Music 3R’s 02.11.12: I’m Gleeking Out!

Posted by Nick Krenn on 02.11.2012

From Katy Perry not losing her fortune in her divorce and Pink Floyd reissuing albums to M.I.A.’s middle finger, Glee’s drop in quality, Jay-Z and Beyonce trademarking their daughter’s name and more, 411's Nick Krenn breaks down the Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous from the week in music!

Hello, I'm Nick Krenn, and I'm bringing you the newest edition of the most impolite 411mania column, Music 3R's, where I examine the Right, wRong, and Ridiculous in music, not to be confused with the excellent Love/Hate News Report written by John Downey. Anything you read here was probably already written about in his column. Also, be sure to read Chris Bell's column, 411 Music Ten Deep, where he counts down the ten best albums awarded by the Grammys. Both Chris and John write for Earbuddy.net, a music site that I run outside of 411mania. Be sure to check it out.

When I'm not disparaging the careers of mainstream musicians in this column, I'm writing 411mania's least appreciated column, Major Bands, Minor Labels. If you want to download some free tunes, I think you'll appreciate the changes.

Let's look at some R's!




Russell Brand Refuses Easy Payday



This may be the only time that I ever give Russell Brand credit for being a decent person. Instead of taking an easy payday in the form of his "entitled" $20 million by the state of California for his divorce with Katy Perry, the star of such bombs as the Arthur remake, waved his right to any of Perry's fortune. Perry reportedly made $44 million during the couple's marriage, and since they did not have a prenuptial, their earnings were considered community property. This means that they would split the community property 50/50. Kudos to Brand for not sticking by California's stupid law that has raped many a celebrity.

Katy Perry put a check next to the box saying that she's restoring her legal name to Kathryn Elizabeth Hudson and drew a smiley face when she signed her name. How sweet and very adult of her. Who thought that Brand would be the adult during this whole incident?






More Pink Floyd Reissues On The Way



Pink Floyd's legendary album The Wall will be revisited on February 28th when the album becomes reissued. Turns out that The Wall could be the first of more reissues to come. Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason recently spoke about what we could be seeing.

The idea was always to see whether people like these things or not. If they do, of course we could do more. I think it's an exercise that bears repeating... but I think there might be things to be done that would be rather different to what we've done so far.

We wouldn't do one album like 'Piper (at the Gates of Dawn)' on its own. Maybe we'll take 'Saucer (Full of Secrets)' and 'Piper' and maybe one other one and do an early years thing -- partly because there just isn't the material in some cases. That might be a more interesting exercise.

On Animals getting the reissue treatment:

The answer is I don't know. 'Animals' is the one record Roger (Waters) said he'd like to have a go at remixing. That might be an exercise worth doing. Maybe David (Gilmour) disagreed enough that we could release David's remix and Roger's remix and, ideally, my remix as well." Jackson, meanwhile, notes that, "There's only a finite amount of stuff in the archives. It's a question of what there is and can we find it? That will determine what we do in the future.

On The Wall's reissue:

What's great is we have a greater depth of material for ('The Wall') than we had for the other albums. We have Roger's demos followed by the band demos followed by the final thing, and that makes a big difference. You can really hear how ('The Wall') came together.

The sort of concept people have is that this was a record hewn out of rock by very angry people, and I think that's not really the case. A lot of the album was pretty civilized in terms of people getting on with it. I think it all felt fairly positive. Things fragmented later on, quite late in the recording. There was a big blowup, particularly between Roger and Rick (Wright, who was kicked out of the band) towards the end of the process. But the majority of that process I remember as being pretty creative and businesslike, really.

I would love to see every Pink Floyd album get the reissue treatment. I want B-sides, demos, rarities, all of it. Throw it in a box and let me dive in. Mason wasn't the only person offering up interesting information. Sound engineer Andy Jackson offered up the following tidbit regarding recently discovered material.

There's quite a bit of very, very early stuff, before they had a deal, with Syd (Barrett) in the band when they were still trying to be an R&B band. It's not, like, early versions of songs that turned up on their albums or anything. It's R&B classics, the same as everybody else was playing back them. There's a lot of recordings that may be brilliant for a future project.
Consider my interest peaked to the highest level.







