The Communist Party Of China: The Party-published tabloid Global Times printed a piece today entitled “American Band Releases Album Viciously Attacking China” that accused Axl Rose of being a pawn of the U.S. government who was helping Washington use the idea of democracy as “one of their game pieces to control the world.” The WSJ is quick to note, however, that this piece technically doesn't constitute any sort of official smackdown of Axl: "The tabloid format newspaper is published by the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, but isn’t thought to always represent official views, like its parent operation and certain other major media." And there's even a site geared toward Chinese audiences that is streaming the whole thing for free, although I'm pretty sure it's unsanctioned by any Axl or any government entity. [WSJ China Journal]

Reactions from other notables and semi-notables, including Duff McKagan, after the jump!

Duff McKagan: "I'm sure there's probably amazing stuff on there, just know there. I've only got that one song and a listen at a gym to go off, so I can't really say that much about it. But how do I feel about it? Good for him that this record's finally coming out. Obviously, I wish him the best. I'm glad that people that have been waiting for this record have something to finally go get." He then goes on to talk about Shiny Toy Guns and how he has no attention span for music these days. (I hear you, dude. I hear you. Although maybe you might want to try and listen to a band that isn't Shiny Toy Guns, just to make sure your feeling isn't borne in part by their not-very-goodness?) [Blabbermouth]

Jimmy Iovine, Interscope-Geffen-A&M chairman: "Axl delivered a great Guns N' Roses album. Period. He did. It took him a long time for whatever reasons. I am sure there were many different reasons. Bottom line is, he did it. It's hard to say if something is worth the wait, because how the hell do any of us know? I judge it based on what it is. Does it sound better than 99% of the rock records out there? Yes. I'm just thrilled for him." One thing to note: This interview was conducted before first-day sales totals came in. [Billboard]

Hinder: "I heard the stuff that was leaked, and I know the mixes weren't there, but, being musicians, you can hear through that stuff—you still hear the songs, and to be honest, the songs just aren't there," drummer Cody Hanson told MTV. "It almost sounds too artsy; there's something about it. It's not what it was. It's just missing something, and it sounds overproduced.... I guess that's what happens whenever you've got 20 years to sit in the studio." And when you've lost Hinder, you've lost... uh, how many people bought Take It To The Limit again? Oh, right. Carry on. [MTV]

Warrior Soul: "Chinese Democracy has everything a Warrior Soul fan should expect from a Warrior Soul record," the agit-rock band's bassist proclaimed. "It has an ear for an argument, puke on its shoes and remains untouched by trends or the long-arm of the corporations." You might be just as confused as I am by this quote (Best Buy is still sorta corporate, right?)—until you realize that the Chinese Democracy in question is actually Warrior Soul's new album of the same name. Well, I guess since the Offspring never went through with their album-naming joke, someone had to. [Blabbermouth]

That's a pretty evergreen question for critics, so let's see if we can't dance around it a bit. Ex-ska punker and current Hinder/Daughtry/et al songwriter Brian Howes complains that "the media are looking for the next cool thing, whereas Middle Americans just want good music that makes 'em feel good." But this is a little disingenuous. There have always been rock bands dismissed by critics that proved immensely popular with the public both on and between the coasts: Kiss, Led Zeppelin (Howes' argument is one that runs through Zep bio Hammer of the Gods), and even metal itself all fall into this pattern. What's new here is the other side of the equation. Powers writes: "Since the days when former art-school kids the Rolling Stones declared themselves exiled on Main Street, populism has served as a normalizing counterpoint to rock's freaky bohemian tendencies." And that was great when freaky bohemian bands were selling lots of records and getting lots of attention. As Howes points out, however, "The people in Middle America seem to still buy records." The other folks—consumers of what we might as well call "blue-state rock" to be consistent—don't so much. If all we care about is continuing to hear music that sounds like it's trying to be freaky and bohemian, that's fine. But if we care about music as a cultural force, it's a problem.

