Quick ‘n’ Dirty Music News: 03.05.09

Posted by Mitch Michaels on 03.05.2010

Operation: Lil Wayne’s Enduring Freedom, Blanket Jackson says “Don’t Tase Me Bro!”, Ke$ha takes on Britney, Rihanna gets ripped off, DMX is bad for church, and more! Plus, Beyonce vs. Mariah in Battle of the Babes, Top Spring Break Songs, chart news and Jessica Simpson is our Piece of the Week!

Hey kids, how's it going? Mitch Michaels back for another week of the 411 Friday Flagship and the ONLY source you need for what's going on in the music world - the Quick ‘n' Dirty News.

I hope you all had an awesome week as we finally see everything start thawing out. I checked out a Drive-By Truckers show in Charlottesville last weekend AND did the mandatory Johnny Cash tribute via my Cash T-shirt. It was a decent enough show, band was on fire, but they pulled over a third of the set list from an album that isn't even out yet. I understand wanting to get the music out there, but that many songs that no one could possibly know is a real show killer, in my opinion. Still looking forward to that new album though.

Anyway, you didn't come to hear me run my mouth about my opinions – oh wait, yes you did, so let's do just that. But first, links.

I had to sit out this week for 411 Music Fact or Fiction, but our good friend Ben Czajkowski stepped in and produced a fairly decent fight between Adam Hill and Mac Scarle. Go check out both guys shitting on the new Bret Michaels track .

Also, don't forget to keep up with the 2010 inductions into the 411 Music Hall of Fame. There are still a handful to go in this class of ten legends.

And, as always, make sure to follow us on Twitter (Mitch, 411mania, 411 Music) or Facebook (Mitch, 411mania).

Now, let's get to it. It's quick, it's dirty, it's news.

Let's go…



STAND BY…FOR NEWS!

All news items are from 411 Music's newswire:

With most of the entertainment world focused on the upcoming Academy Awards, there hasn't been a whole hell of a lot of music gossip this week. In fact, the biggest story should have been a total non-issue.

See, Lil Wayne was set to report to prison on Tuesday. If you'll recall, this all stems from a crazy weekend back in July of 2007 that saw both Wayne and Ja Rule arrested on gun charges in New York City in separate incidents. Wayne had been part of a performance at the Beacon Theater and was spotted by police later that night smoking what they thought was marijuana in front of his tour bus. This got Weezy searched, yielding a .40-caliber pistol. He was arrested for criminal possession of a weapon and marijuana.

Wayne pled guilty to attempted criminal possession of a weapon and was finally set to be sentenced on the charge several weeks ago, getting a year long stay at Rikers for his troubles (eight months if he behaves himself). The rapper was supposed to report for sentencing last month, but his lawyer requested a delay because Wayne needed dental surgery. This surgery was no bullshit, either. Dude had EIGHT root canals done during an eight hour procedure, which saw him have tooth implants, other tooth implants repaired and his real teeth worked on too. His lawyer said he needed to have ten days to recover from the surgery, asking for a February 25th court date for his sentencing. The judge was feeling charitable and gave Wayne till March 2nd.

So what did Wayne do with his last day of freedom (besides Twitter)? What the fuck do you think? PARTY. Friends had a going away party for Wayne in Miami Sunday night. Check out that new grill:


Now, if you possess a calendar or basic math skills, you probably realize that March 2nd was this Tuesday. So why is Lil Wayne still not in jail?

Fortunately for Wayne, the courthouse where he was supposed be sentenced had a small fire in the basement on Tuesday. Court was cancelled for the rest of the day because of smoke in the building. In case you're a hip-hop conspiracy theorist, the fire was ruled an accident due to some electrical problems.

So what did Lil Wayne do with his extra day of freedom? He worked, actually, popping up at a Jay-Z concert at Madison Square Garden for a surprise performance of "I'm Goin' In" with Young Jeezy, Nicki Minaj and Drake.



With court back in session the next day, most people thought that Wayne's sentencing would happen Wednesday. But nope. The fire caused a little more damage than initially thought, and court hearings had to be moved to a smaller building. This backed up the cases, so now Wayne isn't set to face sentencing until Monday, March 8th.

So what did Weezy do with his new last days of freedom? He got the fuck out of there. Wayne and his people were spotted leaving NYC for a Jersey airport on Thursday. No word on where they were headed, but I have a feeling they'll find him, seeing as how the guy's last days out of jail have been documented like it was going to be an MTV special.

