HOT: Star Wars Goes Electro
The original Star Wars films are timeless — by using “a galaxy far far away” as the setting, current viewers don’t get distracted by the flashback trends of the ’70s. Something that does date the original trilogy is the 1977 Disco version of the Star Wars theme by producer Meco that hit No. 1 on the singles charts. In 40 years, fans will have another trendy musical oddity to ruin memories of the current Star Wars films. An officially sanctioned EDM album called Star Wars Headspace is due later this month, with tracks featuring samples from the films and cringe-inducing titles like “Jabba Flow,” and “Ewok Pumpp.” We’re lucky Episodes I-III came out after the third-wave Ska craze, because you know there’d have been a Ska Wars album tie-in.
WARM: Never Lend Tarantino a Guitar
In Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, there is a scene in which Kurt Russell’s character grabs Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character’s acoustic guitar and smashes it. During filming, the plan was to switch the main guitar — a rare and expensive acoustic from the 1870s on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum — with a cheaper backup for the smashing. But Russell grabbed the antique instrument — which the museum says is “priceless (and) irreplaceable” — and destroyed it instead. Martin, which was initially informed that the destruction was due to an accident on the set, has said it will no longer loan guitars for use in films “under any circumstances.”
COLD: Trump Sticks It to Adele
When artists like R.E.M. and Steven Tyler asked/demanded that Donald Trump not use their music at campaign rallies, the presidential candidate acquiesced. But when Adele recently delivered the same request, Trump’s people ignored her completely, playing Adele songs at multiple rallies in New Hampshire. By procuring a blanket license for the songs played at rallies, what Trump did was perfectly legal, but most politicians back down when asked to cease and desist. So why keep playing Adele’s songs and not the others? Ask Megyn Kelly.
