Wow.  I can remember staying up late, waiting to catch the video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller on Friday Night Videos (some of us were too poor for MTV).

And now there’s news that MJ is going to re-release Thriller, with some added bonuses:

A 25th anniversary edition of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” will be released on Feb. 12 by Epic/Legacy Recordings.

Recognized as the world’s biggest-selling album of all time, the deluxe edition will include the original album plus eight bonus tracks and a DVD featuring the short films/videos of “Thriller,” “Beat It,” and “Billie Jean” and his breakout performance of “Billie Jean” at the “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” TV special.

Five of the new tracks have never been released: a Kanye West remix of “Billie Jean”; a new 2008 version of “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” with Akon and will.i.am; will.i.am remixes of “The Girl Is Mine” and “P.Y.T.”; and “For All Time,” newly mixed and mastered by Jackson. The other bonus tracks are “Someone In The Dark,” “Carousel,” and the demo recording of “Billie Jean.”

Are you going to buy it?  I’m loath to give Michael any money, but the nostalgia factor alone makes it tempting.

Here’s a blast from the past for you…well, for those of you old enough to remember.  For those of you too young, sit back and watch MJ as he was cruising down the straghtaway just before he went round the bend.  Some sources cite November 30, 1982 as the release date, others cite December 1, 1982 (michaeljackson.com says December), but regardless of release date it remains Michael’s most popular album.

Name:  Samuel Atkinson Waterston
Birthday:  November 15, 1940
Role Most Known For:  Jack McCoy, Law & Order
Trivia:  His father was an immigrant from Scotland and was a semanticist (which explains his excellent diction); his mother was an American Mayflower descendant and landscape painter; he graduated with a BA from Yale in 1962; in 2002, he and castmate Jerry Orbach were designated “Living Landmarks” by the New York Landmarks Conservatory.

It seems to be Law & Order week here on GlossLip…

While Sam has portrayed, either in person or in voice-over, presidents including Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, his best-known role is that of Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy, bender of rules, contempter of court, and aggressor of arguments.  He’s settled down a bit, but in the beginning of the series was a bit of a womanizer, having relationships with a few of his female assistants.

Hmm…wonder if he needs any help with his quid pro quo.

Don’t look at me like that.  Just because there’s snow on the roof and all that, you know.

 

It just goes to show that, for once, pretty pretty shiny shiny loses out to style and substance.  Yessssssssss!

Britney Spears, who’s latest CD “Blackout” is on sale at major retailers and music stores everywhere, has been beaten to #1 in the Billboard Top 100 by the Eagles, who’s current double CD “Long Road Out Of Eden” is available only at Wal-Mart.  Yes, that’s right…by confining their CD sales exclusively to one retailer and their website, the Eagles, who’s CD features their first original work in twenty-eight years, have whupped up on Brit, who’s album has to settle for #2 on both the Billboard charts and Nielson Soundscan.

The change comes about because Billboard has decided to allow sales numbers from music sold only at one retailer instead of mass market.  Wal-Mart shared their data with Billboard, and a star is born:

Early SoundScan numbers have the Eagles taking the top perch on The Billboard 200 with 711,000 copies sold, with most sales moved by Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. For now, the only other U.S. outlets carrying “Eden” are walmart.com, where both physical copies and downloads are sold, and the Eagles’ own Web site.

“Eden” became available at the mass-market chain Oct. 30. Aside from two compilations, this is the Eagles’ first album since the mostly live “Hell Freezes Over,” which led The Billboard 200 for two weeks in 1994.

Britney Spears’ new Jive album, “Blackout,” which would have been No. 1 had the Eagles’ data not been reported, will open at No. 2 with first-week sales of 290,000 copies.

All that work Britney’s music team put into producing, mixing, tweaking, and dragging her Frapp behind into the studio, all the time and money thrown at it, all the electronic twiddling and computerized machinations, were not enough to secure the top spot for Brit.  Turns out a bunch of old guys, who’s band has been around since before Brit was born, who have arguably put out some of the best music ever heard, and who (gasp) actually play their own instruments and sing without the aid of computers, beat her…and beat her by a considerable margin.  By my calculations, they sold 421,000 more copies in the first week…and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

I can tell you why…the Eagles may not dance and writhe around (and let’s face it…who wants to see Don Henley or Glenn Frey flailing about in a spangly bra and hot pants?), but they sing live in concert, they play their own instruments, they have mad songwriting skills, and about a gazillion multi-platinum albums (Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 went platinum twenty-nine times!).  Genuine musicality and unparallelled singing wins over a circus freak show…whodathunkit?

