Continuing Cover Song Wednesday Morning, here's a stream of the latest Guilt By Association compilation, in which indie bands try to show that they have some sort of pop sensibility through the power of performing popular tunes. As you may expect, the results are a bit hit or miss (also: I still am wary of the idea of a "guilty pleasure," because it's all tied up in Catholic indoctrination that I've been trying to get over for years and years), but Frightened Rabbit's version of N-Trance's UK dance hit "Set You Free" is transformative and very good; Kaki King's take on Justin Timberlake's "I Think She Knows" retains the original's skittishness, if the vocals are mixed a bit too high; and Robbers On High Street's minimalist reworking of New Edition's "Cool It Now" is cute, although the lead singer's basso delivery renders the whole enterprise a bit too Cake-like for these ears. (Avoid that "We Didn't Start The Fire" cover at all costs, though. Whew.) [Engine Room Recordings via Pitchfork]
Latest by jus10j: And Maura, you had to have known that saying to avoid "We Didn't Start The Fire" would make at least some of us (i.e. me) want to hear how bad it is.
And yes. Avoid it. more »
Last time out, Rihanna was taking her video inspirations from Trent Reznor, and this time, she's going down the modern-rock playlist and plumbing ideas from... The Killers? Maybe not, but I definitely feel like Brandon Flowers is going to pop up at any moment in the video for "Rehab," which mostly features Ri-Ri and Justin Timberlake giving each other smoldering looks and lingering touches while sweating out the desert's dry heat and the toxins that build up in one's body when one is forced to hold in their anger at the paparazzi for way too long. The JT/Timbaland-penned song's OK enough, I suppose—it kind of sounds like a filler track to me, but I guess Island had little choice as far as "singles to squeeze the album dry" choices went. (I mean, it's not like they could re-release that kinda-underrated Maroon 5 collab, right?) [MTV / YouTube]
Latest by CapnCalamity: @Chris Molanphy: Don't you mean it sounds like "Cry Me a River?" Or did you mean it sounds like PCD's "Halo?" Or did you mean ALL OF THE ABOVE BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL THE SAME SONG?!?!
Seriously, JT & more »
Saturday's episode of Saturday Night Live was pretty weaksauce overall, so one of the relative high points came with the above skit, which placed Justin Timberlake, Andy Samberg, and SNL's new guy in a scenario where they, clad in leotards and heels, were B's newer, spazzier, more penis-enabled dancers for her "Single Ladies" video. I guess someone in the writers' room saw the Google numbers for "single man dances to single ladies" and acted accordingly. But I have a very important question: Where is Beyoncé's Sasha Kruegerhand? I understand its absence during last night's medley, but if there's one thing I learned from years of comedy, it's that lack of verisimilitude can make even the funniest joke deflate a little bit.
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Latest by Tauwan: @Job:
"FIX IT!" HA!
I have a good friend who refuses to say Beyonce's name without placing an emphasis on the accute accent. She's always "No, no, no, it's BeyonCE! more »
Yes, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake both appeared at last night's Madonna show at Dodger Stadium. No, they weren't on stage together. Yes, Ryan Seacrest used his massive power to sell a few more tickets to the show by implying something big was in the works. Instead, the people who ponied up for tickets got Britney half-heartedly dancing around with her microphone possibly not even on during "Human Nature" and Justin performing live on "4 Minutes." Not exactly the sort of thing that's exciting enough to lure me away from the Oprah episode of 30 Rock. As Maura put it via IM, "2008: all gossip-blog hype, no follow-through." [YouTube]
Latest by report345: Tauwan, both of Madonna's last tours kicked off in LA. That's why they were in the news more. This time, she kicked off in Europe and LA is one of the last stops before the end of the U.S. tour. more »
Madonna's Sticky and Sweet Tour hits Dodger Stadium tonight, but despite earlier claims that the show would fill up every seat in Chavez Ravine by the time the concert rolled around, there are still tickets available as of this moment. (And it's not just the cheap seats—a Ticketmaster spot-check revealed that $165 seats were, in fact, very much for sale.) So in a last-ditch effort to get butts into chairs, Madonna will announce this morning that both Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake will appear at her show, in some effort to I guess complete the circle of life that she started when she made out onstage with Brit Brit at the 2003 Video Music Awards.
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Latest by report345: Maura, did you mention that the show has sold 40,000 tickets as of last week? Your making her tour out to be some sort of failure, even though it has grossed more than 200 million dollars so far. Also, I more »
Latest by moomintroll: @Thierry: Yeah, Timbaland is definitely in anchovy territory right now. more »
"SexyBack" Will Be Brought No More
Justin Timberlake announced that he was retiring his 2006 "SexyBack" at a charity concert in Las Vegas on Friday night. However, Timberlake's announcement—which took place at a concert benefiting Shriners Hospitals For Children—probably will not result in the annoying catchphrase guy in your office retiring his own references to "bringing sexy back... to the kitchen" until 2011 or so. Sorry! [MTV]
It's been almost two years since Justin Timberlake donned a pair of Color Me Badd pants and sang about giving his ladyfriend a Very Special Christmas Box, which I guess means that enough time has passed for "Dick In A Box" to become source material for a song about Very Important Things. Above, Timberlake (with girlfriend Jessica Biel) turns his ode to giving the best present of all into... a song about sticking your ballot into that hole in that box. Unfortunately, pretty Christmas wrapping, Andy Samberg, and the concept of "being funny through something besides extreme awkwardness on Timberlake's part" are nowhere to be seen, so why not clear your brain out with the original, which we've placed after the jump.
