction; regressing further into hippiedom, and neglecting to answer his critics in lieu of spiritual posturing...

"I'm trying to be unapologetic about the rules I break," K-Os claims on his website, before explaining that "most revolutionary art ends up provoking classic ideals and it is these same classic ideals that become prisons if they go unchallenged." While not clearing up the jumbled messages of Atlantis, this quote underscores its central contradiction, and the most troubling aspect of K-Os' public persona: the friction between progressive ambition and conservative output. Unfortunately, it's an issue that K-Os recognizes, but sees no need to resolve."

Oh snap. There's even some vague stabs at questioning whether it counts as rap (which comes close to questioning whether it's hip-hop, which totally pisses k-os off).

A Pitchfork/k-os war could be pretty phenomenal. And we do need something to pass the time while we wait for that Arcade Fire record. (Speaking of which, did we all agree that we're going to kill that record when it comes out? What did we decide at the last meeting?)

Anyway. This is really just an excuse for me to recount the NOW/k-os war, which was just about the most entertaining thing to happen in music last year.

Prologue: NOW reviews k-os' Joyful Rebellion, angering k-os immeasurably. Later, k-os speculates a reviewer at Eye magazine may be an "asshole."
Act 1: NOW reviews Atlantis: Hymns for Disco.
Act 2: k-os uses his MySpace page to call the reviewer an Uncle Tom. The comment is quickly deleted and k-os tells fans he is seeking counselling.
Act 3: NOW mocks k-os.
Act 4: Canadian rocker Danko Jones writes NOW to criticize k-os and take a bizarre swipe at Broken Social Scene.
Act 5: k-os compares NOW reviewer to Gary Coleman's character of Diff'rent Strokes and refers to Danko Jones as "Stanko Jones."
Act 6: Danko calls k-os a "half-wit."
Act 7: NOW reviewer and k-os discuss their differences, come to unsatisfying conclusion.
Act 8: During a concert, k-os declares "Fuck NOW magazine."
Act 9: NOW questions hip-hop's relationship with public criticism.
Act 10: k-os claims the whole dispute distracted everyone from the point. "The real story is about two kids—who basically think a lot alike, are of the same culture—who have been duped into putting on a boxing match instead of dealing with the real issue. Which is, can hip-hop be expanded?”
Epilogue: Months later, k-os is at peace. Or something.

"I consider myself a disciple of truth and reality, and I think that why K-OS is an interesting character is because he has a lot of metaphysical, spiritual aspirations. But yet he's pretty much caught in a worldly way of thinking. I wish and I hope that I could just maybe, on a good day, spend more time trying to control my thoughts and understand how I feel as a person instead of worrying about, you know, how many "Ns" I get in the Now Magazine or what someone says about me or if my videos are in heavy rotation. Fuck all that."

2007-01-24T18:37:00.000-05:00

The Medium, The Message And Other Crap Theories
I quite like Leslie Feist. I also enjoy the music of Serena Ryder. And yet, I was not prepared for them to become THE SAME FUCKING PERSON.

2007-01-22T23:55:00.000-05:00

Indie Rock Feud Revealed!
Does Owen Pallett secretly hate Win Butler? Note the third last picture here.

2007-01-09T18:39:00.000-05:00

The Best Idea I've Had So Far This Year
Why didn't Boney M's masterful Ra-Ra-Rasputin (1) inspire more dance pop celebrations of great figures in Russian history. The possibilites seem endless.

La-La-Lenin
Ya-Ya-Yeltsin
Go-Go-Gorbachev
Ku-Ku-Khrushchev
Ba-Ba-Brezhnev
Pu-Pu-Putin
Tra-Tra-Trotsky
I-I-Ivan (The Great)
I-I-Ivan (The Terrible)

I could go on, but you get the point. I really think this could work. Would someone please start a mildly scary Eurodance group and get this done? Maybe the Scissor Sisters could help.

----------
(1) Frank Farian will probably never be inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame but he obviously should be. Boney M, alone, are better than 37% of the bands currently inducted, but Farian also gave us Milli Vanilli who are wrongly remembered as the worst thing in the history of popular music. For one thing, Milli Vanilli are not the worst thing in the history of popular music. That title obviously belongs to Joanna Newsom. For another, Milli Vanilli was actually a pretty remarkable achievement. Think about it. Frank Farian took two mildly weird looking European dudes, dressed them in ridiculous outfits, made them do silly dances and mime pop songs actually sung by studio musicians... and turned them into one of the 1980s most successful acts. Girl You Know It's True sold something like seven million copies and had three number one singles (Girl I'm Gonna Miss You, Baby Don't Forget My Number, Blame It On The Rain) and won them a Grammy. The essential fraud of Milli Vanilli doesn't make their success less impressive - it makes their success more impressive.

2006-12-31T01:37:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson Comeback Watch
It's a Christmas miracle! James Brown, speaking from beyond the grave though Al Sharpton, endorses the return of Michael Jackson!

"I love Michael... Tell him don't worry about coming home. They always scandalize those that have the talent. But tell him we need to clean up the music and I want Michael and all of them that imitated me to come back and lift the music back."

Wait. "All of them that imitated me?" That can mean only one (other) thing...

MC Hammer.

Michael Jackson and MC Hammer are coming back next year? I love 2007 already.

2006-12-21T18:18:00.000-05:00

The Annotated Wherry
(There are two possible explanations for this. First, I'm a total egomaniac who can't resist celebrating myself and my questionable taste in music. Second, I'm quite lazy and can't summon the ambition to update my blog with original content. Take your pick. In either case, here's a review of a Sarah Slean concert from the latest issue of Now, written, apparently, by my half-brother Andy. Who is a total dick, by the way.)

Near the end of her friday-night set at Harbourfront Centre Theatre, Sarah Slean turned to her audience and said, "However weird I get, you always come and watch me. I can buy groceries because of you."

Now, try to picture what it must be like when Sarah Slean goes grocery shopping. I wager she buys a lot of radicchio (easily the most eccentric of vegetables)(1). Or only purchases cartons of milk expected to expire on Tuesdays. Or exclusively eats citrus fruit grown in countries ruled by monarchies. Maraschino cherries(2) are probably a frequent purchase, too.

Not that her grocer likely minds. For one thing, somebody has to buy the maraschino cherries. For another, the grocer undoubtedly finds her eccentric eating habits nothing less than endearing.

Because this is Sarah Slean, this is how she operates. This is what works for her. She is a charming lunatic.

Onstage, in a little black dress, she bounces around barefoot(3). She speaks in accents of unknown origin or just trills her between-song banter. At various points, she mimes. Or appears to be channelling Judy Garland.

You or I would be unable to do any of this and still maintain friendships or steady jobs(4). We'd be shunned, if not committed. But with these quirks, Slean has fostered a devoted group of charmed followers as the winsome young couples at Harbourfront would attest(5).

Her lunacy is tolerated nay, encouraged because Slean is an artiste. A painter-slash-actor-slash-musician, to be exact. The sort who takes off for France and posts poetry on her blog ("There are chemicals of me-ness/ alive in foreign neurons, / indivisible tadpoles of a matterless she.")(6).

But what carries her cartoonish antics is what happens when she's left to a piano and her own devices namely, her voice. There alone or with a string quartet in between discussing Blink 182, sensible footwear and French culture, is where she justifies the weirdness.

For the most part, she succeeds. Slean is unquestionably talented, able to flit effortlessly from one personality to another. From ecstatic (Sweet Ones) to shattered (Last Year's War) to completely unhinged (Lucky You, performed barefoot with the aforementioned miming) (7).

While the vaudeville show is cute, she's still best sitting at the piano. There, her eccentricities are focused.

At various points, she would let the final note of a song linger, threatening to strike another, running her fingers just millimetres above the white keys before opting to let it go. It was strangely enthralling stuff(8).

Was she, in those moments, attempting to communicate telepathically with her instrument? Or simply selling the drama? Is she a certifiable loon or does she just play one onstage?

Maybe only her grocer(9) knows for sure.
----------

(1) This is indisputable. The rest of the top ten most eccentric vegetables is as follows:
1. Radicchio. 2. Cayenne Pepper. 3. Snake Gourd. 4. Winter Melon. 5. Pea. 6. Greater Burdock. 7. Dabberlocks. 8. Cress. 9. Fava Bean. 10. Tomato. (Technically a tomato is a fruit, but then that's what makes it so eccentric a vegetable.)
(2) A confession: I love Maraschino cherries. If Sarah Slean and I ever become friends and we buy each other Christmas gifts, each year we will exchange jars of Maraschino cherries. I'm entirely sure of this.
(3) She also appears very small. I would estimate her height at no more than three feet, seven inches.
(4) This should help you understand why I am no longer employed here. And why I have so few friends.
(5) I didn't want to say so in the piece... and don't get me wrong, I love gay people, what few friends I have are almost exclusively homosexual... but I dare say Sarah Slean has a lot of gay fans. Has anyone ever written anything insightful about the phenomenon of the straight gay icon (Kylie Minogue, Mike Piazza, etc.)? I find it very interesting.
(6) I will soon be posting here almost exclusively in haiku form.
(7) This should be "Lucky Me." Obviously.
(8) And almost impossible to describe to someone without sounding like an overly earnest, pretentious twit.
(9) Next week in Now: I interview Sarah Slean's grocer(10).
(10) Not really.

2006-12-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

Mama Wanted Something Real
So the other day at the office, mail arrived with a Sackville, Nova Scotia postmark and my name and work address handwritten on the envelope. Generally speaking, a handwritten address on an envelope received in a work setting is an automatic sign of trouble. If found, just walk away. You have probably just received anthrax. Or a dead animal.

Nonetheless I decided to open it. And thank god I did.

Inside I found only a copy of the first thing I ever wrote for Maclean's - an 80-word endorsement of Lupe Fiasco's record - neatly clipped from the magazine. The sender had taken obvious care to delicately remove the review from that week's issue, but there was nothing else with it. The only message was carefully and altogether rather artfully inscribed at the very bottom of the clipping:

"Fuck you!"

Now, generally speaking, it is a bad idea to write about or otherwise celebrate one's hate mail. If you're particularly proud of the fact that people think you're an asshole, chances are you are, in fact, an asshole. That said, this dispatch from Sackville raised a number of existential questions I have pondered ever since opening it.

For instance: What or who has offended this person? Is he objecting to me? Lupe? Rap? Or maybe what I have said about Lupe and rap music? Does he have some issue with Jay-Z or Kanye West, two artists who were also mentioned in the review? Does he have some issue with the fact that I hold such artists in high regard? Is he a hip-hop fan who questions my knowledge or a Rita McNeil fan who questions my taste?

Do I know this person? Have I wronged him in the past? If so, is he upset that I am now threatening to spoil his Maclean's subscription? Or was he simply reading this issue in the doctor's office during an egregiously long wait to have a boil attended to and needed to take his anger out on the nearest available person who would not be able to immediately retaliate?

If we assume that this last scenario is true - and really, it seems entirely plausible - then that means this person read the review, found himself irritated while reading it, had his boil taken care of, put his pants back on, left the doctor's office, went home, carefully clipped the review from the magazine, looked up the Maclean's office address, found an envelope, scrawled his short message at the bottom of the clip, put it inside the envelope, sealed it, wrote the address on the front, stamped it with his home address, affixed a stamp, got in his car, drove to the post office and, finally, mailed it. In that order. More or less.

All that to say, "Fuck you!" A phone call would have taken less time. An e-mail, less effort. But this man opted for old fashioned, inter-provincial mail service.

I suspect you assume this person is probably somewhat imbalanced. But, assuming you assume this, I beg to differ. This person strikes me as an impressively passionate soul. One who engages life and the world with a vigor rarely seen in Western society - most of us driven to apathy by comfort and excess.

May we all be so vigorous in the New Year. So willing and ready to gaze upon life's rich tapestry and proudly proclaim to one all, from largest beast to smallest child, "Fuck you!"

***

You want to hear a truly crazy idea? That someone might give me a forum to encourage the careers of pop idols and drug addicts. No good can possibly come from that.

2006-11-24T18:00:00.000-05:00

'Theorising Oasis is like drinking butter - pointless and bad for the heart.'
Every once in awhile you need to read an NME essay about Oasis. Just to remind you why life is worth living.