Welcome to the Hotel TheyStillGotItfornia!

Here is a short video of acting legend Andy Griffith entering the Four Seasons Hotel.

Why?  Because TAGS is my all-time favorite television show, because I love Andy Griffith, and because I can.  No, he’s not young, hot, or sexy, but he’s one of the greats.

Sheriff Taylor would straighten out some of these celebubrats in a heartbeat!  After all, he helped The Incredible Hulk learn the error of his ways, and if he can handle Ernest T. Bass and Otis Campbell, he can surely handle Britney!  Plus, look at his son, the famous movie director guy…just the man we need to clean up Hollyweird!

I remember reading about this when it first surfaced, but I filed it in the back of my mind and didn’t recall it until the other day.  Was Sir Paul’s marriage to Linda really as happy as it was always assumed to be?  It would seem that Linda McCartney wrote a vegetarian cookbook with literary agent Peter Cox, and in the course of it made some 19 tapes in which she admitted her depression and frustration when it came to dealing with her high-profile marriage to Sir Paul:

“There were moments when Linda would feel deeply unhappy about her marriage,” Cox said.

“In her low moments, the idea of leaving him did cross her mind, but she immediately rejected it.

“Her family was the most important thing in her life and there was no way she’d give them up. At the low points, she did feel trapped.”

It seems that Sir Paul was an exacting husband, wanting his wife’s total attention and devotion:

Linda found it easier to accept being bossed around by McCartney rather than confront him.

Of course, Paul had charm, was clever and interesting, sometimes rather soulful, even.

And no one is suggesting he was not a kind and affectionate husband.

But once the honeymoon had passed, Linda was to discover that she had married a complicated person who was self-absorbed, rather arrogant, prone to black moods, and with a not particularly well developed sense of humour.

His possessiveness, flattering at the outset, eventually led to friends observing that she seemed like a ‘caged animal’.

All in all, McCartney was not a man who was easy to be married to.

So was Linda happy? “Sometimes yes, sometimes no,” says a friend. “It was like any marriage - it had its ups and downs and it became a habit.

“But it wasn’t the big fairytale.’

To summarize a somewhat lengthy article, it would seem that marriage to Sir Paul wasn’t the glorious experience that so many have tried to make it out to be; however, while Linda did sometimes chafe and rebel against the restrictions put up by her rather demanding husband, she determined that when it all came down to it, her marriage was worth the effort, and she was determined to make it work.  While there were a couple of times in the marriage when she did leave, she always returned, because her marriage and her family were very important to her.

Why did the marriage work?  According to the article, it was because Linda accepted how the relationship worked, but also because she was, at heart, a gentle person.  I’ll also add my thought…I think she loved Sir Paul, even with his faults, and I think Sir Paul loved her, as much as he could ever love anyone.

But wait, there’s more…

NIN’s Trent Reznor is known for battling against the recording industry powers that be. Now it’s over price-gouging his fans. And he’s none too happy about it. In an interview Trent had a few words to say about discovering his latest release Year Zero priced almost $10 more than other new releases:

“I created a little issue down here because the first thing I did when I got to Sydney is I walk into HMV, the week the record’s out, and I see it on the rack with a bunch of other releases. And every release I see: $21.99, $22.99, $24.99. And ours doesn’t have a sticker on it. I look close and ‘Oh, it’s $34.99′. So I walk over to see our live DVD Beside You in Time, and I see that it’s also priced six, seven, eight dollars more than every other disc on there. And I can’t figure out why that would be.”

Tren,t not one to sit back and take it, went a few steps further:

Well, in Brisbane I end up meeting and greeting some record label people, who are pleasant enough, and one of them is a sales guy, so I say “Why is this the case?” He goes “Because your packaging is a lot more expensive”. I know how much the packaging costs — it costs me, not them, it costs me 83 cents more to have a CD with the colour-changing ink on it. I’m taking the hit on that, not them. So I said “Well, it doesn’t cost $10 more”. “Ah, well, you’re right, it doesn’t. Basically it’s because we know you’ve got a core audience that’s gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy it. True fans will pay whatever”. And I just said “That’s the most insulting thing I’ve heard. I’ve garnered a core audience that you feel it’s OK to rip off? F— you’. That’s also why you don’t see any label people here, ‘cos I said ‘F— you people. Stay out of my f—ing show. If you wanna come, pay the ticket like anyone else. F— you guys”. They’re thieves. I don’t blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s— that they pull off.

