Last night, while mining the depths of Amazon.com’s music section, I decided to check-in and see how much a brand-new copy of CHINESE DEMOCRACY was going for these days. The last time I did this two years ago, I was horrified to see that the album was going for less than $4.00 a copy. That was back on October 25 2012, would the album be selling for less than $2.00?
As you can see, the value of CHINESE DEMOCRACY was low in October of 2012. This would have been the prime opportunity to “buy low”
Thankfully for Axl, the album’s value has…increased!?
$1.22 increase! A thousand shares of CHINESE DEMOCRACY could have netted you $1220 profit! That’s simple rock ‘n roll investing, folks
I’m kicking myself for not checking the price last year and this year on October 25–not that doing that would provide a reliable barometer of the album’s value. As most of you serious online shoppers know, the prices on Amazon.com are in a constant state of flux.
And even taking Amazon’s pricing system out of the equation, CHINESE DEMOCRACY has a couple of things working against it in terms of it’s price/value. Firstly, the album was sadly panned by many critics and ignored by the public. But bad reviews and a lack of singles doesn’t necessarily make a cut-out-bin record. Even after all these years the name Guns N’ Roses as a brand still has remarkable value.
Secondly, and the biggest reason CHINESE DEMOCRACY’s value is so low is the fact that Axl twisted Best Buy’s arm and made them buy a bajillion copies in advance so they would have exclusive rights to the infamous album’s initial release. It’s a smart move on his part, because the albums Best Buy bought to sell were counted as “sold” albums, thus making the album appear to be a bigger hit than it was. AC/DC did a similar deal with Wal-Mart when they released BLACK ICE back in 2008. But there’s a downside, much the same way a Chevy Impala don’t have much re-sale value because they’re used so much as fleet cars–Axl prematurely saturated the market with albums. Thus, an abundance of unsold albums means the price is gonna drop. I can understand why bands do these store-exclusive releases, but I really dislike them. CHINESE DEMOCRACY was probably one of the last new CD’s I bought at Best Buy because I dislike the store so much.
The album’s going for just under $5.00, which isn’t great but it is higher. Of course, beyond the Amazon price-fluxing, this higher price could be due to inflation or some other over-reaching economic force I’m too stupid to understand. I’m going to definitely try to keep an eye on the album’s price for future music-geek research.
That said, at less than $5.00 there’s no excuse for you to not own this album. I’m going to pick-up where I left off on my track-by-track review of CHINESE DEMOCRACY soon-ish because I really do feel like it’s an amazing, underrated album. The merger of Industrial rock and tender piano ballads is just too incredible.
One of the true joys of being obsessed with music is the endless hunt for one’s next favorite song. This chase for new bands and songs is what keeps me going. People think I actively seek out obscure bands and songs because I’m a snob—but really I just ran out of mainstream stuff. It’s rare that I’ll hear something on the radio and not know what I’m hearing. When it happens, I get really excited and I feel like a desert wanderer who has just spotted an oasis.
I was driving to work when I heard a song on the radio that I’d never heard before. It sounded like a live Bob Marley & The Wailers track. This was at 7:09am on the morning of September 27, 2013. I know this because I did what I always do when I hear something unknown: I took out my phone and used the Shazam app. Shazam is probably my all-time favorite app, it’s great because it saves nerds like me from falling in love with a song and then never getting to hear it again.
I used the app and Shazam tells me that the song is called “Hooligan” and is taken from an album titled ONE LOVE AT STUDIO ONE. This album contains some of the earliest Bob Marley material available, which explains why I vaguely recognized Marley’s vocals but not the song. I liked “Hooligan” so I went on Spotify to see if the track was available. The ONE LOVE AT STUDIO ONE album was not on Spotify, but “Hooligan” was available on a reggae compilation titled ORIGINAL SKA. By the time I’d done this, I was sitting in the parking lot of my office building, so I bookmarked the album and went inside.
