Oops, She Did It Again
Britney’s back, bitches.
No, really.
Her latest single, “Womanizer,” has jumped to the topof the U.S. charts, making an unprecedented leap from No. 96 to No. 1, the sort of volatility that can make Hank Paulson break out in a cold sweat. It marks Britney’s first No. 1 single since “Baby, One More Time.”
Why?
Methinks it has something to do with an accompanying music video (hat tip to What Would Tyler Durden Do?) that could put hair on a cue ball.
Click here for Britney finally back in lapdance form.
My, oh, my. Just turn down the volume and prepare to be mesmerized.
– Chase
Dressed to Kill
Mr. Blackwell, whose chief job in life was ridiculing the clothing styles of celebrities, has died at the age of 86.
A nation mourns.
– Chase
Who’s In Charge Here?
Thanks to Matthew Price at Nerdage, I’ve found a new way to waste time. Who’s In Charge Here asks readers to analyze publicity photos and determine who the leader is based on placement, body language, et cetera. Enjoy!
Brilliant Onion Piece on NASCAR’s mourning of David Foster Wallace
Should be read immediately here.
Either/Or: Episode Six
In Either/Or, we take two people in similar pursuits, and you choose between them. It can be based on any criteria: professional ability, personality, intellectual prowess, physical pulchritude, or who you’d want backing you up in a knife fight. It really doesn’t matter: just choose Either/Or.
Either Sarah Palin…
Or Tina Fey as Sarah Palin…
“American Idol” Adds a Platinum Weird Judge
Kara DioGuardi
As Idolator noted this morning, this contains the distinct whiff of someone (or hell, an entire show) needing a “break” for “exhaustion.” Songwriter Kara DioGuardi, who was briefly in a wildly unsuccessful project with Dave Stewart called Platinum Weird (allegedly a recently unearthed Fleetwood Mac clone according to press releases, but sounding more like the most generic adult-contemporary music of 2006) will be the fourth judge.
Since I’m repeatedly forced to professionally care about “American Idol,” and the new regime at “A.I.” is claiming that a four-judge panel has always been in the cards, I’m wondering why such a clockwork machine took so long to implement its original plans. Paula needing a little “holiday”?
And seriously, while DioGuardi has placed a few songs on discs by Hilary Duff and “A.I.” alums Kelly Clarkson and Katherine McPhee, is this the level best they could do? I mean, how busy is notorious empty-ballad-purveyor Diane Warren these days, or the Diane Warren of the ’80s, Holly Knight? Or is Kara DioGuardi the Diane Warren/Holly Knight of the late-00s who once ineffectively masqueraded as the proto-Stevie Nicks of the early ’70s?
Warner Bros. Bumps ‘Potter,’ Botches EW Fall Movie Preview
As NPR noted this morning, Entertainment Weekly’s Fall Movie Preview issue, currently in subscribers’ hands, has a distinctly “Dewey Beats Truman” air about it now that Warner Bros. announced it has pushed “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” to July.
The studio reported that moving the Potter film to next summer made more sense from a event/fiscal tentpole perspective, but as EW itself reported this morning, This could simply be a byproduct of the accounting department wanting to spread out its good fortune for the next fiscal year. “The Dark Knight” has already overperformed by about 100 percent beyond expectations, so they don’t really need another huge hit in 2008. In other words, they don’t want to have to climb a bigger mountain next year in terms of matching this year’s profits.
But I still want to know: why didn’t EW know what was going on elsewhere at the company before it put out this issue. One hand clearly didn’t know what the other was doing.
Either/Or: Episode 4
In Either/Or, we take two people in similar pursuits, and you choose between them. It can be based on any criteria: professional ability, personality, intellectual prowess, physical pulchritude, or who you’d want backing you up in a knife fight. It really doesn’t matter: just choose Either/Or.
Political Pawns, Celebrity Edition: Either Britney Spears…
Or Paris Hilton…
Movie Stoners, Then and Now: Either Franco and Rogen…
Or Cheech and Chong…
“Selling out” is dead. Long live “selling out.”
A new back-to-school ad campaign for Kohl’s department stores, “Inspired by the Artists, Worn by You,” features Lenny Kravitz, Avril Lavigne, Vanessa Carlton, “Heroes” star/aspiring pop star Hayden Panettiere and Plain White T’s in its commercials, singing Kravitz’ “It’s Time For a Love Revolution.” Meanwhile, a current Converse ad is even bolder: the company commissioned N.E.R.D.’s Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, Santogold’s Santi White and Julian Casablancas of The Strokes to create a new full-length song and video, “My Drive Thru,” to promote the company’s centennial.
Yes, real money exchanged hands. Yes, the alchemy of the artists on “My Drive Thru” is approximately as cool as it looks on paper. And yes, it’s a shoe commercial.
It’s been at least a decade since I last fulminated over the evils of “selling out,” mainly because music, like Aristotle’s theory on nature, “abhors a vacuum.” It needs to be heard, and there are too many forces at play in 2008 that will silence music at the broadest level: tight playlists at radio, the ever-increasing cost of fueling up a touring van, and MTV’s constant devolution as an actual music source — how long will it be before even MTVu, the network’s college music source, gets inundated with episodes of “My Super Sweet 16” and “Rob and Big”? Honestly, the musicians involved in these Converse and Kohl’s campaigns — even Lavigne — have a much better shot at being on an MTV network through the ads than by hoping their latest videos get accepted for overnight/early morning rotation.
I also see no just reason to ask my favorite musicians to take a poverty oath simply to achieve some arbitrary standard of purity. And it truly is arbitrary — no one knows who handed down the commandment that says musicians should not take money to sell sneakers. So much great renaissance art was created through patronage — rich people commissioning works of great creative ferment. Pharrell is doing nothing different here.
But about 40 years ago, when the lines were being drawn between the establishment and the counterculture, it became verboten to use your image and likeness for commercial cash-grabbing. And for a long time, before radio playlists became tight and practically codified, it was possible for artists to avoid singing about soda, and the only musicians who showed up in ads were those whose limelight had receded — Rosemary Clooney crooning about paper towels, for instance.
A good number of fans and critics simply thought that musicians could not possibly cool if they sidled up to Mr. Moneybags and used their God-given talent to hawk his wares. The music was sacrosanct. What they didn’t understand, and this line of reasoning is probably a result of watching too much “Mad Men,” was that corporate America was going to harvest their cool whether they wanted money for it or not.
For example, Columbia Records under the leadership of Mitch Miller resisted rock culture until the late-‘60s, when it could no longer afford to do so. By April 1969, the label was using the phrase “The Man Can’t Bust Our Music” to identify with young listeners. It was laughable and transparent, but the label was successfully taking youth culture without giving anything back, and as the legendary New Jersey radio station WFMU points out on its Web site, they used that for the first time on a Chicago album, of all things.
So don’t wring your hands over these ads. When the great indie band Of Montreal sold one of its songs to become the current jingle for Outback Steakhouse, leader Kevin Barnes poured that money into his stage show. An already strong group was able to put on concerts that, from a technical standpoint, were worthy of their talent. To me, that feels like an even trade.
“Daily Show” Classic: Gwyneth Paltrow Interview, 2004
In honor of Gwyneth’s appearance on Either/Or today, I thought I’d post this favorite interview, in which Jon Stewart got so flustered with her presence that he let out a matchmaking proposition between their children that I quote to this day.