2006-11-24T17:58:00.000-05:00

The Most Discomforting Two Sentences You Will Ever Read In A Concert Review
"As lithe as a boy, Jagger seems to defy age. At least he does below the waist."

2006-11-22T02:25:00.000-05:00

Researchers To Brandon Flowers: You Have Two Years Left To Live
This - a study measuring the economic benefits of celebrity suicide with specific focus on Kurt Cobain - is apparently very enlightening. Some of the highlights, as reported by The Guardian...

The three professors walk us through the debits and credits of Kurt Cobain's suicide. Mostly, they see credits: increased sales of his music and merchandise; increased "iconic value" of products fans had already purchased; and a variety of emotional benefits that could theoretically be given a financial value. The musicians associated with Kurt Cobain, especially his wife, Courtney Love and her band, Hole, also presumably benefit from an increase in attention and perceived value.

Professor Lester and his colleagues point out further, subtle benefits to Kurt Cobain's suicide. Cobain died at 27, early in a human lifespan, but perhaps fairly late in a pop singer's expected career. "The potential of his future artistic productivity may be much less than was generated by his suicide," they write. "Indeed, it is possible that future mediocre works might have blighted a legacy, leading to negative reappraisals and lower sales of his peak-period work."

Of suicide in general - and specifically of any me-too suicides that Cobain's death may have inspired - the professors describe a higher sort of economic benefit to society. There is, they write, a "selective elimination of those who are unable to cope adequately with the requirements of the environment in which they are trying to survive."

See? Everyone's a winner. So the next time your buddy who's a big Elliott Smith fan starts prattling on about how senseless the singer/songwriter's self-inflicted demise was, just show him this. Because it's impossible to argue with economics. Or at least equally senseless to try.

The supplemental question that needs to be asked is this: would the world be better off if every pop star of a certain calibre killed him or herself at or near the peak of his or her glory?

For instance, would the world be a better place if Jay-Z had killed himself after The Blueprint, Britney Spears after I'm A Slave 4 U, the Barenaked Ladies after Gordon? Is this something we should attempt to legislate? And, if so, should we employ roving death squads or attempt to maximize the financial windfall by staging public hangings and selling the TV rights? Perhaps MTV could launch a separate channel - MTV17 - devoted entirely to this?

And could this - should this - be extended to other fields? For instance, should Mike Tyson have killed himself after knocking out Michael Spinks? Should Bill Clinton have killed himself moments after winning re-election over Bob Dole? Should George W. Bush have offed himself after returning home from a particularly raging kegger in college?

Obviously these are scenarios we have to consider. The world teeters in a very precarious position right now. And it's time for out-of-the-box thinking and ideas. Let this be the start of a very important national - nay, global - dialogue.

2006-11-22T01:58:00.000-05:00

A Day In The Life Of Noel Gallagher
This is what separates Noel Gallagher from your average, Morrissey-obsessed indie rock band. Noel Gallagher will go and say some legitimately insane shit and it's almost impossible to imagine him ever subsequently apologizing or whining about how some mean journalist chose only to focus on the negative things he had to say. This country could probably use its own Noel Gallagher (1).

Anyway. On with one day's worth of Noel soundbites.

On the new Beatles record: "It's a pointless exercise."

On the Scissor Sisters: "I like 'Laura,' from the first record, but it's music for squares, man. They're huge in England, but there's no accounting for bad taste as far as the English are concerned."

On environmentalists: "Greens are fucking hippies with no place in the world. How do you suggest we get millions of Chinese not to have a fridge? Or get millions of Americans to stop using their big, stupid cars?"

On the war in Iraq: "Blair made an almighty cock-up going to war in Iraq... You get a million people walking through Hyde Park -- 'don't send the troops' and all that... The troops want to go, all they want to do is fight! They're soldiers. They're loving it, until they get shot -- then they're claiming compensation. If you're bothered about getting shot -- here's a thing -- don't join the army."

----------
(1) More on this later. Probably.

2006-11-21T23:45:00.000-05:00

Finally A Rap Song For Carpal Tunnel Sufferers
Various questions prompted by Eminem's latest bit of self analysis.

At this point is his most heated beef with himself?
Is this his response to Kurt Cobain?
Or his homage to Andrew Dice Clay?
And when you think about it, isn't Eminem sort of equal to Kurt Cobain + Andrew Dice Clay?
Does he just have no idea where to go from here?
Why do I feel like that's more often an issue in rap than in, say, rock music?
And is that what inspired Jay-Z to include a track produced by Chris Martin on his new record?

2006-11-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

Buffalo Love
History will show that Nelly Furtado's slow slip into irrelevance began the moment she uttered the infamous ad-lib "Is your game MVP like Calvillo?" at halftime of the 2006 Grey Cup.

Behold the spectacle. If nothing else it serves to prove how quickly Promiscuous falls apart without Timbaland. And that it's ridiculous to open a halftime show at a football game with a soccer anthem.

(According to the Post's Siri Agrell, the Bob Woodward of Grey Cup halftime shows, Nelly Furtado wasn't the first choice of organizers. Apparently they wanted to go with Nick Lachey. I'm not sure whether that makes last night's show better or worse.)

2006-11-16T21:22:00.000-05:00

No Compromises. No Excuses. No Apologies.
The Dears in an interview with the Toronto Sun.

"It was horrible and by far the darkest, cheapest and most ghetto festival ever. It was just so gross. The treatment was terrible. The whole reason for the festival is to sell cellphones. It's awful. We'll never do a V-Fest ever again."

The Dears in a subsequent message posted on their website.

"An article came out today in the Toronto Sun that does not accurately reflect our overall experience at the V Festival in Toronto. We had a great show that day and the audience was fantastic. Also, a lot of people worked very hard to put together the event and we want them to know that we really do appreciate their efforts. Sometimes news articles concentrate on the negative rather than the good."

And sometimes rock stars are pussies.

2006-11-16T20:00:00.000-05:00

Bringing Creepy Back
Now with shaky, handheld video.

2006-11-16T02:10:00.000-05:00

The Reviews Are In
How fantastic was Michael Jackson's comeback at the World Music Awards tonight? Very fantastic. So fantastic that no reporter on the scene seemed capable of squeezing all the fantastic details into just one story. Let's go to the highlights...

Monsters and Critics: Jackson - who is set to perform his classic hit 'Thriller' at tonight's (15.11.06) ceremony in London - demanded personal hair and make-up artists, a private jet and 20 first-class plane tickets for his entourage. The eccentric singer has also made a number of outrageous demands to staff at the Hempel Hotel, in London's Bayswater area, where he is staying at a cost of £6,300-a-night. Upon Jackson's request the lavish hotel has erected an 18ft wall on its first floor to provide more privacy for him and his three children.

BBC: Outside the venue, you could almost taste the excitement... Inside the venue, it seemed like everyone had come specifically to see Jackson. Every pause in the evening's ceremony (and there were many) was soundtracked by shouts of "Michael, Michael". When host Lindsay Lohan fluffed her lines, she was booed - presumably for delaying the pop star's appearance by a few more precious seconds.

BBC: Jackson received a standing ovation as he walked onto the stage. He told the audience: "I love you. God has answered my prayers. Thriller has become the biggest-selling album of all time, with 140 million sold. I love all the fans from the bottom of my heart. I love England." He then left the stage to boos from the crowd who had still expected him to sing.

The Times: He had told organisers that he would re-create his Thriller video after being presented with the Diamond Award for selling more than 100 million albums. But the celebrities and public, who had paid up to £70 for a ticket, were left waiting for 30 minutes as Jackson suffered stage fright in his dressing room. Beyoncé, who was being honoured in the show, comforted Jackson and persuaded him to sing.

Reuters: The 48-year-old, performing live for the first time since he was acquitted of child molestation charges in June 2005, had been expected to sing his seminal hit Thriller. But to the huge disappointment of screaming fans, that was performed instead by young U.S. star Chris Brown.

USA Today: With a few thrilling bars of We Are the World, Michael Jackson made a triumphant return to the spotlight... dressed in a sequined black tuxedo, said little and sang even less, but that didn't dampen the spirits of his fans, many of whom traveled from around the world to witness Jackson's comeback.

AP: ...he appeared on stage and sang among a group of swaying, clapping kids - until the musical accompaniment inexplicably stopped. "There have been so many people who have loved me and stood by me. I love all the fans from the bottom of my heart," Jackson said before flinging his black jacket into the crowd and exiting the stage.

Melbourne Herald Sun: "While I cannot meet all of them I would like to thank my wonderful children, Paris, Prince and Blanket for their unconditional love and support and my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters, my entire family for their love and support."

BBC: At the end of the song he spent time shaking hands with people in the front row before leaving the stage... It was not the first disappointment of the evening for Jackson fans, as the star failed to stop and meet the hundreds of supporters who had waited for hours to see him on the red carpet.

That's some multi-layered awesomeness. There's almost no way this doesn't end wonderfully. And somehow even Billy Bush is involved. I can't wait for the inevitable M.J.-Britney-O.J. World Tour of Truth.

2006-11-14T23:28:00.000-05:00

What Were The Kids Listening To in 2005? Hank Williams. Obviously.
This is obviously satirical.

2006-11-13T02:26:00.000-05:00

Great Moments In MuchMusic History #310
I was advised to seek this out awhile ago, but just now found it on YouTube.

VJ Leah v. MC Kheaven. Clash of the titans.

2006-11-13T01:47:00.000-05:00

Finally, Some Real Reporting About The Spears-Federline Divorce
Paging Pulitizer.

"At the time the two of them were in the honeymoon stages of the relationship and couldn't keep their hands off each other. They did nothing all day but have sex—and play the odd game of chess."

This is EXACTLY how I always pictured Britney's domestic life.

2006-11-13T01:42:00.001-05:00

Great Moments In MuchMusic History #309
On the bright side, it appears Hannah Simone has been handed the reins at The New Music. The Hannah is dead, long live The Hannah.

2006-11-08T19:03:00.000-05:00

Great Moments In MuchMusic History #308
That time Britney broke up with K-Fed while he was being interviewed by Matte Babel.

After thinking about this far more than I should... All right, I realize I'm about to enter into a semi-serious discussion of MuchMusic's relative merits as a journalistic entity capable of breaking relevant and timely stories and I realize this is absolutely insane...

But how did MuchMusic miss this story? I mean, obviously MuchMusic isn't The New York Times and Matte Babel ain't David E. Sanger, but isn't this the sort of lapse that should generally inspire much (no pun intended) internal soul searching and probably result in someone getting fired?

Britney called it quits with K-Fed while he was being filmed by MuchMusic cameras. In fact, according to the video evidence, K-Fed was SITTING RIGHT BESIDE Matte Babel when Britney texted over her news. Federline proceeds to look crushed and VJ Matte later acknowledges that something seemed amiss and yet it's not MuchMusic, but TMZ.com that breaks the news? How is that possible? The biggest entertainment news story of the year is happening at the same dinner table and Much misses it? How does that happen?

Again, I understand, Matte Babel is not what most would consider a quote-unquote serious journalist. But you have to think Tanya Kim would have had this scoop if she'd be hanging out with K-Fed that night.

2006-11-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

It's All About Clarity
Noel Gallagher weighs in on Quebec's nationhood.

What do you think of when you think of Canada?
I think of being absolutely freezing fookin’ cold. And I also think of this fookin’ weird, weird French influence. What’s that all about? What business have they got over there? Why French? I was in a Dunkin Donuts in Canada, and the menu was in French — the whole thing, right. And I asked the woman for a coffee, and she only spoke French. Now, I’ve taken a lot of drugs in my time mate, but I’ve got to say that the single most frightening experience of my life was thinking, “I could have swore I was fookin’ in Canada when I got off that tour bus. And now I’m in… am I? No. I don’t know.” And then I said to the woman, “You can speak English, can’t you?” And I think she was getting annoyed that I was being a bit rude by that point, because she was only speaking French. I was going, “I know you can speak English. We’re in Canada. And I know you understand what I’m saying.” I may have brought up something about the war and then left.

Is there anything in the constitution that would specifically prevent a British rock star from running for federal office in Canada? Can we look into this? Maybe start a petition or something?

