By the way, for anyone downvoting my above comment because they're under the impression I'm okay with someone abusing Sinead or anyone else, I commented further down that I don't believe her statements. Abuse is never right or okay, but Sinead has a history of making questionable accusations in attempts to bring herself attention, even it harms those close to her, so I put no faith in her statements. That said, I'm sure this statement has done myself no favors, so... I'm going to go shut up.
I really don't know about the asshole thing. Very weird guy? Sure. Hard to work with at times? Definitely. But I've always wondered if he might've been what we now consider to be on the Autism spectrum, like having Asperger's. Guy was socially awkward at best, communicated mostly through his music, and generally spoke only with those very close to him. I'm not a psychologist, but I'd like to know what one might think about his behavior. That's why I've always been more likely to give him a pass on his occasionally poor or childish actions, along with those who were close to him noting how sweet he could be and how quick he'd be to apologize if he upset someone close to him. These are just my thoughts though, doesn't mean I'm right.
Thing is, I don't believe her, mostly because she's told so many ridiculous stories over the three decades she's been in the spotlight. I think she's very talented and a lot of her music is wonderful, but she's a kook so I take everything she says with a grain of salt. She's guilty of doing anything to get your attention, no matter who gets hurt, including her own family. If that sounds cruel, sorry, but I guess I've read enough tin-foil-hat style comments from her that I don't care what she says. And before anyone says she has mental health issues, this may be true, but it seems rather questionable whether she takes care of herself in recent years.
As for Prince, I'm a die hard fan, but yeah, dude was a weirdo and did some goofy stuff. I don't know that I'd call him an asshole, but a weirdo at the least for certain. That said, I've never heard about him assaulting anyone, especially with a loaded pillow. The soup thing though, if true, is quite funny.
He’s a Christian Scientist? As someone brought up under that religion, no offense dude, but wake the hell up. It’s a religion built on the concept that you don’t need medicine because god will heal you. Basically, the original anti-vaxxers. I respect their beliefs, but I disagree with it and got the hell away years ago. So James, do whatever you’re gonna do, but save me your schtick and pro-gun talk, I don’t need it from an absurdly rich man who hasn’t done anything of substance in years. Just get the vaccine and take care of those around you.
That’s the thing, I don’t think he’s done anything anti-Semitic that we actually know about, but naming your song THEY OWN THE MEDIA sounds exactly like the sort of thing a racist would say, and he should have thought about it before he did it. As for tearing someone down after 50 years in business, I think he’s destroyed a lot of goodwill towards him since the pandemic began with his idiotic rantings, and that’s the sort of thing that makes people see things in a different light. I’d you come out and attack people for something and then act like an ass about it, what’s to be expected? We’ve had so many jerks outed in the last five or six years for doing awful things, and they were understandably written off quickly no matter how long or big they were in their specific industries. I don’t know that what Van has done is the same as raping women, urinating on girls, or using a political position to attack your enemies and hurt people in the country that you’re supposed to be working for, but his attitude and statements have made me reevaluate him. I’m not saying people shouldn’t enjoy his previous works, but I’ll certainly never listen to anything he says or does going forward because of his awful, entitled, ridiculous attitude and actions.
The Mel Gibsons, Bill Cosbys, Harvey Weinsteins, R Kellys, Chris Browns and Donald Trumps of the world will keep on trying to be themselves, but it doesn’t mean I have to support them. Same with Van Morrison. I can still laugh at old episodes of the Cosby Show or Mel Gibson’s movies, but I’d never give them another dime.
By the way, I do want to make clear, in case anyone thinks I’m talking shit about rappers and producers exclusively, I love hip-hop and I’m only talking about Khaled and Kanye. A producer doesn’t need to do everything to earn the top credit on their record, I just think Khaled doesn’t deserve it the way Kanye does. As for Ye, if he wasn’t so annoying now I’d care about what he’s doing musically, but he lets his abrasive personality get in the way of everything he does by making EVERYTHING about him, which is similar to Khaled taking top credit on an album he essentially did very little on. Kanye has earned the title though, Khaled’s reputation is dubious.
