The Weekly Music Pulse: Stuff I Think and Shouldn't Say 39

Welcome to Stuff I Think and Shouldn’t Say!

For the past two weeks, I have gotten an absurd amount of reader feedback, or “read back,” as we call it here in the industry, and most people keep asking the same type of questions: why do you hate K-Fed? Do you know him? Is he really retarded?

Yes, he’s retarded.

I realized sometime in the last week that my reasons aren’t always clear-cut, but I try to present my argument in way that will connect with you: the reader. Kevin Federline, the person, probably is a nice guy. He probably worked very hard (once) to accomplish his dreams of dancing on stage and in films (and also bagging super-hot southern girls on the rebound from a failed 50-ish hour marriage.) He might have two children by another woman (whom he left for Britney while she was pregnant) but that doesn’t make him a bad person. He might be a convincing little douche who whines his way into not wearing a rubber and “forgets” to pull out. You know the type.

I just think he’s a cultural experiment gone awry. The reason that I dislike/loathe/hate-the-f*ck-out-of Kevin Federline is simple: one day, I will have to explain to my grandkids who he was long after his 15 minutes of fame have run dry. He will have been dead for 15 years due to his love of menthol cigarettes, and yet I will have to explain to an innocent, young child what was wrong with the years 2004-2006, and why this guy, who seemingly didn’t exist before this period, was the talk of Hollywood in that time frame. This scares me.

Stop buying stuff with Gay Fed and Chutney Spheres on the cover and they will probably go away!

It’s this culture of celebrity that we have created, and there is no one to blame but ourselves. We need to know what our favorite stars are doing away from the set of their movie. We have to see those photos of them with their newest crush. It’s just not enough to know they are real people: we need to see photos of it. Where do they eat? What does an aerial photo of their house/compound look like?

Sometime in the early nineties, ask Murtz for the exact date, people decided that watching normal folk doing extraordinary things was the cat’s meow. More people started to buy into this thinking, so an entire genre of programming was developed (Reality TV.) You don’t need to pay the actors or writers because there aren’t any. It’s cheaply produced programming, and cheap people bought into it and exploited it. It was only a matter of time before this paradigm wormed into pop music. And I hate that.

Why did Paris Hilton get to record an album with an Oscar winning rap group, when her claim to fame was having sex in front of a camera with night vision? Where did Lindsay Lohan’s breasts go and why was she such a big deal? She had an album or three, but who was she? How did Jessica Simpson become popular? Obviously she was a talented vocalist, but Chicken of the Sea is what made her famous for being stupid.

This culture is f*cked, and the reason we are listening to such sugary crap is our own fault. No, I am not going to say that we should take matters into our own hands and change the radio station, no, we need to stop watching Access Hollywood, the Insider, and Entertainment Tonight. We need to stop reading People, Star, Globe, National Enquirer and all the other magazines that sit above the conveyor belt at the local grocery store.

Music is part of pop culture, which means it’s a constantly evolving series of trends. Opinions are swayed by the idea “no press is bad press,” which is why Paris Hilton gets filled out like an application and the Simple Life gets renewed for two seasons. Lindsay Lohan, the anti-Hilary Duff/Disney Starlet, dates an older man, her family goes through messy legal battles, and ultimately, we all watch. We sit and smile and enjoy her life as entertainment. She writes an album about all of it, and our sisters buy it, furthering the notion that we want to witness her trials and tribulations for our pleasure. Jessica Simpson signs up to let her married life be filmed, and because she is discovered to be exceptionally dim-witted, she becomes Hollywood’s darling, even starring in a big screen remake of The Dukes of Hazzard.

It really started with Orenthal James Simpson. Whether or not you believe he killed his ex-wife (he did) the day that the first soccer World Cup, a truly global event, in the United States is pushed back in the nightly news by two over-the-hill running backs in a white Ford Bronco, we should have realized something wasn’t quite right. As a society, no one should WANT to watch that, and yet we did just that, we tuned in. The chase, originally only shown on local Los Angeles television, was shown on every network affiliate in America. It wasn’t pertinent news; OJ hadn’t done anything other than a few infomercials and some Naked Gun flicks in decades. So why did America find this “entertaining?”

If you allow yourself to be amused by the simplest of things; the small shiny ones, the entertainment industry isn’t going to give you stuff to think about. That’s why we have Date Movie and 4(!) Scary Movies; we like garbage entertainment.

We are shocked that kids will take the time to read because of the Harry Potter series, and we really shouldn’t be. We should be sad that while those kids are exercising their brains, Mom and Dad get home from work, and instead of watching the news or reading the paper, they turn on VH1 and catch repeats of The Surreal Life.

For the most part, people don’t want to learn anything while being entertained; they want to shut off their heads. Why learn something about history or science when we can watch other people racing around the world, cooking Italian meals while taking on retired professional athletes in various contests. We can live vicariously through those people and they get to be famous without developing a skill set or talent. Fabulous.

