*John Frusciante has quit the Red Hot Chili Peppers-AGAIN. The guitarist, who was famoulsy replaced by Dave Navarro briefly in the late Nineties-confirmed the split this week via his MySpace page. There appears to be no drama behind the split, but if you’re like me, you’re wondering how Anthony, Flea and Chad will brave this split. The band became megastars with Frusciante as their guitarist, and the one peak-era album they recorded without him (“One Hot Minute”) is definitely not regarded as their finest work. Critics have lavished tons of praise on Frusciante for his guitar playing and vocal harmonies over the last few years, although his solo albums allegedly require a strong stomach to listen to. Can both sides survive without the other?
*Supa-producer Tim “Timbaland” Mosley has been quoted as saying that he is quitting hip-hop. Tim was quoted in a recent interview as saying (and I’m paraphrasing here) that his audience is essentially white women these days, and that hip-hop fans are not buying enough records to justify his staying in that genre. Doesn’t that statement sound all kinds of wrong? We can of course start with the fact that Timbo is basically admitting to selling out and abandoning the fans who made him who he is. Because I guarantee those pop artists wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t for the work he did with the likes of Missy Elliott and Aaliyah. I guess he’s gassed up off of that Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado money. However, when you consider the lukewarm commercial reception that his “Shock Value II” has received so far (not to mention the savage critical reception), something tells me that Timbo might be returning to hip-hop a little sooner than he thinks.
*Finally, take this as a lesson, record companies, of what can happen when you continually fuck with release dates. Lil Wayne’s “Rebirth”, an album whose release has literally been all over the calendar this year, just sprung a major leak. Apparently, some copies had already been shipped to amazon.com and 500 or so people who’d preordered the album were accidentally sent copies of “Rebirth”-although the album is now not scheduled for release until next February. Can you say “collector’s item” ladies and gentlemen? This is the first instance I can remember of an album being pulled after already being pressed and shipped since Prince’s “Black Album” back in 1987. Yes, Jay-Z fans (and Metallica fans), calling an album the “Black Album” is not an original idea. At any rate, expect some of those 500 copies to pop up on eBay VERY soon.