That’s a pretty good article, and it does a fair job of defending Khaled’s participation, but I think it’s being overly complimentary. It compares Khaled to other historically relevant hip-hop and mixtape dj’s, but most of them don’t try to become the focal point of their releases, at least never to the point Khaled has. I’ve never seen a picture of DJ Drama, and I never see Funkmaster Flex any longer. Khaled acts like a pop star, not a dj, and while he may lay out the table and invite all the guests over for the event, he’s more of an executive producer than an actual producer. He may be involved in who shows up, but no one goes to the movies or buys an album because of the executive producer. Khaled’s participation is minimal at best, letting other people make the actual art. Sure, it takes a lot of work to be able to call up the biggest stars in the world to be on your project, but a lot of other people do that too, and are usually far more involved. Kanye is probably a good example of what Khaled is trying to be, but Kanye does more than shout his name and stupid catchphrases on each of his tracks. What they do have in common is they’re both annoying as hell and are well past their prime. I expect Khaled will keep on keepin’ on though, still having hits, whereas I don’t know how successful Kanye will remain. I’ll be ignoring both of them though.
Anyone else remember when, a few years after this, She Kissed Me was in semi-heavy rotation on MTV? Man, I loved that song, and it had a killer video too. The Vibrator album was also fantastic. Seriously, the world missed out.
Tom, as for your using Sananda's first (stage) name, I think it was totally respectful as you're documenting his earlier career. If he would be offended by it, I'd think he missed the point, because if you were being an asshole about it you would have kept referring to him as Terrence or even mocked his name change. It's pretty clear, at least to me, that you have some respect for the man.
One more thing, let's not forget he had an excellent cameo on the most recent Avalanches album. Much love to Sananda!
Waiting on the world to change… it’s mind about a John Mayer show. Or at least CBS/Paramount. I’ve never thought he came across all that well, have I just not seen the right stuff? If it’s got to happen, can we at least have a segment every episode where he plays a guitar solo and makes bizarre faces? I can laugh at that.
Just stop, Moz. I could say that no one really cares about you, but that wouldn't be true. If only you care about you, which you clearly do, that's one person more than no one. That said, why not focus on continuing to alienate your fanbase and ruin any goodwill that remains, as that seems to be all you're really good at these days. Oh yeah, and loving the fact that a show that mocked you has brought you more attention than anything you've done in years. Just shut up and quit. Or you could always make some really good music again and accept that you don't know best about everything. But let's be serious, that's not your strong suit, admitting when you're wrong and learning from your mistakes. Just keep making a mockery of yourself and we'll keep enjoying mocking you. Like you once said, you only have yourself to blame.
Good points japanda bear. That said, wanted to make a note or two regarding my previous comment that is relevant to yours. In the case of the Holiday Rap, it's actually a cover of Madonna's song, or a re-recording if we want to get into the technical issues of sampling. As I understand it, she approved the clearance of the sample based entirely off of songwriting credits, whereas the group that performed the Holiday Rap actually owned the rights to the recording. She may not have even been involved in the clearance, but I remember it being touted as the first time a Madonna record was legally sampled when Since I Left You was originally released.
Regarding Girl Talk, I wish I knew more about what he and Illegal Art did to fight copyright issues, though I'd assume that's part of why there hasn't been another Girl Talk album in the style of his best known releases since All Day was made available, as well as why All Day was given away for free, possibly in part to avoid the legalities related to physical releases of his previous albums, and why Illegal Art doesn't issue new releases or much of anything any longer.
And yeah, you're 100% right about the mixtape thing. Just because you don't charge anything for your music, if you make it available then it's intent is to bring awareness to you which is self-promotion which could make you money eventually. I don't quite understand how Lil Wayne was successfully sued for sampling someone's music in a song he never released, that was in fact stolen from him, though I suppose if they found it helped promote his brand, or he allowed it to be used in a way where it did promote his brand, then I guess they had him beat.
I think this stuff needs to get released, I just find it less interesting than a lot of his other eras. Still, unreleased late period Prince is still unreleased Prince, and even if I don’t love it like the Originals record or SOTT and 1999 boxes, I’m still going to pick it up.
The Madonna bits are fine, actually. There are other, more subtle samples that have been removed, most notably in some versions of Frontier Psychiatrist. As for the Madonna sample, it's actually not of Madonna's version of Holiday, but a weird rap version from the eighties called the Holiday Rap. Look it up on YouTube and be like "what?"