Back in the early 90’s, Trent, then an up-and-coming artist, was forced to legally retract himself from his recording contract with TVT records when the label became overly intrusive in the creative process. He eventually started his own label Nothing Records with backing and distribution overseen by major label Interscope Records. Under this seemingly protective umbrella of artistic freedom, Trent recorded his second album Broken to only minor commercial success. Much of that material was created while he was still battling TVT and the tracks are bleak even by NIN standards. His next major release was The Downward Spiral which succeeded in making him a household name and an iconic figure in not just the music industry, but also popular culture. Trent’s brooding nature and sincere angst were the backdrop to the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival, for which he was the star feature.

Like the out-of-control crowd and the dismantling of authority at that venue — which spiraled into a dangerous riot — Trent has always railed against those who would take advantage of their position of power. And while some artists talk crap about how unfair the music industry is to their fans, Trent’s the kind of person to put his money where his mouth is. So what’s Trent’s response to the label’s price-gouging his fans?

“I’ve have one record left that I owe a major label, then I will never be seen in a situation like this again. If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay $4 through PayPal. Come see the show and buy a T-shirt if you like it. I would put out a nicely packaged merchandise piece, if you want to own a physical thing. And it would come out the day that it’s done in the studio, not this “Let’s wait three months” bulls—.”

I like the sound of that. Trent is one of those rare figures who can still remember what it’s like to be a fan, despite being far removed from that aspect. He has always seemed a person of high principles and that is something I can respect and appreciate!

Trent, I would happily pay $10 to $20 for your music, as long as you release it on your terms. Oh, and I will cheerfully bear your children should you need that as well!

Photo source: Rolling Stone.com

Today marks the 27th anniversary of Ian Curtis’ death, when at age 23, Curtis hanged himself on the eve of his band’s departure for a tour of the U.S. In a fitting tribute to his brief, but brilliant career, a new biopic titled Control premiered last night at Cannes which chronicles his short life and that of his band Joy Division. The film is based on the book written by Curtis’ wife Deborah called Touching From a Distance and follows his life from the start of band’s formation (1976) to his death on May 18th, 1980. The couple have one child, daughter Natalie who was born in 1979.

It would be difficult to imagine today’s musical landscape without the influence of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Despite having the legacy of being one of the youngest rock musicians to die so early in his career, Ian Curtis like so many before and after him, continues to impact our lives through his music.

Dutch rock-photographer and videographer Anton Corbijn, who is making his directorial debut with Control, photographed Joy Division in the late 70’s. He’s also a legendary music videographer who directed Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box,” Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus,” and literally dozens of others, as well as, having photographed virtually every big name in music including the album covers for Depeche Mode and U2′ s Joshua Tree. Corbijn is quite literally a legend of rock in his own right, which makes him the perfect fit to capture the life of a rock legend.

Working as a photographer for British rock mags, Corbijn was on the scene to capture the dark, but electric mood of the late 70’s as the now legendary label Factory Records helped spawn the careers of Joy Division, and later New Order (see also OMD, Happy Mondays and Duritti Column) during a period that also saw the emergence of The Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks, just to name a couple.

Corbijn recalls the period and his decision to film the movie in stark black and white:

”My whole memory of that period is black and white. There is basically no color photography of that band around. So it felt very proper to the project.”

Corbijn also felt strongly about his decision to cast a relative unknown actor Sam Riley in the role of Curtis based on his initial impressions of the actor:

”A lot of bands I met, including Joy Division, were kind of underdressed - a thin coat on, smoking and shivering in the cold. When I met Sam it was also in the winter and he was totally the same…had an innocence and a freshness that I was hoping for but never thought I would find.”