So that's where we stand on Lil Wayne. Will he actually go to jail on Monday? I hope so. Not because I hate him – guy got caught with a gun, but he was trying to shoot anybody. I just figure that constantly being jerked around about what day you're going to jail can get annoying. I mean, sure, Wayne seems happy. But I think that's because he's focused.

For one, Weezy's making sure to get his name all over the place so we don't forget him. First you had the Twitter account, which has provided such insights as "staying strong" and "welkome to my department store of love,where 1 size fits all." Wayne's most recent musing was "They kant lok up my heart bekuz y'all already have it on lok. ......thank u." I think we can officially say that, if Lil Wayne's Twitter has taught us anything, it's that he has a strong aversion to the letter C.

But aside from that necessary evil, we also have the word that Wayne recorded SEVENTEEN new music videos before heading to the slammer. What the fuck? To put that in perspective, U2 recorded seventeen music videos LAST DECADE. In fact, Rebirth - Wayne's latest album – only has twelve tracks. And four of them already have videos!

So yeah, I think we are going through Wayne overkill right now. I mean, it's only a year. (Or less than most likely).

But my point is that Lil Wayne is staying busy and making sure to take care of his fans. But what is Lil Wayne, Dwayne Carter – soon to be inmate #1234 - the MAN thinking? I don't know if the guy has been in jail before. Either way, going to Rikers for a year has to just suck. Wayne's lawyer is already talking to the press about protective custody, which tells me the guy has to be at least somewhat concerned about life behind bars – if not 100% scared.

You may think that all rappers are hard, and I don't know Lil Wayne – maybe he is hard. But from the few facts I do know – he was in the gifted program when he was a kid, jumped into the music biz at 13, accidentally shot himself at 14, joined the Hot Boyz at 15 – that just sounds like a guy who came up in the music industry. Sure, that can be a scary place too, but I'm betting he never figure on landing himself in prison.

Not only that, but don't forget this thing isn't over. Lil Wayne was also arrested on several drug charges in Arizona in 2008. Something tells me Wayne better start getting comfortable.

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So, enough of the Lil Wayne stuff, though feel free to give me your thoughts below. Let's see what else is up this week.

We found out this week that practically all of The Jacksons' kids (and then some) are currently living with their 79-year old mother. Not only that, but the little tikes don't seem to be getting along. Child protective services were called in when Jermaine's 13-year old son Jaafar tried to use a taser on Michael's son Blanket. Meh – I just call this boys will be boys. There were no "living condition" problems that caused me to jam a Thundercats sword down my brother's throat when we were growing up. Of course, I got my sword at Kaybee's and Jaafar ordered his stun gun using a credit card online – there may be some monitoring issues after all.

Police are still investigating the suspicious Z-shaped cuts that recently appeared on Jafaar's back.


Here's something fishy. Earlier this week, it was announced that DMX of all people would be headlining a church fundraiser for the Morning Star Sanctified Church in Glendale, AZ. It seemed unbelievable, but the church pastor reportedly confirmed the gig to TMZ, saying that DMX and his family had been attending the church for months. But yesterday, news broke that the church had canceled the show because the school hosting the event found out DMX was involved. What kind of fucked up society is going on in Glendale where a rapper is OK for a church but not a school?

Even weirder, the church has rescheduled the event to take place at the church, but without DMX's involvement. But don't worry; I hear their trying work a deal for a one shot 2 Live Crew reunion instead.

Two chicks who used to be in the Sugababes are suing for rights to the bandname because they founded the group. In fact, none of the girls currently in Sugababes were there from the beginning. However, longest tenured Sugababe Heide Range says that Universal owns the rights to the band name, not the girls. If I were them, I'd change my name to Sugarbabes, just to really fuck with people's archives. Either that or Sweet-Tits.

Here's a random pic from the QnD archive. You're welcome.


Ke$ha is laying the verbal smackdown on Britney Spears because of her not actually singing at her concerts. Ke$ha says "sometimes it is hard to sing and dance at the same time but I would rather be off and be real and genuine about it to my fans. I don't want to treat my fans like they are stupid."

The irony in all of this is that both Ke$ha and Britney's fans are in fact stupid.

