There are a few interesting doings at the iTMS this week. After the jump, we'll talk about new music from Tila Tequila, the Dixie Chicks, and some new Nirvana-inspired playlists.
* Have y'all heard of this Tila Tequila person?
In case you haven't heard of her, Tila Tequila is a "model"-"turned"-"musician" who up-til-now [at least] has been famous more for her racy photos than her music. Tila also is pretty-much the undisputed "most popular" resident of MySpace, with [as of this writing] *1,703,260* "friends".
When she wasn't "practicing celibacy" by "sleeping with" her "sex toy" Jared Leto [insert your own "30 Seconds To Mars" jokes here, please -- Ed.], she was threatening to release a record that would take the world by storm. Unfortunately, she had some trouble getting a record deal -- and I have no idea why, of course -- so there has been a considerable delay.
But on Tuesday, Tila's song finally hit the iTMS. Tila hopes to become the first unsigned artist ever to make it to [presumably] the Billboard Top 20. As Idolator notes, if she quickly can get even 10% of her MySpace "friends" to pony-up $0.99 for the track -- which smartly comes bundled with a free video for the song -- she should make it with plenty of room to spare.
After 24 hours in the store, Tila did crack the iTMS top 100. And as you can see in the graphic above, the iTMS is still pimping her in the masthead. But even though "I Love U" has finally made it past the not-exactly-current "White & Nerdy", she's still languishing at #73, behind such au courant hits as the year-old "Hips Don't Lie" [#71] and "Chasing Cars" [#51] [we're giving Tila a pass on being a full *65 spots* behind "Not Ready To Make Nice"...that whole history-making five-Grammys-in-one-nite thing a few weeks ago, ya know -- Ed.].
So, what do you think? Does Tila Tequila have "the goods" to make it into the Billboard Top 20? Or -- to lower the bar a bit -- the iTMS Top 20?
Do you care?
* And speaking of the Dixie Chicks...
Next to Tila on the masthead is an ad for an "exclusive" Dixie Chicks track, "The Neighbor". Although the track is "new" to the store this week, it was actually written and recorded for the Shut Up & Sing documentary last year.
Striking while the iron is hot is a smart move on the Chicks' part. There's still no word on whether the Chicks plan to break up as previously rumored, but their website still lists only 2006 tour dates -- i.e., no upcoming shows.
Are the Chicks reconsidering in light of their astounding Grammy sweep? Are they waiting to make a decision -- or an announcement -- until after the April 16th CMT [that's "Country Music Television", BTW] Music Awards, where "Not Ready To Make Nice" is a nominee in the categories of Video Of The Year and Group Video Of The Year? The CMT Music Awards are awarded based on fan votes at the CMT website. How the Chicks fare at these awards should give them some idea how "country music fans" feel about them now.
Stay tuned. But in the meantime, pick up "The Neighbor". It's a solid track.
* And finally, "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs..."
I missed this last week, but in a blatant attempt to cash in on on the occasion of the 40th birthday of Kurt Cobain's dead body, the iTMS put together some Nirvana-esque playlists called "Influences", "Contemporaries", and "The Nirvana Legacy".
And apparently, I'm writing copy for the iTMS and didn't even know it!
Here's a description of Everclear's "Santa Monica" from the "Contemporaries" collection:
" "Santa Monica" (Track 2): In many ways the pretty-boy answer to Nirvana was Everclear. What you may find on closer scrutiny is that Art Alexakis was fighting many of the same demons as Mr. Cobain, he just used more bleach. "
"More bleach" -- very clever.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
This Week In The iTunes Music Store [3 March 2007 Edition]
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Quick Hits: Updates For 24 January 2007
* Eric must have a bet with his friends on what time his site will melt down: Eric over at deathbycamera -- despite claiming not to give a shit about American Idol -- has decided to embrace his role as the unofficial MySpace-profile-seeker for AI contestants. He's got the profiles for the Memphis round from Tuesday 23 January up now. The site is still up as I post this, but it will soon become bogged down, so keep trying if your browser times out.
