Welcome to Hot Topic, in which we, the brilliant writers of Eat This! weigh in on a pop culture question of the week, and invite you to share your thoughts on the subject.
Last week, Sir Paul McCartney “revealed” that The Rolling Stones were “jealous” (the word the media is using) of The Beatles because all four Beatles could sing. In an interview with the Radio Times, Paul said Stones guitarist Keith Richards told him the band used to refer to The Beatles as the “four-headed monster" and said Keith recently told him, “Man, you were lucky, you guys, you had four lead singers." He added: “We were an entity. Mick used to call us the Four-headed Monster. We would show up at places all dressed the same.” Yup. So, we thought we’d settle this thing right here, right now. They say there are two types of people in the world: Beatles people and Stones people (also, people who divide people in to to types and people who don’t). Which one are you?
Meet the world's biggest Katy Perry fan. Maybe. As obsessed as he seems, it's apparently not entirely unheard of to wallpaper your room with pictures of your favourite celebrity. Or so I learned just now when I discovered a MTV's Fanography. Yowza. (Vulture)
The latest American Idol winner Scotty McCreery has entered Billboard's Country Songs chart at No. 32 with his debut track I Love You This Big.
Billboard says “The bow marks the highest for a brand new artist's first single since the chart converted to BDS data the week of Jan. 20, 1990,” which sounds technical but good. Then there’s something about “3.2 million audience impressions on 76 of the 127 stations that report to Country Songs.”
Meanwhile, runner-up Lauren Alaina has hit at No. 49 with her single Like My Mother Does.
Here they are, in case you didn’t watch the show. I didn’t. I watched the first episode and a half then got BORED, but have to say that Scotty kid is impressive. He's 17! I'm less wowed by the girl. Also, I hear they're dating, or something. Cute.
Actor, comedian, author, playwright, poet, television presenter and journalist Stephen Fry interviewed Lady Gaga recently at London’s Lanesborough Hotel.
Fry, who describes himself as a “grotesquely over-aged and oversized” Little Monster, wore a brown sports jacket to the interview, while Gaga wore an S&M viking hat (which Fry refers to as “overtly Wagnerian”), and the two drank tea and ate little wee cakes.
Among the things they talked about:
She went bankrupt from her last tour: “I actually went bankrupt after the first extension of The Monster Ball. And it was funny because I didn’t know! And I remember I called everybody and said, “Why is everyone saying I have no money? This is ridiculous, I have five number one singles – and they said, ‘Well, you’re $3m in debt.’”
Heavily inked Cali pop/punks Rancid are set to record their eighth studio disc while contemplating a 2012 tour to celebrate their 20th (!) anniversary as a band. Wow, way to make us feel old, guys.
According to an item in Britain’s NME, the band will enter the studio later this year. In a post on Facebook.com/rancid, Rancid told fans about their plans for the follow-up to 2009's Let The Dominoes Fall.
It would seem Coldplay are gearing up to release some new music although not in any hum-drum fashion. This is, after all, a new(ish) millennium and one the Brit pop/rock fabulists have pretty much ruled without effort.
An email from the press department of the band’s label, EMI Music Canada, and carrying the subject line, “Note from Will,” landed in music journalist inboxes this morning. Inside the mail is a link to a landing page on the band’s official site with this note:
He went down as one of the very best rock singers ever and the first to admit he had contracted HIV at a time (1991) when no one was coming clean despite being hounded relentlessly by a headline-hungry media.
He was also among the most emulated, imitated and beloved performers of all time.
Now, late Queen singer Freddie Mercury's touching final screen appearance has aired as part of a documentary. Screened last night on England’s BBC Two, Queen: Days Of Our Lives, according to a report in The Independent, includes footage of the flamboyant singer, painfully thin from the effects of the HIV virus which would kill him just months later but determined to complete his final video shoot.
First came news that Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson was broadening his film dossier with an appearance in an upcoming feature based on Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh’s 1996 book Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.
That came on the heels of the awesome Rush doc, Beyond the Lighted Stage. Now it seems the Canuck prog-rock trio is set to release a live DVD, most likely of the band's April 15 performance at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. No rest for the wicked, evidently.
Even though he grew up in Falmouth, N.S., not exactly a town known for its high alpine, Trevor “Trouble” Andrew became a world-renown snowboard star, twice representing Canada in Olympic halfpipe. And even though a knee injury put his McTwists on temporary hold, Andrew channeled his creative to a fresh medium: music. Late to the game but encouraged by his new girlfriend, hipster siren Santigold, Andrew has found himself climbing the ranks of an entirely new discipline. Having already worked with Lil Jon, Amanda Blank, Diplo, and Spankrock, Trouble is making a second dream come true.
We caught up with Trouble, 31, in a hotel room somewhere between a music video shoot, a snowboard trip, and a phone call to his Beastie Boys–collaborating fiancée.
Some might look at the title of your new record, Dreams of a Troubled Man, and ask, “How can this guy be a troubled man? He’s made it in music, he’s made it in snowboarding, he has a famous finacee.” Are you really that troubled?
No matter how much success somebody has, everybody has problems, things they go through. It’s not a negative thing. It’s really about the process. Four years [since my first record], my new album’s coming out, but some of the process was a nightmare. It went from me not caring—I just wanted my music in snowboard videos and keep it in our world. I already felt I was living my dream in snowboarding, so I had no expectations to take it to that level with something else. I wasn’t pressed for that. But after time, I felt like music became more of a dream than I anticipated. I started to feel that same passion, that drive to succeed as I have with snowboarding. That’s not selling records or being famous but to get respect from artists who I think are rad. That makes me feel like I’ve made it. If I think that dude is the dopest dude, and he says, “Yo, Trouble, you’re dope. I really like your music, and it inspires me.” Then I’m successful. That’s how I gauge it. In between all the drama and politics, this whole other world, this whole other dream became a reality.
“Dreams Money Can Buy” is the suspected first song to dribble onto the ’Net from Drake’s sophomore CD, Take Care, tentatively due this fall. An arrogant, introspective slow-burner, “Dreams” is not the banger single his new Juno fans might be anticipating; you won’t dance to this, and you won’t find a marquee cameo appearance.
Lyrically, your friend Drizzy picks up where Thank Me Later left off: the superstar with stacks of international currencies in the bank half-relishing and half-lamenting a famed existence. Drake doesn’t know whether to dodge or run full-steam ahead into envious guys and wide-eyed girls he says he loves but really just likes. The man is forever “too f**kin’ busy, too busy f**kin’.” It’s a familiar theme, but one at which he excels.
The big winner here is the production of Drake’s go-to, Toronto’s Noah “40” Shebib, who needs to start getting his due. 40 loops up London electro artist Jai Paul’s pretty/nasty whisper refrain of “Don’t f**k with me, don’t f**k with me,” for a decidedly NSFW and NSFRadio hook that soothes you with its menace.
And Drake’s boasts “I’m the greatest my country’s ever seen” and “My favourite rappers either lost it or they ain’t alive” are sure to raise eyebrows.
April 2011