Later that day on the way home I fired up Spotify and gave “Hooligan” a listen. The track didn’t really move me the way it did earlier in the day. It was probably a different version than what I heard on the radio. Regardless, I let the compilation play and discovered it contained a pretty good cover of “Son of a Preacher Man” by a band called The Gaylettes. The sound quality was terrible, but the vibe on the track blew me away. I got home and eyed the list of songs on ORIGINAL SKA. One track stood out among all the others: “Banana.” A reggae song called “Banana,” how cool was that? My mind reeled with the possibilities. Life is full of letdowns, and I’ve learned that very little ever lives up to our expectations. Still, I had to hear this song because it had such an interesting title. I figured the song would give me a chuckle and I’d move on with my life. Instead, I stumbled onto an incredibly awesome song with a murky, mysterious past.
Rather than being the depressing banana-picking song I had expected, “Banana” is a joyous ode to everyone’s favorite elongated, yellow fruit. It’s lighthearted, fun, and has a tremendous amount of charm. I played the song over and over for a few minutes, grinning from ear to ear like a moron. “Banana” is an awesome song that I truly love. I know I love it because I can’t rationally explain my affection for it.
I played the song for my wife and the members of my family, everyone who heard it liked it. “Banana” and it’s goofy lyrics even became a kind of shorthand between my and one of my sisters. I began texting them pictures of myself eating a banana with the caption “Everybody like it!” a lyric from the song. For most people, the story would end there: I found a really cool, obscure reggae song that cheers everybody up…The End. But being the songhound that I am, I couldn’t just stop there. I had to know was there more where this came from? Did the genius that cooked up “Banana” have a really great song about blintzes? I started by looking at ORIGINAL SKA which attributes “Banana” to an artist named E.K. Bunch. I did the logical thing, I clicked over to see what other songs E.K. Bunch had available on Spotify. But this proved to be a dead-end; there was only “Banana.”
I was confident that Google would provide more clues, so I searched E.K. Bunch “Banana” song. I was directed to a couple of videos where the people had recorded the song off their old 45 copies, but there was little else. Interestingly, I noticed that the song was often attributed to E.K. Bunch/The Pyramids. This was my first clue to the origin of “Banana.” But information proved to be scare on The Pyramids, so I kept listening to “Banana” and put the search for its source on hold. I didn’t give up per say, life just got in the way: I moved 800 miles away from my home in St. Louis and Thanksgiving happened. This week, however, I found myself in a strange city with no job but with lots of time on my hands. So I decided to get to the bottom of the E.K. Bunch mystery.
A visit to the Trojan Records website explained why tracking down “Banana” was so difficult: it turns out the band behind the song went by a bunch of names (pun intended). They were The Bees, Seven Letters, The Pyramids, E.K. Bunch, Zubaba, and Symarip. That last name, Symarip, was the key to blowing the lid off the entire “Banana” mystery. Having gained a majority of their fame as Symarip, this band name is the catch-all for the others. The band started out as The Bees and was formed in the 1960s by Michael Thomas and Frank Pitter who were of West Indian descent and lived in the United Kingdom. Eventually, The Bees added members and moved to Germany.
The band became Zubaba then The Pyramids and then ended up switching labels due to a dispute and wound up unable to use their name. Someone in the band decided to change their name to Pyramid spelled backwards…minus the letter ‘d.’ Somehow this name, probably with the help of a mystical herb, morphed into Symarip. This became the name they released and re-issued their songs under. Once I had all this figured out, I went back on Spotify and found a really cool live version of “Banana” on an album titled MOONSTOMPIN’ AT CLUB SKA.
While browsing the band’s Spotify page, I noticed that Symarip had a ton of songs about skinheads. I even realized, upon re-listening to “Banana,” that skinheads are mentioned in the song! How had I missed this earlier? I was shocked and worried. I was shocked because in the United States, and unfortunately most of the world today, the term skinhead has a very negative connotation. I was worried because it appeared on the surface that my new favorite song was racists!
Apparently the term skinhead has changed meaning over the years thanks in large part to a few bad apples. The skinhead movement began in the 1950s in the UK. At that time, a skinhead was basically a kid that wore work boots and jeans and liked American R&B music. These kids got together in dance halls and listened to ska and reggae music—which is why Symarip has a ton of songs devoted to skinheads. Eventually some of the skinheads became violent in the late 1960s and the term became associated with the White Power Movement in Europe.