2006-11-07T15:59:00.000-05:00

Aside From Inevitably Leading To Disaster, It's A Great Idea
So not only is Bob Rae a huge hip-hop head, but he also apparently reads Defamer enough to make Britney Spears analogies about Canadian politics.

"Harper's problem is that he fought against Meech and he fought viscerally against Charlottetown. So you know I have always thought the love affair between the people of Quebec and Stephen Harper made less sense than, you know, than Britney Spears's first marriage."

Unfortunately it's unclear whether Rae sees Harper as Britney Spears and Quebec as the briefly anonymous hick or vice versa.

Mere seconds later... No sooner had I hit the publish button then news of this was yelled jubilantly across my office. Somehow I blame Michael Ignatieff.

2006-11-06T17:37:00.000-05:00

Where Do You Go When You've Already Been To The Top?
Finally - Finally! - an update on my younger sister's favourite former member of the Backstreet Boys, Kevin "No really, I'm not from the Ozarks, I swear" Richardson. In fact, the Toronto Star touts it as an exclusive (1).

Apparently our boy Kev is coming to Toronto... to perform in Chicago.

"... he'll appear in the gala celebration on Nov. 14 marking the 10th anniversary of the show on Broadway, sharing the spotlight with the likes of Bebe Neuwirth, Ann Reinking, Melanie Griffiths, Ashlee Simpson and Brooke Shields.

"It's an honour just to be onstage with those people," said Richardson over the phone from his home just outside of Lexington, Ky. "I look at that lineup and say, `Kevin, what did you ever do to wind up rubbing elbows with stars like that?'"

Stars like that indeed. Brian Littrell (2) wishes he could be sharing the spotlight with a former sitcom star, a former theatre star, a former movie star, a former pop star and a former model.

On June 23, he announced he was leaving the group, "in order to move on with the next chapter of my life." He only issued a brief statement then kept quiet during the subsequent keening from his devoted followers.

So why did he do it?

There's a long pause at the end of the line, so long in fact, it almost seems the phone has gone dead. Then he answers.

"I was at a point in my life when I wanted to examine some of the other things that go into making up Kevin Richardson. You see, I'm not like a lot of other people in show business. I'm not what you'd call a multi-tasker. When I commit myself to something, I commit 100 per cent and that's what I did when I was a Backstreet Boy."

Referring to yourself in the third-person? Check. Serious discussion of giving it 100%? Check. If Kevin can dribble a basketball in the least, he's ready for the NBA.

Anyway. Let's be serious for a moment because this is serious. Very serious. This isn't about some former boy band singer turning to theatre to make the mortgage payments. No. This is about tackling the greatest threat to humanity in the early 21st century... Namely, flashiness.

"I think we can get too much flash in our lives," he laments. "You find it everywhere nowadays; it's not just in show business, it's on Wall Street, it's in Washington. It can overshadow talent."

True. So very true.

----------
(1) That management shuffle was obviously totally worth it.
(2) I spelled this correctly without having to look it up. Just so you know.

2006-11-06T17:03:00.000-05:00

Um, Yeah
I agree with this entirely.

Also: if we were to hold the vote again today, k-os would have to win. ESPN NFL Countdown used a clip of Sunday Morning on, well, Sunday morning and in that instant, everyone's favourite crank (1) rapper was heard by more people than everyone else on that list... combined.

----------
(1) Like crunk, only crankier.

2006-11-01T01:09:00.000-05:00

I Am The Most Open-Minded Person In The World, Why Can't You All Be More Like Me
Matthew has come through with his second annual list of the hottest acts in Canada, as voted on by those of us with obviously too much time on our hands.

Not too many surprises. I guess I thought k-os would finish higher than 25th, but then I suspect a lot of people actually hate him (more on this later probably). In fact, he finished only one spot higher than the Arcade Fire, who haven't released an album in something like 7 years.

I again object to the fact that no one else loves Alexisonfire. It's basically me and a bunch of misfit 14-year-olds in Burlington. If I should disappear in the near future, it's because I've decided to start hanging out behind some suburban high school, drinking cheap beer and burning various refuse.

Seriously. Would you really rather listen to the Dears? Really? I don't get it.

Anyway. In the comments supporting Nelly Furtado's 22nd place finish, Quinn asks, 'When was the last time one of our Top 40 exports hasn't been at least a bit embarrassing?' and suggests I might know the answer to this.

Well, I actually reject the thesis that Nelly Furtado isn't embarrassing. But otherwise... I'm going to say k.d. lang circa Ingenue, which reached 18th on the Billboard 200 in 1992 and won lang a Grammy for Constant Craving. Coincidentally, Furtado herself might have been the last least embarrassing (circa the I'm Like A Bird era), but then she had to go and reinvent into her current self, a move I consider akin to me deciding to spend my days hanging out with a bunch of 14-year-olds behind a Burlington high school.

Refusing to let this go... From Dec. 14 to Dec. 18, AOF is playing five shows across Toronto. They're all sold out. And so tickets went on sale this morning for a sixth show. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that perhaps Destroyer could not do likewise.

2006-10-30T18:16:00.000-05:00

Out-Sourcing Strikes Again: Rock's Last Great Hope Will Soon Belong To Some Kids In Thailand
Apparently I missed this Forbes story last week, explaining in great depth how Nirvana will live on in prime-time crime dramas and eco-friendly consumer products.

I can't decide which part is my favourite, so let's review a few of the highlights.

In marketing materials that the company presents to prospective customers, Primary Wave pitches Cobain as an influential music icon with broad appeal.

"To Gen X, Cobain was their voice," the pitch reads. "To the Boomers, he was a revolutionary and to Gen Y, he is as iconic as James Dean, Che Guevara and John Lennon."

The Boomers consider Kurt Cobain a revolutionary? Really? So when I go home this weekend and ask my mum and dad to describe what Kurt Cobain means to them, the first word they will use will be "revolutionary?" Are you sure? Do you have some focus group data to back this up? Because I'm pretty sure the first word they will use to describe to Kurt Cobain is "dead" or possibly "who?" (1)

Primary Wave approached CSI: Miami music supervisor P.J. Bloom in August about the possibility of using Nirvana songs in an episode of the show, one of the most popular programs on television, both in the U.S. and overseas.

As it happens, the 37-year-old Bloom is an avid Nirvana fan who followed the band from its early days before it broke big nationally. After Bloom quickly warmed to the idea, he asked Primary Wave to make sure that all those with an interest in the deal -- Geffen, Love, former Nirvana bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl and their managers -- were all supportive of the concept.

Once that was secured, both sides laid down some basic ground rules. Primary Wave stipulated that the episode using Nirvana music not feature any suicide or drug-addiction themes -- Cobain famously struggled with heroin. Bloom, in turn, insisted that CSI: Miami have exclusive TV rights to Nirvana songs until the episode airs...

Bloom declined to disclose the plot of the episode, saying only that it involves "evil military recruiters."

This actually makes a lot of sense. If Cobain didn't already write a song about evil military recruiters, I'm sure he would have had he lived long enough to do so. Failing that, maybe he would have tried to put an ironic twist on Elvis' military, er, career and joined the Marines. How fantastic would that have been? Probably like Matthew Modine's character in Full Metal Jacket only with a raging heroin addiction and a propensity for non-sensical battle cries (2).

Bloom says he's aware that the use of Cobain's songs on a TV show might rankle some fans.

"It's going to happen with or without me," he says. "They should find solace in the fact that it's a true Nirvana fan that's behind the wheel. [The show] will use the music in a way that maintains Kurt's legacy and keeps that intact. I wouldn't do it any other way."

Asher agrees. "If a hundred kids in Thailand watch [a TV show featuring Nirvana's music] and think, 'Wow, who's that?' then we've accomplished our mission," he says.

Several questions of varying importance:

What exactly is Kurt Cobain's legacy at this point?
How exactly does an overwrought crime show starring David Caruso having anything to do with that legacy?
And, finally, how many kids in Thailand watch CSI: Miami? CSI: Las Vegas, sure. But CSI: Miami? I'm not even sure why people in Miami would watch CSI: Miami. Are we to believe David Caruso pulls huge audiences in Thailand? Is Caruso to Thailand as Hasselhoff is to Germany? Is that what's sustained him since NYPD Blue?

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(1) To clarify against misinterpretation, this is not to question the general, pop culture knowledge of my parents. Quite the contrary. Furthermore, if I was a baby boomer, I wouldn't give a shit about Kurt Cobain. Seriously. Why would I care? My generation had the Beatles, Rolling Stones and some pretty good years of Frank Sinatra. Kurt Cobain? Whatever.
(2) "Sickening pessimist, hypocrite master/ Conservative communist, apocalyptic bastard/ Thank you dear God, for putting me on this Earth. I feel very privileged, in debt for my thirst!"

2006-10-30T18:07:00.000-05:00

The Internet Sucks
So on the day I start a new job, Jalen Rose gets waived by the Knicks and Reese Witherspoon calls it quits with that weird-looking dude. Couldn't this momentous occasion in my personal history have arrived with some sign of hope? Some news of renewal? Is that too much to ask?

Ah, phew... here we go. Crisis averted.

(By the way, I no longer work here. I now work here. Please adjust your address books accordingly.)

2006-10-29T00:35:00.000-04:00

58% Want Change
The other day I was riding eastbound on the subway when I decided that Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor is quite possibly one of the greatest records ever made.

This is not necessarily a particularly noteworthy revelation, save for the fact that the chief complaint noted in two of Food & Liquor's more notably lukewarm reviews is that Food & Liquor is, to the contrary, not one of the greatest records ever made. Explained one of the reviewers after rhyming off Food & Liquor's flaws: "Of course, this sounds negative, but it's more the notes of a slightly disappointed fan."

This is, of course, a completely reasonable way to review records. Jay-Z's new album will be judged this way. As is the follow-up to basically any critically acclaimed or best-selling album with the possible exception of Radiohead's Kid A (1). But this is, of course, completely insane in almost every other respect.

Imagine if you started living your life like this - judging every experience, relationship and moment by how close it came to being the greatest experience, relationship or moment of your life and being disappointed if it failed to do so. How much and what would you ever enjoy? Would you find yourself forever chasing the perfect meal, lover or episode of Saturday Night Live? Or, after about two weeks, would you end up huddled and naked in the corner of your living room, rocking back and forth and endlessly muttering to yourself the catch phrases from your favourite mid-90s SNL skits?

I would suggest the latter. First, because so much of what you do, who you meet and where you go would seem disappointing, or at least underwhelming. And second, because even when you found examples of true greatness, the discovery would be tempered by the knowledge that everything else would be that much more unlikely to measure up.

This is, obviously, an awful way to live. But, equally obviously, a perfectly fine way to review records.

The obvious moral? Everyone should be a follower of music, but no one should follow music.

Obviously.

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(1) It's actually sort of difficult to explain why that happened exactly. Some would suggest it's because Radiohead went so far out of their way to change their sound and therefore appeared daring, self-aware and, in making something so apparently uncommercial, uncorrupted by "the industry." But if that were so, Radiohead could have cut a certifiably great glam rock record and been as well received. And we all know that never would have happened.

2006-10-27T21:13:00.000-04:00

The Right Answer
My top ten list submitted for iheartmusic.net's annual ranking of the hottest acts in Canada. Anyone who does not agree is wrong.

1. Alexisonfire - So ridiculously under-valued. I generally have no time for screamy stuff, but I love this band. And I imagine that Dallas Green is basically a new Elvis for a generation of Canadian teenage girls.
2. k-os - Because his basic stance is: If you don't like me, there's something fundamentally wrong with you. Awesome.
3. Final Fantasy - Might actually be more impetuous than k-os. Not really a big fan of the music, but I encourage his success because it will inevitably be interesting.
4. The Tragically Hip - Write this down. Twenty-five years from now, long after they've more or less broken up, they're going to get back together, cut a live-off-the-floor acoustic record and subsequently bask in the glow of profound critical reassessment. Buy this stock now.
5. Malajube - Every anglophone's token French band after their Polaris performance.
6. Bedouin Soundclash - I wasn't entirely convinced. Then I saw them eating at a Bennigan's in Rochester, NY.
7. Billy Talent - They're so close to be a truly great band. At the very least, they've got the market cornered on ridiculous haircuts.
8. Nelly Furtado - Congratulations, you're no longer a one-hit wonder. You're a two-hit wonder. Who was out-sung by your producer on the latter.
9. Amy Millan - Not just because I got paid by her label to write her bio. I swear.
10. Eva Avila - Am I completely insane to believe Eva will be the first Canadian Idol winner to actually matter? Probably. But if loving her is wrong, I would prefer not to be right.

