HOT: Boss Eviscerated
Rolling Stone has received criticism over the years for their critical response to certain artists, going back to their initial stone-walling of every Led Zeppelin album. They’re also been taken to task for reliably fawning reviews of everything put out by certain legends, including Bruce Springsteen. So it was humorously “shocking” when a review of The Boss’ Western Stars album made news as the worst review he’s received from the magazine in 25 years. Slate joked that Rolling Stone “slammed” Springsteen, but the album received a 4-out-of-5 star rating and the writer said it contains some of his best work ever. The magazine’s rare five-star reviews aren’t so rare for Bruce — according to Slate, the only album to not get a perfect score was 2012’s Wrecking Ball, which received 4.5 stars but was declared RS’s second best album of that year.
WARM: Fire Storm
Several artists have responded to a recent New York Times story that revealed how a major fire in 2008 at Universal Studios destroyed numerous master recordings (including unreleased material) by some of music’s biggest acts. And it seems like all were unaware that their recordings were burned up. R.E.M. released a statement saying they were looking into it, while reps for Steely Dan and Asia said they only knew the masters had gone missing and were given no further explanation. Other Universal Music Group-owned recordings by legends like Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong and Aretha Franklin were also reportedly lost. UMG said there are inaccuracies in the story, but failed to clear things up, stating that they legally couldn’t say much, but that all commercially released music was still available (which… duh). Eminem appears to be one of the few who appears to be unscathed by the fire — his spokesperson says his UMG masters were mostly all backed up digitally. The Los Angeles Times reported that lawsuits in the name of some of the artists are expected to be filed as soon as this week.
COLD: Beefy Tweets
Anthony Scaramucci, the man who lasted a whole six days as the White House Press Secretary, recently got into a Twitter beef with guitar hero Nils Lofgren. The Springsteen and Neil Young bandmate started it, calling Scaramucci an “ass wipe” and “nit wit” for defending outgoing press secretary Sarah Sanders. Scaramucci responded by belittling Lofgren, calling him a “nobody” and a “complete joke,” which brought out an army of Lofgren supporters and barely any Scaramucci defenders. Ultimately, Scaramucci backed down, wishing the guitarist well. Lofgren then apologized… at least for calling him an ass wipe.
