Ahhh, the trifecta of death is two-thirds complete. I’m speaking, of course, of the sequential releases new albums by Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, and Jessica Simpson. Though rather painful to start on such a high note and knowing there’s only severe declination on its way, still, it felt like a cleansing plan for someone who typically addles her brain with loud, loud, loud music.
Well, cleansing it ain’t. There’s a reason why I don’t listen to much of the mainstream pop that hits the clubs and radio. That’s because it’s empty, shallow, and formulaic. Paris? Sure, her album is “good” by today’s pop standards. But today’s pop standards are abysmally low, causing the Beatles and Beach Boys to weep in a corner at the lack of true emotional output and honest-to-goodness artist-authored composition. And no, Hilton inserting “that’s hot” is not a writing credit, nor is it any way insightful. Should pop be fun? Sure, but at the end of the day, it should stick with you for reasons more than just a good beat or catchy hook. Artists need to connect with their audiences on a personal level if they expect to keep their fans from becoming bored or fickle over time.
My next goal in life is to find these girls who think music is all about fame and strap them down with Abbey Road on repeat. Hell, I’d be happy if they would learn a thing or two from Like a Prayer. Maybe bring in New Order to teach them about art and The Cure to teach them about raw expression. Bring in Sting and Paul Simon to teach them about world rhythms, haul over Morrissey to teach them… well, I don’t know what Morrissey would teach them but and I don’t know that they would understand it anyway. Maybe just Elvis Costello and Tori Amos, followed by a kick in the ass from Kate Bush.
Of course, even if I manage to fix them, there’s still Kevin Federline. Fuck.
Alice in Musicland
Speak of the devil. From the AP:
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – He danced, he clutched his bling, but could he rap? Apparently the answer is yes. Britney Spears’ hubby Kevin Federline capped off the eighth annual Teen Choice Awards on Sunday with an enthusiastic version of his single “Lose Control”  his first time performing on network television.
It wasn’t genius, but it wasn’t half bad either.
The bigger surprise, however, came in the form of pregnant presenter Spears, who wore a cleavage-baring dress, and introduced her “man” onstage with a shout and a giggle.
“This show has been very good to me and my career over the years. And I’m hoping that it will be as good to our next performer,” she said.
In a loose white shirt and white hat, Federline prowled and jumped around the stage, surrounded by young dancers.
“I ain’t here to brag,” he rapped in a tough-guy style.
“American Idol” judge Paula Abdul, when asked before the show what advice she would give the 28-year-old singer and rapper, didn’t hesitate.
“Do what you gotta do and have fun,” she said.
Federline, who married Spears in 2004, is expected to release his debut hip-hop album “Playing With Fire” in August. The tabloid-popular couple have an infant son, Sean Preston, and they are expecting their second child.
Oh hell. People are giving Paris Hilton’s record a thumbs-up and now they’re giving the same to Kevin Federline. I can’t believe our standards have degraded this far. Seriously, does everyone think that someone who has a half-assed sense of rhythm and can generate a beat is talented? This guy couldn’t add one and one if there was a giant two sitting on his face. His only skill is insemination.
Remember the “disco is dead” movement where thousands of albums were burned and people congregated from all over to effectively kill disco once and for all? Where is our burn pile for privileged studio creations? I’m not nearly loud enough to attract my own enormous congregation, but I bet we could get a bunch of rock stars to jump on board with us.
Now then, to continue with the theme of this column, here’s an interesting chunk of journalism from Reuters:
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) – The avalanche of upcoming releases from stars like Justin Timberlake, Beyonce and Janet Jackson could make for one of the biggest fourth quarters in quite some time. But is it an embarrassment of poorly strategized riches, as some retailers claim?
At first glance, it sounds like a great problem to have. Album sales are down 5.5 percent from last year and dropping, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and a bigger-than-usual fourth quarter could offset some of those losses.
From September through the end of the year, albums expected to join the platinum parade are due from Clay Aiken, Alan Jackson, Ludacris, Beck, Evanescence, Jet, My Chemical Romance, Keith Urban and the Killers.
There will also be plenty of big releases for the older demos from the likes of Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Sting, the Who, Meat Loaf and Bob Seger.
Most merchants, however, feel the release schedule is so strong that some titles may get lost in the shuffle; for years now, retail executives have lamented that the majors wait until the fourth quarter to release their big projects.
“The release schedule is great, but where are we going to put it all?” asks Ron Lund, senior VP of product management and logistics at Handleman Co. “With all the competition from other forms of entertainment, I don’t want any records to get left behind, but people only have so much money.”
Thuy Ngo, VP of purchasing for Super D, worries that the major labels have so much product coming out that they will only work albums for a month and move on to the next release. She urges the labels “not to just work an October new release that month, but to come back and work them in November and December.”