Music Shows Fail To Take A Hint



American Idol and X Factor have both come under criticism and intense speculation lately. Interestingly enough, mum is not the word from the people involved with the shows. AI Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe answered questions about the status of the show at a press conference recently.

Lythgoe spoke about the declining ratings – "it's still the number one show on TV". Oversaturation of the market – "We've got The Voice and X Factor going now, and we're all feeding from the same talent pool and of course the same ratings pool…We'd always said we would never two Idols in a single year, and this is why. Now we have X Factor sitting there, and it feels just like Fox is doing two Idols a season. Add to that The Voice and of course there's going to be viewer fatigue, as much you see when you have too many science fiction dramas or too many hospital dramas on television."

Those are both decent arguments. However, Lythgoe still felt the need to take some shots at the competitors. "[The Voice] is fed by talent that hasn't quite made it or is trying to come back. X Factor didn't really know what it wanted to do I think … If what you want is bloody good talent on that stage without gimmicks, then you watch American Idol, because that's what you're going to get."

No gimmicks, Nigel? Really? What do you call the first few weeks of the show when people that cannot sing are paraded before the television judges even though all the singers are prescreened by off-screen judges? Seems gimmicky to me and a way to get people to tune in. Oh, I have to see the people sing badly! Yay!

Simon Cowell's show the X Factor is also having its own problems, even going so far to fire two judges – Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger.

On Paula: "I would've liked to have kept her. She was very gracious and I said that to her. She understands it's business; it's never personal."

On Nicole: "I don't think she's mad. I think she's disappointed."

Simon did decide to keep the skinny Randy Jackson because "there's not a record executive out there who is as good as him for the job". Simon also answered critiques about the first season being a pile of shit by stating, "It's only because I opened my big mouth and said we were going to get 20 million viewers. If I hadn't said that, everybody would be saying the show was a huge success."

Much like Nigel Lythgoe, Simon took a shot at the show providing steel constructed chairs for Christina Aguilera to sit on. "How many hit records have they [The Voice] made? How many artists have they discovered?" Cowell also shot down that Mariah Carey would be joining the show, "I would love her, but you can't expect someone who's just had two kids to make the kind of commitment you would need on this show."

I think that America's love for music reality shows has passed. It's dying a slow death, but the fascination for them isn't quite what it used to be. I personally won't care if any of them get cancelled. They're taking up room for scripted shows. However, not all scripted shows are at their best quality either.


Glee Turns Gimmicky



Believe or not, but some of the 411mania guys enjoy the television show Glee (looking at you, Jeremy Thomas), and I used to enjoy the program as well. Yes, even I watched every week as a group of singer/actors lip-synced to various modern pop hits. However, I recently stopped as the quality of the show took a dive. Every week seemed like the previous episode. The story arc of Sue Sylvestor and Will finally getting along would begin one week, but then Sue would be right after the Glee kids the next week. To make up for the horrible writing, Glee began to compensate with themed episodes and celebrity guest stars (an angle that The Simpsons has done to death). Let me tell you, Ryan Murphy, it doesn't make up for a shitty product.

Ryan Murphy, the show's creator, doesn't seem to notice or care. He ruined Nip/Tuck much the same way. Now he wants to do another themed episode of Glee, and it's one that they show has already done. Murphy wants another Madonna episode, but he wants Madonna to appear on the show this time. Considering how hot (and old) she is after her Superbowl Halftime Show, I don't see the legendary pop star agreeing to meet the demands of a polarizing television show creator.

So far this season, Glee has had only one themed episode – a Michael Jackson tribute – where Glee instructor Will Schuester formally adopted his student Finn Hudson and forced him to where a bandana on his face. Will's behavior caused Principal Figgins to demote him to teaching the preschool kids, leading to Will inviting them over for sleepovers where he sexually molested them. Sue Sylvestor played the hero in this episode by catching onto Will's debauchery and teaming with Kurt's dad to stop Will. However, the twist came at the end of the episode when you found out that Kurt's dad and Will had been trading pictures of the sexually assaulted children. They then framed Sylvestor for sexually assaulting Becky, the ugly cheerleader, leading to her dismissal from the school altogether and facing time in prison. Schuester then sang MJ's "Bad" at the end.

