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Vol. 9 No. 10
Pick Hits
Off The Record
Supergrass - Life on Other Planets
With their youthful exuberance
alive and well, UK upstart pop-rockers Supergrass have reinvented
themselves on their fourth release. While the debts to rockers past are
obvious, Supergrass uses those classic elements and hooks as inspiration rather
than imitation. From the first lines of the swaggering pop Seen The Light,
you’ll hear echoes of the glam rock days of T. Rex and Mott The Hoople.
And, by the time the chorus rolls around, you’ll already be declaring the song a
classic. The dozen songs clock in at just over 40 minutes, a sensible time in
these days of 75-minute releases which, I’m sure, meant whittling the disc down
to its best tracks, a lesson that most other groups would do well to heed.
Definitely a strong album.
At The Movies
Tears of the Sun
Bruce Willis stars as
Lt. A.K. Waters, the loyal veteran officer of a Navy S.E.A.L unit. When he’s
sent into the heart of Africa, the usually hard-bitten Waters finds himself
deeply conflicted at having to choose between following orders and the dictates
of his own conscience. The script is practically a silent movie; dialogue is
little more than lockjawed, tough-guy grunts from the soldiers and some
indignant, heavily-accented squawks. The rest is jungle noises, gunfire, and
Hans Zimmer's rackety music. Director Antoine Fuqua punches the
familiar story across with fierce efficiency, with a blood-and-thunder climax.
On DVD
Elvis - The Great Performances
Rhino and Andrew Solt's
Sofa Entertainment have seized the opportunity to recycle and re-energize a trio
of Elvis Presley clips collections from the 1990s in the three-DVD set
Elvis: The Great Performances. The clips range from an early '50s home movie,
possibly the first images of Presley on a stage, to a video of the sun King just
six months before his inglorious death. The images are all full-screen. Quality
of the footage ranges from ragged to pristine, with the criteria seeming to be
quality of performance. The set includes a discography and filmography. Easter
eggs include Presley jamming with Liberace in a dressing room (no audio, alas)
and a terrific King Creole trailer.
The Buzz...
Static-X are still hard
at work writing new material for their next album and are presently planning to
begin recording it in March/April with an as of yet unannounced producer. A
summer release date through Warner is expected.
Ex-Mötley Crüe
drummer Tommy Lee is about to start work on a follow up to his former
band's critically acclaimed book The Dirt. The as yet untitled tome will detail
his post- Crüe antics including his marriage to former Baywatch babe Pamela
Anderson.
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METAL MUSICAL CHAIRS |
In what has the potential to
turn into a bizarre game of musical chairs, former Metallica bassist
Jason Newsted is set to audition for the slot in Ozzy Osbourne's band
left vacant by the recent departure of current Metallica four-stringer Robert
Trujillo. Newsted, who is already confirmed to appear at this year's Ozzfest
as a member of Voivod, reportedly got a call from the Osbourne camp
inviting him to come down and "jam" with the rest of Ozzy's band, which
presently includes drummer Mike Bordin (ex-Faith No More) and
guitarist Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society).
WWE Superstar Kurt Angle
will miss this year's WrestleMania and up to a year of action due to a neck
injury that will require surgery and rehabilitation. Angle's career is not in
any threat at this point, although this injury is certainly unfortunate for him,
as this would be his first chance to headline WrestleMania as the WWE Champion.
NFL sources are reporting that
the league has decided to discontinue season-ending Monday night games and will
offer ABC a Thursday opener in exchange. It is expected that ESPN will gain two
Saturday night games at the end of the season. A potential Thursday opener is
Dallas
in New York to play the Jets.
Former Jimi Hendrix
Experience bassist Noel Redding may sue the Hendrix estate for upward
of $5 million in royalties he believes are owed to him. Redding claims he signed
off on future payments in the '70s after incorrectly being told that no more
Experience material would be released.
Rush have been inducted
into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame, but singer-bassist Geddy Lee
seems to imply that Rush may even decide to call it quits. "The door goes two
ways at this point," Lee explains. "Either we dive into the next project in a
year, or we just find that we've had our fill and move on."
Bruce Springsteen's
homecoming has broken a record. Fans of the musician snapped up tickets to seven
July shows in Giants Stadium, the first time in Ticketmaster history that a
performer had sold tickets for seven stadium dates in a single day.
Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins
married antique dealer Stella Arroyave during a private ceremony in
Malibu.
Britney Spears
is furious that Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst wrote a track for
the new Limp Bizkit album, Bipolar, entitled 'Just Drop Dead', which is strongly
rumored to be about her! Fred was hard at work writing songs for Britney's next
studio album, but now she has "dumped them all" when she found out about 'Just
Drop Dead' and now "she doesn't want anything to do with him."
Ashanti
and Musiq took top honors, while Mariah Carey and LL Cool J
received career achievement awards, at the 17th annual Soul Train Awards.
Clear Channel will announce a
plan that would enable the company to record live CDs of concerts and have them
ready to sell to concertgoers five minutes after the show's conclusion.
Fox announced that the drama
24, which features a real-time action-packed hour per episode, had secured its
spot on the network's prime-time lineup next season.
ABC has renewal orders for spy
series Alias and a whole slew of sitcoms, including 8 Simple Rules for Dating My
Teenage Daughter, According to Jim, George Lopez, Less Than Perfect, Life with
Bonnie and My Wife and Kids.
Penguin Group announced that
Madonna has written five illustrated story books for young readers aged 6
and above.
Arli$$ creator and star
Robert Wuhl is staying in the world of sports, inking a deal to co-write,
direct and executive produce an original movie for HBO about the 2002 scandal
involving manipulating computerized bets on the Breeders' Cup horse race.
Warmed by the success of the
animated Ice Age, nominated for an Oscar as best animated feature film, 20th
Century Fox has signed the film's director, Chris Wedge, to a five-year,
multipicture exclusive deal.
Just a few weeks shy of the
rollout of her feature film debut, the Frankie Muniz starrer Agent Cody
Banks, teen star Hilary Duff will receive a whopping $2 million to take
the lead role in Cinderella Story for Warner Bros. Pictures.
It's looking like Limp Bizkit and the WWE are
continuing to show love for one another. The rap-rockers will perform at the
Wrestlemania pay-per-view event on March 30. Fans of famed grappler the
Undertaker might remember he used to play Limp's "Rollin" as his theme music
when entering the ring.
WWE announced that they would
be closing their Times Square restaurant, WWE New York, and that it would be
taking a $32.9 million loss on the facility.
Toby Keith received a
leading eight Academy of Country Music nominations, including song and single of
the year for Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.
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