Entries from June 2009 ↓

So will it be “Thriller” or The Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.” selling the most copies this week?  Early estimates have “Thriller” as well as two of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits CD’s selling about 100,000 copies EACH this week!  The Peas, who had the #1 CD two weeks ago, are estimated to have sold a similar number this week as well (Jonas Brothers, who had last week’s #1, evidently dropped off a bit this week).  How cool would that be to have “Thriller” back at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart as one last tribute to the entertainer?  It was the #1 selling album in the country for an incredible 37 weeks back in 1983-84!  We’ll find out the official totals and rankings tomorrow (Wednesday), but here’s the problem… ”Thriller” is not eligible to chart on the Top 200 Albums chart anymore!  Lame!  Billboard, the magazine that prints all the music charts, actually has a separate chart for older CD’s called Top Catalog Albums, which is where “Thriller”, as well as many other MJ albums, should dominate the Top 10.  But if it sells more than The Black Eyed Peas, I don’t see why it couldn’t be put back on the main chart!  This is obviously a very rare occurence, where an old album actually sells enough copies to place on the regular albums chart, but evidently Billboard is going to abide by their rules, and not make an exception for MJ.  So even if “Thriller” actually sells more copies than any other CD in the country this week, it sadly won’t be #1 on the Top 200.  And that’s kind of a bummer.

So there I was last Thursday having a late lunch in the Santa Cruz hills, enjoying the beautiful view of Monterrey Bay, when my cell phone rings and my friend tells me that Michael Jackson is dead.  I had just gotten into town and was beginning what was supposed to be a relaxing few days vacation on the beach, when it dawned on me that I was going to miss out on being on the radio on one of the biggest, albeit saddest, days in music history.  I don’t intend that selfishly at all, but having grown up enjoying much of Michael Jackson’s music like most of you, I would have been honored to be able to discuss and remember his life and music on the radio with everybody that day.  Instead, from now on Santa Cruz and Michael Jackson will be forever linked in my mind, because even while on vacation, that story would dominate my next few days there.  I found it a little peculiar sharing Michael Jackson moments with the hippie crowd which frequents the Santa Cruz area, a group of people I wouldn’t normally peg as being big MJ fans.  For instance, on Friday night I was enjoying a milkshake at a late-night diner which was playing nothing but MJ over their speakers, and noticed that even the rastafarian types there were bobbing their heads and smiling and singing along to Thriller, The Way You Make Me Feel, and Wanna Be Startin’ Something.  But I think that’s exactly why Michael Jackson was so immensely popular, because his music really appealed to so many different and diverse types of people.  I imagine that just about everyone over the age of 14 can name at least one MJ song, which is very unusual for an artist that hasn’t had a legitimate hit in as many years. 

My first memory of Michael Jackson was during the Thriller album years.  I was too young to be interested in pop music at that point, but I was vaguely aware of his name because an older friend of the family that I knew had the Thriller cassette tape, but had to hide it from his parents because they didn’t want him listening to it.  Some things never change!  By the time the Bad album (CD’s were available by then, but I didn’t have a CD player yet, haha!) came out in 1987, I was just starting to listen to the radio and did like some of his songs, Smooth Criminal in particular.  Man In The Mirror, one of my fave MJ tunes now, was also on that album, but I recall not particularly liking that one as a kid.  It’s funny how your attitude toward songs can change as you grow up a bit.  I also remember what a big deal each new Michael Jackson video was back then.  MTV would always make a huge deal about the premiere of one of his new videos, which were generally more like short films, often about 10 minutes long.  And whenever MTV would count down their Top 100 videos all of time, Thriller would always be #1.  I wonder when MTV stopped doing those countdowns?  Most likely in the mid-90’s I would imagine, when they stopped playing videos altogether! 

