Ask 411 Music 01.19.12: The Secret Society Edition
Posted by Ron Martin on 01.19.2012
Did Living Colour see an increase in sales after one of their songs started being used regularly by the WWE? Is Jay-Z in the Illuminati? Was the Illuminati behind the death of Tupac? All that and much more in this edition of Ask 411 Music!
Hello everyone and welcome back to yet another edition of Ask 411 Music! I'm Ron Martin and this is the column that kills vampires and saves babies. Really, it will do it. Of course, it's very self conscious and can only do it while no one else is looking. It's weird, but effective.
Got to see some live music this past weekend as HAIRBANGERS BALL made its way through town. It seems like the band plays the local bar every couple of months or so. It's pretty much what you expected it to be once you read the name of the band – a lot of hair metal covers. The band dresses the part dolling themselves up in their best late 80s hair rock outfits as they bolt out POISON, MOTLEY CRUE, BON JOVI and even some MICHAEL JACKSON and HEART. It's a pretty clever gimmick that will always bring a crowd. Once the crowd was there, they had them rocking. They did a nice job and I'll have to check them out again when they come back in a few months.
DOLLY PARTON turns 66 years old today…
WHITFIELD CRANE, lead singer for UGLY KID JOE turns 44 today…
JOHN WOZNIAK, lead singer for MARCY'S PLAYGROUND turns 41 today…
IT CAME FROM MY IPOD
As you may or may not know, I live in a college town. Living in a college town means there are a lot of options for me when I want to go out drinking. One such option provided me with a six month challenge to take down 80 different drinks/shots/martinis in a six month period. This weekend, I succeeded in finishing that challenge scoring myself a yellow t-shirt that I will never wear (yellow isn't my color) and my name on the wall of the bar. The bar is flooded with names, but 95% of those names drank 80 different beers – a much easier task. Wussies. To celebrate this event, I've pulled five songs off my iPod about it.
1. "Coma" by Guns N Roses
2. "Full Circle" by Aerosmith
3. "I'm On It" by Here Come the Mummies
4. "My Favourite Game" by The Cardigans
5. "Simon Says" by Drain STH
Ah, time to sit back put your feet up and watch for…
THE QUESTIONS
MIKE wants to talk entrance themes… When CM Punk started using "Cult Of Personality", did the sales for that sond go up? Are Living Colour gettin a hefty paycheck from WWE for letting them use that song? I know I was a fan back in the day but stopped listening to them, and this past sumer sparked my interest and I downloaded the first 2 albums from I-Tunes, and have reconnected with them. Just wondering if they had any new success because of C.M. Punk.
CM PUNK started using LIVING COLOUR's "Cult of Personality" in the WWE on July 25, 2011…
"Cult of Personality" was the first and most successful single released off of Living Colour's extremely underrated Vivid album in 1988. The song peaked at #9 on the Billboard Charts and won the band a GRAMMY for BEST HARD ROCK PERFORMANCE in 1990. The song was re-recorded by the band for Guitar Hero 3. The band's record company, EPIC, basically blackmailed MTV into putting the music video into heavy rotation by threatening to withhold Michael Jackson's new single "Smooth Criminal" from the network if they didn't. The song was also one of a handful that acted as inspiration for my first attempt at a novel. Especially the line "when a leader speaks, that leader dies."
The song is perfect for CM Punk, by the way. When I saw that clip above for the first time, I realized I didn't have the song on my iPod and quickly corrected that. I have the CD, so it was just a matter of downloading it onto the computer as opposed to buying it digitally like Mike did. Mike wasn't the only one, however. Sales of the song went up significantly just days after it appeared on Monday Night Raw. The song appeared in iTunes Top 200 downloads chart for the week after never having appeared on the chart before.
In fact, Living Colour even commented on the phenomena through TWITTER the same week:
"Love n luck to @CMPunk and his loyal fan base! Glad to see new + old faces enjoying our music. Hope to meet you whenever we hit the road"
Yeah, sales went up significantly whether it was people like Mike who used to love the music and re-discovered it or youngsters who had never heard it before and was like "what the hell is this? I love it!"
As for royalties…somebody's getting paid. The WWE can't just use commercial music without writing a check to someone. Usually as a business decision, I would be against paying for music when you have someone as talented as JAMES JOHNSTON working for you, but in this case, the song is just so much of a perfect fit and really makes the entrance seem like a big deal, it's worth it. Somebody is getting royalties, but it's not the band. One of the reasons the band had to re-record the song with a different guitar solo for Guitar Hero III was because they no longer had the rights to the original. Who actually owns the rights wasn't readily available. The band, however, would be receiving a bump in royalties from sales of the song/album on iTunes.