American Idol takes the pain and frustration out of gigging in small clubs with your Uncle Tito on the drums. Hell, sing other people’s music and ideas to a sufficient level, and you get the record contract after 3 months of telephone voting by the same public that a true “artist” should be embarrassed to be around; the ignorant masses. We don’t want you to be an artist, and we couldn’t care less if you can play an instrument or understand chord structure.

It makes me laugh when Simon Cowell talks about a performance being “like karaoke” on Idol. Every performance on that show is just that, and the hubbabaloo over the “I Walk the Line” cover this season proves it. They only want to know if you can sing, and don’t care what you are a willing to compromise in order to make America like you. They don’t care if someone else arranges the band, all you have to do is sing.

Bo Bice wouldn’t f*cking hang out or give two shits about my mother or grandmother while he’s doing a rail of coke of some hooker’s tummy, but there he is on TV without his trusty auto-tune, acting like this was his dream. No, he never wanted to be a musician. He wanted to be a celebrity, so he’s gotten what he deserved.

I love the bands I love because they know who Jeff Buckley was. They are fans of the musicians, not just the singers. They appreciate the craft, and understand that going through the trials is what makes your career special; that the connection you develop with fans over years is stronger than one that is made over months. Sadly, this day might have passed us by for now, it will come back around at some point.

If the world was cultured and classy, we would still have problems as a whole. There would still be murder and African poverty and Teletubbies. I know that entertainment “experts” have said that the death of reality TV is looming on the horizon, however, the attitudes of the entertained are what truly need to be changed.

Just a thought…

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.:.Who Has Rock’s Raddest Rear End?.:.
A British psych professor with, perhaps, a trifle too much time on his hands, has created a method to determine once and for all who has the hottest ass in the worlds of both celebrities and mere mortals.

According to Manchester Metropolitan University’s David Holmes, Jessica Alba scores at 70 and J. Lo gets a 71, but bootylicious Beyonce scores a meager 31, meaning Alba’s backside is technically twice as nice as that of Jay-Z’s main, er, squeeze. In fact, yours might even be hotter.

Holmes has created a numerical formula — helpfully illustrated in 4/13’s New York Post and New York Daily News — in which he uses a grading system to rank terrific tushes. Scores for overall shape (S), circularity (C), bounce (B), firmness (F), skin texture (T), and symmetry (V) are plugged into a formula — (S+C) x (B+F) / T – V — for what Holmes calls a foolproof system for determining backside bootyliciousness.

A score of 80 equals “perfection”; 60 means “nearly there; be proud to hit the beach”; 40 means you’re “in need of diet and exercise”; 20 says “keep your clothes on”; and anything under 20 mean “stay indoors.”

I took this test and scored an unheard of 1000. It appears that my combination of bounce and circularity were too much for the test to comprehend.

In other IP Music news, Eric Katz is still missing. At least Warren Woo came back for a cup of coffee.

.:.Alicia to Star With Scarlett.:.

Alicia Keys is set to appear in the Hollywood adaptation of The Nanny Diaries, the best-selling novel about the nanny of a wealthy New York family. Scarlett Johansson has been cast as the nanny, and Keys will play her best friend. Keys also appears in the upcoming Smokin’ Aces — alongside Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Jeremy Piven and Ray Liotta — as an assassin hired by the mob to kill a police informant. Since I love Alicia very much, I won’t make a joke about her involvement in this project. Scarlett Johansson has nice titties, though, and while this has nothing to do with music, Ben Affleck ruined Daredevil. Fuck Affleck.

.:.Johnny Cash Gets Personal.:.
It should come as no surprise that the Man in Black kept a few things private, but, as fans will soon find out, Johnny Cash was hiding more material than most pop groups create in a lifetime.
In a room behind his recording studio, Cash kept hundreds of tapes, including a set called “Personal File,” which will be released as a double-disc, 49-track set on May 23.

Personal File consists of solo recordings made mostly in the 1970s, and it features Cash performing songs best described as “late-19th century parlour ballads to mid-20th century country hits… songs inspired by recent events and experiences… songs of faith and inspiration,” producer Greg Geller told Billboard.com.

Cash’s thoughts serve as introductions on a portion of the album. Among the tracks that feature his conversational ramblings are “My Mother Was a Lady,” “The Way Worn Traveler,” and “What Is Man.”

Just before Personal File is released, according to Billboard, Columbia/Sony Wonder/Legacy will release a reissue of The Johnny Cash Children’s Album on May 9. This album will feature new liner notes from Cash’s son, John Carter Cash, and four tracks that were not included on the original release.

Songs that didn’t quite make the cut include: “New Coke is for Pussies,” “Crystal Pepsi 4 Eva,” and “Fuck You, Widro…Seriously.” Not sure why the last track is getting included, as the rough cut was pretty intense.

.:.Incubus Unplug for Human Rights.:.

Incubus will host Make Some Noise, an acoustic benefit show for human rights organization Amnesty International. The April 29th performance will be held at Roseland in Portland, Oregon, and be hosted by actress Mira Sorvino, ambassador for Amnesty’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign. In addition, autographed Incubus items are currently up for auction through the Make Yourself Foundation — a non-profit organization founded and funded by the band to supports various causes — at Make Yourself Foundation.