In fact, if recent sales trends are any indication, the biggest sellers during the holiday season are generally releases that come out in the first three quarters, not in the fourth. According to data presented by Nielsen SoundScan at the annual Natl. Assn. of Retail Merchants convention (NARM), only two of the top 10 best-selling albums of the SoundScan era (from May 1991 to the present) were released in the fourth quarter.
There’s more to the article; track it down on your favorite newswire site if you’re interested.
This is what I adore about the record industry: they have fingers to point at everyone but themselves. Plain and clear, the numbers have been laid out in front of them for the last fifteen years. Saving product for Q4 has zero impact on holiday sales.
And here’s why: kids have disposable income, but those with discriminating tastes, those with limited funds, and those who aren’t obsessed with music will generally wait until they’ve heard more than just the first single before investing in an album. Everyone knows that any Joe Schmoe can come out with one good song, and you can grab that one song on iTunes or through illegitimate means. But to spend the ridiculous $20 on a CD that they will then rip to their computer and put on their iPod? That’s a lot of money and a lot of work, so it had better be worth it.
This situation was created entirely by the labels. They’re the ones who insisted we fork out the cost of a tank of gas for music. They’re the ones pushing pretty people with little talent whose studio creations turn snoreworthy and fail to follow up their successes with anything of substance or note. They’re dumping their money down the toilet instead of investing in artists who will steadily bring the goods for years to come. If their advertising budgets were utilized in more discriminating and diverse ways, the effect could be a boost in sales for lesser-known artists and, imagine that, profits for everyone.
Instead they choose to crush Ashlee Simpson and her ilk down our throats. Do they not think we know who these people are? Stars don’t need a huge push; they have their audience who will buy it and that’s about it. Do they think that spending more money thrusting Paris Hilton in our faces will somehow convince us all to buy the record? She’s already thrust in our faces. And guess what? While her megafans are sure to snag the album, those with doubts are going to wait until two or three singles impress them before they spend money on it.
Idiots. You sign gizillions of bands, yet promote a select few. Take money out of the sure-thing who needs no help and put it somewhere that might actually make sense. If it was a gamble to sign a band, you might as well try to earn back your money by throwing the dice a few times instead of waiting for another table to pay you back in spades.
Anyway, enough pop and angry girl rants. Metal time!
HAPPY FUN SMILES from Blabbermouth:
Swedish heavy metal musician Jon Nödtveidt, 31, was found dead on Wednesday, August 16 at his apartment in Hässelby, a suburb of Stockholm. He shot himself in the head and was surrounded by lit candles, Expressen reports. Shortly before the ritual suicide, he sent farewell letters to his father and his girlfriend and explained to a friend, “I’m going away for a long, long time. I’m going to Transylvania.”
Sometime between Monday (Aug. 14) and Wednesday, Nödveidt, vocalist and guitarist in the popular Swedish black metal band DISSECTION, chose to take his own life.
At 7:21 p.m. CET on Wednesday, a police patrol reported to the police communication center in Stockholm that a man had been found dead, the apparent victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to several of Expressen’s sources, the singer had placed an open copy of “The Satanic Bible” in front of him before pulling the trigger.
“He shot himself in the head and lay dead in a ring of lit candles,” says a police source.
At 5:44 p.m. on Wednesday, the police received a 911 call from Jon Nödtveidt’s family who hadn’t been able to establish contact with him for a couple of days.
“They were very concerned,” says his legal representative and manager, Per Nordqvist. “His girlfriend and his family called after their fears that something terrible had happened had been bolstered.”
The reason for their concern was a farewell letter that Jon Nödveidt had sent to his girlfriend in Germany. His father, Anders Nödtveidt, had also received a postcard asking him to contact a number of people and thank them for everything.
The suicide is believed to have been planned for a long time.
“At the scene there was also a will and a suicide note,” a police source tells Expressen.
In December 1997, Jon Nödveidt was arrested for the murder of Josef Ben Meddaour and served seven years for accessory to murder and possession of an illegal firearm. The highly publicized murder in Gothenburg is depicted in the movie “Keillers Park”. What has come to be known as “the Satanic murder” in Sweden has led to both a movie and a book.
“It affected me immensely,” the movie’s director, Susanna Edwards, tells Aftonbladet.
“Keillers Park”, which is named after the park in Gothenburg where the murder took place, opened in theaters in Sweden in March 2006.
“Josef Ben Meddaour was a naive and open person with a big heart,” says Edwards. “He was a victim of a grotesque act of homophobia.”
The murder was also the basis for last year’s “No Tears For Queers”, a book about hate crimes by Swedish journalist and author Johan Hilton.
In 1997, at the time of the murder, Jon Nödtveidt explained that he lived in a world where Satan was God and that they drank blood and sacrificed animals. On DISSECTION’s web site he revealed that he was a member of MLO  Misanthropic Luciferian Order.