It’s amazing to me that a chance encounter with a really old Bob Marley song led me down a path ending with the White Power Movement. This is the amazing part of being a music geek, the discovery not only of old music…but of the past itself. Maybe I get a bigger kick out of this sort of thing because I was briefly a history major in college, I don’t know. What I do know is that I love falling down the rabbit hole into obscure music and learning all these strange tidbits of trivia.
CASE CLOSED: “Banana” is an awesome song, dashed off by an obscure reggae band that changed its name multiple times. The first thing that you should do is go and listen to the song. Then listen to it again and again, dance if necessary. Then visit Trojan records website and read the entire history of The Pyramids.
I switched radio stations recently. Radio stations, some of you might remember, are like picture-less TV stations broadcast over the air. I have a ridiculously short daily commute, but for those 10 minutes I like to rock out. For most of the 7 years that I’ve lived in St. Louis, I’ve listened to K-HITS 96 (96.3FM). I listened to them mostly because they were the first classic rock station I found on the dial. Really, that’s all it was. Turns out fate was against me: K-HITS was not the “cool” classic rock station nor is K-HITS the longest running.
That would be K-SHE 95 (94.7FM).
But, being the stubborn, tirelessly predictable sod that I am, I remained a loyal K-HITS listener until this summer. I was outside painting my house when I heard the Oasis song “Wonderwall” on K-HITS. Now, I’m a huge Oasis fan, but I was gobsmacked when I heard the 1990’s Brit-Pop legends on my local classic rock radio station. Overnight my classic rock station had been transformed into a hideous Frankenstein’s moster of vanilla formatting. No longer would their be awesome deep-cuts (or The Deep End with Nick Michaels a fantastic syndicated radio show I urge you to seek out online). Instead there would only be music from the 70’s and 80’s with a generous sprinkling of 90’s hits. The “HITS” in K-HITS was emphasized on the stations Facebook page: they were no longer to be considered a “classic” rock station.
I gave up on radio, until last week when I gave in and started listening to K-SHE. I feel like such an idiot for not switching sooner, K-SHE is the best rock radio station I’ve ever heard. Like deep cuts? K-SHE’s got ya covered, they play stuff by bands I’ve never heard of before. Like to hear albums in their entirety? K-SHE’s got ya covered, this weekend they played an entire Foo Fighters album along with a few other albums (including a new-ish live AC/DC record). Hate hearing the same song over and over? K-SHE’s library is huge and they never repeat a song.
And then there is Sweetmeat, the stations lovable badass mascot. You can see him at local St. Louis concerts, on T-Shirts, and now you can even find him on your beer. Tonight I drank a special beer made by local St. Louis brewery Six Row Brewery called “Sweetmeat’s Real Rock Ale.” Sure, it’s really just the company’s Whale Ale (wheat ale) but it’s got that badass little piggie on the label.
Such a handsome pig…oh, and Sweetmeat ain’t half bad either.
I’m notorious for always picking the losing horse (or whatever) so K-SHE should be very, very worried that I’m their latest fan. Until they go under, get bought out, get sold, or change format you should check ’em out. They stream online…
Atlanta indie rockers Gringo Star released two new songs last week. You know what that means…there’s gonna be a new album next year! I’m excited because I absolutely loved the band’s last record THANK YER LUCK Y STARS. I was a bit troubled to learn that the band lost a member and are now just a three-piece, however the new songs are really great. Apparently the band’s been writing, recording, and producing all their new songs by themselves which is always intriguing.
The two new songs, “Going Way Out” and “Taller” are just as catchy and murky as the songs on THANK YER LUCKY STARS. I especially like “Going Way Out” which is a cross between a gloomy Dick Dale song and John Lennon’s “#9 Dream.”The band’s official website promises a new album in early 2013 and a tour! Hopefully they’ll swing by St. Louis so I can properly check them out.
When I was an awkward teenager, staring the oblivion of adulthood in the face, I made a list of dream jobs I wanted to have. Not serious careers I could have: these were the fun jobs I’d hold before I graduated from college. I came up with three:
Work in a bookstore.
Work in a record store.
Be a security guard.