Despite an all-too-short life, both as a group and for that of their lead singer Ian Curtis, Joy Division has had a tremendous influence of many of today’s biggest names in rock. U2’s Bono has described Curtis voice as “holy” and wrote the song “A Day Without Me,” as a direct reference to the suicide of Curtis. This was the first single released off of U2’s debut album Boy in 1980. NIN’s Trent Reznor is also a fan of Curtis’ work and covered Joy Division’s amazing song “Dead Souls” which was a released on The Crow soundtrack and Reznor often lists the band and Curtis as an early influence.

It would be fair to trace Curtis and company in the sounds of Bauhaus, Echo and The Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Siouxie and The Banshees and certainly later in the sounds of techno master Moby, who covered “New Dawn Fades” for the Heat soundtrack, which may possibly be the greatest movie soundtrack ever made.

Clearly, Curtis’ life was polarized between his creative forces and his personal pain. Ian suffered from epilepsy and this certainly contributed in part to his various spikes in emotions and personality conflicts. His wife Deborah described him as very controlling, often moody and distant. At the time of Curtis’ suicide the couple were contemplating divorce which was exacerbated by Ian’s affair with a Belgian writer named Annik Honore.

Deborah says these torn feelings may have been at the root cause of his suicide, but even she has no definitive answers:

“Maybe he was concerned about doing the right thing. Maybe he was torn between what he should do and what he wanted to do. Maybe Annik wasn’t the one, but he felt he needed to go. I don’t know. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering, because there were so many other things he could’ve done besides commit suicide.

Only Ian Curtis knows why he took his own life on the eve of what was clearly to be a journey into rock greatness, leaving behind many broken lives, including that of his bandmates. With the end of Joy Division (the band agreed that if any member departed, they would change the name) New Order was created, and we should all be thankful for that.

Hopefully this new biopic will shed some light into the world of a mysterious figure that most of us know only through his lyrics and haunting voice; and while these gifts are priceless in quality, their absence in quantity is painful to bear.

Perhaps the answer to the mystery of his death can be found in Ian’s own words:

Love Will Tear Us Apart

When the routine bites hard
And ambitions are low
And the resentment rides high
But emotions wont grow
And were changing our ways,
Taking different roads
Then love, love will tear us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold
Turned away on your side?
Is my timing that flawed,
Our respect run so dry?
Yet theres still this appeal
That weve kept through our lives
Love, love will tear us apart again

Do you cry out in your sleep
All my failings expose?
Get a taste in my mouth
As desperation takes hold
Is it something so good
Just cant function no more?
When love, love will tear us apart again

UPDATE:

Editors Note: I made a grave error and rushed to judgment about this book.  I will not defend my actions, but suffice it to say it was written with a noble intentions.  I received this thoughtful email that says it better than I could.  I am humbled and embarrassed, but I hope my general statements about Warren Zevon have merit and are appreciated.  I am a genuine fan of his music.

 Hi.

I’m a huge Warren Zevon fan, and caught your blog post from today in a Google alert.  I agree with everything you said about his music and his struggles.  My only concern is that you come down hard on his ex-wife.  I’m sure that in most circumstances that would be fair, but here it isn’t.

This is as close to an authorized biography as you can get when the subject is not alive.  Zevon’s relationship with his ex was close.  In fact, it got even closer as he was dying.  She was a supporter and confidante during that time, along with his then-girlfriend and his grown children.  And he specifically asked her to write this book.  It was part of a three-pronged project to try to give himself more of a legacy than he otherwise would have had.

The thing that ate at Warren during his life was that he never got the fame he deserved.  One hit single, based on a passing comment by one of the Everly Brothers, and that was it.  So when he was dying he let a documentary filmmaker trail him (the DVD of this, by the way, is awesome - funny, sad, and musical genius).  He made what I consider the second best album of his long career (the first, “Warren Zevon,” is still my favorite).  And he told his ex-wife to talk with everyone and to write a history of his life.  And to make sure she put in all the crazy stuff.  So she did.

I haven’t finished the book.   What I have read is wonderful.  It is an oral history in the words of the people who knew him, worked with him, were his friends and his lovers.  And it is warm, loving, and touching.  It is the farthest thing from a hatchet job I could imagine.   If you are a fan, please read it.

Thanks again for a thoughtful post.

[name withheld]

Original Post:

The late, great Warren Zevon’s life is set to be retold through the eyes of his ex-wife (always a fount of selective memories) Crystal Zevon in a memoir that will reveal that Zevon returned to a life of drugs and alcohol in his final days as he struggled with lung cancer.

