If you wanted to argue that Common was a corny motherfucker -- an argument that you could make without stretching any bounds of credulity -- you wouldn't have to look any further than last weekend's Oscars. Common, who's already won one Best Original Song Oscar, was nominated for another, for a song called "Stand Up For Something" that appeared on the soundtrack of the biopic Marshall. Common co-wrote that song with Dianne Warren, the veteran crafter of showstopping power ballads who wrote "How Do I Live" for LeAnn Rimes and "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" for Aerosmith. It's a song that was created explicitly to win an Oscar, and it lost. When Common performed it, he opened with a few generically meaningful bars about the NRA and Dreamers. Then, soon after, Common also showed up in a Microsoft ad, using that exact same self-impressed slam-poetry diction to rhapsodize about the wonders of technology. When your protests and your advertising copy don't sound different from one another, you might not be saying a damn thing.
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