I’ve always loved books and music, so bookstore and record store were pretty obvious choices for me. The security guard thing was a mixture of curiosity and the fact that my granddad had worked as a guard for a Pinkerton. Shortly after graduating from High School I started living all my wildest dreams when I got a job at a small bookstore. It was fantastic, I was quickly promoted to assistant manager AND I got to take books home and read them. Not that it mattered I got to read books for free, I still spent 2/3 of my meager wage on books. But like all good things, my time at the bookstore didn’t last very long, five months into my tenure there Barnes & Noble decided to close our store a few weeks after Christmas. The dream was over.
Sadly, I never got a chance to work in a record shop. The closest I came was when Barnes & Noble closed my small bookstore and offered me a job at one of their mega-chainstores (where they sell music in addition to everything else). I didn’t take the job because as they offered it to me they told me I’d probably hate it, having worked in a small, customer-centric store. The idea of working in a “section” of a store as opposed to the whole thing wasn’t very appealing. Working in small shop is great because it forces you to learn about stuff you’d otherwise never encounter. I’m an expert of children’s literature and Christian Romance novels for this very reason.
Who’d have thought working in a record store would be just as unrealistic of a goal as being a novelist or astronaut? I guess I even suck at picking small, attainable goals, too. Working in a small record store never happened for me mostly because, even back in 2004 when I lost my bookstore job, there weren’t very many record stores left. I think right now there are only three or four in St. Louis where I live now, which is crazy considering how many people live here. Sometimes when I’m at work, sitting at my desk, I fantasize about working at a record shop. The stocking of shelves; the rambling discussions with co-workers and customers about obscure British b-sides. Maybe we’d have a company blog where I could offer recommendations or a podcast where I could breath heavily into the microphone whilst reading off my Top 10 albums of the year.
A few years ago I saw a really great documentary called I NEED THAT RECORD! which was all about the struggles of independent record shops. The entire time I watched I could think of nothing but getting a second mortgage on my house (alá GHOSTBUSTERS) and buying a shitty little hole-in-the-wall in some stripmall where I could sell water-damaged vinyl to bearded dudes in Sonic Youth t-shirts. What does it say about me that I’d willingly enter into crippling debt to sit around all day peddling dusty albums?
The really sad part is, at this stage in my life I’d probably be willing to pay them for the privilege of working in a record store. Like one of those balding, middle-aged men who pay Pete Townshend and that guy from Boston to teach them basic guitar at one of those Rock ‘N Roll Fantasy camps. Maybe in a few years TLC or A&E will do a reality show where overweight music bloggers get to live out their fantasy of working in a record shop: Gene Simmons Presents…So You Wanna Work in Rock Retail?
Once again tragedy, a preventable tragedy in my opinion, has struck the United States. Every time this happens I wonder how much longer we’ll allow the madness that is our gun laws to continue.
Anyway, this is a music blog, so I’m just gonna let XTC do all my talking for me, they had the right idea way back in 1982:
One of the best parts of starting this blog has been all the new friends I’ve made. One of the first regular rock-blogs I bookmarked (after my own) was Every Record Tells A Story. I’ve always been jealous of that name, because I think it’s so true. Whereas I’m a neurotic, weekend-warrior, my friend over at ERTAS is the real-deal. His posts are both plentiful and of the highest quality, which is a rare in the blog-o-sphere.
When a blogging award was justly bestowed upon his site, he singled out Defending Axl Rose as one of 5 he enjoys. For me there could be no higher honor, because I really admire the work that he does over at Every Record Tells A Story. For spreading the love around to me and my humble blog, I thank him.
The question was asked “What is the most embarrassing record you own?” and I didn’t have to think very hard OR very long to come up with a response. Would you believe that the most embarrassing record I own is SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND? No, not the good one…
The greatest songs of all-time splattered with the worst shit of the 70s.
The truth, it is often said, is stranger than fiction. The strange tale of Jimmy “Orion” Ellis is one of the stories that’s so bizarre it can only be real. Showbiz is a creepy place, filled with unsavory characters that basically earn a living preying on the dreams of vulnerable people. This story begins with the death of a legend: on August 16, 1977 the King of Rock ‘n Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley died in his Tennessee mansion.
