Winnipeg Free Press - December 18/08
Kayne West has had a rough couple weeks. Although he sold more copies in the first week of his album, 808s and Heartbreak, than Axl Rose did of Guns N’ Roses’ long-awaited opus, Chinese Democracy, Stephen Colbert has taken a couple of well places shots at the hip hop star, West’s collection of morse Auto-tuned ballads hasn’t really been that well received and he has been criticized for under-delivering for the second time on Saturday Night Live. Axl on the other hand, has stayed out of the media since his album failed to take over the rock world, declining all interview requests and avoiding the limelight. Although, in strange twist Kayne-like twist, the reclusive frontman has started to trolling GNR message boards, responding to questions about his relationship with past band members, when the video for Better will be released and plans for songs left off Chinese Democracy.
“Both performers intend their albums to be received as masterworks of ‘capital A’ Art. West has paved the way for ‘808s’ with talk of his compulsion to make ‘pop art’ and his desire to take hip-hop to the level of the Beatles, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin” writes Simon Reynold in Salon.com. “Guns N’ Roses, of course, always aimed to enter the pantheon of classic rock, signposting their ambition with ballsy, overblown covers of songs by Bob Dylan, the Sex Pistols and Paul McCartney and attempting to top the success of ‘Appetite for Destruction’ with the hubris and gigantism of ‘Use Your Illusion I’ and ‘II’. ‘Chinese Democracy’ and ‘808s & Heartbreak’ are each full of rage and anguish, of the sort you’d half-think megastars would be able to pay somebody else to feel on their behalf: Axl strikes typically embattled, I-won’t-change-for-you (and certainly won’t speed up my work-rate) postures, while West’s torment emerges out of romantic pain and ‘It’s lonely at the top’ self-pity.”
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Video Blogs
Everybody is a blogger these days, from basketball star Shaquille O’neal to pop princess Britney Spears. Former SNL star Jimmy Fallon is stepping in front of the camera for a series of vblogs leading up to the premier of his new show on March 2/09. The hyper comedian will be taking over Conan O’Brien’s slot when Conan moves to over to host the Tonight Show. Fallon’s first video blog didn’t do much more than introduce some of the writers of the show and his new house band, popular hip hop group, The Roots. Unfortunately, Fallon’s first blog came across like an extended commercial for the show, hopefully this will change over the next couple months or it could be a long and boring run up to the launch of his new show.
clerk dogs
There are a bunch of different online movie recommendation tools (What to Rent, Movie Lense, Criticker) to chose from. Boasting an impressive 5000 titles at the time of the beta launch, clerk dogs is driven behind the scenes by former movie store clerks. With clerk dogs, you aren’t going to get some fancy meta algorithm developed by hundreds of coders, but you will get 20 real recommendations from people who live and breath movies.
