With his new album expected to hit #1 on the Billboard charts this week, I think (Nasty) NAS is getting a bit swell-headed. He recently told MTV News about a grandiose fantasy: to record one album produced entirely by DRE and another produced entirely by DJ PREMIER, then drop them both on the same day. I’m guessing no self-respecting label would ever let him split his chart position like that, but I can’t hear those kind of pragmatic concerns over the deafening whoosh of a million hip-hop fans springing tremendous boners.
In other tremendous rap-boner news (this time in the classic “blunder” sense): thesmokinggun.com recently outed coke-rap champion RICK ROSS as, of all things, a former prison guard. In terms of hip-hop credibility, being revealed as a former Department of Corrections employee is like being outed as a former darling little tea party. Ross, struggling to wriggle out from beneath a weighty pile of evidence, posted a video denying it.
Somebody tell NICK CAVE to shave off that moustache before it rapes again. He looks like someone George C. Scott would beat up in Hardcore.
PAUL WESTERBERG just released a digital album for the unconventional price of 49 cents, and I simply can’t bring myself to listen to it. I dig some of his music, and I could probably scare up the money, but something about that price point seems incredibly fishy and uncouth, like a crazy hobo trying to sell me a dollar bill for 99 cents. I don’t know what your little game is, Westerberg, but leave me out of it!
Nearby: we’re getting another round of deluxe REPLACEMENTS reissues soon. Let’s hope they go for a decent, God-fearing price that won’t make us feel we’re being laughed at.
Also in the digital-music vein; CONOR OBERST is streaming his new solo album for free on his Web site. Be aware, however, that free Conor Oberst music is in the end much more expensive than 49-cent Paul Westerberg music, because it’s twice as likely to turn you into a tit.
If you’ve been holding your breath waiting for CHAPTERHOUSE to re-form, good news: you’re probably dead.
An appeals court has ruled that JANET JACKSON’s leathery Super Bowl horror wasn’t a big enough deal to justify the massive fine that the FCC tried to levy against CBS. An outrage! Until the FCC has collected its justly awarded $550 million and used the money to build some sort of Skynet-style networked nipple-containment/destruction system, our national nightmare can never truly be over.
Neat trick: using high-tech lasers and shit, RADIOHEAD filmed their new video for “House of Cards” without lights or cameras. Let’s see whether they can record their next album without microphones or instruments. (They’ve already managed to make a couple with no songs.)
Down-home Texas girl-next-door JESSICA SIMPSON had a tough time winning over the rubes at a Wisconsin country-music festival this week — despite her recent Nashville chart success, some country fans are still unwilling to forget her past. “She’s an embarrassment to country music,” said one festivalgoer. After decades of eagle shirts, TruckNutz, and boots up Osama’s ass, could it be we have finally found the thing that embarrasses country music?
Fantastic news for fans of former indie darlings who’ve worn out their welcome with mediocre output and overestimations of their own cleverness: JARVIS COCKER is writing music for a new WES ANDERSON project!
NEIL YOUNG — who previously announced that his long-awaited “Archives” series would be released only on Blu-Ray — has relented. He’ll release it on CD — as long as we all pretend to be really disappointed about the compromise in audio quality. We share your outrage, Neil! I know that when I listen to reproductions of wobbly demos recorded on wax cylinders in 1965, my sophisticated ears demand only the most pristine fidelity allowed by science, so that I might hear every precious flaw.
The lead herb from Canadian pop travesty BARENAKED LADIES has been arrested for cocaine possession and could face 15 years in prison if some heroic judge decides to make an example of him. I urge you to write your elected representatives and demand that they get this menace off our streets. If you think I’m being too hard on him, consider this: you now have the song “One Week” stuck in your head. Enjoy.
And as long as I’m fucking with you, you now have “All Star” by SMASH MOUTH stuck in your head. Better get out the air mattress, too, because it’s gonna be stayin’ a while.