Seriously, everyone else gets to talk shit about Mr. i.am except me? Get over yourselves and admit he's a buffoon and your life will suddenly become a lot more fun. Also, don't worry about trading in your BEP CDs, no one will give you anything for them.
Can we please cancel will.i.am already? Not for being sexually toxic, of course, just for being an annoying jerk who STILL fancies himself the next Kanye West years after everyone else stopped caring about Kanye. Seriously, he’s the most annoyingly out-of-touch person I can think of second only to Kanye himself. Just, like, go away, will. You... you just suck. ARGH, YOU SUCK!
That’s cool, as I’ve never really put much thought into her songwriting abilities. I’ll take your word on her commitment and bite my tongue. That said, I’d love to know where names are being named.
Just occurred to me, wasn’t the situation with Lady Gaga getting nominated for something that was 99.99% created by Diane Warren very similar to this? I remember it being assumed that that was a political move, giving part of the credit to Gaga so she’d get nominated too for a big award. That may not fit the kind of shakedown the songwriters here are accusing big names of though.
I promise you, it's totally real. I drove by two of the DEVO tire things yesterday. People from and around Akron are VERY serious about getting DEVO into the rock hall!
Good song, great star, no problems. That said, massive bonus points for mentioning the Germs! It feels like they’re always somewhere between slept-on important and totally forgotten, no doubt due to Darby Crash’s untimely young death, so I always love it when they pop up unexpectedly, especially outside a Nirvana connection. And as always, wonderfully well written, Tom!
On the mention of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam's final album, Straight Out of Hell's Kitchen, Let the Beat Hit 'Em is amazing! She sounds wonderful on it and David Cole & Robert Clivilles, aka the guys behind C+C Music Factory, produced it. It's a sample-crazy dream with a shoutout to the then recently deceased Chep Nunez in the credits. It's too clubby to be a pop #1, but it's a hell of a jam! The album it's from isn't bad either, with half produced by the C+C guys and the other half by Full Force.
You mean the one where MarxistHypocrisy101 and ThatSkepticGuy support each others views and attack everyone else blindly? Yeah, it's pretty embarassing. You guys should put your split personality back together and go jerk off at Trump's hair.
Stop being a loser for ten seconds and log out of all the other accounts you opened so you could upvote your comments that everyone else keeps downvoting.
So you opened up multiple accounts so you could anonymously threaten people for having beliefs different than yours and tell them to kill themselves? Wow, really productive. This is my last response to any of your bullshit loserisms, as you really have nothing to live for. Don't kill yourself, go try to live a better life. Maybe go see a doctor and get some anti-depressants. Sounds like you need them.
Actually, you're the one that seems to be struggling, especially with having to make homophobic remarks to back yourself up. Why don't you go drive your obscenely large truck you bought to make yourself feel better about your inadequate member and meet up with your support group made up of sad guys who are mad at the world because you weren't born into a rich family. Now who's struggling with basic reading comp?
Funny how nobody cares what you think, you trolling asshole that signed up just to argue with people about your favorite group and show how mindless and lacking-in-taste you are.
We've got a Mumford and Sons stan in here, downvoting every comment. Whoever it is, get over yourself, a shitbag is a shitbag, and you're apologizing for a rich shitbag.
I sincerely wasn't making it as a joke, but I figured someone was going to say it so I was preemptively responding. Maybe I should've let someone say it first and watch the dogpile. Regardless, I don't understand Grimes but I wish her the best and I stand by my first paragraph. Good move on her part signing with Columbia/Sony.
I don’t think it’s really about the money, it’s about the promotion and distribution. Sure, she’ll get paid, but she’ll probably have more control over her career than she had at 4AD (it’s crazy to think of how artist friendly 4AD used to be and no longer is), and I don’t think she wants to have to sign every piece of paper necessary to get her music on every platform in every the world. This is a purely business-minded decision on her part, and good for her. She kinda drives me nuts, but this is probably the soundest business move she’s made in years.
I’m waiting for someone to respond that the best business decision she made was having a child with Elon Musk. Let’s be mature here folks.
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