WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2014
lifestyle
M u s i c
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M o v i e s
Green Day marks rock’s new generation in Hall of Fame
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atter-generation punks Green Day won spots in the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame yesterday, joining older legends in
the band’s first year of eligibility. Other 2015 inductees
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame include Bill Withers, the
soul singer best known for his 1972 song “Lean on Me,” and
hard rockers Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Three deceased
artists round out the new entrants: the avant-garde Lou Reed
whose Velvet Underground was already inducted as a groupalong with electric blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and
blues singer Paul Butterfield.
The winners mark the 30th round of artists to be inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The artists, or suitable
substitutes, will perform at a ceremony on April 18 in
Cleveland. Green Day was nominated for the first time. Artists
are eligible once 25 years have passed since the release of
their first single or album. A decade after punk rock’s heyday,
Green Day released its first album in 1990 featuring the band’s
combination of energetic guitar chords and raw lyrics that
often reflected frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s social anxieties.
The Northern California band scored a worldwide commercial breakthrough four years later with “Dookie” despite the
album’s personal subject matter in which Armstrong reflected
on mental illness, and his bisexuality. A decade later,
Armstrong won wider artistic acclaim and controversy with
“American Idiot,” a searing indictment of then president
George W. Bush that the Green Day frontman turned into a
rock opera. Armstrong, 42, said that the honor was “incredible”
This photo combination of file images shows musicians from left Lou Reed, Joan Jett and Billie Joe Armstrong, of
Greenday. — AFP
and called being a rock performer “the most liberating thing
in the world.”
“For me, rock and roll is not an outdated term. To me, it
means freedom,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview timed for the Hall of Fame announcement. The honor
comes a year after another newly eligible band, Nirvana, was
inducted into the Hall of Fame. The ceremony led to an unannounced, one-off reunion show as celebrated rock singers
took turns on vocals in place of the late Kurt Cobain.
Major figures in rock history
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band is probably the new
inductee that is least-known today, but the racially-integrated
Chicago group had a major influence by combining rock and
blues influences. The band played back-up during Bob Dylan’s
legendary first electric performance in 1965. Joan Jett and the
Blackhearts in 1982 scored a global hit with “I Love Rock ‘n’
Roll”-a song that will presumably feature prominently at the
induction ceremony-as she helped carve out a role for women
in the male-dominated world of hard rock.
Vaughan won wide acclaim after playing the Montreux festival in 1982, with some calling the Dallas-bred blues guitarist
one of the instrument’s all-time masters, but his career was
short as he died in a plane wreck in 1990. Withers also had a
relatively brief career. He did not perform professionally until
he was in his 30s and out of the Navy and left the industry
after major hits including “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No
Sunshine.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees are decided by a
vote of more than 700 music experts including artists and historians. Fans also played a small role through a public vote
that counted as one ballot. Artists who were passed over this
year for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included Kraftwerk, the
German pioneers of electronic music, and The Smiths, who
won an impassioned fan base drawn to Morrissey’s brooding,
introspective lyrics. Other artists that missed the cut included
politically-charged gangsta rappers N.W.A. and perennial
nominees Chic, the disco outfit whose song “Le Freak” was a
global sensation in 1978. — AFP
Minaj’s ‘Pinkprint’ delivers
grown-up complexity
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This CD cover image released by Young
Money/Cash Money/Republic Records
shows “The Pinkprint,” by Nicki Minaj.— AP
aybe we knew - even in 2010 - when Nicki Minaj released
her debut set,that beneath the fluorescent wigs and zany
accents, there resided a real-life grown-up. On some level,
we surely understood that the now 32-year-old rapper had complex emotions and a past, and all the things that make stars more
like regular people and less like characters. But not until now, with
her third release, “The Pinkprint” - which includes production from
Boi-1da, Zaytoven and Dr Luke, among others - has Minaj conveyed that message so clearly. The set’s first single “Pills N Potions”
captures the heart and soul of the album, even with songs like the
Drake and Lil Wayne-assisted “Only” and “Anaconda” (along with its
bootylicious music video) drumming up considerable buzz.
Throughout her latest set, Minaj oscillates between boss and
broken. “Who had Kanye (West) saying ‘she’s a problem’?” Minaj
boasts on “Want Some More.” She lives up to the compliment with
sharp storytelling on the sinister “Four Door Aventador,” which has
her name-dropping everyone from designer Donna Karan to actor
Shia LaBeouf. She’s bold on “Favorite” featuring Jeremih, and cocky
on “Feelin’ Myself” featuring Beyonce, but it’s Minaj’s aching that is
endearing. She laments changing family ties and the death of a relative on “All Things Go,” adding “my child with Aaron, would’ve
been 16” in what, for most listeners, is a surprising revelation.
