Yesterday while wandering around New York City I saw a bunch of wheatpasted posters for
Chinese Democracy, the latest sign that the seemingly apocryphal Guns N' Roses album is, indeed, coming to a Best Buy near you (and me!) in six days. MTV News' James Montgomery took the occasion to go back in time and
remember what the world was like back on Sept. 17, 1991—the last date that an all-new studio release from GNR, the twin-disc
Use Your Illusion, hit stores. George H.W. Bush was President of the U.S.; Color Me Badd had
the No. 1 single; Britney Spears was nine years old; Emily Valentine was just arriving at West Beverly High. There are many more tidbits in Montgomery's piece (including a nod to the hotness of
Sonic The Hedgehog, which, uh, some of us still are trying to finish, albeit on a different system), but I figured I'd take the reminiscing in a more personal direction. Join me, won't you?
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Idolator
Last night, TRL said goodbye, and while doing so, it listed the ten most influential videos that hit it big on the program. Normally, a TRL list wouldn't be worth the oaktag its cue cards were printed on, but surprisingly, whoever made the picks for this list pretty much nailed it; the ten songs truly did define the five-year span during which pop was ruled by MTV's afternoon countdown show. You rarely see an era officially ending, and you almost never get the era to sum itself up so accurately, so now that we're five years past TRL's hegemony, let's try and figure out what it was like—and figure out what era we're in now.
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The stars set to appear on the big TRL send-off Nov. 16—which is necessary even though it's only supposed to be temporarily leaving MTV's airwaves—include Beyonce, the Backstreet Boys, Fall Out Boy, 50 Cent, Ludacris, Mariah Carey, Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Taylor Swift, and the Madden brothers. And Fred Durst! Also: "Former TRL VJs Dave Holmes, Jesse Camp, La La Vasquez and Hilarie Burton will also be on hand for the festivities"! No word on whether the Eighth Street Kids will huddle outside 1515 Broadway hoping to be noticed by the cameras that night, but we can all hope. [
