The Love/Hate News Report 12.22.11: Britney, Beefheart, and Beef

Posted by John Downey on 12.22.2011

From Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now" to Cher Lloyd's "Swagger Jagger" and more, 411's John Downey takes a look at the 5 worst songs of 2011! Plus news and thoughts on Britney Spears getting engaged, The Game going after a fan in Oslo, Adele leaving London for the sake of her voice and more!

Welcome to the only music news report that is still hyped up over Daniel Bryan's title win, the Love/Hate News Report! No joke, my copy of Glory by Honor V Night 2 is on my desk as I write this. You didn't come here for wrestling news, though, you came here to read the strangest column on 411mania!

Last week, I stopped short of saying that Earbuddy's year-end list was going to be better than Pitchfork's list. The only thing stopping me was that Pitchfork had not released their entire list when I wrote last week's column. Well, the list is out, and I can say, with total confidence, that Earbuddy's list blows theirs out of the water. Earbuddy's list should be out soon, but you should check daily—we might put it out as early as tomorrow! (Actually, no, we won't.)

But hey, maybe you can only read articles on 411mania because it is the greatest thing ever. Don't worry, I've got your fixings here. Nick Krenn's Major Bands, Minor Labels looks at some of the biggest breakout artists of 2011—well, the good ones, anyway. His other column, The Music 3R's, praises Lana Del Ray and disses the Black Keys. He's cool like that. C.A. Bell's Ten Deep looks at some of the best songs of the year. For the appropriate counterpart, scroll down a bit.

Random question: how much will a copy of the Legend of Zelda collection that came out for the Gamecube go for on eBay? I could look for myself, but I'm sure that someone reading 411mania has already sold their copy and can share their experience. Also, I needed something random to put in before the column's format really kicks in. 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.

Anyway, let's get down to business...



Most news items are from 411 Music's newswire.

Google Is Criticized For Something That You Likely Already Know About
Though I'm against SOPA, and I side with Megaupload in their case against Universal, I think that companies should take a stand against piracy (but not the way they're going about it right now). I've recently noticed that simply searching for many artists on Google will, more often than not, send me to illegal download sites—hell, I've lost count of the number of times I've typed in the name of an artist and Google's auto-complete suggests illegal materials. Google is still the best search engine, but this rubs me the wrong way, and I figured it was only a matter of time before someone called them out on it.

Well, someone has finally taken Google to task on this matter. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry recently released a report criticizing Google for not doing enough to protect copyrighted music. Of particular note was this little tidbit:

Google also needs to do more to ensure that it does not derive revenue from illegal activity and supports the digital marketplace in which it itself is a participant.

Oh, right, Google Music exists. Google has dismissed this as a "press stunt", but they have a point—they shouldn't be sending folks to illegal websites. Props to IFPI for saying what I've been thinking for a while.

"This Is Osla!"
During a show in Norway late Tuesday night, a fan threw a bottle at the Game's head—nothing out of the ordinary, and usually grounds for someone to get ejected, but this is usually a non-story. On this occasion, though, Game decided to act like a tough guy. The following video contains profanity, so turn down the volume.



Because, you know, jumping off stage and getting in a fan's face makes you look so tough.


Time To Change Some Relationship Statuses
AJ McLean, a member of the Backstreet Boys, married his long-time girlfriend, model Rochelle DeAnna Karidis, last Saturday. Don't ask me which one is McLean—I still have problems telling the members of NSync apart, and that group had Justin Timberlake.

Britney Spears got engaged. Again. Hey, maybe this one will stick. I'm not being sarcastic—Spears has kept a low profile and hasn't done anything crazy or stupid in years. It is entirely possible that she is a well-adjusted adult now. We'll see.

Congrats to both participants in the late-90's pop explosion.




Rodney Atkins Get Arrested For…Um…
Rodney Atkins is a country singer who is probably best known for a song called "If You're Going Through Hell", a nice little song about maintaining perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds. I've heard mostly good things about the guy, so when news broke that Atkins was arrested for allegedly trying to smother his wife with a pillow…um, yeah. See, that's the kind of thing that doesn't make for entertaining headlines unless you want to reference Chris Benoit.

Atkins, of course, has rejected these claims because he would lose all of his fans if he didn't reject those claims. He has also filed for divorce, which is the only logical thing to do after hitting your spouse. This is an unsettling news story from any perspective, and the only way I can transition out of this story is to throw something random in here. So…



You're welcome.


Adele Plans To Leave London To Save Her Voice
Hey, have you heard of Adele? I like this one song she did called "Rolling In The Deep", and I kind of like her latest album. I'm telling you, one day, Adele is going to make it big.

Adele has been having problems with her vocal chords, to the point where she has needed surgery to fix them. She's also given up smoking, which you would think would be the first demand of any manager worth their salt. Complicating things further is that Adele is British(…ish) and spends most of her time in London, and though London is a lovely place, the pollution there, from what I'm told, is at least almost half as bad as California's pollution. Fortunately, Adele has decided that London probably isn't the best place for her to live and plans on moving to the countryside. Good for her for making this sort of decision.

Oh, and here is something that is barely related to Adele.