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Maybe! Over the weekend, a snippet of a song called "Steppin' Out Tonight" leaked, and while people were claiming that it was a new song from Timberlake's forthcoming album—which is set to drop in 2009, provided there are any music retailers remaining in America at that time—others debunked that rumor, saying that the song was actually a lost track from the Justified sessions. Which makes sense, since it seems to be relatively free of Timbaland "wiki-diki-doos," swapping in horns that sound suspiciously like they've been sampled from a classic Sade track instead. (No, seriously. Sure, Justin could easily be called a smooth operator, but the resemblance is kinda ridiculous.) [YouTube]
When do you know that people have become kinda tired of music "journalism"'s seemingly endless debates about DRM and free music and new paradigms and MySpace being the future and blah blah blah? When a story about Justin Timberlake not putting out a record anytime soon is worthy of multiple paragraphs in USA Today. (He is playing golf, though! That's exciting, right?) [USA Today]
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, and Spin are given a once-over by a writer who's contributed to many of those magazines, as well as a few others! In this installment, he looks at the Condé Nast-produced, music-centric one-off Fashion Rocks:
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The cover for Conde Nast's annual Fashion Rocks supplement has been revealed, and its tacit admission that few of the people who will have multiple copies of the thing cluttering up their houses have been paying attention to pop music much is, at the very least, impressive in its brazenness: People haven't really paid attention to music over the past two years, it seems to be saying, so why not just serve up the alternate cover we were going to run before Jennifer Lopez muscled her way onto Page One last year? Well played. And budget-conscious, too! (The asterisk next to the Kills' coverline is probably my favorite part of the whole thing. "Wait, before you run away, here's a celebrity-related reason to care about this band!") [E!]
Latest by amandacobra: Joan Jett doesn't smoke, hasn't had a drink in like 30 years and works out religiously. There, I saved you $3.
Now I'm gonna go have a Stella with my lunch. more »
Imported gossip rag OK! is "revealing exclusively" (has a more noxious phrase ever been coined?) the rumor that Britney Spears is going to let her ex-beau Justin Timberlake guest on her forthcoming album, which is being worked on now for a December release. Why you'd want someone who dissed you in public whose most recent collaboration was a semi-dud Madonna song to be on your "comeback" record is beyond me, but I guess I'm writing about it, so we all know where the joke's landed, no? [OK! / Photo of happier times: Getty]
Latest by uptonking: @ propaganda-artist : Thank you! While having a personal opinion is always welcome and of interest - stating facts or at least presenting something akin to the truth is a sign of integrity. I agree with propaganda-artist 100% and while more »
A Federal appeals court has thrown out the FCC's $550,000 fine against CBS for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl halftime show four and a half years ago. The court pointed out that Jackson's breast was exposed on television for 9/16 of a second, and thought that the FCC's $977,777.78 per-second rate for bared cleavage was the result of the agency acting "arbitrarily and capriciously" and that since the image was fleeting, it wasn't worthy of being fined. [AP]
Usher has weighed in one of the great debates of our time: Do you take your sex with music or without? I'm not entirely surprised Usher is pro-musical accompaniment—nor that said music has to be his own. "I made love to a few songs. 'Love You Gently' is one of my favorites. Make her call you 'Daddy' when you put that one on," he told Britain's version of Marie Claire. But in the interest of starting a scrap, the Daily Record has pointed out that Justin Timberlake has, in the past, begged to differ—because his musical genius ends up getting unnecessarily distracted by any mood music. "I have trouble having sex to music because I start picking out the chords," he told the British magazine Dazed & Confused around the release of FutureSex/LoveSounds. Maybe now that he isn't so distracted by making a record, he too can enjoy Usher's mountain-moving songs while in flagrante? [Glasgow Daily Record]
Latest by cosmiclove: Awww man. Y'all don't know abt Barry. From wht I'm told that man just might b responsible 4 a cornucopia Gen Xers. These kids ain't ready. more »
Deepak Chopra's claims aside, Mike Myers' upcoming The Love Guru looks like a disgusting, unfunny attempt to josh on the Maharishi, which might have at least made sense if the film was made 40 years ago or if this racist caricature was originally meant as a whimsical side note in a fourth Austin Powers movie. Multiple songs from the soundtrack are up on the movie's MySpace page, so we can all yuk it up at Bollywoodized covers of "The Joker" and "9 To 5" (oh wow, sitars and funny accents!! Boing!!). Fans of The Apple should note that the composer of that film's music, George S. Clinton, is responsible for the instrumental "Guru Vindaloo." Justin Timberlake (seen above) doesn't perform on the album, but Telma Hopkins of Dawn and Family Matters fame does.
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Idolator
Continuing Cover Song Wednesday Morning, here's a stream of the latest Guilt By Association compilation, in which indie bands try to show that they have some sort of pop sensibility through the power of performing popular tunes. As you may expect, the results are a bit hit or miss (also: I still am wary of the idea of a "guilty pleasure," because it's all tied up in Catholic indoctrination that I've been trying to get over for years and years), but Frightened Rabbit's version of N-Trance's UK dance hit "Set You Free" is transformative and very good; Kaki King's take on Justin Timberlake's "I Think She Knows" retains the original's skittishness, if the vocals are mixed a bit too high; and Robbers On High Street's minimalist reworking of New Edition's "Cool It Now" is cute, although the lead singer's basso delivery renders the whole enterprise a bit too Cake-like for these ears. (Avoid that "We Didn't Start The Fire" cover at all costs, though. Whew.) [Engine Room Recordings via Pitchfork]
Justin Timberlake announced that he was retiring his 2006 "SexyBack" at a charity concert in Las Vegas on Friday night. However, Timberlake's announcement—which took place at a concert benefiting Shriners Hospitals For Children—probably will not result in the annoying catchphrase guy in your office retiring his own references to "bringing sexy back... to the kitchen" until 2011 or so. Sorry! [