On September 22, 2004, two weeks after his release from prison, Jon Nödveidt talked to Expressen about the murder and his time in prison.
“I want to put the murder behind me and move forward,” he told the newspaper. “It feels like I’m a new person after my time in prison. The time before the incarceration feels like another life. I’ve been through so much since. I’ve become more mature, older and look at life and death in a totally new way.”
When asked about the crimes he was convicted of, Nödtveidt said, “No matter how you twist and turn it, it can’t be undone. What happened happened and I must move forward with my life. I have taken responsibility for my actions by having served my time in prison. I’m not proud of the fact that I have to watch my mother cry, but I’m working with new strength and looking ahead.”
When asked if he regrets what happened, Nödtveidt said, “Out of respect for the victim’s family, I don’t want to discuss what happened. The only thing I want to say is that I’m not proud of it.”
Josef Ben Meddaour was a 37-year-old Algerian homosexual man who was killed by a shotgun blast to the head and the back.
Looks like Varg Vikernes has some catching up to do. I’ll dig up a .38 if that’s what it takes to finish the job.
For those out there who think that all the metal kiddies are out there sitting somewhere in awe or idolizing this guy, trust me: they’re not. The collective response to this news from the metal community was “good riddance.” Yes, even the dumb-as-rocks contingent didn’t think this guy was cool, and the Satanists among them had little respect for the guy.
Hopefully now the black metal community will go back to equating “true” with high treble and corpse paint. Bullet belts > gay bashing.
The Rad Ones
Well, I’ve been reviewing a lot of albums in the last couple of weeks. Please check out the reviews section of the site for the complete list, because I’m not going to link them all here and plug myself like a shameless self-centered brat.
KDP writes about pop.
SMS writes about… stuff.
D’Errico writes many things I disagree with, but whatever.
And Mathan had a column too. Man, I’m terrible at coming up with interesting things to say with these links.
Around the rest of the site, you must read our review of Snakes on a Plane (I loved it) as well as a SoaP themed Bar Steward column.
Outro
The music never stops when I’m at work; when I’m not listening to albums to review, I’m listening to rock radio. This is something I’ve mentioned several times over the last few months as I have reacquainted myself with the airwaves.
My hope in listening to this much mainstream hard rock was to learn the difference between all of the bands I’ve long sinced dubbed “Puddle of Nickelsmack.” I was hoping to find distinguishing traits in voices, guitar styles, songwriting, whatever.
I’m still terribly lost.
Don’t get me wrong. I now appreciate this generic genre more than I did before. I can now name singles as well as their artists. I know enough lyrics to sing many of them in karaoke. And yes, there are songs I like quite a bit. My taste hasn’t really changed, as I become most excited when they play System of a Down, Tool, Rob Zombie, or some of my favorite ’90s classics.
But the knowledge I have gained has been through rote memorization. When the dude from Godsmack isn’t singing in his lowest register, he’s interchangeable with the dude from Hinder. Even the whining of Staind has been matched across the board by newcomers. And the only reason why Disturbed is easily discernible is because their vocalist keeps barking all the time.
Let me sit in my rocking chair for a moment. Remember Bush? You could tell Gavin Rossdale’s voice anywhere. Alice in Chains? There’s no substitute for Layne Staley. Chris Cornell is still around and very distinctive. Geoff Tate, Vince Neil, Axl Rose, Eddie Vedder, even that guy from Collective Soul doesn’t sound like anyone else on the market. While there sure were a ton of grunge, alternative, and hair bands in their days, the bigger names (and even the mid-range names) were fairly easy to discern on first listen.
It’s not that I’ve gotten old or that my hearing has gone bad. System and Zombie, they make good on individuality. Now I hear Three Days Grace, Hoobastank, Trapt, Nickelback, Saliva, and I couldn’t tell you one from another aside from the fact that the DJs are nice enough to occasionally identify an artist and song prior or post-play. This isn’t to say any of them are crappy, because they’re all quite equal; in no way can I say Nickelback sucks without saying they all suck. And if anyone is sitting there telling you differently, I’m telling you that person is on crack.
I will say one thing though, totally off-topic: I thought hair bands were sleazy. Okay, yes, they were sleazy. But I never again want to hear any hard rock fan giving Warrant crap for “Cherry Pie” or Motley Crue for “Girls Girls Girls”. Let me just point you to Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch” or Nickelback’s “Animals” and “Figured You Out”. I’m glad I’m not a kid growing up and hearing this in the car with my mom and having to pretend I’m oblivious to their innuendo.
Nickelback’s “Rock Star” is awesome though. “I’ll have the quesadilla, uh huh” cracks me up every single time I hear it. I’m such a sellout. Don’t tell Mike Portnoy or Phil Collins, okay?
Got a drug dealer on speed dial,
–gloomchen
