The Love/Hate News Report 12.08.11: Wait, Why Do I Feel Bad For Kanye West
Posted by John Downey on 12.08.2011
News and thoughts on Lady Gaga's upcoming world tour, Kanye West's Grammy snub, Ticketmaster sending out refunds, Trent Reznor giving away free music, Pauly D signing with 50 Cent's label, Animal Collective recording new music soon and more!
Welcome to the only music news report that has extended No-Shave November into December, the Love/Hate News Report! Hey, it's not lazy if it looks good.
To clean up a few comments that may have come across wrong, racism, in all of its forms, is unacceptable. That said, there's no way to compare "cracker" to the N-word—one is a relatively-harmless aside, the other is a weighted term that has been used to demean an entire race of people for centuries. Racist white people got to use the N-word for centuries—I think we can do without it until the end of time.
You know who isn't a cracker? Nick Krenn. His Major Bands, Minor Labels column is like a fine steak, and his other column, The Music 3R's, is a filling rack of ribs. Oh, and C.A. Bell's Ten Deep, in which he focuses on the most disappointing albums of 2011, is a fantastic chocolate sundae. Metaphors tend to get away from me.
I thought that my writing duties would be easing up right about now. Then I took an arrow to the knee. Anyway...
Okay, here's how this works: I find eight news bites per week, and complain about them. Except when I like them, in which case I'll rave about them. That is relatively speaking, of course. I'm a bit of a scoundrel who remains negative about most matters, so to let you know when I'm not trying to drown you in sarcasm/hate, I have helpful little visual reminders letting you know when I think something is a good thing. For reasons concerning symmetry, I've put indicators around the parts where I'm ranting.
If you don't agree with me, that's what the comment section is for. Go ahead and air your grievances in a matter that you find to be most appropriate. If you troll hard enough, I might cry. I will never admit to tearing up, of course, but you'll know when it happens when you get that warm feeling in your heart.
Animal Collective Begin Work On Next Album
Who doesn't love Animal Collective? (I'm sure that whoever does will be the first to comment.) I wasn't too big on the band's work until Merriweather Post Pavilion, which I consider to be one of the greatest albums of the past fifteen years and has influenced almost every other indie band going. It's been three years since they put out a full-length album, and as much as I liked their Fall Be Kind EP and Panda Bear's Tomboy, neither album could hold a candle to the band's best work. Fortunately, we might not have to wait much longer to hear their proper follow-up.
Avey Tare, one of the band's most visible members, has said in a few interviews that the band has written fifteen songs over the past year and will start recording new material in January. How long the recording process will take is anyone's guess, especially considering the band's love for production tricks, but it is entirely possible that a new Animal Collective album will see release by the end of 2012. This might not be the biggest news for some readers, but I don't care—I'm excited!
Jonathan Davis Talks Politics, Illuminati
I've praised Korn for taking risks and trying to stay relevant in spite of the collapse of their genre, including working with dubstep producers, but in the back of my mind, I knew it was only a matter of time before lead singer Jonathan Davis tried to make his band sound like a bigger deal than it is. I'm indifferent to the band's music—I don't love it or hate it—but Davis always comes across as an insufferable idiot, often trying to make his band sound like underdogs who happened to have sold over 35 million albums. Keep in mind that this is a band who sequenced songs called "Illuminati" and "Burn the Obedient" together on their latest album.
In a recent interview, Davis sounded off on his political views. Cue quote machine:
I feel like Obama's an Illuminati puppet. He's basically dragged this country down into the worst it's ever been. Like I say about the White House, 'You've built this house of shame'. Everybody looked up at the White House and America and now I think it's like a house of shame. I miss the old days when people were proud to be American.
To clarify, I don't think this is a bunch of hogwash just because I'm a Democrat—I know that Obama hasn't fulfilled most of his promises, and I think that there are countless valid criticisms to be made towards him. It's just that I think that anyone who believes in the Illuminati is kind of insane. First of all, Occam's razor suggests that most conspiracy theories can easily invalid to begin with. Second of all, if you actually believe that there is a secret organization who have been running the world's affairs for years, what do you plan on doing about it? It's not as though there is a place that you can go to escape their clutches. Oh, wait.
Lady Gaga: Soon To Be The Busiest Working Person In The World?
At press time, this is just a rumor going around, but it has been repeated so many times without being shot down that I think there's some weight to it. According to "sources" (man, I love that dude), Lady Gaga will soon announce a world tour that will include 450 dates over the course of 2 years. That's, um, crazy even by Gaga's standards, but if this rumor is legit, this will be one of the biggest world tours of all time.
With my luck, Gaga will debunk this rumor early Thursday morning.
…
I Could Spend The Entire Rest Of This Column Bitching About The List Of Grammy Nominations, But I Won't
Earlier this year, I wrote something to the effect of the Grammys being a necessary evil (no matter how bad the Grammys get, at least they aren't the American Music Awards), and the list of nominations for next year's show only support my negative attitude towards both the Grammys and the music industry as a whole. There's always an argument to be made that the nominated work is hardly the best music to have seen release in the nomination period, but I've kind of grown to accept that, so while I could go through each category and bitch about how flawed each of them are, I'll concentrate on just talking about Album of the Year.
Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the most critically-acclaimed albums of the past few years, and was my favorite album of 2010. I won't deny that the album received a few negative reviews, but most critics only had positive things to say about it. It was also a mainstream release, so unlike most indie albums that earn acclaim, MBDTF actually stood a good chance at winning some awards. As has been made clear by now, though, the album isn't actually up for Album of the Year.