2006-10-25T16:31:00.000-04:00

It Was A Good Year To Be Kurt Cobain
So long as you don't mind being dead. The best part:

"New York publishing company Primary Wave has already signed a deal to highlight Nirvana songs in an episode of CBS-TV's CSI: Miami, the magazine said."

If you cried upon hearing that Kurt Cobain had shot himself in the head, you probably just threw up a little bit in your mouth. Thing is, I'm fairly certain that if Cobain had refrained from shooting himself in the head, Come As You Are would have only shown up on CSI even earlier.

(Hey, remember that time John Mayer was on CSI? Man, that was awesome.)

2006-10-24T01:42:00.000-04:00

Bob Rae: The Hip-Hop Candidate. Obviously.
From Julie Smyth's Ottawa notebook in Saturday's Post:

"Liberal leadership candidate Bob Rae, fresh from skinny-dipping with Rick Mercer, will show off his musical talent at a gala concert and fundraiser on Wednesday in Toronto, where he will accompany singer Michelle Roth on piano. Mr. Rae is an accomplished pianist and composer and supporter of the arts. (Among the things he has taken credit for: a homegrown hip-hop scene in Toronto that he says resulted from a jobs program while he was premier of Ontario. He has also composed a song, called All in the Boat Now, about multiculturalism)."

(Emphasis mine. Obviously.)

Update. Adam Radwanski, the esteemed, gracious and remarkably talented managing editor of Macleans.ca, writes:

When I interviewed Kardinal Offishal last year, he explicitly gave credit to the NDP-era programs for giving kids like him a chance to hone their artistic skills, including rapping.

This obviously does not mean that Rae is a founding father of Toronto's hip-hop scene, but it's not entirely ludicrous to suggest he contributed to its development.

Agreed. There's certainly a case to be made for Rae on this account. In fact, I'd love to see him explicitly highlight his love of Canadian hip-hop at the Liberal convention next month. Surely it would win him one - maybe even two - delegates.

He would risk alienating Dan McTeague though.

(Hey, remember when The Globe wrote that editorial about 50 Cent? Ah, those were the days.)

2006-10-22T02:21:00.000-04:00

Lonely End Of The Rink
I invented a new game while driving back and forth between Rochester (1) last week: Imagine The Tragically Hip In A Different Context (2).

For instance, had Gord Downie's acceptance speech/poem (3) from the non-televised half of the Juno Awards a couple years ago in Winnipeg been delivered by Owen Pallett at the recent Polaris Prize ceremony it would not have been met with a shrug and then soon forgotten. Instead it would have become holy grail to the Final Fantasy faithful. The over/under on subsequent blog posts would have been something like 3,000 (4). In fact, there would probably be at least three blogs dedicated to discussing and debating Pallett's precious verse.

Or let's say In View, the first single off The Hip's new record, was instead the first single off the next Arcade Fire record (5). Actually, I'm not entirely convinced it isn't an Arcade Fire song, but if it were released under their name, it probably would have gone down as one of the most beloved in the history of music blogs. Hands down winner as Pitchfork's single of the year. Probably would have made the Stereogum dude cry.

Other scenarios to debate: Family Band, the second last track on World Container, would be the second-best Killers' track of the year. And if Gord Downie were 30 years old right now, he would be Kevin Drew.

Anyway. Also while driving between Toronto and Rochester I decided that the Tragically Hip are the Canadian band most responsible for the current generation of Canadian rock. Much of the best music of the last four years was either implicitly or explicitly influenced by The Hip. Or it was created in almost direction reaction to them. I'm entirely convinced of this.

I'm also fairly certain it's always a bad idea to listen to the photographer who says, "Yes, just put this scarf on and, um, how bout you sit in front of this fire place and, yeah, perfect." He or she does not have your best interests at heart.

----------
(1) Rochester in four words: Like Buffalo. Only smaller.
(2) The home version should be in stores in time for Christmas.
(3) A transcript was once posted on The Hip's website but then they re-designed and it was lost to this mysterious series of tubes. It was entitled We Are The Next Us and basically celebrated all that has become The Hip, while attacking those who use the "it's not the band I hate, it's their fans" line of argument to slur them. That probably doesn't sound very exciting, but you have to believe me, it's great. Once I track down a copy, I'll post it here.
(4) Granted, that wouldn't have made as much sense coming from Pallett.
(5) On MuchMusic right now - Skee-lo's I Wish I. I love that he's rocking a University of Michigan jersey. I still find him 200% less ridiculous than Mad Child. Stop scowling dude. You're fooling no one.

2006-10-21T19:07:00.000-04:00

Purple Hearts
Now that Paul McCartney's an alleged wife beater, will all those music programmers who fashion themselves great defenders of society's moral standards when they ban Gary Glitter, Michael Jackson and the like, be brave enough to remove the Beatles from their playlists? I mean, because obviously they wouldn't want to be seen as promoting such heinous (alleged) actions... would they?

Speaking of tastefulness, my favourite McCartney-Mills divorce headlines so far...

The Times: All you need is lawyers
The Australian: Carry that weight
Chicago Tribune: Paul vs. Heather: Help!
New York Post: Let it Bea
Glasgow Daily Record: Hard Di's night
The Times: Hey, feud

2006-10-19T19:03:00.000-04:00

'Telfair was observed making a phone call after the chain was stolen.'
For a basketball writer who also still writes about music, what could possibly top this story? LeBron James joining Boyz II Men and forcing the Cavaliers to put the group in the starting line-up? P.Diddy letting Dikembe Mutombo guest on his next record? The Raptors giving Master P a tryout?

Wait. Forget that last one.

2006-10-18T15:23:00.000-04:00

OMG! OMG! OMG!
So I'm in Rochester, New York, seated at a table in famed American eatery Bennigan's, enjoying my buffalo chicken sandwich when I look over and see two guys from Bedouin Soundclash dining at a booth by the window. What on earth, I say to myself, are two guys from Bedouin Soundclash doing in Rochester, New York? Well, apparently they're playing a show tonight.

Anyway. This probably goes down as my second greatest restaurant-related brush with fame, just after the time I saw Bree Leslie Pucilowski at a Mexican place in Austin, Texas.

Also, this reminds me that Matthew at iheartmusic.net (apparently assuming it still exists) asked me a few weeks ago to contribute to his second annual list of the Hottest Acts in Canada.

Last year's top five was, in order, Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, Final Fantasy and Feist. Since then only Final Fantasy (I believe) has released another record (unless you count Feist's b-side thingy) and, with the Polaris win recently, he probably tops this year's poll pretty easily (all those dickhead music critics again failing to get behind their own).

I get to nominate ten acts, ranked one through ten. And now, as I digest that buffalo chicken sandwich and watch Law & Order rerun about freedom of the press in my hotel room, I ask myself, can I really leave Bedouin Soundclash off my list? They aren't really my thing. Seem like good guys. Obviously have great taste in restaurants... I'm just not a big fan. Still, the kids love them. Or so I grasp from my hour or two of MuchMusic each week (plus they had a diary on MTV and they don't just hand those out). And who am I to deny the kids?

(Other bands that probably should make the list but won't: the Tragically Hip, Sloan, Alexisonfire and of course... Shaye.)

(If I had to make up my top ten at this very moment, off the top of my head, it would be: 1. Alexisonfire. 2. k-os. 3. Final Fantasy. 4. The Tragically Hip. 5. Nelly Furtado. 6. The Hidden Cameras. 7. Malajube. 8. Cadence Weapon. 9. Metric. 10. Broken Social Scene.)

2006-10-18T00:16:00.000-04:00

Jesse Brown Can Blow Me
Apologies for the sudden hiatus. Not sure what happened to the last two weeks. Contrary to media reports I was not in Africa stocking up on poor children to remain current.

We now return you to your irregularly scheduled programming.

2006-10-03T08:45:00.000-04:00

The 33 Scariest Words In Rock 'n Roll
"Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida is working on a unique personal project, a spoken-word solo album particularly inspired by slam poetry and the artists who emerged from those powerful open-mic competitions."

The most fantastic story you'll read all day is here. This instantly becomes the most anticipated record of the year, doesn't it?

Update 6:09pm EST... At the very least, maybe we'll finally get to see Raine go one-on-one with Malcolm Jamal Warner in a Slam Poetry smackdown.

2006-10-02T23:23:00.000-04:00

Copyright Controls!! Interoperability!! WOOOOO!! Par-tay!!
Actual items on the "programming matrix" for the Future of Music Policy Summit in Montreal this weekend.

Thursday, October 5
11:30am - 12:45pm Losing Music: Preservation and Storage
4:30pm - 5:45pm Meet the Mini-Me-dia
4:30pm - 5:45pm International Touring and Visas

Friday, October 6
10:00am - 11:15am Format Wars: Digital Rights Management and Interoperability
11:30am - 12:45pm Avatars with Guitars: Music for Games
6:00pm - 7:30pm Cocktail Party hosted by Consumer Electronics Association

Saturday, October 7
9:30am - 10:45am In Perfect Harmony: International Copyright Issues
1:30pm - 2:45pm A State of Independents: The Changing Definition of Indie
4:30pm - 5:45pm Policymaking: How to Make an Impact

David Byrne's also doing a lecture, entitled Record Companies: Who Needs Them? It is described thusly:

"Beginning with a breakdown of music distribution into five approaches, David will discuss the options along the continuum: from extremely hands on for the artist, to almost completely hands off. While monetary returns [per unit] often follow and parallel a sliding scale, i.e. the more hands on the artist is, the more they stand to make per unit sold, that doesn't mean the most hands on approach is for everyone.

"During this presentation, David Byrne will explain how 1) the rapid fall of recording costs and 2) the rapid fall of distribution costs have tilted the economics of the music industry in the favor of the artist; what kinds of business models make the most sense for the artist; the ramifications of each business model; and most importantly, what artists should be aiming for in the long run."

Those in attendance will also receive a rockin' rectal exam as a special bonus.

2006-09-29T14:32:00.000-04:00

Black Eyed Peas... OWNED!
The absolute highlight of my week was this piece (1), in which the Winnipeg Sun gets spurned by the Black Eyed Peas and proceeds with one of the more impassioned rip jobs in recent history.

Let's go to the highlights...

To us, Black Eyed Peas represent pretty much everything that's wrong with music nowadays, from their supposedly socially conscious lyrics to their inescapable ubiquitousness (first Best Buy, then the world!) to their oh-so-calculated street image. Had we got some phone time with 'em, we'd probably have felt more generous. But since we didn't (and since we're small, petty people), we're just gonna point out the following

Awesome. Ever been involved in producing a record and had it receive a bad review? Well, this basically confirms everything you ever thought about music criticism. In other news, I have no idea why journalists are so poorly perceived these days. I'm dumbfounded, in fact.

Also: pop music shouldn't be ubiquitous. Wrap your head around that one kids.

Sure, the Peas aren't the first posse out there to take liberties with the English language. But two of the band's four members (will.i.am and apl.de.ap) have taken the practice so far they're like those Valley girls who insisted on being called Tyfanni, then dotted their "i" with a heart or a smiley face. And don't get us started on Fergie's new album The Dutchess. What, there's not a single person in the BEP camp who knows how to run Spellcheck? (No "t" in Duchess, kids.)

All right. Fair point.

Hey, even we thought Don't Phunk With My Heart was kind of catchy ... for about 10 seconds, until we realized we'd enjoyed it even more 20 years ago, when it was a Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam song called I Wonder if I Take You Home. My Humps rips off I Need a Freak by Sexual Harassment, the track Union "interpolates" Sting's Englishman in New York (even drafting the once-great rocker for an embarrassing cameo), and Pump It consists of nothing more than Dick Dale's Miserlou run in its entirety but with a bunch of annoying beats and ad libs slapped on. That's not sampling, that's a cover.