Howes doesn't actually name a band in his critique of the media's focus on the "next big thing," because who would he name right now? (TV on the Radio? Vampire Weekend?) Kiss v. Pink Floyd seems like a real red state/blue state kind of taste division since the sides were relatively equal in numbers. But blue-state rock is a third party right now, and it suffers from the same problem all third parties do: the media won't cover it, and no one wants to get too invested in it because it doesn't seem viable. Lots of new bands feature the kind of biographical or thematic hooks that the non-music press could grab onto, but it's very hard to justify covering bands that are selling so few records.

Though the rhetoric of rock is that it's something that exists at the margins of society, it's always drawn a lot of its power from its importance. And playing music that only a few thousand people seem to care about doesn't, by extension, seem important. Third parties may come up with some great proposals, but without the votes—read here as album sales—there's no chance that they'll have any influence on the collective enterprise at hand. As long as Hinder's selling and your particular indie fave isn't, more people outside the music-writing bubble will think "rock" sounds like Hinder.

'Flyover rock' rocks the heartland [LA Times]

• "It's also not enough to overcome the most glaring flaw here: Hinder wants so badly to live up to Motley Crue's standard of debauchery that having fun starts to seem like an exhausting obligation." [Hartford Courant]

• "So if you were ever young and in love, dumb with drink, and had a head swimming with not just Boone's Farm wine but also Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and AC/ DC (to name these guys' most blatant anthemic influences), you may be willing to forgive Hinder's lack of originality and preponderance of madonna/whore issues. If only the whiplash they induce resulted from real headbanging, not from trying to follow Hinder's song-to-song indecision about whether to be studs or wimps." [EW]

• "[F]rontman Austin Winkler is a bad representative for emotional frat dudes, especially when he suggests on one wistful power ballad that we 'live life with no regrets.' Thanks for the advice, bro." [RS]

• "Like them or not Hinder is one of the bands leading the revival for straight up rock-n-roll and Take It To The Limit is going to go a long way in helping the cause." [Hard Rock Hideout]

The rock band Hinder, which had one of the top selling albums of 2006, outfitted Playboy models with stars-and-stripes bikinis and "Vote for Hinder!" signs to promote its boisterous new album.

Here is a picture of that classy, classy promotion, taken from the front page of Hinder's official site.

It's really too bad that this young lady, in addition to having some sort of irritation that is making her lips purse in a "where's the Vagisil" kind of way, doesn't have any apparent musical talent, isn't it. Just think—if she could even swat at a tambourine in time, she could get Hinder a little more real estate on the cover of Blender!

Hitting The Polls, Then The Mall [WSJ]
Arcadia - Election Day [YouTube]

1. Listen to your entire iTunes library, A to Z. Surely most of the readers of this site have 31 days' worth of music around their house, if not on their hard drives. (OK, a recent cull caused my iTunes timer to drop to 28.2 days, but I have more than enough CDs that I haven't yet imported to make up the gap.)

2. Travel through the David Archuleta corn maze. Sure, he's about as "rock" as the OneRepublic guy, but this maze, located in David's home state of Utah, has an undeniable appeal, thanks to kitsch factor of getting lost in his eyes being way too high. If some metal fan would like to step up to the plate and make, say, a maze out of the Slayer logo, I'll be happy to spend a chilly October night fighting my way through that instead.

3. A weekend getaway to Kate Pierson's motel. The rooms are pretty cheap (the six-person Lazy Lodge, which has its own swimming hole (!), will only set each of your friends back a hundred bucks), the toiletries are collected from Kate's jaunts around the world with the B-52's, and the kitchens have all the cocktail fixings you'll need. And the upstate New York location is especially good for those of us who missed All Tomorrow's Parties a few weeks back, cough cough.

4. Open a pool based around betting on which awful musicians with new albums coming out will warble "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" during the baseball playoffs. A glance at this page of upcoming releases reveals that baseball fans will probably be greeted by the vocal chords of Kenny Chesney^*, Chris Cornell, and the Hinder guy soon, while AC/DC and Oasis are among the "not bloody likely, but wouldn't it be awesome" contenders.

