I barely even consider him a comedian at this point.

Recalling a Revolver magazine interview (circa 2000) with Roger Waters and Trent Reznor, in which Waters bluntly admitted he wasn’t familiar with Reznor’s music. Like, dude, you have *at least* a spare hour to listen to a NIN album, if not a handful of songs, before a joint interview. Massively disrespectful and cringey. And it’s not like Waters had been writing or needed to learn any new songs: he’s essentially toured the same goddamn setlist for three decades.

Downvote

OK let me edit that one:

“Somebody slap Steven Spielberg with a copy of Stop Making Sense.”

But hey, can’t be too hard on the guy. It’s his first music video after all. Everyone makes mistakes when they’re starting out.

For some reason, almost every one of the thousands of radio pop songs I’ve heard over a lifetime will trigger an instantaneous memory. It might be about where I was when I heard it, who I was with, seeing it on a video, etc. Once in a while, it’s a profound recollection, but more often than not, it’s pretty random and innocuous.

It was December 31, 1999, and the TV was running a 4 hour New Years Eve news special. Likely designed to entice younger viewers, there would be musical performances peppered within the news reporting, as the world prepared for the potential impending Armageddon of Y2K.

And that’s why whenever I hear Genie In A Bottle, I don’t think as much about Christina Aguilera, as I do the serious and measured baritone introduction by Peter Jennings.

You can either age like this or you can age like Elton John, who seems to genuinely care about what music is going on now and pumps things up he likes. Thats always better than tearing stuff down you dont even listen to.

I talked about this a few columns back, so forgive the repetition, but now that we’ve actually reached the end, criminy, what a run the past nine months of #1s has been. Six of the last ten were all first appearances by artists who not only ascended to the top of Pop Mountain but stayed viable and competitive for a decade or more.

Not only that, but every one of them was effectively a debut single by a new artist, not folks who’d finally climbed the mountaintop after having been in the game for a some time. That was literally the case for “… Baby One More Time” and “If You Had My Love,” effectively the case for “Bills, Bills, Bills” (Destiny’s Child’s first single without sharing billing with a known hitmaker) and functionally the case for “Living La Vida Loca” and “Bailamos” (the first English-language singles for both Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias). That leaves only “Genie In A Bottle,” which was technically preceded by “Reflection” BUT LOOK THE POINT IS that for all intents and purposes, the ten-song run kicked off by Britney Spears introduced six massive, brand-new megastars that we collectively fell for instantly, every single one of them capable of filling and perhaps selling out arenas to this day. (Okay, maybe not Martin, yikes.)

That’s a gobsmacking sequence of chart-toppers, essentially introducing an entire new generation of pop stars within a year. Not only that, they substantially killed off the old guard; of the four longstanding artists who hit the top during this period, three of them would never do so again. (The only exception was TLC, and their time will be over two actual days from now.) In my own indie/alternative/rock corner of things, I’ve long recognized that 1999 was an incredible year for music. It’s only now that I’m realizing that whatever was in the pre-millennial air was working its magic all across the music spectrum.

Except for nu-metal. (Except maybe not nu-metal?)

Rock The Casbah is not a 6, it’s at least a 9 and probably a 10. An absolute classic.

I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that The Clash made the US top 10 during their lifetime though; their only top 10 hit in the UK was a posthumous one when Should I Stay or Should I Go made #1 several years after they broke up.

https://youtu.be/ZCb6sHeC7ac

A lot to respond to above!

First off — I hear you all. I’m sorry we weren’t aware of any of these problematic comments. I try to read as many comments as I can, but the other four staffers aren’t generally moderating comments site-wide, especially on a night or weekend. I should’ve looked at these given the subject matter. I’m a bit overwhelmed with the workload, as our staff shrinks. I also understand not covering the Bette Midler story, however the Macy Gray situation was getting a lot of attention in the press and it seemed unfair to cover Gray but not the self-identifying liberal white woman. The new comment system should be stricter, though: if any two of you flag a post, it will disappear into moderation. (It works — try it.) So it just takes two people. (I could change it to 1?) Then James or I will see it in the OpenWeb admin and can decide to take action or not. Or feel free to email us — I respond to every email. But overall, points taken, and I apologize. Also please don’t blame Rachel for anything because she posts what I assign her.

It should be noted that First Ave had some help making this decision – their staff organized a sick-out and they were going to be massively short-staffed. Workers did this. Also First Ave goes hard in the marketing department as an inclusive respectful queer-friendly venue, so this booking was a massive unforced error on their part. Could have silently passed on it and let that shiny new LiveNation venue down the street take the heat. Instead, literally everyone is now mad at them.