Sweet. A sampling debate. Didn't we all get over this in, like, 1994? No? Could we get Vanilla Ice on the line to comment? Hold on... Prince Be Softly from PM Dawn would like to say something: "Sampling artistry is a very misunderstood form of music. A lot of people think sampling is thievery but it can take more time to find the right sample than to make up a riff."

Yeah, Apl lived in poverty in the Philippines until he was 14, and he and Will (who grew up in the projects but was bussed to an all-white school) took part in breakdancing and emcee battles in their younger years. But Taboo's first industry job was shovelling horse manure at Disneyland, and Fergie was a child star on TV's Kids Incorporated (alongside future thespians like Mario Lopez and Jennifer Love Hewitt) before forming pop trio Wild Orchid, a teeny-bopper version of Wilson Phillips. And, yes, their multi-culti, positive-thinking vibe can be a welcome relief from the bling-laden boasts of rap contemporaries. But are we the only ones who think they seem less like a band and more like a middle-aged marketing exec's version of what a Benetton ad might look like if scored to some "phat beats" and "dope rhymes?"

Will... what a total sellout.

What exactly is the argument here? That black people from the projects shouldn't go to all-white schools? Or, if they do, they can no longer claim to be from the projects? Is this a call for a return to segregation? I'm confused. This is like the ultimate "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong" moment for music journalism.

Also: multi-culti is a terrible phrase. Please let this never again appear in print.

During a concert in Australia, Fergie peed her pants while on stage. Yes, literally PEED HER PANTS... Keith Richards doing enough heroin to kill a herd of elephants, then heading back to the basement to crank out Exile on Main St.? That's rock 'n' roll. Peeing your pants on stage because you had too much champagne in the green room? That's just sad.

Sure. Urinary incontinence is funny. I think we're all with you on that. And, no, it's not very rock n' roll. But don't try to make that point with a comparison to Keith Richards' epic drug use because said drug use probably left Richards with much the same problem that apparently afflicts Fergie.

Just saying.

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(1) Yes, it was a slow week.

2006-09-26T15:05:00.000-04:00

My Seventeen Favourite Things About The Controversy Surrounding Aaron Carter's Marital Status

1. He proposed to model/actress Kari Ann Peniche onstage in Las Vegas during a performance of the Playboy Hollywood Comedy Tour.
2. Video of the proposal can be found at the bottom of this page.
3. His mother's reaction to the engagement: "I never listened to my parents at that age, so why would I put myself in the position of giving an opinion that would alienate my son and the progress we have made in healing from the divorce."
4. He's 18.
5. And had known her for five days.
6. He broke the engagement off six days later.
7. His father's advice: "Son, I know you’re 18 and you think you're an adult, but you're still a kid. Don't make any rash decisions... I told him you don't go looking for love, you don't go asking for love. It will happen when you're not looking for it."
8. Kari Ann on Aaron: "You know he has a lot of emotional problems and I just want him to get healthy and happy. I just want him to become stable."
9. She's a former Miss United States Teen title holder.
10. But was stripped of that title after posing for Playboy (you can look those pictures up for yourselves).
11. And she once "hooked up" with Nick Carter, Aaron's older brother and a former member of the Backstreet Boys.
12. Nick's reaction to news the engagement was off: "I don't like her."
13. Her film credits include a small role in Grilled, a film about two meat salesmen starring Ray Romano and Kevin James.
14. The movie's tagline: "You Can't Beat Their Meat."
15. She was also a cheerleader in Species III.
16. Yes, they actually made a Species III.
17. The Carter brothers have a new reality show debuting next week. What a coincidence, huh?

2006-09-22T14:11:00.000-04:00

The Second-Most Offensive Story In Last Weekend's Globe
I got so caught up in my entertaining, though vaguely offensive, discussion of the Polaris Prize that I forgot to heap attention upon the other music-related highlight of my week - John Mayer's talk with The Globe and Mail's Sarah Hampson, in which Mayer proceeds to make an ass of himself with seemingly little prodding from his interviewer. The best part is that after Mayer's done hanging himself, Hampson comes in with a baseball bat to get in one last lick on his still-twitching corpse. Highly entertaining.

Let's go to the highlights.

The gossip tabloids have it right, I figure. John Mayer dumps Jessica Simpson? He accused her of using him for publicity? Sure, I believe it, especially after what he told me a few weeks ago ... At a mere 28 years of age, he possesses an unusual combination of qualities. He is thoughtful and earnest, but has the arrogance of the gifted. He is famous, and knows it, but is repulsed by celebrity culture.

"This is what I want to do my entire life," he says of his music career. "I've looked up heroes in the black-and-white photos. I go to the record store when I get depressed and just take in what's around there," he continues, leaning forward now with big, brown, soulful eyes. "And that's not conducive to hanging out in Hollywood nightspots. Not that I will never be found in front of one, because I defend the ability to go out to one if I want to.

"But my altar is in a whole different church. Know what I mean? It's not the church of Hollywood. It's not the church of attention. It's not the church of blind affection."

If that's not already in a lyric in one of his song's, I'm offering 3-to-1 odds it will be.

He asks himself for "strength not to be seduced" by celebrity culture, he tells me. Still, he relished the moment he was famous enough for people to recognize him. "I was hoping to feel that it was difficult for me to be at the mall, because I was being recognized. Fuck the mall. That was the best moment of my life," he explains.

Anybody see CSI last night? Mayer was on and it was during his "concert" that one of the detectives got drugged (on her way, presumably, to getting raped). This will soon be part of a series I'm developing for Fox entitled, "When TV Guest Spots Go Horribly Wrong."

It's a different kind of entitlement Mayer suffers from. It's not the entitlement people of wealth or privilege often have: that life should be easy and that success should be delivered on a silver platter. His form of entitlement is more rare. It's the feeling that he deserves fame, was destined for it, in fact, because of his immense talent. (As he says, when talking about his music on Continuum, "It's very important for me to listen to it and go, 'Wow, this is who you really are. If you got lucky, you got lucky way too much for it to be luck.' ") Such self-adulation may explain why Mayer feels above the trappings of fame. He doesn't need celebrity to remind him how great he is.

Seriously. Did the producers of CSI tell him that was going to happen? Because how on earth do you say yes to that? 'All right John, here's what we're going to do. You're going to be playing your new song, everyone's going to be having a great time and then one of the lead characters is going to get raped by, presumably, one of your fans. Sound good? Great. Let's do this.'

Mayer's big, famous life may feel fated to him, but he doesn't seem to be enjoying it much. "I'm at this point in my life, and have been for quite a while, that I'm doing so well that most anybody I meet at a party would only be, at best, somebody who doesn't bring me down. I don't meet people who can give to me. I've been given so much and have been blessed so much that for me, if I go to a party, I am the celebrity at the party. I'm not going to meet a celebrity at a party. And for me to have a good time is so rare. The chances of meeting someone you can learn from are far smaller than the chances of meeting someone who will take from you."

Tighten noose, insert head. Miss Hampson, if you'll do the honours of the final shot...

I have only thing to say to that: Jessica, honey, run as fast as your stilettos will let you.

I'd pay good money to see the e-mails Hampson received in response to this.

2006-09-20T21:40:00.000-04:00

'Entertaining Though Vaguely Offensive'
It's all I've ever wanted to be.

Further Polaris commentary from Chromewaves, For The Records, Pop Candy, From Blown Speakers, You Could Use Me, My Indie World, Rock Snob, Torontoist, blogTO, Brooklyn Vegan, Stille Post, ilXor, The Globe and Mail and Chart.

2006-09-20T00:27:00.000-04:00

Tuesday Morning Quarterback
Montreal Mirror music editor and jury member Rupert Bottenberg on the shortlist: “Welcome to Canada. Everything starts and ends in Toronto, apparently."

(Rupert will surely find solace in the fact the Canadian Idol winner this year is from Quebec. And the runner-up is from Newfoundland.)

Polaris Prize winner Owen Pallett, in the same story, about what the award means: "I always feel like Canadian critics, especially, have for a long time, been hesitant to get behind something and say, hey this is really great. It's just part of the Canadian mentality. I think the best thing about the Polaris prize is it's maybe going to set a precedent for people to actually get behind our artists."

In case you were wondering, here are some of the local critics failing to get behind Final Fantasy's records:

Now: He Poos Clouds, 4 out of 5
Now: Has A Good Home, Best Toronto Record Of 2005
Eye: He Poos Clouds, 4 out of 5
Eye: Has A Good Home, 4 out of 5
The Star: He Poos Clouds, 3.5 out of 5
The Globe: Has A Good Home, 3.5 out of 4
The Globe: He Poos Clouds, 3.5 out of 4

2006-09-19T00:46:00.000-04:00

Thin Is In
The lights! The cameras! The socially awkward music writers! The questionable haircuts!... ladies and gentlemen, the indie rock event of the year... the inaugural Polaris Prize ceremony. Fifty years from now those of us who were there will be able tell our grandkids about it. We'll have forgotten who won by then, but will surely remember how little there was to eat.

For those of you who weren't lucky enough to enjoy the comedic stylings of Jian Ghomeshi, I offer this diary. And, for the right price, an authentic un-used drink ticket from tonight's festivities. Get your bids in now!

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7:47pm. Cross paths with Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew in the rain-soaked line-up to get in. Kevin feels strongly that his band has no chance of winning. In fact, he doesn't want to win because he doesn't want to get booed. Ah, the entirely predictable backlash. So necessary.

8:04pm. Settle in at the bar and take stock of our surroundings (my running mate for the evening is Shanda Deziel, an editor at Maclean's who is cited by Wikipedia as one of the most famous people to ever come out Leamington, Ontario). As someone else points out, the place is sort of set up like a wedding with round tables everywhere, each with a bottle of champagne. Maybe if we clink our glasses, we can get Drew and Brendan Canning to make out.

8:15pm. Ghomeshi gets things going with a few jokes about Ben Rayner and how Broken Social Scene has a lot of members. Every so often he puts his finger to his ear and claims that he has some breaking news to pass along. I know it doesn't sound funny now. But trust me, it was even less funny then. In fact, for a few seconds near the end of his monologue, it was so bad it was almost good. That moment passed quickly.

8:19pm. From his table, Drew hurls an unknown object in Ghomeshi's direction.

8:28pm. K'Naan takes the stage. Why don't he and k-os get along? They have almost exactly the same taste in headwear. Isn't that enough to bridge the gap?

8:37pm. Amanda Bynes was apparently at the Canadian Idol finale the other night. Learning this, I raise the obvious question: Is Amanda Bynes hot or not? The consensus is cute, but not hot. Just so you know.

8:45pm. A writer from Hamilton, introducing Sarah Harmer, gives a shout out to "North Burlington." North Burlington? Is Burlington so varied and cosmopolitan a metropolis that it must be divided into sections like that? Are people from North Burlington profoundly different from those in South Burlington? Is there some kind of rivalry there? Please explain.

8:47pm. "Ladies and gentlemen, the mountain herself, Sarah Harmer..."

9:01pm. J.D. Considine introduces Final Fantasy and describes himself as "chuffed." I can honestly say I've never felt "chuffed." I'm totally missing out, aren't I?

9:10pm. Final Fantasy brings out his own Harajuku Girls.

9:15pm. Rayner and Josh Ostroff offer their best impression of two grade eight students doing their language arts class presentation on why Metric is their favourite band. It was an impression, right?

9:17pm. Why aren't more people in the indie rock community riding Alexisonfire's collective jock (to use a crude sports term)? Aren't they exactly the sort of success story that we generally get all giddy about? Is it the yelling? Are they too loud? What gives? Along with the Hidden Cameras, they'll be on my ballot for next year's Polaris.

9:23pm. Adam Radwanski, in his farewell performance as the Post's music critic, introduces the Deadly Snakes, who just recently broke up. Andre Ethier on the fact the band was nominated but no longer exists: "Maybe it's a burn on us. Maybe it's a burn on you."

9:30pm. The best game to play while lurking at any indie rock gathering: Guess who is banging who. Endlessly entertaining.