* See, American Idol winners really are just like everyone else: Carrie Underwood kicks Tony Romo to the curb after he blows the Cowboys' chance to win a playoff game tells The Tennessean that she and Tony Romo are not dating and non-denially-denies that they ever were:
" Carrie Underwood says her success has resulted in false rumors being reported in the press, including the report that she's dating Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.
" "I have read some of the most ridiculous things about that," she says of reports that she's dating Tony. "The first time I ever met him was on Christmas, right there on the field. Everybody was like, 'Ooh, they are together.' And then I was blamed for Dallas not winning that game. . . . He is a very nice guy and I've talked to him a few times, but we are very much not together."
" An Illinois newspaper reported that Tony said it was true that the two were dating. (Her publicist, who says Carrie is not dating anyone, presumes Romo was joking.) "That was one person from one local newspaper that said that, so whether or not . . .,"Carrie says. "I've read 'sources said' we met on Thanksgiving. I had no clue who he was at that time. He is probably getting a little tired of that one (the false rumor he was dating Jessica Simpson) and now he's probably tired of this one, as I am." "
For Carrie Underwood, fame brings false rumors of romance
* So, maybe Jessie will be bringing sexy-panties-remote-back to Justin after all???: As I speculated earlier, it appears that Derek Jeter has "struck out" [thank you!!! I'll be here all week!!!] with Jessica Biel. Now, I really do love Gabrielle Union, but, I think I have to say...DOWNGRADE.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Leftovers: American Idol Edition
* Breaking: American Idol runners-up really are just like everyone else:
Katharine McPhee chats on her phone, feeds her meter, enjoys being stalked by paparazzi:
Katharine, love the shoes!!!
* Breaking: AI-hating dude who just fucking wanted to fucking share his fucking photos with his fucking friends is not fucking interested in fucking being the fucking AI-goto blog:
Eric over at deathbycamera does a post-mortem on his website meltdown as a result of his oh, ya know, collecting MySpace profiles on AI contestants. He says he only did it because he was bored, and he never expected all the extra traffic, because, ya know, the 37 million viewers that tuned in each night last week wouldn't care about such things. In retrospect, maybe it was not the best idea to mail several highly-trafficked music and celebretainment blogs about his posts:
Subject: the myspace accounts of american idol contestants
From: eric.dbc@gmail.com
Date: 1/17/07 2:56 AM
To: tips@stereogum.com; tips@defamer.com; tips@gawker.com; tips@idolator.com; tips@socialitelife.comI don’t know if anybody is watching the new season of American Idol, I don’t know if anybody really cares. Here’s the thing: I got really fucking bored tonight and started searching for the idiots that were on American Idol on myspace and found 11 of them. Some of them were winners, most of them were losers.
You can check it out here.
http://deathbycamera.com/?p=30
Peace,
Eric
www.deathbycamera.com
Yes, dude actually wrote: "I don’t know if anybody is watching the new season of American Idol, I don’t know if anybody really cares."
Eric, dude, think of all the Adsense revenue you left on the table!!!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
BREAKING: Most People Are Bad Singers, Refuse To Acknowledge It; Rupert Murdoch Still Smarter Than You
American Idol has returned!!!
AI vets know that this part of the season highlights the worst of the worst. Indeed, it was the train-wreck failed auditions that originally hooked people on AI in the first place [remember back in '02 when AI watchers -- especially those who tuned in after hearing their friends describe Simon's sharp-tounged put-downs of the losers who had no clue they couldn't sing -- were disappointed that the remaining contestants' reasonable vocal skills were not prompting much biting criticism from the judges???].