Speaking of the whole lipsynching/bad show thing, I got an email from an Aussie this week about the whole Britney and Whitney Houston/Aussie concert thing (where the Australian people are complaining about shows not being up to par). Here's what they had to say:

"Normally, a lot of acts avoid coming down here, and this is due to the cost of coming down here and then doing only three to maybe seven shows. They normally stick to America or Europe where there are lot of cities where they can perform and get more money.

The thing is, most of the time when they do come down, they charge a lot for the concerts. The average band will charge between AU$50 - 100 per ticket. Some of the bigger acts, like Britney and Whitney, will charge anywhere from AU$150 - 200. That is a lot of money, more so here, just to see a performance, so people anywhere would expect top quality.

Pink came through around the same time as Britney, didn't lip sync and the crowds loved her shows." - Lynx Raven Raide

Assuming his price quotes are legit, that means people were paying between $170 and $225 (USD) to see Whitney Houston and Britney Spears. Now, I am SURE that Brit's tickets didn't face value for that here. They were probably in the area of $100. When Whitney tours here, same difference – she may be a little cheaper. But stop and think for a minute – how many fucking people are paying scalper prices for tickets in the US? And how many people, once you added in Ticketmaster fees and parking and all that BS, legitimately shelled out over $200 easy for one of those shows with their legit tickets?

So no, I don't buy it. I still think it's a non-issue. Some Aussie whined on a blog, someone else agreed, some news agency picked it up, somebody's Google Alert went off and then it was a national story. And that's all it takes.

A personal trainer is suing Rihanna for unpaid services. She says she traveled to Europe for a couple of weeks to help Rihanna work out, but Ri never paid the bill. The trainer is suing for $26,000. Unless she also performed open heart surgery on Rihanna, I'm going to assume she hasn't been paid because she's charging WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH FOR A WORKOUT!
BREAKING NEWS!!! The outline of Britney Spears' nipples!


And finally, Lady GaGa said recently that she's not in a relationship and doesn't have sex. She says her fans are her roommates and she puts all of her energy into keeping them happy. In the meanwhile, most people use that effort and energy to in turn think about having sex with GaGa.

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This week, Beyonce was out showing off some very nice cleavage in something sparkly and low cut. And like the infants we are, we drooled over her. Facing off against Beyonce is Mariah Carey, who was also in something low cut.




Easy one this week in a battle of the divas. Beyonce looks stacked, but she also looks like a wax figure (due to the lack of a soul). Meanwhile, Mariah knows the true power is in pushing them together. Mariah hands down!

What do you think?

Spring Break Songs
I've never understood why most colleges do Spring Break before spring actually begins. Usually it's mid-March and things are still cold and wet and generally not fun outside. Of course, maybe that's why everyone heads to the coast. Anyway, to celebrate the month when you college kids get to say fuck tests for a week or three, here are:

Mitch's Top 10 Spring Break Song
1	"Fly"	Sugar Ray feat. Super Cat
2	"College Girls Are Easy"	Eazy-E
3	"Tipsy"	J-Kwon
4	"When The Sun Goes Down"	Kenny Chesney
5	"Jamming"	Bob Marley & The Wailers
6	"About An Hour Ago"	O.A.R.
7	"I Love College"	Asher Roth
8	"Boom Boom Pow"	The Black Eyed Peas
9	"No You Girls"	Franz Ferdinand
10	"Get Ur Freak On"	Missy Elliott

QUICK ‘n' DIRTY CHART NEWS

NEW RELEASES FOR MARCH 9, 2010

WHAT EVERYONE WILL BUY

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach - Actually a lot of good records hitting stores this week. You've got a brand new studio album from Jimi Hendrix (I'd be more excited if I didn't figure it'll be exactly like South Saturn Delta). You've got a new Ludacris album dropping. And, if you like musicals, you have Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies soundtrack – a sequel to Phantom Of The Opera. Still, I think Gorillaz have been hustling their album the best and have the best buzz out of anyone.

WHAT WILL BE NUMBER ONE

This week was just as I figured – a fight between stalwarts Sade and Lady Antebellum for #1 with a severe lack of new releases. Sade won the fight, moving 127,000 copies – 9,000 more than Lady Antebellum. Johnny Cash was the only debut - American VI landed at #3 with only 54,000. That's down from the 88,000 American V sold in 2006 on its way to debuting #1.

Next week, yes, I think Sade will do it again. Analysts are already saying the highest debut will be Blake Shelton's Hillbilly Bone EP, which is set to move in the 60-70k range. No way Lady Antebellum and Sade will drop that low. Fortunately, it won't be too much of a dead week, as we've got Danny Gokey, Almost Alice, Jason Derulo and Raheem DaVaughn all fighting for Top 10 spots.