9:35pm. In the video for their nomination, the New Pornographers try to start beef with Broken Social Scene. If this were the Source Awards, somebody would be getting stabbed right now. Since this is an indie rock award, everyone just smiles earnestly instead.

9:37pm. A.C. Newman says he wants Final Fantasy to win (foreshadowing!).

9:41pm. Wolf Parade take the stage and agree Final Fantasy should win (more foreshadowing!). They also ask that Rogers, the award's primary sponsor, pick up their bar tab from the previous night's boozing. (Remarkably, the Rogers executives in the building actually agree to do so. Your cable dollars at work.)

9:50pm. Cadence Weapon performs. I learn that there is absolutely nothing more entertaining than watching a bunch of white people over-compensate in their appreciation of hip-hop. Now throw your hands in the air. And wave them like you just feel really, really bad about that whole slavery thing. (This is not a shot at anyone in particular. Or Cadence Weapon, for that matter.)

9:54pm. Malajube finishes the night's performances with arguably the most enjoyable five and a half minutes of the evening (though, I must say, the evening was mostly enjoyable). Like a cross between the Verve and Sigur Ros, though somehow without sounding anything like Radiohead. The best part: they're named for a rare frog disease. I haven't heard their record and have no idea what they're saying, but I'm officially a big fan.

10:11pm. The jury has made its decision... Ghomeshi takes the envelope... ladies and gentlemen, your inaugural Polaris Prize winner... Final Fantasy! Lots of applause and whatnot... Somewhere Carl Wilson sheds a single tear of joy... Owen Pallett walks on stage and accepts a large, novelty cheque... everybody's happy.

Post Script. The best scene came shortly afterwards in a side room where Pallett was at the centre of a rather large press scrum, during which he dismissed at least one question as too "boring." Other than that disagreement, he seemed a media darling.

From what I've heard, the voting ... (Oops. Apparently you kids weren't supposed to know how the actual voting went down last night. In fact, I'm not even supposed to know. And apparently my discussion of the details has caused some furrowed brows among the organizers. I wasn't part of the actual jury so was not sworn to any kind of secrecy, but I agreed this morning to keep the details to myself... at least for now. If I get the sense that such details are getting to be common knowledge among music critics though, I'm not sure I can justify keeping such information from you, the great unwashed. Anyway.) ... The first word a juror used to describe Final Fantasy's He Poos Clouds afterwards was "interesting" and that about sums it up to me. I don't feel much either way about his music. It's... interesting...

... Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to dig my old French textbooks out of storage and start studying.

2006-09-18T15:19:00.000-04:00

Speaking Of
The Hidden Cameras: Now not gay enough.

2006-09-18T04:24:00.000-04:00

This Counts As Irony, Right?
Music is good vibe.

For years parents have worried about sulky teenagers hiding in their bedrooms, stereo blasting. But listening to music can effectively improve a teenager's mood and does not leave them brooding and depressed, new research has found.

The University of Melbourne study contradicts long-held fears that music corrupts teenagers, and that aggressive music can fuel angry behaviour. Instead, the study has found listening to music such as heavy metal can actually make young people happier...

Ms O'Grady said the study's aim was to disprove stereotypes that music brainwashes young people.

"The motivation behind the study was to show the importance of how adolescents listen to music, and not what they listen to," she said. "You can't make blanket stereotypes because of one or two examples of people listening to music such as Marilyn Manson before they commit atrocities."

2006-09-18T01:38:00.000-04:00

Pay Your Cable Bill, Feed An Indie Rocker's Sense Of Self Worth
This evening, in addition to listening to Robbie Williams' Greatest Hits, I will be attending tonight's inaugural Polaris Prize ceremony. In addition to stuffing myself full of hors d'oeuvres and indie rock elitism, I was going to live blog the festivities, but some dodgy wi-fi means you'll have to suffice with a diary. I know, you're heartbroken.

I have no idea who's going to win. Aside from the French-language entry, I'm not sure there's anybody you can easily discount. My personal favourite, Broken Social Scene, probably won't win because I suspect there are enough people on the jury who don't generally like them and, after that, enough people who liked the previous record more (I feel like I'm in the minority in liking the newest record most). Metric might also be undermined by a better-loved previous record. The New Pornographers probably have a good chance because no one realizes they actually fail at their stated purpose (1).

If I had to bet, I'd say Final Fantasy wins. If only because I know at least one jury member who will be supporting him and won't let any of the other jurors leave until they agree. Failing that, I'd guess K'Naan comes closest to getting consensus.

Anyway. Like any good music blogger, I've already moved on and will be actively campaigning tonight for the Hidden Cameras to win the 2007 Polaris.

---------
(1) I almost posted something about this before: they're basically the Ebola virus of rock bands. Remember Ebola? It was supposed to be the next great plague. They even made a movie about it. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman and Rene Russo. Anyway, it was the greatest plague that never really killed all that many people. It essentially failed to justify its own existence. And the New Pornographers are basically the greatest pop band that isn't actually all that popular. Essentially: how great and catchy can a pop band's songs really be if they fail to be popular? Somebody write a college paper about that.

2006-09-18T01:32:00.000-04:00

Actually The Benny Hill Analogy Doesn't Work. This Time.
While we're myth-busting (1) here, let's get another thing clear: Robbie Williams' distinct lack of success in the only country that really matters is not the result of a profound cultural schism. This is not a question of greatness being lost in translation. This is not somehow the fault of the American revolution. No, the truth is somehow scarier than that.

With all due respect to Kazzer, Robbie Williams is the great, lost pop star of our generation. To use a crude sports term, the man is a genetic freak. Some sort of perfect Chris-Martin-Justin-Timberlake hybrid (though he existed, in the pop culture sense, before both). If Timbaland or Jay-Z had ever feigned interest in him, he would have even rendered Timberlake's creation unnecessary.

Alas, he lost his marbles, cut a gratuitously weird video and blew his one chance at North American stardom. But it was never that he was British. If James Blunt - arguably one of the least attractive pop stars in recent memory - can get on Oprah, almost anyone can (3). In fact, I suspect that, to use a crude sports term, Robbie just never wanted it enough. If he'd really wanted to, he surely could have been set up with some major American actress or another, been introduced to, at the very least, Jermaine Dupri and subsequently lost all traces of his accent (4). All that's easy enough to do.

But what's seemingly obvious is that Robbie got his fame (5), got his money, found a sufficient supply of groupies and said to himself, "Sure, I could be making babies with Gwyneth Paltrow right now, but, you know what? I think I'm satisfied." This is not necessarily a bad thing. Save for the fact that when you're, say, a pop star or a professional athlete or anything that other non-pop-star, non-pro-athlete people aspire to be and consider to represent a charmed existence.

This is, instead, the least acceptable thing he could have done. You can do a lot of things and still be accepted as great. If you're so inclined you can even marry your 13-year-old cousin. In fact, you should probably at least consider marrying your 13-year-old cousin because, God knows, there are probably at least a few people who would like to do same (6) and they will surely, if quietly, admire you for enjoying the sort of reckless freedom they can only dream about when they're not attending NASCAR races (7). If you're trying to conquer America and your choices are: A) Stop trying or B) Marry your 13-year-old cousin, the correct answer is rather obvious.

Simply put, the people who aren't listening to you don't want to feel like you don't care about their lack of caring. This - not recreational drug use, not an inability to hit a mid-range jumper - is what gets most pro athletes in trouble and, subsequently, dooms Robbie Williams. Granted, it's a fine line. You have to be able to act like you don't care what anyone thinks of you, while simultaneously demonstrating that you physically need people to pay attention to and secretly long to enjoy your level of privilege. This is, for one, why Shakira has done as well as she has - because it's so obvious how much she wants it (never mind how much others want her to have it).

The only thing that can save Robbie Williams now is a distinct lack of Robbie Williams. So long as he's more or less alive and more or less in control of his own legacy, he will more or less undermine himself. But once he's out of the way, or at least faded from memory, other musicians and various influential writers can make up for his own lack of trying with their own efforts to reassess, reappreciate and reimagine. Suddenly, Robbie will get the benefit of the doubt. Of course, his hopes of conquering America will have past, but he'll probably end up with the best reviewed record of 2025. Especially if he's dead, or at least near-death, by then.

And that is the second rule of pop music: time renders all mistakes forgiven. Be it marrying your 13-year-old cousin or, worse, not caring enough to marry your 13-year-old cousin.

----------
(1) Arguably my favourite show on television. There, I said it. Why isn't this show a hipster favourite on par with Iron Chef or Flavor of Love or Celebrity Mole Hawaii (2)?
(2) What do you mean Celebrity Mole Hawaii wasn't a hipster favourite?
(3) Not quite enough is made of Blunt's improbable success as that rare creature, the truly unattractive pop star. Spare me your Ashlee Simpson jokes.
(4) If you can find a copy, go listen to Coldplay's Blue Room EP, one of their earlier recordings. Note that the singer sounds British.
(5) Albeit non-American fame and, therefore, not really fame at all.
(6) Yes, yes, there's a joke there about some southern state or another. Feel free to make your own.
(7) All right, there you go. Satisfied?

2006-09-14T04:31:00.000-04:00

Get Ready To Blame Marilyn Manson Again
If this really is the website of the alleged gunman in yesterday's shooting spree at Dawson College (and The Star is apparently willing to make that wager), his listening over the last week included Megadeth, Subway to Sally, Soul Asylum, Marilyn Manson, Lacuna Coil, Crematory, Mudvayne, Alice Cooper and Judas Priest.

I'm not sure if I'm pointing this out because it's actually relevant or because in the next few days it's probably going to be made to seem relevant.

1:08pm EST... The site has predictably been taken down, but there's a decent overview here. As I recall, the song he was listening to yesterday when he last posted a couple hours before the shooting was Megadeth's A Tout Le Monde. The lyrics to which go like so:

Don't remember where I was
I realized life was a game
The more seriously I took things
The harder the rules became
I had no idea what it'd cost
My life passed before my eyes
I found out how little I accomplished
All my plans denied

So as you read this know my friends
I'd love to stay with you all
Please smile when you think of me
My body's gone that's all

A tout le monde (To all the world)
A tous mes amis (To all my friends)
Je vous aime (I love you)
Je dois partir (I have to leave)
These are the last words
I'll ever speak
And they'll set me free

If my heart was still alive
I know it would surely break
And my memories left with you
There's nothing more to say

Moving on is a simple thing
What it leaves behind is hard
You know the sleeping feel no more pain
And the living are scarred

The music video is here.

2:11pm EST... Dave Mustaine explains the song's intended meaning.

"It's not a suicide song. What it is, it's, you, it's when people have a loved one that dies and they end on a bad note, you know, they wish that they could say something to them. So this is an opportunity for the deceased to say something before they go. And it was my impression of what I would like to say to people, if I had say, 3 seconds to do so in life before I died I'd say to the entire world, to all my friends, I love you all, and now I must go. These are the last words I'll ever speak, and they'll set me free. I don't need to say I'm sorry, I don't have to say I'm going to miss you, or I'll wait for ya. You know, I'll just say I loved you all, good, bad and different, I loved you all."

6:16pm EST... Reuters name drops Marilyn Manson.

The Goth sub-culture is often characterized by black clothing, pale makeup and body piercing. Many of the users write about being alienated from society, and while musical tastes vary, shock rockers such as Marilyn Manson are popular.

As does CP.

Gills list of favourite music groups is a who's who of heavy metal: Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, Iron Maiden, Danzig and Metallica, but only the "old stuff."

But they've got nothing on AP, who nicely use Marilyn to link Dawson College with Columbine.

He also maintained an online blog, similar to Klebold and Harris, devoted to Goth culture, heavy metal music such as Marilyn Manson, guns and journal entries expressing hatred against authority figures and "society.''

I guess it's probably time to point out that Klebold and Harris didn't actually like Marilyn Manson.

(Though Marilyn did feel moved to defend himself.)

8:47pm EST... Three cheers for the Saskatchewan education system and the death of fact-checking.

After the Columbine killings, national debates raged over what role pop culture played in the shootings.

"Let's just hope that there's not a big media outpour against video games and music," said Park, remembering the uproar in '99 over violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto, graphic television programs and movies, and singers such as rocker Manson, who the two Columbine killers listened to.

