There was a surprising bit of hip-hop news in the wave of pardonings and sentence commutations that accompany any president getting ready to depart office: Former Wyclef Jean sidekick John Forté received a reduction on his 14-year sentence for drug charges.
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Billboard continues its coverage of the 50th anniversary of its flagship singles chart, the Hot 100, with a look at songs on its recently compiled all-time Hot 100 that have engaged in lyrical brand-dropping. Not surprising, there are a few hip-hop songs in the rundown ("Gold Digger," "Low," "Yeah!"), but a couple of older radio staples are also in there: the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive," which name-checks The New York Times; Chic's "Le Freak," which mentions the New York nightclub the Savoy (confidential to Billboard—pretty sure the lyric is about stomping, not stopping, at the nightclub); and Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," which incorporates the Saratoga race track and the Lear jet into its lyrics. [Billboard]
Carly Simon is going to put out her next album through Starbucks' Hear Music label, with This Kind Of Love slated for release on April 29. If only they'd made this announcement two days ago during the mandated Starbucks closings! That would surely have been a better time to capitalize on the crazy "starbucks closed" "starbucks omg" "starbucks nooooooo" Google searches that were clogging up the Internet at that time. [Billboard]
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