Jimmy Ellis was born ten years after Elvis in 1945, in Mississippi. Ironically, Jimmy’s mother was named Gladys—the same name as Elvis’ mother. Jimmy was blessed (or cursed depending on how you look at it) with a voice that sounded nearly identical to the King of Rock. While Elvis was alive, Ellis struggled to make it as a singer who just happened to sound exactly like the world’s biggest music star. One of his early single’s was actually called “I’m Not Trying To Be Like Elvis.”
A record produced named Shelby Singleton bought the legendary Sun Records in 1969 from Sam Phillips. Sun Records is the recording studio/label where Elvis first hit it big. In strange move, Singleton signed Jimmy Ellis to his Sun Records. The first thing Singleton did was to release two Elvis covers that Ellis had recorded back in 1972, “That’s Alright Mama” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” Singleton was no fool, though, he knew that people wouldn’t really be interested in hearing some unknown singer from Mississippi re-record two Elvis songs—no matter how much he sounded like the King—so Singleton had the songs released with a question mark on the cover. Thus neither Elvis nor Ellis was credited for the songs, though it was just an unsavory marketing gimmick, the releases fueled growing speculation that Elvis was, in fact, not dead. This trick was used again on a Jerry Lee Lewis duets album, in which Ellis sang with Jerry Lee on “Save the Last Dance for Me.” Again, no credits were attributed to either Elvis or Ellis leaving many to think that the King had somehow magically come back from the dead to sing.
The biggest mystery surrounding Orion? Where he got that snazzy mask.
So far this is pretty incredible story, right? Can you believe I haven’t even told you the weird part yet? I often wondered why exactly people love to believe that Elvis is still alive. I’m sure that a lot of it has to do with the disbelief that such an amazing talent could really, truly be gone. When our heroes die it reminds us all of our own mortality, and some people can’t really handle that I guess. But what I find so incredible about the myth/legend surrounding Elvis’ death is that all of these tales spread and grew before the Internet. Mass media as we know it was still in its infancy, how were these tales of Elvis’ life-after-death spread? Unscrupulous businessmen like Shelby Singleton no doubt helped to stoke the fires of conspiracy enthusiasts/despondent Elvis fans, but can you believe it was a housewife from Georgia that kicked the Elvis-is-Alive phenomenon off?
When the king died in 1977, Gail Brewer-Giorgio wrote a book about a Southern rock singer who decided to escape from the limelight by faking his own death. The name of the book? ORION. In the book the singer wears a mask on stage to cover his face, which is what Jimmy Ellis started to do when he performed on stage under the name Orion. Putting on the mask was no doubt so that people in the audience were left guessing whether or not Ellis was Elvis, however the strange part is that Jimmy Ellis never said he was Elvis. He also wasn’t an Elvis impersonator; the songs he sang were for the most part songs that weren’t Elis songs. Amazingly, Ellis charted 9 times on the country music charts as Orion. In 1981 Cash Box Magazine (a magazine dedicated to the coin-operated music industry) named Orion one of three most promising country music acts.
By 1983, Ellis was weary of the Orion act and wanted to be taken seriously as an artist. During a live appearance he angrily took off his mask and refused to put it on again. Despite being a talented singer and having achieved moderate success in the world of country music, Orion’s career never recovered. The cat was truly out of the bag: Jimmy Ellis was Orion not Elvis Presley. Ellis left Sun Records and pretty much faded from the music biz. On December 12, 1998 Jimmy Ellis was murdered in his Alabama pawnshop during a robbery gone bad.
I cannot believe someone has not made the story of Jimmy Ellis into a film because it has all the makings of a really great movie. Perhaps there have been attempts to bring Ellis’ story to the big screen but they’ve failed due to the outlandish nature of his story. I know I was skeptical when I first heard all of this. Orion’s musical career had the negative side effect of helping to keep Elvis Presley off of US postage stamps. The rule for celebrities/public figures to appear on United States postage is that they must be dead for at least 10 years—the uncertainty created by Orion and conspiracy theorists kept Elvis’ image from appearing on US postage until 1993.