8:58pm EST... Wikipedia covers the misconception here. And, for the sake of discussion, here is Dave Cullen's Columbine Navigator.

10:04pm EST... An older version of Kimveer Gill's page is available here and his journal is here (and the comment thread for his last post is actually, in between the usual nonsense, a pretty interesting read).

10:17om EST... Megadeth is actually slated to play the Bell Centre in Montreal on Sept. 27. (And we all know how well it went when Marilyn Manson - WHO KLEBOLD AND HARRIS DIDN"T ACTUALLY LISTEN TO - tried to come even close to Littleton.)

2006-09-10T22:16:00.000-04:00

Who The F--- (No. 1)
Admitting your ignorance is the first step to healing. Or something like that. Right? Anyway. Every so often I find myself digging around Billboard.com - usually for the purposes of mocking Chantal Kreviazuk - and come across a chart-topper of which I was previously unaware. For one thing, I don't receive nearly as many free CDs as I used to. For another, much of my attention is now claimed by the mysterious world of hip flexors and groin pulls. So I'm not nearly as ashamed of my ignorance as perhaps I should be. In fact, I think I've decided to turn my ignorance into a semi-regular feature here through which I will explore my limitless lack of knowledge. With any luck we'll all learn a little something. If nothing else, I'll learn something and you'll just have to indulge me.

... is Danity Kane.

I understand why no one respects Making The Band. The first season produced O-Town, arguably the goofiest boy band of an era in pop music that was, even without Liquid Dreams, remarkably goofy. But at the same time, the lack of respect given Making The Band makes absolutely no sense.

For instance, has anyone stopped watching Survivor because Richard Hatch turned out to be a deadbeat? Does it matter that the Amazing Race's various winners haven't yet fostered a better sense of understanding between America and the rest of the planet? Was Paradise Hotel any less a landmark moment in television history because it involved not a single character with any redeeming value? No, course not. These shows are judged only on their entertainment value. And, in that regard, Making The Band deserves its place among the greats of the Reality TV Era.

The first edition - starring Lou Pearlman and the aforementioned O-Town - was as biting an expose of the pop music industry in the late-90s as has yet appeared on television or in print. Sure, yeah, there was plenty there for 12-year-old girls to love too, but this show didn't sugarcoat much. It was everything that was supposed to be ugly about the music industry, plus some other stuff you hadn't even considered before. And it was all on network television (at least the first season... then it moved to MTV).

Despite introducing the term "morpharotic " into the popular lexicon, O-Town quickly disappeared and Puff Daddy replaced Pearlman for Making The Band 2, forming a kiddie Wu-Tang Clan called Da Band. MTB 2 was basically all about exploring/exploiting racial stereotypes. In MTB 1, a bunch of wussy white guys tried their hardest not to cry, while Pearlman smiled creepily in the background. Diddy takes over, the kids get blacker and the next thing you know fists are flying and rappers are narrowly avoiding incarceration. It all probably set race relations in America back 30 years. But then it was all sort of satirical. Sort of. Vaguely. Like a really long Chappelle Show sketch that didn't claim to be a joke. Long story short, Da Band was last seen wandering the streets of New York pleading for spare change to buy cheesecake.

Unfortunately, at least to my knowledge, Making The Band 3 has yet to be aired in Canada. And that, I believe, accounts for my ignorance of Danity Kane - the latest heir to the MTB legacy. Apparently, Puffy was again in charge this time around, but opted to go with an all-girl group. I can only assume that the resulting episodes provided any number of lessons about the modern state of feminism, gender politics and artistic expression. And, of course, epic cattiness.

Being the pop music mastermind that he is, Puffy suggested they call the band Trust. Strangely the girls opted instead for Danity Kane, which is apparently the name of a comic book character one of the girls created. (The girls, by the way, might also own some of the greatest individual names in the history of pop music: Aubrey Morgan O'Day, D. Woods, Shannon Rae Bex, Dawn Angelique Richard, and Aundrea Aurora Fimbres.) As was the case with MTB 2, Diddy apparently hated just about every candidate and, as per usual, there were at least a half dozen moments when all hope seemed lost. Somehow or another they got a group together. And, even more improbably, they convinced Timbaland and Scott Storch to produce tracks on the record.

I trust that this was all very entertaining because when Danity Kane's self-titled debut came out a couple weeks ago it entered the charts at #1, knocking off Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics and topping OutKast's Idlewild to become the first MTB-related record to ever claim the top spot. A week later they were topped by Bob Dylan's Modern Times.

We'll all feel bad about it five years from now, but the first single, Showstopper, isn't entirely without merit, while Right Now (there's a snippet at their MySpace site) sounds suspiciously like the title theme to an early-90s soft porn (or so I would assume). (The video for Showstopper can be seen here. The girl in the passenger seat may or may not be wearing a terrible wig.)

Anyway. Aside from ensuring themselves at least passing mention in the next Dylan biography, Danity Kane also became just the third all-girl group to reach number one this century - Destiny's Child and the Dixie Chicks each having done it twice. Maybe it's just me, but I find that sort of surprising. And you can feel free to bring up this fact the next time you want to argue about the long-standing sexism of pop music.

In the mean time, I'd like to think that Danity Kane at least somewhat redeems Making The Band. And perhaps convinces the producers of Paradise Hotel that sometimes the general public is just slow to recognize genius.

(Shouldn't Danity Kane also reinforce the enduring relevance of MTV? I'll never really understand all the arguments about how MTV "used to mean something" and has, since moving away from music videos, ceased to be anything of great and true cultural worth. As if it was somehow any more a beacon of ground-breaking television when it was showing Pat Benetar videos 18 times per day. I'd argue MTV is even more impressive a force now - remaining relevant in the face of increased competition for the attention of young and malleable minds. And I'd go so far as to say there's much more to be learned from a few hours of Next, Laguna Beach, Two-A-Days and Sweet Sixteen then there ever was from even a hundred airings of Thriller. The early years of MTV may have more to say about music. But the recent years have had far more to say about the people who actually listen to the music.)

2006-09-08T22:07:00.000-04:00

Full Disclosure
Just so you understand who you're dealing with here: I saw a press release today about Frankie J and at first thought it was about this guy.

2006-09-06T01:08:00.000-04:00

'A sweet, little, fragile flower'
Chantal Kreviazuk, speaking to The Globe, on her new record and the state of women in pop music:

What she doesn't want to be is a fame-chasing pop star, a sentiment perhaps not shared by her record company (Sony BMG). Not that Kreviazuk doesn't want to sell albums, it's just that she's not willing to compromise herself to do it.

"My mother was asking me about the album," Kreviazuk recalls. "I said, 'Mom, have you seen MTV? Do you know what's going on?' It's like, to get ahead in the entertainment business on a musical level, women are strippers now."

From 2002 through 2005, according to Billboard, the following female artists were responsible for records that finished among the five best selling for a given year: Pink, Norah Jones (twice), Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks, Avril Lavigne, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Kelly Clarkson. It'd be interesting to know which of those fellow female artists (two of whom she has written for and prospered from) Kreviazuk would consider akin to strippers.

(The ten best selling artists at the midway point of 2006 included Mary J. Blige, Carrie Underwood and the Dixie Chicks.)

2006-09-05T17:06:00.000-04:00

Goodnight, Good Luck
Last night's episode of The New Music, aside from featuring Chromewaves, apparently marked the end of the Hannah Sung Era. She's walking away to help the children apparently. Very noble.

But, more importantly, MuchMusic has yet to name a replacement host for what used to be the network's signature show (younger readers may have to ask their parents about this) and the possible replacements are, shall we say, generally less than inspiring. Hey, we all want to help the kids, but surely Hannah could have considered the kids (and 20-something bloggers with little else better to do) who will still have to watch The New Music.

Before I offer my highly sought after endorsement, let's look at some of the candidates (assuming Much, which is currently tied up in a merger, won't be looking outside the company for a replacement).

Devon. My sneaking suspicion is that our boy Devon could be in line to take over the flagship - reward surely for agreeing to dress like a Disney on Ice character for the MMVAs. Last time I checked in he was hosting a MuchNews segment (the 60 seconds of gossip they squeeze in between Panic! At The Disco videos) and that's generally where they stuck Hannah and George before her - establishing them as serious journalists and keeping them separate from the inanity that prevails elsewhere. Of course, moving Devon to The New Music would mean shifting even more responsibility onto the formidable hair of our next candidate...

Tim. He's obviously got the music IQ. It's right there in his bio - "[A]nybody that lists Kurt Cobain, The Ramones, Michael Jackson and Madonna as some of the most influential artists in music history definitely knows his stuff when it comes to all things music." Tough to argue with that logic. Still, I'd like to think The New Music host should be able to regularly speak in full sentences.

Leah. The franchise. Absolutely irreplaceable. Carries MuchOnDemand (which long ago replaced The New Music as the most important program on Much) and is almost solely responsible for any male viewership that Much still enjoys. Take her out of her current role and the network probably crumbles by the end of the week. An icon-in-waiting.

Matte. Leah needs a sidekick.

Sarah. Definitely a contender. If Leah is MuchMusic's Hulk Hogan, Sarah is Randy Savage - technically more gifted, but forever over-shadowed and outdone. Shifting her to The New Music would definitely help her establish her identity a little more. But wouldn't she be better off just leaving Much to become a correspondent for The Hour?

Suffice it to say, the pickings are rather slim. But that's not to say that the eventual host will have won by default. At least so long as Much does the sensible thing and hires... drum roll please... Hannah Simone.

Now, we've already discussed Hannah's considerable virtues, but let's review, if only to further drive home how remarkable it is that they convinced this girl to be a VJ.

She was born in London, England and raised in Calgary, then moved to Saudi Arabia, which her family fled when Gulf War I broke out. In India she organized a charity concert for women and children living with AIDS. After completing a degree in international relations and politics, she researched a book for Lloyd Axworthy and became a human rights and refugee officer for the UN in London. Somewhere in there she tried her hand at theatre, taking on a lead role in the Vancouver production of the Vagina Monologues. Eventually she moved to Toronto, got a broadcast degree, worked at a radio station and became a Much VJ. She likes Gwen Stefani, has visited more than 100 cities across the world and, it probably merits mentioning, is rather nice to look at.

This girl should probably be in charge of the NDP or something right now, instead she's a VJ. Hosting MuchTopTens. It's probably fair to say she's being under-utilized.

So let's look at this one more time: The New Music, supposedly the smartest show about music on television and surely the smartest show on MuchMusic, needs a host. Hannah Simone, probably one of the most accomplished people on Canadian television and surely the most learned person at MuchMusic, is in need of something to do. I would never claim to possess the special gifts necessary to be a master of television production, but the answer would seem to be obvious, no?

Do you suppose the minds at MuchMusic need a memo? They must see this, right? We don't have to start a letter writing campaign on this, do we? (Cause, if we did, the appropriate e-mail address would seem to be info@thenewmusic.net.)

Surely MuchMusic won't screw this up. It's too obvious. And they wouldn't even have to change the personalized "Hannah S." towels in The New Music bathroom. This almost has to happen.

(Other possibilities to half seriously debate: Nikki Mah, Byron Wong, Frank, Ben Rayner, Michael Ignatieff, k-os, Douglas Coupland, Natalie Reid, Chuck Klosterman, Colm Feore and/or Robert Christgau.)

2006-09-03T23:15:00.000-04:00

'They were even allowed to style their hair the way they wanted'
My favourite part of the B4-4 story in Saturday's Post? The part about their epic feud with Len, of course.

They were celebrities, made celebrity friends and had celebrity problems. At the 2000 MuchMusic Awards after-party, the boys got into an argument with Marc Costanzo, lead singer for Ottawa's Len, whose song Steal My Sunshine was a 1999 hit.

''He said something really rude to us,'' says Ohad. ''He said something to piss us off, I can't remember what.'' Whatever it was, it struck a nerve with the group. ''We got in a huge fight with them, Ryan was gonna break his head. I almost beat the s--- out of him.''

On TV's Ed the Sock, Ryan threatened Len. ''He said something like, 'Trust me Len, you don't want to see me mad,' something like that.'' Ryan's comments were exactly the thing PG-rated boy bands have to avoid. ''We got a call from a record company the next day. Ryan got in trouble for saying that on live TV.''