The 90’s weren’t so friendly to MJ.  The sexual molestation allegations hit, and his songs just weren’t as good as they were in the 80’s.  Black Or White was definitely a classic from his Dangerous CD in 1991 (yes, I had a CD player by then!), and he had a few more hits off of that album, but those aren’t the ones we love to hear these days like his previous material.  By this time he was starting to have lots of plastic surgery, he got married, got divorced, got married again, had more plastic surgery, and began mixing up babies in petrie dishes.  At the point he hit the Top 10 for the final time of his career, 1995’s You Are Not Alone, his strange behavior was definitely outweighing his musical successes in the public eye.  And that’s sad. I guess that means if you’re in your twenties or younger, and started following MJ’s career in the 90’s, you know him more for being a freak or a child molester than for being a legitimate pop star.  But did he really molest those young boys?  I have no idea of course, but keep in mind he was never convicted of the charges against him.  And it seems to me if your kids were really violated in such a manner, you as parents would want the offender to be pronounced guilty and sent to jail as opposed to just paid off financially.  But who really knows?  Now that Michael Jackson has passed, I hope people can separate the music from the man and really appreciate what a musical revolutionary he really was, and the unparalleled success he had.  Like the 17 Top 10 hits he had in the 80’s alone, including an unheard of 8 Top 10’s from his “Thriller” album alone!  It’s sad that it takes Jackson’s death to get people focused on his music again, instead of the tabloid fodder which was always in his shadow for the last two decades of his life. I for one am glad that I can remember at least some of the 80’s, and was able to enjoy his music before forming an opinion about his personal life.

So Lil Wayne’s lawyer was in court today trying to get some drug charges dropped against the rapper. But wait til you hear the excuse he used to try to get him off… the drug-sniffing dogs which found the cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana on Wayne’s tour bus last year weren’t properly trained! So the charges should be dropped! Wtf?? They found the drugs, didn’t they? Sounds like they did a pretty good job to me? Wow, good luck with that, Weezy.

Today is my grandmother’s 90th birthday!  I went down to Walnut Creek with my family this morning to spend some time with her on her big day.  Pretty amazing to think of everything she’s witnessed and lived through since she was born in 1919. 

So with those thoughts on my mind, I pull into work right before I got on the air at 1:00 this afternoon, and everyone in the workplace was abuzz.  ”Did you hear, did you hear?”  I told them I hadn’t heard, as I’d been with the fam all morning.  “The Black Eyed Peas beat up Perez Hilton!”  Hmmm, I say to myself.  I don’t really care, but it doesn’t surprise me, as he certainly had it coming with all the hateful things he is constantly spewing out about people on his site.  I stopped visiting his website long ago, because I don’t care to support that type of person.  Of course, the Peas themselves most likely weren’t the culprits, but let’s let everything sort itself out before we recklessly jump to conclusions.  Then I read on the internet that Jon & Kate are getting divorced.  Again, who cares??  I’m sorry, but as a young person plugged in to pop culture like I am, was I supposed to feel some sort of emotion when I read that?  I don’t know who they are, besides the fact that I have to see them on the cover of all those stupid magazines that are in my face when I’m trying to checkout at the grocery store.  Other than that, they have no bearing on my life whatsoever.  I am aware of the fact that they have a reality show, although I couldn’t tell you what network it’s on (and I’m pretty proud of that fact).  I have no idea the backstory as to how they were picked to have their own reality show (someone is definitely exploiting those children, I’m just not sure if Jon & Kate or the producers are to blame, or possibly all of the above), but it has evidently cost them their marriage.  The show is obviously ruining their lives, yet we as a culture are licking it up and begging for more.  How is this a positive?  What couple has ever done a reality show together and ended up better for it?  Has pop culture always been this shallow and overall just bankrupt of any redeeming qualities?  It’s days like this when I question our adulation/consumption of all things celebrity and reality, and I do think they go hand in hand.  Things that should be important, like the potential revolution happening right now in Iran which could quite possibly change the course of things big-time in the middle East, just don’t seem to be prominent enough with us young folks.  The youth over there are risking their lives demonstrating in the streets against their oppressive government, and here we seem to be more pre-occupied with the twists and turns of the relationship of some random couple with 8 kids that none of us has ever met.  Sure, celeb watching/pop culture does have a time and place, yet I would argue it should be a fun distraction from our daily routine, but not become our daily routine in itself.  Now I’m certainly not advocating that we mobilize against our government, haha, but it seems to me that more and more of the celeb/reality stuff is occupying more and more of our consciousness much more regularly.  And that’s not a good thing. 