5. Spend all your waking moments obsessing over what music's "October surprise" will be this year. A year ago last night, Radiohead coined the phrase "the Radiohead model" by digitally releasing In Rainbows 10 days after it was done. A few weeks later, OiNK got turned into crispy bacon by the UK authorities. So what's going to happen this year? Will Kanye West, Bruce Springsteen, and the Arcade Fire announce a mini-tour in support of Barack Obama? Will Thom Yorke let the world know that he thinks Sarah Palin is "not all that bad, plus she's got right nice glasses"? Is Apple going to call the major labels' bluff and shut down iTunes? Or none of those things? Let's play futurist!

^* Trust me on this one. He's a lock. I would put down money on it in a heartbeat.

Never really said too much
Afraid it wouldn’t be enough
Just try to keep my spirits up
When there’s no point in grieving
Doesn’t matter anyway
Words could never make me stay
Words will never take my place
When you know I’m leaving

Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Something I rely on to get home
One I can feel at night
A naked light, a fire to keep me warm
Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Even in the daylight, shine on
And when it’s late at night you can look inside
You won’t feel so alone

You know we’ve been down that road
What seems a thousand times before
My back to a closing door and my eyes to the seasons
That roll out underneath my heels
And you don’t know how bad it feels
To leave the only one that I have ever believed in

Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Something I rely on to get home
One I can feel at night
A naked light, a fire to keep me warm
Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Even in the daylight, shine on
And when it’s late at night you can look inside
You won’t feel so alone

Sometimes it feels like we’ve run out of luck
When the signal keeps on breaking up
When the wires cross in my brain
You’ll start my heart again
When I come along

Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Something I rely on to get home
One I can feel at night
A naked light, a fire to keep me warm
Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Even in the daylight, shine on
And when it’s late at night you can look inside
You won’t feel so alone

David Cook - "Light On" Lyrics [MJ's Big Blog]

Hinder - Use Me [YouTube]
Skid Row - Big Guns [YouTube]

1. David Banner, "Get Like Me"
2. LL Cool J, "Baby"
3. Cast of Mamma Mia!, "Mamma Mia"
4. Cast of Mamma Mia!, "Dancing Queen"
5. Sugarland, "All I Want To Do"
6. Hinder, "Use Me"
7. Nas, "Hero"
8. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent"
9. John Legend featuring Andre 3000, "Green Light"
10. Scars On Broadway, "They Say"

Not a bad list, really, although the placement of Hinder makes me wonder if they really aren't going to fade into oblivion when their second album comes out. Can't this nightmare end? For the children?

July Ecast BarPulse Shows Bar Goers Catching Mamma Mia! Fever While Beating the Summer Heat With Rap [PR Newswire via Marketwatch]

ONE-LISTEN REVIEW: While it's nowhere as strikingly crass Buckcherry's new "Too Drunk To Fuck" — lines like "it's kind of cool, because she already pleased me" almost feel quaint in comparison — Hinder's upcoming single song rocks a lot more convincingly, sounding like a high-gloss, less shrieky AC/DC, which really couldn't be said for "Lips Of An Angel." If this cartoonish cock rock fails to reach a large audience, I'm sure they've got a ballad chock full of simpering regret waiting in the wings.

WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT: Hasn't shown up on YouTube yet, but Rest In Peace has it for download.

"I dig David Cook," says singer Austin Winkler, a native of Oklahoma, where Cook has lived for the past few years. "He shows that the world is starving for a little bit of rock-n-roll. Hopefully we can write some tunes for him."

According to Hinder, who were in the audience for this year's Idol finale and met the winner briefly that night, the admiration is mutual. "I heard he's a fan," Winkler tells EW.com. "I'm sure we'll cross paths."

Oh yeah, Austin, I'm sure you'll run into each other backstage at a 311 show or something. But really, given that Cook is something of a lost cause when it comes to his hopeless affection for bad, overblown rock, let's turn our attention to the band's more alarming designs when it comes to blowing out their one-hit wonder status into something else:

Meanwhile another Hinder member is holding out for a chance at some face time with a female Idol champ: Carrie Underwood. "I love her," says drummer Cody Hanson (no relation to Tulsa's Hanson brothers). "She's my favorite of everything, and probably the hottest chick on the planet."