Orion’s 1979 album REBORN is available on Spotify and I’ve been listening to it trying to figure out if it’s the single greatest or worst thing. It’s one thing to be inspired by or influenced by a singer or band…but Orion is another thing entirely. Musically, I guess you could call Orion a tribute act but even that feels wrong. A lot of people have made millions of dollars off of Elvis and his tragic death; most of them are vultures, parasites of the music industry. I can’t really put Jimmy Ellis into that category though. True he was complicit in a sort-of-conspiracy that in hindsight seems really tacky, but he was also a victim. Dreams are a powerful carrot, and people will do strange and terrible things to achieve them. I can’t fault Ellis for trying to make it as a singer, by any means necessary.
I think the ultimate irony would be if someone out there started performing as Orion. But that would just be crazy, right?
I saw the latest James Bond movie, SKYFALL, this weekend and boy is it a doozy. After the disappointing QUANTUM OF SOLACE (stupid Writer’s Strike), the Bond producers wisely pulled out all the stops to make sure that SKYFALL was top-to-bottom brilliant. Oscar Winning Director Sam Mendes brings his usual confident, steady hand (not to mention cinematographer) to the proceedings and manages to do the impossible: make a 50 year-old movie series seem fresh and relevant.
Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang Bang.
There are a lot of criticisms one can lob at a Bond movie, but for me the first thing that either pleases or disappoints is the theme song. The last two films in the long-running film franchise have had less-than-stellar songs…in fact, even though I’m a pretty big Bond fan, I had to go look up what the last two songs were in order to write this post. CASINO ROYALE, a fantastic reboot of the Bond series was shackled with the boring, unimaginative song “You Know My Name” by Soundgarden/Audioslave-mope Chris Cornell. Besides being overly-generic, the song had nothing to do with the movie. I know that these films usually have ridiculous, impossible to use-in-a-song titles…but “You Know My Name” wasn’t able to tie in any way to the film: weak-sauce.
Speaking of ridiculous titles: QUANTUM OF SOLACE. As a Bond fan, I like to pretend that this film doesn’t even exist. This isn’t a film blog, so I’ll spare you all my armchair analysis, suffice to say during the middle of the movie I turned to my wife and whispered: “I am so bored right now. This is boring me.” There is nothing worse that can be said about a film than it’s boring. “Another Way To Die,” the film’s theme song isn’t boring in the least. In fact, a little boring might have been a good thing for the Alicia Keys/Jack White duet. The song is pairing of two really great artists who really do not go together well. The track is overstuffed and Jack’s fuzzy guitar, usually an asset, detracts from the proceedings because a Bond theme song is not supposed to be down and dirty or indie rock it’s supposed to be glamorous and high class.
Ever since Paul McCartney & Wings excellent “Live and Let Die,” the Bond producers have chased that elusive dragon: a theme song that’s both good for the film AND a massive pop hit. As a result, a lot of really cheesy bands have contributed theme songs over the years that now seem a head-scratch worthy. How could we have grown as a culture had Lulu, Rita Coolidge, and Sheena Easton not been allowed the honor of performing Bond themes (?). If you are a little fuzzy on who Lulu or Rita Coolidge are, it’s okay: they’re musical footnotes.
Sometimes flash-in-the-pan stars put out decent theme songs, like a-ha’s “The Living Daylights” for Timothy Dalton’s first outing as Bond (THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS). And let me go on record as saying that Duran Duran’s “A View To A Kill” is 1,000% better than the film A VIEW TO A KILL. But did we really need a Sheryl Crow or Garbage Bond theme? And do you even remember what songs they did? I didn’t.
Which brings me to Adele’s song “Skyfall.” SKYFALL has so many good things that by the time it was over I had (nearly) forgotten how good the theme song was. “Skyfall” is a great example of how to do a Bond theme song right. Just grabbing any popular artist of the moment and having them turn in a song isn’t the way to go. Instead, a real singer was hired. Adele is an amazing singer. She’s also a very talented song writer! Taking a glance back at Bond themes of yesterday, I can’t help but notice that many were written by composer John Berry and not the act performing the song.