Highly entertaining. Up until the point when we learn one of the B4-4 guys is living in a $5-million penthouse, working with Lou Pearlman and hoping to get his own reality show. Then things get a bit sad.

(Oh, and the other two? They have 4466 friends on MySpace.)

2006-09-03T23:08:00.000-04:00

Jokes For Copy Editors
Beyonce's new record is entitled B'Day. Apparently because it is due for release on Sept. 4, her birthday. Fair enough.

But shouldn't she have opted for a hyphen instead of an apostrophe? Because, as it stands, couldn't her record just as easily be confused with a seemingly phonetic celebration of the "low-mounted plumbing fixture or type of sink intended for washing the external genitalia and the anus?"

Just saying.

(And that said, a confession: I'm hopelessly addicted to Ring The Alarm. Put the record in my rented Corolla - colour: gold - this weekend and couldn't get past track five. If I was still paid to do so, I'm not sure how I could ever offer a review of the entire album - I can only speculate that the album runs longer than five tracks and, having heard track five, I can't remember anything of the first four.)

2006-08-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

'Maybe I just don't like Nintendo cover bands or looped Slavic poetry accompanied by fuzz-pedal sleigh bells'*
Always good to see arguably the most dedicated music fan in this city questioning his existence. All the more so when the frontman for the city's most beloved band is wondering about his own. Take it away Kevin Drew...

"None of us has any time any more in this band. There's lots of families and personal stuff, other bands going on, so Social Scene has become ... it's lost a bit of its love outside of when we're together, but when we're together it's there.

"It disappoints me a bit because I feel that if we all gave it 170% then we would be doing a lot better than we are. We were always a music band that loved music. And we've now gone into a format of playing the same songs all the time. It's great because we have rotating members so you always have different magic, and personality-wise it's difficult to always be on the road so it's nice to have different conversations. But we've been touring non-stop for the last four years now, so it's just at a point where we've got to find something new about it."

Actually, the best part is his next quote from The Guardian story.

"He is quick to point out that he has thoroughly enjoyed the past few years. 'But it's also been some of the most stereotypical narcissistic times in our lives,' he says."

That about sums it up right there, don't it? Not just of Drew's band, but everything that has come before, after and around it (not, of course, to place Broken at the absolute centre of this Torontopia stuff - spare me the outraged corrections, please). In fact, it probably describes every scene (capitalized and otherwise) that has ever identified itself as such.

So far as I can tell - and remember here that I'm a complete idiot - this sudden surge of sad-faced introspection has much to do with the fact that Toronto, the music that has been generated by its skinny and unwashed and the 'culture' that has come to surround said music, has so far yet to achieve whatever it vaguely set out to accomplish, in theory. That it has yet to culminate in World Peace (a loose term we'll use here to slyly refer to that which is surrounded by false hope). That not enough has changed. Or too much has changed. Or something. Theoretically speaking.

This is all very true. And, of course, all very stereotypically narcissistic.

The history of popular music (a loose term we'll use here to slyly refer to that which is surrounded by false hope) is generally believed to be one of Great Change. Elvis came along and everything changed. The Beatles arrived in America and everything changed. Dylan mumbled something about a one-eyed dog and everything changed. The Sex Pistols used a bad word on TV and everything changed. Nirvana wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit and everything changed. Janet Jackson was assaulted by Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl and everything changed. And so forth. Unfortunately, the history of popular music almost always shows that Great Change is almost always over-stated.

Take the case of Nirvana. The widely accepted story is that Kurt Cobain came along, destroyed Michael Jackson, routed manufactured pop and all those silly hair bands and brought about a renaissance for raw, authentic, socially aware rock n' roll, even making FM radio good again in the process.

What really happened is this: Smells Like Teen Spirit became a hit, Michael Jackson went crazy and teen pop - as it does every few years - over-saturated the market. Then Kurt shot himself and into the void stepped several dozen lookalikes, most of them inferior and equally bothersome to most as the silly pop songs Cobain apparently destroyed - silly pop songs that would also soon return to chart dominance. Ten years later, popular music was ruled by Puddle of Mudd and *NSYNC - a conclusion that was neither inherently better nor altogether different than the world Nirvana had apparently changed. (Oh yeah, and somewhere in there hip-hop became rather popular too.)

(By the way, Nirvana is basically the Michael Jordan of rock music. Came along, completely dominated the competition and achieved legend status, only to disappear and watch a generation of successors flail about trying to duplicate their respective glory. Nirvana beget Silverchair, Puddle of Mudd and Nickelback as MJ beget Harold Miner, Grant Hill and Vince Carter. When discussing the relative greatness of Nirvana and Jordan respectively, it's important to consider the horrors they inspired. Not enough people remember this.)

Consider it another way: Since Elvis debuted, how much has popular music really changed? All in all, not that much. There have been slight shifts in tone and instrumentation and technology. But the biggest hits now are not wordless operas performed by robots playing instruments made of plywood, leather and watermelon. That would be a dramatic departure from popular music's beginnings. But music, sadly, does not sound like that. Yet. (With the possible exception of your average Fiery Furnaces record).

Furthermore, since Elvis debuted, how much has popular music changed the world? And how much has the world changed in the first place? I mean, there have certainly been dramatic shifts, but there's still war, racism, famine, disease... I'm told there are even some poor people. Even here in Toronto. This probably seems all very defeatist, so let me clarify - I generally believe the world is getting better. But gradually so. And how much of that can be directly linked to musical inspiration? Probably not much.

Anyway. Still, change is good. Change is sexy. Changes makes people feel important. So whenever anything that resembles change is identified, it is celebrated and canonized.

Another example: the modern music industry's continuing adventures in revolution as chronicled by Wired magazine. The magazine's latest issue celebrates our hard-won victory over the traditional music industry and the old white men who have forced Puddle of Mudd records upon us for too long. It's a great idea. Inspirational stuff. And it's all the greater now, three years after Wired first proclaimed the traditional music industry dead.

Granted, the Internet has changed some of the ways the music industry does business (the same way it has changed the way almost every business - with the possible exceptions of big oil and major league umpiring - does business). But if you check around you'll see that the old white men who like Puddle of Mudd are still in charge. They may be down to, say, 89% of the market. But they're still doing pretty well. Lyor Cohen probably earned $2.5-billion last year. Down from his best years, sure. But we all have to make sacrifices.

Anyway. Where were we? Ah yes, changiness. And popular music's distinct lack thereof.

So, given all of this, how surprising is it that Torontopia (a movement almost inherently doomed in the first place by its wanky title) did not achieve World Peace? On a scale of 1 to 10 - 1 being not surprising, 10 being very - I'd say about negative-36. But that's just me. More importantly though, does failing to achieve World Peace render the whole pursuit pointless or a failure (or, for that matter, worthy of sad-eyed navel-gazing)? Probably not.

First and foremost, popular music isn't supposed to do much of anything really. It should be interesting and exciting and periodically scare the crap out of your parents. Oh, and it should also encourage recreational drug use (especially this). But that's about it. After that, make of it what you will. Feel free to place it within a greater cultural context or scrutinize it for clues to what the masses are feeling and thinking (note: in general the masses are pissed off), but don't go agonizing over World Peace. Or at least expect such a thing to result from a bunch of people singing silly little songs**.

Which reminds me: While in Winnipeg I picked up the new Hidden Cameras record***. Apparently they're very representative of this whole Torontopia thing, though this was not exactly a motivation for my purchase. Anyway. I was pleased to discover that, if it's not the best record Joel Gibb and his friends have ever made, it is at least my favourite record of the year so far. It made me feel happy inside. And nearly inspired me to pursue drugs on a recreational basis. I'm sure it would confuse my parents.

And well, that's enough for me. Sure, that's a stereotypically narcissistic conclusion. But I'm satisfied with that.

(For the record, there are few people associated with this city and its music who have more to proud of than Frank and Kevin. Sure, Frank kind of lost me there when he started posting gratuitously long entries with the words all fuzzed out except for random references to childhood sodomy... wait, sorry, that was Kevin... but otherwise I'm a huge fan of both.)

(* The title of this post by the way is a direct quote from Frank at Chromewaves. It is arguably the greatest observation about indie rock in the history of observations about indie rock.)

(** I want to save Africa as much as the next middle class white guy living in relative comfort and feeling guilty about it. But the video for that song is kind of funny. All videos for charity singles simply have to feature shots of artists singing into microphones with remarkable conviction while doing that thing where they clutch at the headphones around their ears. It's a rule now.)

(*** When in Winnipeg, I highly recommend Into The Music.)

2006-08-24T00:38:00.000-04:00

Wynard? Why not?

These kids were rocking out on Whyte Ave in Edmonton the other day. Pretty awesome. I eagerly await their inevitable beef with Smoosh. Otherwise, various notes of varying interest...

1. The trip's greatest find so far: A genuine Al Tucker mug from his time with the Seattle Supersonics. Purchased in Edmonton. Probably about 40 years old. Completely inexplicable.

2. My CD haul so far: Aretha Franklin - Live at Fillmore West, The Hidden Cameras - AWoo, OutKast - Idlewild, Sam Roberts - We Were Born In A Flame (replacing lost copy), Factor - Candy's .22, Boyz II Men - Cooleyhighharmony, Elastica - Elastica, Josh Rouse promo CD/DVD, Charles Manson & Family - The Complete Studio Recordings, A Girl Called Eddy - Tears All Over Town EP, John Frusciante - To Clara, Nirvana - Nirvana (replacing lost copy), D'Angelo - Voodoo, Gord Downie - Battle of the Nudes.

3. If you should ever find yourself in Saskatoon, try the Filet Mignon at Mykonos. Phenomenal. I'm going to go ahead and call it the best Filet Mignon in the city. Nay, the province.

4. Every girl in Western Canada is not flirting with you. This is an important point. People are just friendlier out here, ok? Don't get confused.

5. I wish I knew more people who had spent time in Winnipeg so we could have a meaningful and measured discussion of this city's merits. (I dare say it's my favourite Canadian city west of Ontario. There. I said it.)

6. Here's a fun thing to do: Roll into a city (any city), find its most expensive hotel, stroll up to the person behind the front desk and insist that you overpay for a room there. You won't be disappointed.

7. Those people who told you about driving across the Prairies? They were not kidding. About anything.

8. Ever get the feeling Hall & Oates are secretly stalking you? No? Uh. Us neither.

2006-08-20T17:09:00.000-04:00

Pop (All Love)'s First And Probably Last Not-Quite-Cross-Country Road Trip
Greetings from Edmonton, the City of Champions (not to be confused with here, here, here, here or here) and home of the 2006 World Cup... of women's rugby.

I come here not to enjoy the spectacle of rugged women cohesively beating the crap out of each other, but to launch what could very well be a thrilling education in the geography and people of Western and Central Canada. You see, a friend of mine, a periodic contributor to the comments section (identifying himself as P. Giddy), is moving his life eastward, from Smithers, B.C. to this sleepy nation's sleepy capital in Ottawa. And I've decided to join him for roughly 7/9 of this trip (you could make the argument that a better friend would have been there for the entirety of the trip and I would likely be forced to concede the point).

Anyway. Yee-haw... Edmonton! So far I've walked approximately two and a half blocks and already I reek of oil and capitalism. Other than that, my only other typically condescending observation is that perhaps, when they inevitably sell most of this province's natural resources to the United States or China, they can use the profits to move Edmonton's airport into the same time zone as the rest of the city. As it stands, it costs about $45 by taxi to get anywhere near this town after arriving by plane. (I suspect this may have been intentional - requiring all those entering or leaving the city to use that much more gas in the process).

Further remarks later. After I've, you know, at least had a meal here.

Otherwise, the rest of itinerary will look something like this:

Monday - Saskatoon
Tuesday - Winnipeg
Wednesday - Winnipeg
Thursday - Thunder Bay
Friday - Sault Ste Marie
Saturday - Pike Bay

That's right - two whole days in Winnipeg. Don't be afraid to say it, you're jealous, I know. Don't say I don't ever take you anywhere nice, dear reader.

Aside from travel notes I should have a longish post about Christina Aguilera and a spirited defence of Sam Roberts.

This blog just grows more exciting by the moment, doesn't it?