In the midst of praising a sort of mediocre, but I guess well-framed paparazzi photo of Rihanna, Kanye West took some time out to offer up his thoughts on today’s biggest stars, and which current celebrities were serving as analogies of stars gone by, I guess because we live in the post-everything age. If you ever wondered which current somewhat-superstar Kanye West views as the new Jimi Hendrix and/or Roger Waters, the answers lie after the jump. MORE »
Posts Tagged ‘pink floyd’
The nimbus of his fame
Kanye West Would Like To Offer Up A New Celebrity Taxonomy
noon as the news
Pink Floyd Will See EMI On The Dark Side Of The Courtroom
In today’s midday headlines: Pink Floyd gets litigious, Rick Ross gets bored, and Madonna nurses her wounds. MORE »
burning questions
“Marmite Artists” Make Everyone Pucker Their Lips And Get In The Mood For A Row
Supermarket shelves in other parts of the world (and at certain specialty shops in the US) contain a food product called Marmite, which is basically a bread spread made out of yeast extract. I personally tried it when I was 16, after an Australian pen pal sent me a few packets, and my Cool Ranch and Domino’s-trained palate found it absolutely repellent; I haven’t tried it since, because the thought of doing so makes me shiver. But apparently it’s pretty divisive in the UK, to the point that the product name is actually being used by some music-biz insiders to describe certain artists who have a love-’em-or-hate-’em appeal. The musical omnivores at Popjustice explain: “the phrase describes the sort of band or artist which divides opinion as strongly as the disgusting/delicious yeasty food product Marmite. It is not a phrase used to describe how good or bad something is–there’s no value judgment involved.” Popjustice says that Alphabeat, the Scissor Sisters, and Bob Dylan are all “Marmite artists”–although a shitty band being pushed by a publicist to no avail is not, so don’t try it next time, publicists. Confused yet? Well, in keeping with our English-class form, the term is used in context after the jump! MORE »
top
Toppling ‘The Wall’: The Farce Of Double-Counting In The RIAA’s All-Time Platinum List
Reading the New York Times obituary of Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright yesterday, I came upon a statistic that the newspaper ran unquestioningly that ticked me off, as it always does when I see similar statements in print:
Pink Floyd’s 1979 album, “The Wall,” eventually sold 23 million copies in the United States.
No, it didn’t, I grumbled to myself. It’s a double-album—by RIAA math, that means it sold about 11.5 million. SNARL!
There are many things wrong with the Recording Industry Association of America’s system for certifying albums gold, platinum, multiplatinum, and (now) diamond. There’s the counting of records shipped, not sold; I’ve seen discs certified platinum that have actually SoundScanned fewer than 700,000 copies. On the other side of the ledger, there are discs that are under-certified because of the RIAA’s outmoded system requiring labels to request certification—short-changing dozens of classic Motown artists, for example.
But nothing in the RIAA metals methodology sticks in my craw more than double-counting. It’s the biggest scam in record-industry self-tallying, and the main reason it’s infuriating is the very example cited above: journalists and music fans the world over use the RIAA’s certs as their yardstick for all-time album sales. It’s basically a total distortion of rock history. MORE »
videodrone
Pink Floyd-Themed Cruise To Suck Even More Money From Fans’ Wallets
It was probably only a matter of time: Pink Floyd finally has a cruise in its honor. The Great Gig In The Sea, which will set sail next May, is guaranteed to be a rollicking time, despite having zero performances by any members of the band during its three-day duration. MORE »
videodrone
David Gilmour To Join <i>Atom Heart Mother</i> (You Heard Me) Tribute Concert
An upcoming live performance of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother led by Ron Geesin, the orchestral arranger who worked on the album’s legendarily bloated title track, will be joined on the opening song by none other than Floyd’s David Gilmour himself. Gilmour has been quoted as saying “Some of it now, like Atom Heart Mother, strikes me as absolute crap, but I no longer want or have to play stuff I don’t enjoy,” but obviously time has changed the guitarist’s feelings about the album, which was the band’s first No. 1 album in the UK critically thought of as a disappointment following Ummagumma. MORE »
videodrone
Roger Waters’ post-Coachella littering spree, the final chapter: The deflated remains of his giant inflatable pig, which floated away after his festival-closing performance Sunday night, were found Monday morning by a jogger. MORE »
videodrone
Roger Waters’ post-Coachella littering spree, the final chapter: The deflated remains of his giant inflatable pig, which floated away after his festival-closing performance Sunday night, were found Monday morning by a jogger. MORE »
videodrone
Roger Waters’ post-Coachella littering spree, the final chapter: The deflated remains of his giant inflatable pig, which floated away after his festival-closing performance Sunday night, were found Monday morning by a jogger. MORE »
burning questions
Roger Waters Somehow Finds A Way To Make Me Loathe Pink Floyd Even More
I slogged through the first half of last night’s main-stage-closing set by Roger Waters–which was billed as “Roger Waters Dark Side Of The Moon“–partially out of masochism, partially in the interest of sociological research, and partially because I didn’t feel like dragging my ass over to the stuffed-to-capacity-all-weekend dance tent to see Modeselektor, who were the only other act playing for the first portion of Waters’ set. While it was interesting in a “so this is who he lured out to the desert” sort of way, it was also infuriating, and at one point a friend said to me, “I can hear your eyes rolling back from here.” But no portion of the evening filled me with more rage than the pre-show, which had as its visual an old-timey radio, a model airplane, and a tumbler of whiskey; every so often, a hand would reach into frame to change the station and/or refill the glass, and the stations that the hand hit on, for the most part, had a playlist that lulled the classic-rock fans in attendance into a state of self-righteousness: Bob Dylan, “Hound Dog,” and “My Funny Valentine.” There was also a “humorous” bit when the radio somehow was all-ABBA, all the time, and hand man couldn’t escape from the tyranny of radio! ABBA! I mean, could you believe the nerve! MORE »