I’ll be honest, I had a tough time on the radio today talking about the aforementioned stories, because I don’t want to be fake and act like I care about all this stuff when I really couldn’t care less, yet I know I need to mention them because a lot of you really do want to hear it.  So because I refuse to elevate these things to “important” status in my life, I generally end up presenting them in a sarcastic or critical manner.  Does this make me out of touch because I’m not hanging on every new revelation of Jon and Kate’s failing relationship?  I’m sorry, but I’m just not going to aid in fueling the short-lived media fire of this poor couple who’s being chewed up and spit out by our horrible tabloid culture, which is all the while searching for its next train-wreck story to exploit in another month or two.  And when you stop to think about the things that should hold true importance in our lives, like spending time with grandma on her 90th birthday,  you realize just how inconsequential people like Jon & Kate really are in our lives.  We can’t continue to let the things which should be merely distractions to take the majority position in our lives.

Teen girls across America are having heart attacks!  Why?  Sit down and take a deep breath… Robert Pattinson was hit by a cab this morning in NYC!!  He was on set for his new film Remember Me!!  While attempting to run away from a pack of screaming fans, he apparently ran right out into the middle of a street, at which point a taxicab grazed his hip!  I’m sure everyone related to the Twilight franchise had to hold their breath for a minute.  So did our favorite vampire sustain any injuries?  According to Summit Entertainment, the star is doing just fine and there is no need to worry.  Whew!  And all is well again with the young women of America.  Will you be sending him a get well card?

A bunch of us here at work headed outside this morning for our company’s annual Make A Difference Day.  We cleaned up around the banks of the American River right around where it flows into Folsom Lake just off of Salmon Falls Rd.  It’s beautiful up there!  And luckily, I didn’t get any poison oak.  We definitely left the place a lot cleaner than when we got there, especially the remnants of the party we found under the bridge!  Who parties under bridges?  Haha!  Some interesting items we found: a tire, lots of socks, flip flops, a used diaper, and many empty “adult beverage” cans.

The Beatles are certainly too old for us to play on 107.9, but they are responsible for some of the most classic pop songs of the rock & roll era.  I recently heard a fun little story about the inspiration behind one of their most famous songs, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”  Turns out Lucy was an actual person, a schoolmate of John Lennon’s son Julian, named Lucy Vodden.  Lennon got his inspiration for the song one day when his then 4-year old son came home with a drawing and described it to his father as “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.”  Evidently just that phrase alone started the creative process!  Maybe our grandparents knew all of this already, but I certainly hadn’t heard it before.  The cool part of the story though, and the reason it’s resurfacing now more than 40 years after the song originally came out, is that Lucy has recently become ill with Lupus.  Upon hearing this, Julian actually tracked down his old friend Lucy, and sent her flowers and gardening vouchers from his home in France.  The two plan on staying in touch mainly via texting.

So I sent one of my interns, Kirsten, out to the Boardwalk this past Saturday night to check out the Let’s Make A Mess tour headlined by Hey Monday, who recently opened up for Fall Out Boy when they were through town a couple months ago.  Here’s what she had to say about the show:

For fans of bands like Paramore and Boys Like Girls, start paying attention to the up-and-coming band Hey Monday, who just performed at the Boardwalk last Saturday.  The band played a fun energetic show, even throwing red cups to audience members to “party and make a mess!”  The real magic of the band lies in their lead singer Cassadee – with her edgy look and awesome vocals, she’s the reason why boys and girls alike are craving more from Hey Monday.  She only stopped dancing around singing at the top of her lungs to slow it down for a couple songs, showing the band’s sensitive side.  Their great balance of ballads and pop-rock songs were great for the audience as well as the band.  The large turnout of fans at the Boardwalk who knew all the words to the songs shows the band’s already huge following.  Hey Monday has potential to become the new “it” band – watch out for them!  If you missed the show, you can check out their website at www.heymondaymusic.com for music and videos.  Listen to these in particular: “Homecoming” and “How You Love Me Now.”

We’ve all seen the video by now of Bret Michaels having Nothing at all resembling A Good Time at the Tony Awards last Sunday when the set piece landed on his head, or more specifically, his nose. He suffered a broken nose, and now we’ve got the pix! Check them out here!  I guess we now know what he meant when he sang “every cowboy sings a sad, sad song…”

Check out the Peas singing their new song “I Gotta Feeling” on Letterman last night. Personally, I like this song even better than “Boom Boom Pow!” Their new CD (called The END!!) came out yesterday as well.