I am a fan of American Idol. I've watched every season except for the first one. And I've noticed that things have gone downhill since the days of Carrie Underwood. (Then again, how could things not go downhill after her? Have you seen her? Have you heard her sing? She's amazing. That's when the show peaked.) And while I can remember some of the past contestants, I'm not so great at remembering the acts that they've had during the past seasons. But I have noticed something about the finales.
The finale the other night had on such guest stars as Neil Diamond, Chaka Khan, John Fogerty and Reba McEntire. Aerosmith even showed up an played a set. (Jennifer Lopez did a song as well. I don't really remember what she sang because I was too busy trying to figure out why she was wearing sparkly MC Hammer pants.) There was also a tribute song to Robin Gibb. (If you're going to have tribute songs during a celebratory finale of something, can't you at least make it an upbeat song? Why must every remembrance tune be some slow and schmaltzy that just takes all the wind out of your sails? Though I am willing to concede that for the recently departed Robin Gibb, playing Stayin' Alive, while upbeat and likely his most famous song, would have probably been slightly inappropriate. At the very least, ironically uncomfortable.) And as I'm watching these dogs and ponies get trotted out onto the stage, I began to wonder if they were going to have anyone out there who was under sixty.
What is the fascination with ancient music stars being brought out for the American Idol finale? They always do it and I always don't get it. And they wonder why their ratings are dropping? How about not catering to the 50 and over crowd during the shows? Considering that the main audience is the 18-49 demographic and the main voting demographic is teenage girls and family members of contestants, I'm not so sure that they're doing themselves any favors by bringing Neil Diamond on stage. Don't get me wrong. I love me some Neil Diamond. But I just don't think that he's exactly a fit for American Idol.
There were more age appropriate to American Idol acts that were at the finale. Rihanna did her thing, whatever that's called. (I'm not a Rihanna fan. The only reason that I would consider going to see the Battleship movie is if I knew that she got killed in it. That would make it worthwhile for me.) And I think that Jordin Sparks sang. Jordin Sparks, if you aren't familiar, was the last American Idol winner that wasn't a WGWG. That's White Guy With Guitar to you. But other than those two, and the already rejected American Idol wannabes from this season (one of whom I did not recognize at all and had no recollection of him ever being on the show, let alone singing), it was a senior citizen fest. All they needed was a shuffleboard court painted on the stage and it would have been like an old folks home up there.
And I keep reading about how the ratings are down from previous seasons. Well, of course they are! American Idol had massive, massive ratings there for a while. Phenomenal would be one way of putting it. Of course they're going to go down eventually. And even though they're down, they're still higher than (from what I can tell) all of the scripted shows that are out there. So while I don't think that they should be that worried right now, if they keep inviting the elderly to sing on their show, then maybe there will be cause for worry. Actually, I think that I'd be more worried that they have this successful show and they don't seem to know how to cater to their target demographic. Then again, I guess with the ratings that they get, maybe they don't need to cater to anyone. Other than the elderly, from what I can tell.
The 49ers play today. The last time that the 49ers were in the NFC Championship game, it was 1994. So while I have technically been waiting for this game for the past week, theoretically, I have been waiting for this game for the past eighteen years. And I don't want to do anything to jinx it. I'm just going to have happy thoughts. And what better way to induce happy thoughts than a golden retriever who likes guitar music. Behold! (And please win.)
I'm currently watching the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve spectacle and I think that it might be highly entertaining. I'm not sure, though. They keep showing clips from the New Year's Rockin' Eve performances from years gone by. Rick Springfield. Hall and Oates. Boy George when he was with Culture Club and was not on heroin. (Well, wasn't getting arrested for being on heroin at least.) The Go-Go's. It's interesting, but I think that I'd like it better if they juxtaposed pictures of how those folks are looking these days against their performances that they made back in their hey day. In fact, I think that's such a great idea that I'm just going to go ahead and do it in advance for some of the acts that are performing tonight. Behold! And happy new year!
Does your cat need a theme song? What about some opening credits? You know, for the cat's non-existent TV show? Well, some guy has gone ahead and done just that. It doesn't hurt that his cat's name is Steve McQueen. It also doesn't hurt that the music is from the opening credits of MacGyver. It's amusing. And amusement never hurts.