Stopping violence against women is a cause I am all for; unless they think K-Fed deserves a record deal. If that is the case, they NEED to be hit with something larger than an elbow, but smaller than a shovel. Your choice.

.:. Guns N’ Roses to Play New York.:.

When Axl Rose told Rolling Stone in January that he’d have new music for Guns N’ Roses fans this year, he wasn’t kidding. After a decade of working on Chinese Democracy, the follow-up to 1993’s platinum-selling The Spaghetti Incident, and three years away from American stages, GN’R are ready to play New York next month. Tickets for May 15th and 17th at the Hammerstein Ballroom, go on sale April 21st.

While there’s no definite word as to what music Axl and his current GN’R lineup will play live, the notoriously reclusive rocker told Rolling Stone of his new songs, “I’m trying to do something different. Some people are going to say, ‘It doesn’t sound like Axl Rose, it doesn’t sound like Guns N’ Roses.'”

Thirty-two songs — including the Axl faves “Better,” “There Was a Time” and “The Blues” — are in the works for the new album, to be narrowed down to thirteen. Versions of “Better” and “There Was a Time” were among the tracks leaked online — and, briefly, to radio — in February.

After these two U.S. dates, GN’R are also slated to play a string of dates in Europe, starting May 27th in Lisbon, Portugal.

An official release date for the now-mythical Chinese Democracy has yet to be announced. When asked for comment, Greg Wind attacked a small child he mistook for a midget. The reason: Guns N’ Roses love midgets. Greg Wind hates Axl Rose. Whatever it takes, Greg, whatever it takes.

(credits: Spin.com, RollingStone.com)

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Portions of the video were filmed at the notorious Chelsea Hotel, and it has boobies in it, so I put it here for SITASS readers to enjoy.

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Atreyu – A Death Grip on Yesterday

Various Artists – Dave Chappelle’s Block Party Original Soundtrack

Poison – Best of: 20 Years of Rock

The Game – Stop Snitchin’, Stop Lyin’: The Original Soundtrack

Pink – I’m Not Dead

Crooked I – Cali Untouchable Radio Mixtape Part 4

Islands – Return to the Sea

Eagles of Death Metal – Death by Sexy

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In the hours following the murder of D-12 rapper Proof, more details have emerged, including information about the identity of the second victim.

Initially, AllHipHop.com speculated that the second individual shot was fellow rapper Bizarre. According to MTV News, the Detroit Police Department have stated that the man who sustained a non-fatal gunshot to the head is actually 35-year-old Detroit resident, Keith Bender, Jr. Proof suffered the same injury but, as we reported yesterday, did not survive.

Angel Bender, Keith’s sister-in-law, told The Detroit News her brother-in-law, a retired Army staff sergeant, was out at the CCC club with friends. He was celebrating news that he would no longer need a defibrillator for a heart condition when an altercation between his group and Proof’s posse arose, which allegedly led to the shooting.

Some of Bender’s relatives have claimed that Proof shot Bender and then was shot by someone else.

“Some words were exchanged. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Angel told the paper. “We’re still putting the pieces together.”

The dispute took place in the early hours of the morning on Tuesday (April 11). At around 5 A.M., police were sent to Detroit’s CCC club, which was operating illegally after hours. By the time they arrived, the club was already empty, and while some witnesses have given information, police had no suspects as of Tuesday night.

Detroit police received new information Wednesday (April 12) regarding the shootout that led to the death of D-12 rapper, Proof, and they have reported that it was Proof who fired the first bullet.

Also on Wednesday, Mario Etheridge, a suspect in the case, turned himself over to police, according to the Associated Press. Etheridge, 28, is the cousin of the second victim, Keith Bender, who was critically injured in the shootout when he suffered a bullet wound to the head.

Randall Upshaw, Etheridge’s attorney, told reporters his client “came in because the Detroit Police Department asked him to,” according to the AP. “Does that sound like a murderer?” he added.

Investigators are now reporting that Proof was fired at after he pistol-whipped and shot Bender during an altercation at the Detroit club CCC at around 4;30 A.M. on Tuesday. Proof suffered three gunshot wounds to the head and chest, and he was pronounced dead on arrival at an outpatient center near the club. Upshaw says witnesses are reporting that it was Proof who shot Bender.

“The understanding of every witness we’ve spoken to is that Proof pulled out a weapon,” he said. “Proof shot Keith in the face and Keith was unarmed.”

If that is the case, and the shooter fired on Proof in self-defense, the shooter will not be charged, police said.

Upshaw is not saying whether or not his client shot Proof.

R.I.P. Proof, regardless of why that gun was in your hand or how you died, you will still be missed.

(credit: Spin.com)

Ssquared’s Music Pulse Hook-Up!

That’s it for this SITASS. Tracy’s sick, and I don’t want her to leave me because I need to crack a few more dick and fart jokes. No, if she is going to leave me, I will have had hot sex with Joanna Angel from Burning Angel [NSFW]. I love chicks with ink, and even though she is now doing a sex advice column for Spin, I find her super hot.

I’ll be back in a fortnight, if you don’t count the reviews. Until then, keep it real!
Ssquared

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