Adele’s “Skyfall” works not only because she’s such a good singer-songwriter, but because her style of music fits with the elegant, glamorous world of the Bond films. She’s a classy artist who’s song will sound just as classy tomorrow, or even ten years, as she sounds today. Maybe the song is a little old-fashioned, but I guarantee it’ll hold up infinitely better than a song like Gladys Knight’s “License To Kill” or Madonna’s “Die Another Day.” I’m not sure if “Skyfall” is going to be a smash #1 hit, but it’s a great song that isn’t boring to sit through AND just as important doesn’t embarrass the franchise. Which, let’s face it, has a lot to be embarrassed about (I’m looking at you Roger Moore).
Oddly enough, all of this makes me think about Amy Winehouse. Winehouse was the #1 pick of both fans and the film’s producers to do a Bond theme. She was rumored to have been approached to perform the theme song for QUANTUM OF SOLACE, but it wasn’t to be. I remember when Adele first broke a few years ago, the first comparison made was to Amy Winehouse. The two are alike in many ways: both are women whose style is very much rooted in classic pop/jazz standards. Both wrote really personal, really good songs. Both were given amazing, powerful voices that don’t, on the surface seem to really fit their bodies. But whereas Adele is down to Earth and grounded, Winehouse was a complete and utter wreck.
Winehouse and Adele actually remind me a lot of Bond and SKYFALL’s villain Raoul Silva. Silva is a former MI6 agent gone bad, he’s essentially an evil Mirror Universe version of Bond. I think that Adele is the white knight version of Amy Winehouse’s dark knight. I don’t mean to say that Adele is good and Amy Winehouse is bad, just that they’re different sides of the same coin. Adele is like the Winehouse who didn’t succumb to her fame: or Winehouse is Adele who did.
After the movie I had trouble thinking about anything else besides this strange irony. Winehouse was never able to do a Bond theme, even though she seemed so well suited for it. Then SKYFALL comes out and there is Adele, doing a theme song that’s the best one in years. I feel like there should be a term for when art and life collide so perfectly.
The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino has yanked down a city-wide ad for the historic (sorta) Guns ‘N Roses concerts taking place in Las Vegas this month after a bunch of anger/complaints from the citizens of Las Vegas. The poster, which incorporates artwork from painter Robert Williams* bizarre sci-fi painting titled “Appetite for Destruction,” has a lecherous robot in a compromising position with a defenseless, splayed woman. Oh, and her shirt is ripped open and her panties are around her ankles. You know, typical Disney stuff.
This is not the first time that the band’s use of this painting has caused controversy. Back in 1987, retailers refused to stock GNR’s debut album APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION because Axl & Company wanted to use it as the cover art. In the end, the band fell to label pressure and alternate artwork was used. The painting is more batshit-stupid than rocking. At least, that’s my opinion. I don’t understand GNR’s continued insistence on using it to represent themselves, to be honest.
I’m astounded that the bean counters over at the Hard Rock actually agreed to run the ads. What better way to convince people that your brand is fun for the whole family than a leering, rape-y robot? To be clear, I hate this painting and I wish GNR/Axl would get over their massive hard-on for it...however Las Vegas is known the world-over as “Sin City.” We’re not talking about Orlando, Florida or Branson, Missouri. We’re talking about the smutty-ist, gambling capital of the country. A place where shady looking dudes hand out flyers of chicks you can legally pay to know (like in the Biblical sense).
I can’t imagine the ad was the most misogynistic thing the fanny-pack wearing masses of Las Vegas are being subjected to in a city where selling women is mostly legal. I was recently in Times Square and that place was stuffed to the gills with super-porny clothing ads. I know it’s not the same because none of the Gap ads were violent, but as we all know sex sells and this shit is everywhere these days. Again, I’m not saying I think this ad should be plastered at the airport, welcoming families to Las Vegas (which it was), but I think Las Vegas needs to check itself. I mean, this is Las Vegas we’re talking about. And this poster is a drawing. It doesn’t depict actual human beings, unlike the prostitute ads.
In the end, I can’t help but think that this is just a publicity stunt. This controversy was not only foreseen but wanted, I suppose to generate interest in the concerts and get us all talking–in which case: mission accomplished. Las Vegas should take a long look in the mirror and GNR should put “Appetite for Destruction” (the painting) to rest.
Defending Axl Rose 