To his credit, Kanye has taken this snub in stride, which is surprising considering that he complains about practically everything. His reasoning is that he split the votes by putting out MBDTF and Watch The Throne so close together, an excuse I could buy if I thought that anyone in their right mind would consider Watch The Throne the superior album. I would also be less incredulous if the category was stacked with great albums, but that's not the case either. Adele's 21 deserves its nomination, and I've heard passible arguments in favor of Born This Way, but the rest of the nominated albums shouldn't have even been nominated to be nominated. Wasting Light by the Foo Fighters is good, but not that good, Rihanna's Loud is possibly Rihanna's worst album, and Bruno Mars exists.
"C'mon, John," you might say, "it's obvious that Adele is going to win, so it's not all bad." Well, history has shown that the pick for Album of the Year is not always such a foregone conclusion. At the 50th Annual Grammy Awards Show, Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters beat out both Kanye's Graduation and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black. Hell, the 51st Annual Grammy Awards Show saw Coldplay's Viva la Vida, Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, and Radiohead's In Rainbows vying for Album of the Year, only to get beat out by Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. So, yeah, there is no such thing as a guaranteed winner when it comes to Album of the Year, and it could very well go to the guy who thought this was a good idea:
…God, I hope you didn't watch that the whole way through.
Ticketmaster Pays Up
Ticketmaster is a bitch. I haven't heard one person compliment the service, but as one of the biggest ticket sales companies in the world, it seems as though everyone has used it at least once. Ticketmaster has had to deal with lawsuits in the past, including a nasty legal battle with Pearl Jam in 1994 over ticket prices, but the verdict of their latest suit could see you reaping the benefits.
Since Octoer of 1999, Ticketmaster has been charging a little extra for "processing fees" without disclosing it to their customers. If you bought a ticket from Ticketmaster between mid-October of 1999 and mid-October of this year, you stand to receive a bit of a refund per court order—$1.50 per ticket, refunding up to 17 tickets per person. If you had your ticket(s) shipped to you via UPS, you'll also receive an extra $5 due to shipping fees. How's that for free cash?
Granted, that sum might seem rather small (one Massachusetts lawyer has stated as much), but consider that you are profiting off of a lawsuit that you might not have known was even happening. Expect a check in the mail between April 15th and May 29th of next year.
And, because I need a transition:
Pauly D Signs With 50 Cent's G-Note
Allow me to repeat my view of Jersey Shore: "…the show is fucking horrible. It was alright in its first season, when I assumed that all of those guidos were going to be tossed out on their asses when the season was over, but then they became stars and role models for millions of stupid girls." The cast of Jersey Shore do not need to be celebrated. At best, they should be ignored; at worst…well, that's not go there.
Pauly D is a professional DJ and arguably the most tolerable member of the show. He's had a successful career as a DJ, to the point that he can be considered a draw, but he's still a part of Jersey Shore, so I hope that bad things happen to him. This week, though, he signed a deal with 50 Cent's G-Note label, which is an offshoot of his own G-Unit label, which is an offshoot of Interscope, which is an offshoot of UMG, which…bleurgh.
You know, I'm trying to think of a way of properly expressing my discomfort towards seeing a representative of one of the worst television shows of all time not only survive but thrive in the limelight, but I don't think I can sum it up better than this:
Trent Reznor Gives Away Songs For Free
Say what you will about Trent Reznor's music, you can't say that the guy lacks ambition. His celebrated score for The Social Network was probably one of his most straightforward projects in years, and his score for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is one of the most anticipated soundtracks of the year. To help get people hyped for both the soundtrack and the movie, Reznor has released a six-track, 35-minute long(!) sample for free. All you have to do is go here and type in your e-mail address. What, are you too good to listen to free music?
Reznor also announced other versions of the soundtrack for purchase, including a $300 version that includes the album on six vinyl records, a poster, an 8-GB USB pendant modeled after a similar necklace worn by one of the main characters of the film, and, presumably, a sexual favor or two. Oh, c'mon, you know that one of your friends is going to buy it…
Deaths In Music This Week
Barbara Orbinson, the wife of Roy Orbinson, passed away on December 6 due to pancreatic cancer. After the death of her husband 23 years ago, Barbara managed his estate. She passed in the company of her sons. She was 60.
Howard Tate, a soul singer from the 60's, passed away on December 2. His music was ignored when it was initially released, though he gained a cult following in the early Aughts. His death has been attributed to multiple myeloma and leukemia. He was 72.
Guitarist Hubert Sumlin passed away on December 4 due to heart failure. Rolling Stone recently named him one of the greatest guitar players of all time. He was 80.
Singer Dobie Gray passed away on December 6. He is best known for his 1973 hit "Drift Away". No cause of death has been announced. He was 71.
On behalf of 411mania, I extend my condolences to the friends and families of the deceased.
And with that, we come to this week's playlist. As we near the end of the year, I'd like to highlight some music that may have been overlooked by many. With that in mind, here's w h o k i l l by tUnE-yArDs. Enjoy.
If the widget doesn't work, click here. If the widget doesn't show up, then it REALLY didn't work.
Albums To Love
January: Kaputt, Destroyer
February: Higher Learning 2, Fashawn
March: All Eternals Deck, Mountain Goats
April: Return Of 4eva, Big K.R.I.T.
May: Own Your Ghost, 13 & God
June: Blacked Up, Shabazz Palaces
July: Punch Perm, Dream Jefferson
August: Watch The Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye West
September: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Girls
October: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, M83
November: iSLAND, G-Side
Animal Collective Begin Work On Next Album
Jonathan Davis Talks Politics, Illuminati