I do believe that I have stumbled upon the worst Christmas song ever. And I'm sure you have your guesses, but I feel fairly confident in saying that none of your choices will include this one. And believe me, it was hard to choose between this one and any of Bob Dylan's Christmas songs which seem to include an ample amount of lung butter being regurgitated when he sings them. (Who thought a Bob Dylan Christmas album was a good idea? It is an awful piece of....music. It scares small children and some adults, like me.) But I'm comfortable with my choice for a couple of reasons. Reason One: It's by John Denver. Who would have thought that the guy who played Gilligan would also record a Christmas song? (What's that? That was Bob Denver? Huh. Sooo...John Denver was...the guy who thought he was such a big shot that he didn't need to make sure he had enough gas in his plane? Is that him? OK, now I'm with you!) Reason One (now that I know who I'm talking about): It's by John Denver. Who would have thought that the late bespectacled American crooner would be capable of putting out a terrible Christmas song. He tends to have a rather soothing voice. Though more than a couple songs in a row and I kind of want to claw my ears off.
Reason Two: The lyrics are absolutely depressing. They're not melancholy or wistful holiday prose that makes you think back to the Christmases of yore with fond memories of those Norman Rockwell-esque times. No, they remind you that your dad is a drunk and he gets drunk on holidays and last Christmas, he fell down under the Christmas tree and made your mom cry! HOW is that even considered a Christmas song and not some sort of Yuletide suicide anthem?!
The song is entitled "Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)" and it's just like what it sounds like. It's supposed to be a little almost-eight-year old boy who is pleading with his father to not get drunk like he did last year when he fell under the Christmas tree and the little boy had to see his mom cry at the sight of her lush of a husband rolling on the floor on the day of the celebration of the birth of Christ!
I've included the song below and the lyrics below that. Please don't blow your head off after listening to it. It's not a very Christmas-y thing to do.
This is clearly the worst cover "band" on the planet. And if any of their other songs that they "play" are anything like this one, they're moving closer toward the worst band on the planet, period. I realize that I'm using the term "band" loosely, as they're absolutely horrible. Towards the end, the look on the singer's face makes me realize that even he knows they couldn't place last at a 4th grade talent show.
If the video below doesn't play, you can try clicking here to watch it over at YouTube.
Mock all you want. You know who you are. (Yes, YOU.) So go ahead and mock. All you want (as I just said). Mock, mock, mock. But there won't be any mocking of the facts. That's right. The facts! And the facts are, the Guitar Hero franchise is a freaking money making machine! Ah-HA! I knew it! I knew I wasn't the only one who played that damn thing. (How many hours of my life have I spent on that thing? Who knows? All I know is that it is time I will never get back. Ever. It's gone. And was it worth it? Hell, yes.)
I knew the whole Guitar Hero thing was huge, but I didn't know just how huge. In the past 12 months, the sale of music video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band hit $1.9 billion. Yes, billion with a 'B'. Billion. 1.9. Holy crap. And get this: According to the pop culture folks over there at PopEater, "Aerosmith made more money off the June release of "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" than either of its last two albums." June. Of 2008. That's six freaking months ago! Man, if the Federal Government could figure out somehow to weasel their way into the video game industry, that budget problem we keep hearing about? Solved! And not just solved. Solved and fun!
And the revenue fun doesn't stop with just the sale of the game. Oh, no. There have been 55 million times that game-playable songs have been downloaded to the tune of about $1.99. Each. And with all of this cash and the fame and glory naturally comes the bitching and the lawsuit filing. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily by the same person.
In what was quite possibly the stupidest lawsuit ever brought by a band against a video game maker (and I have no idea how many there have been, but it doesn't matter because this will continue to the the stupidest lawsuit of its kind (ie, band v. game guys) from now until the end of time. It's that ridiculous.), The Romantics sued Activision for infringement of rights. (Now, I know The Romantics were an 80s band, but was there really that much fringe?) Oh, they had licensed the song from The Romantics, sure. Activision was given permission to have a cover band do the song "What I Like About You" for the Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s game. The problem? The Romantics said that the song that the cover band recorded sounded too much like The Romantics did, thus allegedly infringing upon the group's rights to its own likeness.
Sure, you can record our song! Sure, make it sound like our song! Hey, wait a minute! Not that much!! That's not us!! We don't sound like that! We sound like this! Yes, we know they sound the same. But they're different! That's the point! Different is supposed to be different and that different is the same and it can't be the same because it's supposed to be different! You buying any of that? I didn't think so. A judge didn't buy it either and tossed their suit out. (The only thing that would have made it better is if the judge had tossed The Romantics right on out along with the suit.)
