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Did You Hear?
:: Britney Spears and her agent/boyfriend Jason Trawick have called it quits after a year of dating. Now Music's Sexiest Star can play the field—go get 'em, girl! Just stay away from paparazzi, anyone named Jason, or wannabe rappers. [E! Online]
:: Gwen Stefani rocks the cover of InStyle, and discusses her fashion line. She does not, however, talk about being the hottest 40-year old in the world. That's where we come in. This mama of two is fine. [Just Jared]
:: There's one person who isn't calling Lady Gaga's telephone—visionary director Michel Gondry is decidedly not interested in directing a Gaga video. Ever. Ouch. [True/Slant]
:: A comprehensive list of all the delicious foodstuffs musical acts sing about—and the restaurants, cafes and bars they should open in their band's name. [Flavorwire]
:: Bret Michaels says there was nothing weird about recording a song with Miley Cyrus. He probably doesn't think a bus full of skanky fame whores competing for the love of a washed up rock star is anything to worry about, either. [Pop Eater]
After the jump: celebrate St. Patty's Day with one of pop's favorite Irish bands. More »
Posts Tagged ‘The Cranberries’
Such Great Hoots? Owl City Is A Rare Boy-Pop Chart-Topper
Fri Oct 30 2009 by admin
Back in 1997, when I was a critic for CMJ, I led off my review of a new album by vintage Britpoppers the Sundays with the following sideswipe at another band:
“In the five years since their last album, [the Sundays] watched the Cranberries swipe their sound and turn it into three obscenely popular and dreck-filled albums.”
I can’t front: I had a soft spot for the Cranberries’ light-as-air Top 10 smash “Linger.” But I could never get past the fact that the Sundays, a better band with one major alternative hit to their name (the downy, warm-blanket 1990 Modern Rock chart-topper “Here’s Where the Story Ends”), had failed to cross over to the U.S. Top 40 while Dolores O’Riordan rampaged across my radio dial. The ’Berries weren’t awful, just… a little undeserving, and massively benefiting from someone else’s sound.
This week—unless he’s too busy counting his Twilight soundtrack money or canoodling with the missus—Ben Gibbard is probably feeling something similar. It’s got to be a bit galling that Owl City’s “Fireflies,” the new No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100, is a candied replica of a sound he and Jimmy Tamborello codified six years ago.
Again, I can’t front: on a Top 40 radio dial awash in Black Eyed Peas’ faux-hop and Miley Cyrus’s shrill Autotunage, “Fireflies” is a nice contrast. But it’s basically The Postal Service for Dummies, and it’s mystifying how easily it shot to No. 1 during the same decade when “Such Great Heights,” which some of us consider one of the best-written pop songs of the ’00s, didn’t even grace the Hot 100.
But you don’t have to be a Gibbard fan to still find Owl City’s feat bizarre. Because even if you’ve never heard of the Postal Service, “Fireflies” represents a head-scratching rarity: a No. 1 hit by a solo white guy with no other radio format to call home. More »