WHAT YOU SHOULD BUY

Jimi Hendrix - Valleys Of Neptune: I love Hendrix, and I'm sorry to not be super-psyched for this. It's nice that the title track is finally getting an official release, but most of the rest of the album is just new studio takes on songs we've heard the Experience do live a million different ways. "Red House", "Bleeding Heart", "Fire", "Hear My Train A-Comin'", "Sunshine Of Your Love" – my only hope is that Hendrix brings some of that studio magic he often had to bring something new to these songs. Oh yeah, and there are a BUNCH of Hendrix reissues coming next week, too.

WHAT'S HOT ON THE DIAL?

Billboard has about a million charts, so each week I'm gonna round up the #1s from each format. That way, no matter WHAT station you flip to when not using your presets, you'll be aware of what you might hear. Newly crowned #1s are in bold:

BILLBOARD #1 SINGLES
CHART	SINGLE	WEEKS
POP/OVERALL
HOT 100	The Black Eyed Peas – "Imma Be"	13
RADIO SONGS	Ke$ha – "TiK ToK"	18
POP SONGS	Ke$ha – "TiK ToK"	20
HEATSEEKERS SONGS	Taio Cruz Featuring Ludacris – "Break Your Heart"	2
DIGITAL
DIGITAL SONGS	The Black Eyed Peas – "Imma Be"	11
R&B/HIP-HOP
R&B/HIP-HOP SONGS	Robin Thicke – "Sex Therapy"	19
RAP SONGS	Young Money feat. Lloyd - "BedRock"	16
COUNTRY
HOT COUNTRY SONGS	Josh Turner – "Why Don't We Just Dance"	28
ROCK
ROCK SONGS	Alice In Chains – "Your Decision"	13
ALTERNATIVE SONGS	Cage The Elephant – "Back Against The Wall"	30
ADULT CONTEMPORARY
ADULT CONTEMPORARY	Michael Buble – "Haven't Met You Yet"	26
ADULT POP SONGS	Train – "Hey, Soul Sister"	28
CHRISTIAN
CHRISTIAN SONGS	Kutless – "What Faith Can Do"	24
GOSPEL SONGS	Marvin Sapp – "The Best In Me"	11
DANCE
DANCE/CLUB PLAY SONGS	Kristine W – "The Power Of Music"	7
JAZZ
JAZZ SONGS	Euge Groove – "Sunday Morning"	18
LATIN
LATIN SONGS	Aventura – "Dile Al Amor"	15
REGIONAL MEXICAN SONGS	Banda Los Recoditos - "Ando Bien Pedo"	11
LATIN POP SONGS	Camila - "Mientes"	14
TROPICAL SONGS	Aventura – "Dile Al Amor"	27
INTERNATIONAL
CANADIAN HOT 100	Nikki Yanofsky – "I Believe"	5
WEB
iLIKE LIBRARIES	Lady GaGa – "Bad Romance"	18
iLIKE PROFILES	Lady GaGa – "Bad Romance"	16
LALA.COM	The Black Eyed Peas – "I Gotta Feeling"	34
AOL RADIO	Lady Antebellum – "Need You Now"	5
YAHOO AUDIO	Iyaz – "Replay"	15

	Mitch's Picks
	O.A.R. – "Shattered (Live)"
	Rob Zombie – "Sick Bubbelgum"
	Cage – "I Never Knew You"

This week, Jessica Simpson was making news by opening up about ex John Mayer's comments about her in Playboy. Jess said she hadn't really forgiven Mayer for telling the world she was "sexual napalm", but she hopes he gets his life together.

You know, everyone was so wrapped up in the David Duke comment, that I think we all kind of hurried past the Jessica thing. John Mayer, as douchey as he is, has bedded a lot of women. And he's calling Jessica sexual napalm. This chick is probably one of the hottest on the planet – head to toe gorgeous and completely stupid to boot. The pretty ones don't have to work hard in the sack, guys know this. But Jessica – apparently she goes more than the extra mile. I'm glad I didn't dwell on this comment when it happened or my brain would have melted.

So, for being a demon under the sheets, it's my pleasure to introduce to you – Jessica Simpson, your Piece of the Week!

THE END

That's all for this week. Make sure to comment on what you liked, didn't like, etc. Till next week, keep your ears to the ground.