As AI has evolved over time, and grown into a cultural phenomenon that leaves network execs at networks not named "FOX" shaking in the corners of padded rooms, both the judges and the potential "contestants" have gotten savvier about 1) delivering what the viewers want in the early weeks [audition train-wrecks and put-downs], and 2) how to make the most out of their one chance at 15-minute-fame. Thus, we get auditioners that are either delusional about their lack of talent, or deliberately bombing hoping to be the next William Hung -- or both [Troy Benham, the "Urban Amish" guy who claims never to have seen AI, and to not even have "broadcast television", but who somehow manages to be on MySpace -- I'm calling you out!!!] -- along with judges who are overly critical of marginally-talented performers [seriously, I didn't think Jessica Rhode -- the Jewel fan who kicked off the Minneapolis show by singing "Who Will Save Your Soul" to her idol -- was really that bad, and certainly not "that bad" enough to deserve the evisceration she got from the judges].
If you are even remotely interested in what happens on AI, you don't need me to link to the multitude of reviews of the first two installments of AI6. But I will link to maybe the most interesting resource -- and perhaps the most linked-to out there -- about the first two nights. Eric over at deathbycamera has done some awesome work tracking down the MySpace pages of some of this year's contestants -- winners and losers. Please note -- depending on when you check these out, some of the profiles may be already gone [including, sadly, the profile of the afore-mentioned Jessica Rhode, who listed among her "music interests" some band called "The Google Dolls"]: Minneapolis; Seattle.
deathbycamera's work got me thinking about AI in the MySpace era. Although MySpace has been around for a couple of years now, deathbycamera's work is the first I've seen connecting the contestants to MySpace profiles. Which got me thinking.
I'm sure you all know that AI is the highest-rated show on television. Tuesday's AI6 premiere was the highest-rated show in the key 18-49 demographic -- over 37 million viewers -- since the Friends finale in May 2004. But MySpace's traffic is even gaudier than that. Reliable MySpace data is hard to come by, but it is estimated that there are approximately 150 million MySpace accounts.
MySpace, you may recall, was originally designed as a community site for musicians / bands to connect with their fans unfiltered by big record companies and big radio, etc. It still is a must-have-a-profile site for even the biggest names in the business, due to its large user-base of fans who are already used to accessing music in these "non-traditional" online venues.
This large collection of musicians and music-lovers proved a potential rival to the success and influence of AI. Imagine for a moment, if MySpace had decided to organize its own AI-style "competition", it could have quickly cultivated a contestant-space [remember -- You are the Person Of The Year, for good reason] and created an audience that would have made AI's numbers look like the audience for an overnight infomercial on the H&G channel. Imagine further, if MySpace had partnered up with someone else who knew a thing-or-two about marketing music-and-lifestyle to young people [do I have to spell it out??? it rhymes with emteevee...] -- well, that's formidable competition right there.
Okay, so all of that bloviation gets me to what I've been thinking about today:
1) Did Rupert Murdoch buy MySpace because he saw it as his most immediate potential threat to his American Idol cash cow?
2) Was Rupert Murdoch being penny-wise-and-pound-Australian-dollar-foolish in not picking up YouTube, his longer-term, potentially-tougher threat to his American Idol cash cow?
3) If Viacom/MTVN had picked up either MySpace or YouTube when they had the chance, would Tom Freston still have a job???
Discuss...
Bonus gettin'-all-meta-meta-and-shit link: 'Idol 5' runner-up Katharine McPhee to appear on 'Lonelygirl15'
Katharine McPhee is not Kelly Clarkson.
[still waiting for the CD -- only a week-and-a-half to go...]
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
See, This Is Why You Are The Person Of The Year
So, Fall Out Boy were in Albuquerque NM on Saturday night. At one point during the show, FOB roadies were pulling people up on stage to join the band. Eventually, venue security decided that there were enough people on the stage, and one Security Dood got into a fight with a Roadie Dood over the whole thing. A near brawl ensued, and Pete Wentz himself got right in the middle of it to put a beat down on the buzz-killing Security Dood.
18-year-old Josh, a/k/a binxxxthesynister, a/k/a "You", was there and caught the action on his phone:
I Got My Ass Kicked By Someone In Fall Out Boy...
