The Music Elitist

Simon Fuller (creator of American Idol) has decided to turn the (for some reason) hugely popular Now That’s What I Call Music CD series into a televsion show that will no doubt showcase some of the worst music ever released.

Fuller, the mastermind behind “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” has the exclusive global rights to negotiate a TV deal based on the property. “This show will be nothing like ‘American Idol’ and definitely won’t be a spin-off,” he says. “It will be a new take on music programming.”

At the center of the show will be the hits themselves, by such acts as Britney Spears, U2 and Jay-Z. “The TV show is designed to take the brand ‘Now’ and bring it to a broader level,” says Bob Mercer, CEO of Now That’s What I Call Music, a partnership involving Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and EMI Music. (Warner Music Group has a competing product called “Only Hits.”)

“A lot of people are buying ‘Now’ as their guide to what is happening in the music world over the last few months,” Mercer says. “The intent is to take that brand and that trust in that brand and establish it as a TV show with the same elements.”

The saddest part of this little snippet is in the last paragraph: “A lot of people are buying ‘Now’ as their guide to what is happening in the music world over the last few months”. It would certainly explain why bad music keeps becoming more and more popular. People just keep buying these CDs assuming that this is what everyone is listening to so it must be good. Well, look what you’ve done people. Now this show will be taking up a timeslot that could have been used for something more productive. You know, like another Hills spin-off or another variation of A Shot at Love, Rock of Love or Flavor of Love. Ugh.

UPDATE: Speaking of the apocalypse, Tom DeLonge thinks you’ll be much more comfortable when the world ends in 2012 if you buy a pair of Macbeth shoes.

This is a picture of Jessica Simspon performing at the KISS Country Chili Cookoff in South Florida this past weekend. I think I speak for everyone when I say “WTF?!”. She must getting ready for her role in The Dukes of Hazzard 2: Daisy Eats a Whale. Seriously though, I saw a picture of her from like a MONTH ago and she didn’t look nearly this big. In any case, celebrity gossip blogs get ahold of this and had a field day (as you can probably imagine). Let’s just say her sister Ashlee is less than pleased:

“I am completely disgusted by the headlines concerning my sister’s weight. A week after the inauguration and with such a feeling of hope in the air for our country, I find it completely embarrassing and belittling to all women to read about a woman’s weight or figure as a headline on Fox News,” Simpson writes on her blog under an entry titled “Since when did a woman’s weight become newsworthy…”

“All women come in different shapes, sizes, and forms and just because you’re a celebrity, there shouldn’t be a different standard,” Ashlee Simpson writes, adding that she “seriously doubt[s]” people would make the same remarks to a wife, daughter, mother, grandmother or a friend.

“How can we expect teenage girls to love and respect themselves in an environment where we criticize a size 2 figure?” she says. “Now can we focus on the things that really matter.”

SIZE 2, Ashlee??? That has to be the worst estimate I have ever seen in my life. Maybe it was typo and you forgot to type the zero after the two. And yes, women come in all different shapes and sizes and forms. However, the shape/size/form your sister is in now is not the one she originally “came in” (or the one she was in a few weeks ago for that matter). Hence all hoopla over the fact that she looks like this now.

So every year on my MySpace blog I used to do a top 10 of music and movies from 10 years ago. So this year I have decided to continue the tradition on this blog. Prepare to feel old.

Top 10 Albums of 1999 (Source: Soundscan)

1. Backstreet Boys – Millennium
2. Britney Spears – …Baby One More Time
3. Ricky Martin – Ricky Martin
4. Shania Twain – Come on Over
5. Limp Bizkit - Significant Other
6. Santana – Supernatural
7. Kid Rock – Devil Without a Cause
8. TLC – FanMail
9. Christina Aguilera – Christina Aguilera
10. Dixie Chicks – Wide Open Spaces

Top 10 Songs of 1999 (Source: Billboard)

1. Cher – “Believe”
2. TLC – “No Scrubs”
3. Monica – “Angel of Mine”
4. Whitney Houston – “Heartbreak Hotel”
5. Britney Spears – “…Baby One More Time”
6. Sixpence None the Richer – “Kiss Me”
7. Christina Aguilera – “Genie in a Bottle”
8. Sugar Ray – “Every Morning”
9. Deborah Cox – “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here”
10. Ricky Martin – “Livin’ la Vida Loca”

Top 10 Movies of 1999 (Source: IMDB)

1. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
2. The Sixth Sense
3. Toy Story 2
4. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
5. The Matrix
6. Tarzan
7. Big Daddy
8. The Mummy
9. Runaway Bride
10. The Blair Witch Project
    

Top 10 Television Shows of 1999 (Source: Neilsen)

1. ER
2. 60 Minutes
3. Touched By an Angel
4. CBS Sunday Movies
5. Monday Night Football
6. Home Improvement
7. Friends
8. Jesse
9. Fraiser
10. Veronica’s Closet
    

Lil Wayne’s next album Rebirth is scheduled for release April 7th. But the sound is apparently going to be quite different from that of Tha Carter III:

Lil Wayne announced the official release date and title of his next album: Rebirth is due April 7 — and his publicist has confirmed to MTV News that it will be a rock album. Of course, Wayne has been rocking with a guitar for some time now.

The first single is called “Prom Queen” and will debut on the Internet right after a live stream of his concert in San Diego on January 27. The show will be available for stream on MySpace.com.

I gotta say, I am quite excited to hear about this. What if its actually good? What if THAT’s the reason they pushed 50 Cent’s album release date back. Or it could just be the fact that no one is talking about Before I Self Destruct unless they’re talking about 50 Cent shit-talking Kanye West or Lil Wayne.