Nooooo! I mean, she may like the hard rock, but the difference between "Kickstart My Heart" and Hinder's self-hating hedonism is that one is actually, you know, fun to listen to for reasons beyond any foundation garments hanging from the lead singer's microphone.

Hinder to David Cook: "We'll write with you" [Hollywood Insider]

Polow Da Don's resounding claim to the BMI Songwriter of the Year title stems from penning four songs among the year's top 50: the Pussycat Dolls' "Buttons," featuring Snoop Dogg; Fergie's "London Bridge" and "Glamorous," featuring Ludacris; and "Runaway Love," recorded by Ludacris and featuring Mary J. Blige. Fergie's emphatic shout, "Polow!" in "London Bridge" embedded Da Don's first name in the pop culture psyche, while his hit-making expertise catapulted him to behind-the-scenes impresario. Polow Da Don's first BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year win arrives on the shoulders of his first four BMI Awards, underscoring his unparalleled breakout success in 2007.



Hinder's "Lips of an Angel" garnered Song of the Year bragging rights thanks to generating the most airplay of any tune on BMI's most-performed pop song list during the designated award period. Co-written and recorded by BMI songwriters and Hinder band members Blower, Cody Hanson, Mark King, Michael Rodden and Austin Winkler, along with producer Brian Howes (SOCAN), the wistful tune climbed to the no. 1 slot of Billboard's Pop 100, Hot Digital Songs and Top 40 Mainstream charts, achieving broad crossover success. Country artist Jack Ingram's recording of the song also resonated, reaching the top 20 tier of Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart. Published by EMI-Blackwood Music, Inc. and Hinder Music Co., "Lips of an Angel" also earned the Internet Song of the Year win as the most performed song on the Internet during the award period.

I feel so ahead of my time! There was little bump in the songwriting royalty love-in, though, when Babyface had the gall to acknowledge that the authors of "Sara Smile," which he perfomed, were

"Soul music is not about race," Hall said, after he and partner John Oates were presented with Icon Awards during performing rights group BMI's annual Pop Music Awards ceremony. "There ain't no 'blue-eyed soul' ... Keep that in mind, OK?"

Minutes earlier, Edmonds had performed the duo's tune "Sara Smile" after jokingly recounting his youthful assumption that "blue-eyed soul" — an approbatory term used to describe soulful white singers — meant "black guys with blue eyes."

You tell that uppity Babyface what's what, Hall! You're right, there's no "blue eyed soul," just "adult contemporary" and "Van Morrison."

Daryl Hall and John Oates Named BMI Icons at 56th Annual Pop Awards [Business Wire]
http://uk.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUKN2134548620080521 Hall & Oates see red over "blue-eyed" term [Reuters]

Aly & AJ, "Potential Breakup Song"
Lyric: "Wise up now or pay the cost / Soon you will know, oh!"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: You've told your creditors "the check's in the mail" 18 times now, but they just keep calling.

Sean Kingston, "Beautiful Girls"
Lyric: "You're way too beautiful girl / That's why it'll never work / You'll have me suicidal, suicidal"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: Kinda self-explanatory, no?

Janet Jackson, "Feedback"
Lyric: "My swagger's serious / I'm heavy like a first-day period"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: Sympathy cramps.

Buckcherry, "Crazy Bitch"
Lyric: "Get the video, fuck you so good / Get the video, fuck you so good / Crazy Bitch / Crazy Bitch / Crazy... Bitch"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: You don't want to be mistaken for Paul Janka.

Afroman, "Because I Got High"
Lyric: Pick one.
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: Possibility of an incoming call while you're at a networking event while you're meeting employers who are way strict about drug testing.

Hinder, The Master Of Ringtones [LiveDaily]

Hinder - Born To Be Wild [MP3, link expired]

Hinder - Lips Of An Angel (Jason Nevins Radio Edit) [MP3, link expired; via POPtastic!]