[HOT]
Worst Trend Spotter Ever?
Prince has been compared to James Brown and Michael Jackson during his legendary career. One legend he’ll never be compared to? Nostradamus.
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Then As An Unpronounceable Symbol and Now Prince Again gave an interview to Britain’s Daily Mirror (which gave away his new album for free with a recent edition of the paper) and made the bold prediction that this crazy “Internet” trend was “completely over.” Prince, who won’t sell his albums online and has shut down his official Web site, told the paper that “all these computers and digital gadgets are no good … they just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”
He then added, “Where’s my shawl? It’s cold in here.”
[WARM]
They Weren’t Chanting ‘Lou’
Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and John Zorn have separately made some of the most interesting — and, in some cases, groundbreaking — music of all time. And each musician has no doubt heard their share of “boos” throughout their career; when an artist is ahead of their time or unafraid to make music that challenges, it goes with the territory. Reed and Anderson recently gave a concert crafted for dogs and Reed has been touring his infamous Metal Machine Music album (one of the most maligned records ever made), but the baffled response to those endeavors seems like nothing compared to the backlash the trio experienced during a recent gig at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
While Reed gave an interview before the show calling the set “non-Rock” and purely improvisational, the festival’s program gave no indication of what fans would be in for. The trio’s “free” experimental set was met with a cacophony of boos and insults. While some in the press “got it” (or at least pretended to), critics seemed as enraged as most of the audience members. (A critic from the AOL music site Spinner requested and received her ticket money back and wrote that the unusually high volumes reached could have been “potentially dangerous to people’s hearing”). Saxophonist Zorn told the crowd, “If you don’t think this is music, get the fuck out of here.”
Next up on Reed’s “Burn Every Bridge Built” tour: a note-for-note cover of Justin Bieber’s My World album sung entirely in Vulcan.
[COLD]
’Snake Bitten
For a band we didn’t even know still existed, ’80s Pop Metal band Whitesnake has been producing an impressive number of news headlines of late. There was the silly news of the release of their Zinfandel wine and the irrelevant news that the group was losing two members.
But our favorite has to be the one where Whitesnake’s lawyers lost a frivolous lawsuit filed by a couple who was suing the band (and venue and promoter) after an usher kindly moved them closer to the stage (they had an obstructed view in their original seats) during a 2003 concert. The pair proceeded to allegedly suffer serious hearing damage as a result. They were recently awarded $40,000 in damages. Oddly, the couple spent the entire settlement on Whitesnake iTunes downloads, Tawny Kitaen posters and crates of Whitesnake Zinfandel.