Slipknot percussionist (and I use the term “percussionist” loosely since part of this guy’s arsenal are kegs played with a baseball bat) Chris Fehn was quoted by Kerrang! this week saying:

“I think we’re going to overtake [them],” Fehn told Kansas City Star. “We haven’t even made our [Metallica's 1991] Black record yet. Wait until we do that. It’s over, dude. We’re going to overtake any band that sells out soccer arenas in Europe. We’re going to do it. We’re the last chance as far as the world goes.”

It absolutely baffles me that a band as shitty as Slipknot REGULARLY talks themselves up this much. Oh, and they “haven’t even made their black record yet”. Well, you might wanna get crackin’ guys. It took Metallica 8 years to get to THEIR Black album. You’re on what? Year 10 now? And it took the Foo Fighters about 13 years to get to the point where they could sell out Wembley and they had the drummer for NIRVANA singing in their band. Good luck with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate Metallica as much as the next guy. But the fact that Slipknot would even attempt to COMPARE themselves with to a band like Metallica (that is for some reason considered by most to be legendary) is just appalling.

Katy Perry told TV Guide that she has taken a vow of celibacy for the year. If only we could get her to make a vow that she won’t record any music or perform ever again.

After Katy Perry’s much-publicized breakup with Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy, the “I Kissed a Girl” singer has decided that these days, she’s not going to be kissing anybody — well, with one notable exception.

“I’ve actually taken a vow of celibacy this year,” the Grammy nominee told the new issue of TV Guide, according to Us Weekly. ” No kissing anyone. Just my cat: Kitty Purry.”

Ugh. She has a cat named Kitty Purry? I hate this bitch even MORE than I did, if thats possible. How full of yourself do you have to be to name your cat after you? And wait a minute….GRAMMY NOMINEE??? How’d she get nominated for a Grammy without me finding out and inevitably bitching about it on this blog? I guess I didn’t read the nomination list carefully enough. But according to this article from People, “I Kissed a Girl” was nominated for Female Vocal Performance of the Year. The Gammy’s have officially become irrelevant.

UPDATE: As usual, Katy has retracted her previous statement saying it was a joke and “any fine journalist would have got that”. OK Katy, we know you think you are a comedian, but its obvious at this point that journalists (and Lily Allen) don’t quite seem to get your brand of humor. So knock it off.

Apparently Britney Spears‘ songwriters were so amused by how clever they were, they forgot to think about the fact that PARENTS WITH YOUNG CHILDREN PROTEST EVERYTHING. Spears’ next single is titled “If U Seek Amy”….say it real fast and you’ll understand why the song is under such scrutiny (F-U-C-K Me).

The Parents Television Council is warning parents and radio stations not to broadcast Britney Spears’ “If U Seek Amy” because the organization believes it “would violate the broadcast indecency law” if aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

I’d also like to point out that her writers don’t have an original bone in their body. The title of this song is a slight variation of a song released by Something Corporate in 2001 (“iF yoU C Jordan”). However, Andrew McMahon wasn’t asking you to fuck him in the song, so there were no issues getting airplay.

Next time try not being such a slut, Brit. Oh THAT’s right…its the only way you can sell records.

So thanks so Slacker, I now have my own internet radio station.

Whoever made this offer might have been wise to make sure she can actually WRITE first. In fact, I’d probably trust a kindergartener to be a better writer than Britney Spears.

“If the deal goes ahead she will write between three and five books throughout the next decade – it’s one of the most lucrative book deals in showbiz history.

“Britney will talk frankly about growing up and how she went off the rails. It’ll be a gripping read.”

Why do I need to read a book to know how she went “off the rails”? It’s a pretty simple story: Lynne Spears is the worst mother on the face of the planet and she pushed both of her daughters into show business WAY too early and fucked them up for life….the end.

Image courtesy of fashaddix.com

So word is Alkaline Trio frontman Matt Skiba has collaborated with cross-dressing, pink-haired freak show Jeffree Star. If your reaction to the name Jeffree Star was “who?”, consider yourself lucky. As is the case with Tila Tequila, MySpace is 100% to blame for this monstrosity. I had the unpleasant experience of having to hear it’s god awful excuse for music almost everyday this summer on Warped Tour. Yes, I am going to refer to it as “it” because frankly I have no fucking clue if Jeffree’s even human. Think of it’s music as Marilyn Manson meets Mindless Self Indulgence meets Metro Station. Yes….its THAT bad. To make matters worse, Star has been associated with Britney Spears’ #1 fan, Chris Crocker. I guess when you’re that much of a freak and you see someone else on the internet who is just as much if not MORE of a freak than you are, the obvious thing to do is starting dating/fucking them.

Star also started shit with Alesana this past summer claiming they were homophobes and that they “slandered” it at the Bamboozle fest. This turned out to be an outright lie as evidenced by Alesana’s MySpace blog. Why is it always the overly-flaming ones that assume everyone who ISN’T gay must be a homophobe?

But back to the Matt Skiba thing. Did Agony & Irony really sell THAT badly that Skiba needed to whore himself out to this thing? I didn’t think it was that bad of a record. In fact, it was on my top 10 of 2008 I did about a month ago. So the only possible explanation for this must be that Jeffree Star wants to branch out because it is tired of having a fanbase that consists only of 12-17 year old gay boys and nu goth/vampire girls. But if it thinks Alkaline Trio fans are suddenly gonna decide his music is good just because Skiba’s doing guest vocals, then it  is clearly a much bigger moron than I had originally thought.