Congratulations You, you've done it again. And you've provided us with our Video Of The Day!!!
********
Which "Taking Back Sunday" song are you [not "You", but you]? According to Josh's MySpace page, he is "You're So Last Summer"...Awesome...
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
META: Area Music Blogger Gazes Into Navel With Rose-Colored Glasses, Sees Rose-Colored Lint
This is left over from the end-of-the-year holiday crush, but I'm still over the moon about the whole thing.
Like lots of bloggers, I'm always interested to know if anyone out there is actually reading my precious ramblings, or even gives two shits about them. I admit to occasionally doing a Technorati search to see if any other blogs are linking to me [currently, sadly, only my MySpace blog links over here]. And I'm always scanning through my blog to look for any comments that have appeared since my last visit. [Do I need to tell you how many comments I've received at either of my blogs? Do I???]
I know that there are people who are reading, but I have been wondering who might be reading, other than the friends and family I know about.
I recently posted [no links, peruse the archives if you're interested] and jokingly suggested that some well-known music blogger[s] may have stumbled upon my blog and may have been lurking. [BTW, I totally approve of such behavior.] I dropped in some fun "bait", hoping that might lure someone to say hello.
Recently, I received a message from someone[s] -- and I won't reveal who -- who said yes, indeed, she/he/it/them have/had been reading. This was the most exciting news I've received since I've started doing this.
So, if "you" are still reading -- and I don't mean " 'you' ", but "you know who" -- THANK YOU! Thank you for reading, and thank you for reaching out to me. You have affirmed my faith in bloggeranity, and made me the happiest blogger that I personally know.
ciaobaby
Friday, December 15, 2006
BREAKING: Country musicians decide they'd rather sell records, play concerts, live, than criticize President
And so comes the inevitable. Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long.
The National Enquirer [a highly-respected source of music-industry-insider news, of course] is reporting that the Dixie Chicks have decided to split after the Grammy Awards in February. This should be taken with a huge grain of salt, of course -- but is it telling that the Chicks have not updated their website or MySpace page with even a perfunctory denial?
I'm sure I don't need to rehash what happened to get the Chicks to this point -- but you know I will...HA!
The Chicks were the top country "group" with a substantial mainstream crossover audience and were on top of their game in 2003 when singer Natalie Maines told a London audience that she was "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." This occurred on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, when passions about the war were intense and President Bush still enjoyed substantial support, especially among the Red State voters that made up most of the Chicks fanbase. Country radio and country fans mostly boycotted the Chicks from then forward, and the Chicks all received many death threats. Three years and much career frustration later, the Chicks returned with their most critically-acclaimed CD to date and a documentary film about their harrowing ordeal, but the fans still stayed away.
According to the rumors, Chicks [and sisters] Emily Robison and Martie Maguire are tired of dealing with the controversy and the threats. Some fans have even more cynically suggested that this is all about money -- the lack of CD sales and concert revenues makes it more difficult to create and promote new music and still enjoy that "rockstar" lifestyle. Whatevs.
We all saw this endgame coming, but I'm still saddened by the rumors. I respected the Chicks for standing up for their beliefs in the face of harsh criticism. And I enjoyed their music.
I also see great irony in this outcome. If Natalie had made her statements last week, would the reaction have been so intense? Or is it more likely that the reaction would have been more like, "Speak the truth, sister!" After all, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw both slammed President Bush after Hurricane Katrina, and their 2006 tour grossed $89 million.
Timing, Natalie, it's all about timing.
* * * * *
On December 8, the Chicks found out that they were 5-time nominees for Grammy Awards. One of those nominations is for "Not Ready To Make Nice" in the "Song Of The Year" category. A defiant song about the Chicks' rough three-year rollercoaster, "Not Ready To Make Nice" is a natural for this award -- and is also a great song, BTW. How will this rumor affect the voting? Tune in February 11 to find out.