Minaj also refers to a decade-ago marriage proposal on the
song - a tidbit that lines up with rumors that the rapper’s hypeman
Safareee Samuels had for many years been her romantic partner,
and is now the subject of songs alluding to hurt and betrayal,
including “The Crying Game,” featuring UK singer Jessie Ware and
the pop-friendly “Bed of Lies.” It seems as though the gap is closing
between Minaj’s on and offstage personas, and so far, that’s a good
thing. — AP
In this April 11, 2000 file photo, singer D’Angelo walks
backstage at the VH1 special concert “Men Strike Back”
Madison Square Garden in New York. — AP
Lawyer: Free speech at
stake in anti-Muslim film
D’Angelo challenges
with ‘Black Messiah’
A
lawyer for Google told a federal appeals court Monday
that free speech is in jeopardy if a ruling stands forcing
it to keep an anti-Muslim film that sparked violence in
the Middle East and death threats to the actors involved off
its YouTube service. Attorney Neal Katyal argued that if a ruling stands allowing a bit player in “Innocence of Muslims”
copyright privileges, it could extend to minor characters in
blockbusters such as “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings,”
shatter copyright law and ultimately restrict free speech
because anyone unhappy with their performance could have
it removed from the Internet.
“The ultimate effect is to harm the marketplace of
speech,” Katyal told a 10-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit
Court of Appeals. Chief Judge Sidney Thomas said the court
would rule later on Google’s request to reverse a decision
forcing YouTube to take down the film that inspired rioting
by those who considered it blasphemous to the Prophet
Muhammad. A divided three-judge panel of the court ruled
in February that actress Cindy Lee Garcia had a copyright
claim to the 2012 video because she believed she was acting
in a much different production than the one that appeared.
Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said the extraordinary
circumstances justified the extreme action of a court injunction against YouTube. “She is under threat of death if she is
not successful in removing it,” Armenta said. Judges peppered the lawyers with questions mostly focused on copyright law and how Garcia’s performance compared to those
of other actors and musicians. —AFP
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In this March 10, 2014 file photo, rapper Lil’ Boosie, whose
real name is Torence Hatch, appears at a news conference
in New Orleans. — AP
A$AP Rocky poses backstage at the MTV Video Music
Awards in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Buku 2015 music fest lineup released
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rban radio hit-maker A$AP Rocky and national electronic music stars Passion Pit, Bassnectar and Porter
Robinson are scheduled to take the stage in New
Orleans for the Buku music festival in March. The fourth
annual Buku Music + Art Project lineup was announced
yesterday.
Also on the roster is Louisiana native Torence Hatch, the
rapper who went by the name Lil Boosie until changing it
to Boosie Badazz after being released from prison this year
on a 2009 drug conviction. Buku will be his first major postprison performance in New Orleans, where he has a strong
fan base. More than 30 acts are slated to perform at Mardi
Gras World March 13-14. Tickets go on sale Friday. — AP
New ‘Annie’ movie less about ‘Tomorrow’ and all about today
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orget the curly red hair and Depression-era orphans. The
hit musical “Annie” moves firmly into the 21st century in
a new film version where the star is a street-smart
African-American foster kid who rides New York buses, and
her savior is a black cell phone billionaire who will stop at
nothing to become mayor. “Tomorrow” is still the signature
song, but the “Annie,” produced by a team that includes rapper
Jay-Z and actor Will Smith, is all about today.
Quvenzhane Wallis, 11, who two years ago became the
youngest person to win a Best Actress Oscar nomination,
plays the foster kid living a hard-knock life in the multiethnic
version of the Tony-winning 1977 Broadway musical that
opens in US movie theaters on Friday. Oliver “Daddy”
Warbucks is transformed from a 1930s industrialist into the
workaholic telecoms tycoon Will Stacks, (Jamie Foxx), while
actor Bobby Cannavale adds a topical, satirical edge as his
scheming political campaign adviser.
The musical’s famous songs get a pop music makeover,
sprinkled with the sounds of street jackhammers and trash
can lids, and Annie’s fake parents are found in mass reality TVstyle auditions. Cannavale said the updates bring the beloved
musical “to a contemporary American audience which is one
of many different colors, shapes, sizes and ethnicities.”
“It is really exciting that kids can go and see themselves
now in this movie in a way they were not able to before,”
Cannavale told Reuters Cameron Diaz plays mean foster
mother Miss Hannigan, as a pill-popping, failed pop star. “This
is a woman who thinks that to be loved she has to be famous,
which is kind of an epidemic in our society right now,” Diaz
said.