Okay, so none of that actually happened, but that would have made for a better episode in my opinion. While Glee has been light on the themed episodes this season, they've made up for it with celebrity guests. This past week Ricky Martin joined as the character, tooth model-turned-Spanish teacher, David Martinez. Now Ryan Murphy wants it to become a recurring role with Martin possibly joining the cast in a regular starring role next season. Martin's other acting commitments could keep him from doing it, but he loves the show. It could happen. Would you guys like to see Kurt have an affair with Martin's Martinez character? I didn't think so.






Jay Z and Beyonce Trademark Their Daughter's Name



In a move that only makes me hate Jay-Z and Beyonce, they're attempting to trademark their daughter's name. Was that a collective "YUCK" I heard from readers? Apparently Jay-Z and Beyonce weren't the only ones with the idea because their application wasn't the first to arrive. In fact, there were two applications ahead of Jay-Z and Beyonce's. Both were submitted by fashion designer Joseph Mbeh. Mbeh applied to trademark ‘Blue Ivy Carter NYC' for a line of children's dresses, skirts, and underwear. Then he followed that application with another to trademark ‘Blue Ivy Carter Glory IV' for a line of fragrances. Mmmmkay.

Mbeh has since apologized for trying to cash in off the name of the couple's daughter. But could Beyonce and Jay-Z be any more egotistical than trying to trademark their daughter's name. We get it. Blue Ivy is an eccentric name. You really want to make money off your daughter's name that bad? Jay-Z has just lost me on this money obsession. He's the black Gene Simmons.



M.I.A.'s Big Bird

Is flipping the bird as bad as exposing a nipple? NBC seems to think so. After rap/R&B/dance musician M.I.A. flipped the bird during the Superbowl's Halftime Show, an act that many viewers didn't even catch, NBC started its clean-up by immediately apologizing for the four-letter feathered act of indecency. Parents explaining the finger to their children will likely do more damage than if they just ignore it and say nothing, especially considering that most kids were not paying attention to Madonna because they don't know who she is. And if teenagers caught sight of the finger, then stop the presses! Their minds have been corrupted more than their school experiences will allow.

I mean, flipping the bird is just evil. Nevermind all of the beer commercials showing alcohol as this good thing but will likely cause deaths from drunk driving, whereas a middle finger might poke out an eye if pointed incorrectly. Now everyone is questioning why M.I.A. flashed the bird. Hmmm...my guess is because she's anti-etasblishment, maaaannnnnn.... Puhleeze! There's nothing edgy about flipping the bird anymore, but I'm glad M.I.A. did it to cancel out the overly cliched and corny message of "World Peace" at the end of the performance. What year is this again?

Maybe Middle Finger or the image of one is the title for M.I.A.'s next album, so it's just clever marketing on her part. Whatever the reason for the bird, no one knew if flew by the censors until NBC pointed it out. I, along with a majority of Americans, were tweeting away about the disastrous performance to even see it.

M.I.A. apologized for the finger and said that she wasn't trying to make a statement when she did it. It just happened. What's funny is that the NFL and NBC were both trying to the blame the other for an independent variable (a singer) flipping off cameras. M.I.A. could be forced to pay a fine for the indecency which is so fucking stupid in my opinion. It's a finger! A FINGER! The fact that we tie morality and decency to slang words and gestures in this country is bonkers. It's not like she jumped off the stage and began assaulting fans.

Madonna was reportedly angry about the stunt because no one was talking about her instead. However, if M.I.A. hadn't flipped the bird, no one would be talking about the performance, so take what you can get, Madonna.

Wouldn't this be better for a Superbowl Halftime Show?





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And that does it for this week. If you want to chat about the stories I covered here, follow me on Twitter @earbuddy or leave me some comments below. Let me know where this column falls under the 3R's – meaning for you to rate it as Right, wRong, or Ridiculous. I promise to change nothing. Also, be sure to read my other indie-music oriented column Major Bands, Minor Labels on 411mania. And especially don't forget to check out the great writing at my music site Earbuddy, outside of 411mania for greatindie music reviews. Thank you for reading the Music 3R's.