Zevon is fondly recalled for his eccentric style and quirky LA novelist rock. In terms of rock history, he is best known for his hits, “Werewolves of London,” “Poor Poor Pitiful Me, ” “Excitable Boy,” and my favorite, “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” But really that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What Hunter Thompson is to writing, Warren Zevon is to music. Employing a guerrilla-style sense of story-telling, Zevon channeled his acerbic wit, but thoughtful take on the world into song. The results were wildly unpredictable, earnest, simultaneoulsy self-deprecating and arrogant, with a pinch of wistful. Either you got it, or you didn’t it. And if you didn’t, it was your problem, not his.

Word of his diagnosis came in the fall of 2002 and Warren hung in for an entire year, mostly by sheer willpower to see the birth of his twin grandsons in June 2003. He died a mere three months later on September 7, 2003.Not surprisingly, Warren faced with the knowledge he was suffering from incurable cancer, turned to his saving grace: his musical creativity. He was given a rare opportunity to do something special: write his own ending. That ending, Zevon’s swan song of sorts, was The Wind. A beautifully crafted album featuring many of his musical peers and friends (Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris) which gave us the beautiful ballad “Keep Me In Your Heart.” Warren received five Grammy nominations for that album, including Best Song Of The Year for “Keep Me In Your Heart” and ended up winning two posthumously, for Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal for “Disorder In The House,” a duet with Bruce Springsteen also off of The Wind.

Sadly, these were the only two Grammy awards that Warren Zevon would win in his 30+ year career.

We had the tremendous fortune of meeting Warren Zevon the summer before his death in July of 2002 at a blogger party in LA - undoubtedly the greatest party of my life. Warren, who was friends with the host, quietly appeared in the kitchen as we were going for more wine. I was awestruck. He and his friend, well-known music videographer Nigel Dick, we chatting as I stood there mouth agape.

After we were introduced, I rambled on and on about what huge fans my sister and I were of his music. I have no doubt in retrospect, that he was likely annoyed by my fawning, but flattered nonetheless. Fortunately my husband having met many a famous person was able to communicate like a normal person and I was able to finally just stand there quietly basking in the glory of meeting one of my heroes face to face.

It was only a couple of months after this meeting that Warren Zevon announced he had been diagnosed with cancer. Armed with this knowledge, I was flooded with a wave of embarrassment. What I took as a quiet reserve was in fact suppressed pain and likely a subconscious concern for his health. He would later confide that he had a tremendous phobia of doctors and waited far too long to see someone about lingering symptoms. Warren assumed that the tightness he felt in his chest was a result of a new rigorous workout he’d taken up, but deep down he must have sensed something more malignant was happening.

I must admit, I was starstruck. My early years as a young teen were filled with memories listening to my older sister’s music collection and we both LOVED Warren’s irreverent humor and rollicking licks. He was gracious and tolerant, but noticeably subdued and quiet. My enthusiasm in contrast to his reserve is something that haunts me even now, once we discovered how sick he truly felt. I am truly blessed to have met a hero before he left us — far too soon.

And, now his ex-wife is going to defile his memory with sensational claims that after 17 years of sobriety he once again, though certainly with reasonable cause, turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the pain and his own looming mortality. From the article:

Crystal Zevon, who was married to the rock star from 1974 to 1979, admits her late husband’s death was tough on the family because he turned his back on 17 years of sobriety in a bid to cope with the fact he was losing his cancer battle.

Zevon’s ex-wife admits the book took her a long time to write because painful memories of her life with Zevon, who she says could be “cruel for cruelty’s sake,” made her consider quitting the project.

She tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper, “There were many times where I said, `I can’t do this, I don’t want to read another word, let alone put us all out for public consumption.’Then I’d run across some great line of the moment when a song trigger came to him, and I’d say, `The story has got to be told…’ I fell in and out of love a lot of times.”

I can’t imagine revealing my husband’s (or ex for that matter) final struggle to come to grips with his own death into a sensationalistic tell-all just for a quick buck. Shame on her. She easily could have written about the amazing things he did in his life and people would have enjoyed it all the more, but wherever there is cash to be made, there are people who are willing to do just about anything to get their hands on. Don’t count on me buying it.

If I want to know more about Warren Zevon’s life, I need look no further than his music.