Director Will Gluck, far left, poses with the cast of “Annie”, from left,
Bobby Cannavale, Quvenzhane Wallis, Marty the dog, Cameron Diaz and
Jamie Foxx during a photo call at the Crosby Hotel. — AP photos
Wallis made a big splash as an enigmatic child survivalist in
the 2012 independent movie “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”
But like much of the rest of the “Annie” cast, she had little previous experience as a singer and dancer and said she had not
seen the stage musical or any of its many TV or film remakes. “I
saw the musical after (filming) because they didn’t want it to
interfere with the way I filmed it,” Wallis explained. The way
director Will Gluck filmed it, however, has won scant approval
from US movie critics. The Hollywood Reporter called the film
a “toxic mess,” while Variety deemed it “overblown and undernourished.” — Reuters
This photo released by Colombia Pictures - Sony shows, from left, Jamie Foxx as Will Stacks, Quvenzhane
Wallis, as Annie, and Rose Byrne as Grace, singing “I Don’t Need Anything But You” in a scene from
Columbia Pictures’ “Annie.”
fter a wait of nearly 15 years, D’Angelo is making a
Second Coming of sorts with “Black Messiah,” a hardcharging attack on racial injustice that challenges listeners both musically and lyrically. Released as a surprise
Monday, the long-anticipated album moves D’Angelo
beyond his R&B roots to embrace the passions of protest
rock at a time that demonstrations have swept the United
States over police killings of unarmed African Americans in
New York and Ferguson, Missouri.
D’Angelo, whose career was launched as a teenager during an amateur night at New York’s famed Apollo Theater,
won acclaim for his funk-infused R&B and soul on his two
previous albums, 1995’s “Brown Sugar” and 2000’s “Voodoo,”
but he retreated from public view after a global tour.
“Black Messiah” defies easy categorization but shows
clear similarities to his sometime mentor Prince, with the
now 40-year-old D’Angelo powering his funk beats with a
strong dose of electric guitar and an impressive falsetto.
Bringing into focus the album’s messianic overtones,
D’Angelo starts the song “1,000 Deaths” with a snippet from
a fiery African American preacher who rails against white
presentations of Jesus Christ-a blond-haired, blue-eyed
“cracker Jesus,” in the pastor’s words, using a derogatory
term for unrefined white person.
D’Angelo builds off the sample with a heavy beat and a
guitar solo. His lyrics deliver a message of stridency, with
the chorus, “A coward dies 1,000 times / But a soldier only
dies just once.” In a song co-written with the producer and
DJ Questlove, D’Angelo again questions the nature of struggle on “The Charade,” singing, “All we wanted was a chance
to talk / ‘Stead we’ve only got outlined in chalk.” D’Angelo
stays experimental musically throughout the album even
when the subject matter turns from politics to romance. On
“Really Love,” D’Angelo starts off gently with flamenco guitar before the funk beat breaks through.
Releasing a statement at a listening party for the album
in New York, D’Angelo acknowledged that he was courting
controversy with the title “Black Messiah” but insisted he
was not portraying himself as some R&B Jesus. “It can easily
be misunderstood. Many will think it’s about religion. Some
will jump to the conclusion that I’m calling myself a Black
Messiah,” he wrote. “For me, the title is about all of us. It’s
about the world. It’s about an idea we can all aspire to. We
should all aspire to be a Black Messiah,” he wrote. “It’s about
people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy
Wall Street and in every place where a community has had
enough and decides to make change happen.”
Return to roots for Nicki Minaj
The surprise release by D’Angelo came on the same day
as a much more expected album by hip hop star Nicki
Minaj. “The Pinkprint” marks a return to the roots of one of
the most successful female rappers, whose career has
soared in the past several years through more mainstream
pop songs and collaborations with superstars such as Justin
Bieber. Minaj, 32, goes intensely personal on her third studio album. On “All Things Go,” Minaj speaks of coping with
the violent death of a cousin and hints at coming to terms
with a past abortion, rapping: “My child with Aaron would
have been 16 any minute.”
The Trinidadian-born New Yorker also defends her rise to
fame, rapping: “Let me make this clear / I’m not difficult / I’m
just about my business / I’m not into fake industry parties,
and fake agendas / Rock with people for how they make me
feel, not what they give me.” Despite the introspection on
the album, Minaj initially made headlines for a very different reason-what critics saw as Nazi overtones on the video
for her single “Only.” On the video, Minaj appears as a dictator on a throne with red-and-white banners bearing the letters of her Young Money label. Minaj apologized, saying she
had not intended the slightest Nazi association. — AFP