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Pop Rock Nation

Category: News

music-news-from-breakups-to-the-lastest-buzz

  • Bye Bye Bobby

    Thinking about two kids never living up to their potential. Yes, I know that Whitney was the 1980s Diva of Choice, but she should have a Streisand-like career, not a Paula Abdul-length one. And Bobby Brow, what’s up with that? One of the coolest music makers of his generation when he didn’t get sidetracked from one project to another.

    Kiss it goodbye. They’ve been through drugs, alleged spousal abuse, scandals of every kind, but Whitney Houston has reportedly filed papers to divorce Bobby Brown.

    This all appears to be happening a decade too late, and after so much abuse of their relationship, one has to wonder what finally prompted Houston to take action. Her mindset and the super-duper, hot, hear-it-here first exclusive will undoubtedly tell the tale, but for now, it’s “Buh-buh Bobby”

    Spinning In The CD
    Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys     Yeah, I know it’s 40 years old, but old music can still amaze. And, truth be told, I owe our sister Book site a review of a hot new book about Brian Wilson so I needed to soak up some fun, fun, fun in the warmth of the sun.

  • Personalized Pop

    This weekend’s Wall Street Journal carried an online music piece by John Jurgensen about personalized music. We’ve had mashuips and remixes, bootlegs and rarities. Now the economies of scale brought to us by the digital world are giving us personalized music.

    Like those kids license plate keychains you see hanging up in a Stuckey’s off the highway exit, these versions of the song are cut with individual names.

    “Hey, Billy.”

    Next

    “Hey, Chris”

    Next

    “Hey, Dawn.”

    and so on.

    Jurgensen reports that Jessica Simpson’s A Public Affair has 534 different copies for sale. To make matters even more cloying and disgusting, Simpsonc couldn’t be bothered to actually record the shout-out, relegating it instead to a backup singer.

    Personalized music could be like an autograph. If the shout out went something like, “Hey, Opie Taylor of Mayberry Enn Cee,” then I could maybe, somehow perhaps see spurging $1.99 extra for the song. There’s more money in shouting out to all the Billys, though, and having them or their friends pop down the extra money. And yes, the songs debuted at $1.99, although at iTunes (motto: “we’re even going to get The Beatles down to 99 cents”), they are now just a buck. That’s a third of a tall coffee at Starbucks. It hardly seems worth it.

    Spinning In The CD:
    I am really liking the new Bob Dylan album. I wrote someone that he was channeling bluesman Chris Smither, but his voice hasn’t sounded this good and his songs haven’t been this memorable in years. In fact, this is Bob’s best production since Jakob.

  • Madonna Does Moscow

    Not content to rile the Romans, Madonna is maddening the Muscovites. After the Vatican protested her Rome concert last month, Madonna continued making waves among church leaders.

    Reuters is reporting that the Material Girl is due to play a sold out stadium show in Moscow in just one week, but the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of the Orthodox churches, doesn’t like the idea of the once-Catholic Madonna using religious imagery such as a crucifixition and a crown of thorns in her show. The news agency says the group is a “fringe” of the main Church body, but the Orthodox church (motto: we haven’t changed in 2000 years) is hardly the place to go avant-garde with the religious motif.

    If nothing else Madonna deserves props for her continuing relevancy in music. Not only did she become embraced (literally!) by her successors, but she may be the shrewdest music promoter outside of Island or Def Jam. And make no mistake — this is all about hype.

    How much hype? Madonna’s latest album, the time when CMC is usually cranking out the 3rd greatest hits melange, is last year’s Confessions of a Dance Floor, a #1 smash around the world. Not bad for a bleached blonde just shy of fifty. Like Elton John learned to do after the 1970s and Billy Joel never learned how to do, Madonna continues to be a part of contemporary music culture.

    CD Spinning Today:
    After seeing today’s story, I was tempted to reach for Mr. Mister’s Kyrie, but opted instead for Justin’s Sexyback. When the Material Girl can go legit (you remember dismissing her in the mid ’80s), Justin’s time could be near.

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