Then there's Axl Rose. Axl has spent the last 13 years working on a Guns N' Roses album titled "Chinese Democracy". That's correct. Thirteen years. It was finally released at the end of November to much less fanfare than it would have been released to if Axl had finished it about 12 years ago. And he's apparently built up quite a head of steam over the folks at Activision and what he claims is unauthorized usage of Guns N' Roses songs in Guitar Hero III (which featured Slash, the awesome guitar player for Guns N' Roses back in the day. "The day" being when the band was together and Axl and Slash could actually stand to be in the same room with each other and shoot up heroin together.).
Axl got a little bloggy with it the other day and penned this missive: "[Slash] being Guitar Hero’s fine but not when Activision in using Jungle, having Yahoo use Sweet Child unauthorized, claims no involvement with Slash, his or anyone's image or VR or anyone or anyone's music in either camp in promotion or commercials etc. I wasn't broadsided. I read about it as it moved along but Activision continually denied it right up to the release. That’s some low life chicanery on all their parts." Wow. I was just reading that in my head and it felt like my tongue was all fuzzy trying to get through it. (He does get points for the use of "chicanery", however. Very nice. I like a vast vocabulary in my nearly forgotten rockers of yester-year.) He continued (Yes! There's more!) with: "Yes Slash was in Guns and on Jungle (and the whole I came to him for his riff is as much crap as him saying he brought Locomotive and Coma in as complete songs) and he has rights to perform it but not to be represented in this context in association with Guns. And since they weren't granted the license it’ll take some sorting." I see. (My tongue's all fuzzy again.)
Axl also claims that he is the "only member" of Guns N' Roses that is left. Um, wait. If you're the only one left, that means that everyone else is gone, correct? Thus, wouldn't that constitute the band being dismantled and having, thusly, NO members? I found that amusing. It's like saying, "Our band broke up, but I'm still here." That doesn't mean you're still the band! But here's the thing: This is the first time that Axl has voiced his displeasure with the whole dealio. Just now. December, 2008. Guitar Hero III was released in December. December 2007!
Seriously, Axl, how upset can you be? It's been a year. Is this news to you? I can't imagine that it is. I guess now that the ol' album is finally done you have plenty of spare time to bitch about stuff, is that it? Perhaps spend just a few moments learning a tad bit more about the English language and how to compose a sentence. Don't get me wrong, all of your words made sense...independently of each other. But stringing them together in an attempt to form some sort of a coherent sentence? Not so good. Might want to work on that....right after you get over yourself.
And while Axl has no reason to bitch, I do. Sometimes things that are successful also get a little full of themselves. Just like Axl. And while I'm not comparing the two or justifying either one, I just have to ask, what in the hell were the folks over there at Guitar Hero thinking when they made all of their advertisements for the game center around Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" and then did not include the song in the game?! What is wrong with you people? What good does that do? Yes, it's a catchy tune! Yes, a lot of people like it! Yes, a lot of people will hear that and want to buy the game! But do you know why they would want to buy the game after hearing that song? Because they will think the song is IN the game!! What part of that concept got lost over there, Guitar Hero guys?
What if you went to the grocery store and you bought a box of Cheerios because those toasty oaty O's on the front of the box looked really tasty. (OK, for this example, I suppose you might also want to pretend you haven't eaten in a few days, because I really can't think of any other reason that Cheerios might look appetizing, let alone desirable.) And then I get the box home and I open it up and I'm all excited for the Cheerios and I go to pour them in my bowl and nothing comes out! By not putting "Old Time Rock and Roll" on the actual Guitar Hero World Tour game, it's exactly like not getting any Cheerios. Exactly. Well, minus the toasty oaty goodness of the O's. But other than that? Identical.
What is the fascination with ancient music stars being brought out for the American Idol finale? They always do it and I always don't get it. And they wonder why their ratings are dropping? How about not catering to the 50 and over crowd during the shows? Considering that the main audience is the 18-49 demographic and the main voting demographic is teenage girls and family members of contestants, I'm not so sure that they're doing themselves any favors by bringing Neil Diamond on stage. Don't get me wrong. I love me some Neil Diamond. But I just don't think that he's exactly a fit for American Idol. 
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