ROBERT BURNAM tries to get me on the "No Fly" list…
Do you think the Illuminati still exists and Jay-Z and people like that are members? Can you explain todays Illuminati and the stuff dealing with Tupac? Also theres rumor Kid Cudi was in it or had something to do with it. Lyrics to "Heart of a lion" say stuff about not being taken to hell but it doesnt really mean anything unless you believe it still exists. Basically anything would be helpful cause im just now trying to learn about it. Thanks man – Rob
What a terrible day for WIKIPEDIA to choose to black out for 24 hours just to make a point. Oy!
As an avid listener to the late night/early morning program Coast to Coast AM, I am well aware of the ILLUMINATI. Do I personally believe it exists? Sure—in some form. I don't think it exists in the way the most versed conspiracy theorists would have you believe. If you're looking to research, the forums over at unexplained.mysteries.com might be a good place to start. They can at least direct you to some links and lore on the topic.
A lot of musical acts deal with the Illuminati because it's mysterious; it might be dark and devilish – it helps the image. The image helps sell records. Add to that that Illuminati are obviously a pretty exclusive group and what musician wouldn't let rumors of his association with them grow? JAY-Z has been accused of being in the Illuminati because of symbols in music videos, particularly "On to the Next One."
For the record, Jay-ZS has repeatedly denied any involvement with the secret society. He even had this to say on the subject just a few months ago to DELTA AIRLINES SKY MAGAZINE:
"It may sound a little arrogant, but I just think people can't handle when somebody else is successful. Something has gotta be wrong; you gotta be down with some higher power. And I guess when someone else is successful, it makes you feel like maybe you're a failure. So it can't be you, it has to be some other force."
As for TUPAC there has long been speculation that the death of the rapper came at the hands of the Illuminati. You don't have to dig deep into the rapper's discography to find him railing against such powers as the Illuminati, in fact, naming the Illuminati on several occasions. He has an album named Makaveli: The Don Killuminati, so it's not like he was running away from the organization. He denied being a member and there's a better likelihood that the Illuminati was meant to represent just the powers that be in general. There's a lot of people that would like to believe Tupac's death was more than just a casualty in the rap wars of the 90s. If the Illuminati was involved, they certainly aren't talking about it.
As for KID CUDI…
The video above is posted with lyrics so you can decide for yourself if they are Illuminati worthy. I think Kid Cudi probably got pulled in to the whole Illuminati thing due to his working with Jay-Z and KANYE WEST. Again, it all depends on how much of the Illuminati conspiracy you believe in. Does the Illuminati trace its roots all the way back to Biblical times and is this a war between God and the Devil? Or is this just a group of insanely powerful men calling the shots from behind the curtains and using the leaders of the world to do their bidding? It's all in the symbolism of the music and the videos. However, I would point out that if someone wanted to prove that Kid Cudi were in the Illuminati, it wouldn't be hard to go through his catalogue of videos and find all kinds of things that could by symbolic. As a ghost hunter, there's a saying "If you go into a hunt looking for a ghost, you'll find a ghost." It sounds silly but the basic meaning is if you assume every random sound is a ghost because you desperately want to find a ghost, then yeah, you'll find a ghost (watch any ghost hunting show on TV for evidence of that). However, if you're objective and go through all the possibilities before declaring something a ghost, then more likely than not you're going to find another explanation for the noise. The same can be applied here. If you go through a video and decide two thumbs up is an Illuminati symbol because the thumbs can be drawn up into a triangle, then you're going to find the Illuminati everywhere. Most likely, it's just two thumbs up.
Of course, then there's the theory that the Illuminati use talent like Jay-Z, Tupac and the like to distract the general public from what they're really doing behind the scenes, so good luck with that.
Seriously, the Illuminati is a huge topic to study. Aside from the aforementioned website, if you have $30 to spare, I'd become a Coast Insider member of the Coast to Coast AM program. It's a four hour nightly programs that deals with conspiracy theories, ghosts, crypto zoology, unexplained phenomena and the like. $30 gets you a membership for six months which gets you a daily podcast of the show and access to download previous shows from the last 5 or so years. The show regularly talks about the Illuminati with all sorts of guests and experts on the subject. If you don't want to pay, the program is in every major market in the US and a lot of them around the world (and you can stream from the website) usually from 1-5 AM on free radio. Go to the website and check which local affiliate carries the show for you.
Good luck in your studies. It's a daunting task, but it is interesting.
That's all for now, kids. As always you can leave questions, no matter how easy or hard they may be to answer in the COMMENTS section. Questions can also be sent to my email address. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your enemies. Let's get some more questions up in here!