"Friday" And Politics
Okay, so Billboard recently made a list of the most viewed YouTube videos of 2011. First, though, let's discuss the rights of states and how it pertains to how I view life. Some have argued that giving states more rights gives more power to the people, which I think is a good reason to restrict state's rights. To paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black, "A person is smart, people are stupid". If I have to choose between a few idiots deciding on rules and regulations and a lot of idiots deciding on rules and regulations, I'll choose the former every time. The fewer morons I have to deal with, the better.

"Friday", of course, topped the list with 167,000,000 views, followed by that one lame video of a guy teasing his dog with food and Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow". It's a lame list consisting mostly of inoffensive stuff that would only appeal to pea brains—not that I'm surprised.

I think this needs more views.



Captain Beefheart Album Finally Gets Release Date
This news is almost as big as the Beach Boys's SMiLE finally seeing release. Captain Beefheart made influential, experimental music back in the day, and many critics claim that Trout Mask Replica is one of the greatest albums of all time. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) was released in 1978, but it wasn't the album that Beefheart wanted to release. It's a complicated story, but the fact is that Bat Chain Puller, the album that Beefheart wanted to release, was shelved for more than thirty years. The album will be released in January, and you can preorder your copy of the album from Frank Zappa's website.

Why should you be interested in this?



That's why.


Deaths In Music This Week
Rapper Slim Dunkin passed away after being shot in an altercation while preparing to shoot a music video. Dunkin was a member of Waka Flocka Flame's Brick Squad Monopoly collective, and was considered to be a a promising member of the group. Details of the shooting remain, as of this writing, scarce, though the altercation allegedly started after Dunkin took a piece of candy from someone. He was 24.

Country singer Billie Jo Spears passed away due to complications with cancer. Spears's work included her hit songs "Mr. Walker It's All Over" and "Blanket on the Ground". She was 74.

On behalf of 411mania, I extend my condolences to the friends and families of the deceased.




COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY WANKERY BROUGHT ABOUT BECAUSE IT IS MID-DECEMBER
This week, I decided to take a look at the worst songs of the year. For your sake and mine, I haven't included links to any of this music because you shouldn't have to put up with it. Here we go.

5.) "Beth/Rest", Bon Iver
I've ranted and raved about Bon Iver enough, but truth be told, his latest album kind of grew on me. I won't say that it's a classic, or even good enough to crack my top ten, but now I think it is pretty good. The closing track, though, still sucks, and I don't know how anyone can defend it. I'm open to someone making an argument for Justin Vernon suddenly channeling Phil Collins—I need a laugh.

4.) "Donald Trump", Mac Miller
Actually, all of Mac Miller's songs are equally terrible, but this is his most blatantly obnoxious track. His problem isn't that he's a lazy bum with nothing going for him—Spose's "I'm Awesome" did the same thing and was pretty funny. Mac Miller's problem is that he has less than nothing going for him. His sense of entitlement is annoying, and his lyrics suggest that he looks up to Soulja Boi. Maybe I should write a song about how I watched Legends of the Hidden Temple after school—it would surely get me a record deal and millions of fans overnight.

3.) "Swagger Jagger, Cher Lloyd
What do you get when you cross "Clementine" with Crazy Frog? One of the worst singles of the year, that's what. I imagine that the only people who like "Swagger Jagger" are folks who are on the lookout for new ways to torture people. Oh, and imbeciles, too.

2.) (tie) "My Moment", Rebecca Black; "Can You See Me Now", Benni Cinkle; "Girl Swag", Madison Bray
When Rebecca Black's "Friday" went viral earlier this year, many people were quick to call it one of the worst songs of all time. Looking back, we spoke too soon—at least "Friday" lent itself to parody. "My Moment" is boring, self-impressed fluff; "Can You See Me Now" is downright infuriating; "Girl Swag" sees a nine-year-old girl talk about how gangsta she is. These songs would be funny if they weren't so pathetic.

1.) "Look At Me Now", Chris Brown featuring Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne
The Chris Brown ban from this column is being lifted temporarily just for this occasion. From a Buy or Sell column I contributed to earlier this year: "Chris Brown makes getting rich and laid sound boring, Busta Rhymes spits nine million syllables to essentially say "I kill people...a lot", and Lil Wayne's lines read like a checklist of rap's worst excesses. That Diplo, who helped M.I.A. gain exposure in the first half of the Aughts, had a hand in producing the beat boggles my mind. It takes some very talented people to make something this fucking horrible." And now I'm shoving him back out again.


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Oh. God. That was painful. Time for this week's playlist. This week, you get Madvillian's Madvillainy. Why? Well, because I'm going to write about it in my other column soon, and it's the first album to pop into my head. Enjoy, if you can.



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

Cheap plug: Earbuddy. Damn good source of music news and views. "Like" it on Facebook, too. I wrote a review for Betty Black's Too Much to Resist: The Slow Dance EP Remixes, and the latest edition of my other column, "Own It Or Disown It", in which I look at Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft", is up as well.

And here it is, this week's Video To Love…

Drunk History Christmas with Ryan Gosling, Jim Carrey and Eva Mendes from Ryan Gosling

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!
See you in seven...if you're lucky.

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