Pop Implosions

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Beast of Burden
I have traversed a treacherous sea of horrors to be with you here tonight
Axl Rose

There was an article in The Times yesterday about the new Guns and Roses album Chinese Democracy which Axl Rose has been making (or not) for about a decade, in between bouts of depression and regression therapy. He's hired and lost about 50 musicians in the meantime including a guitarist called Buckethead:

a virtuoso ... who wears a face-mask and a KFC bucket on his head...Buckethead, who has since left the project, was, at one point persuaded to stay on longer after Rose met his demands for a chicken coop to be built in the studio.

In 1999 a G&R song was released on the soundtrack to the twilight Arnie vehicle End of Days (I think that was the film) with an accompanying press release written by Axl. It read:

Emotionally the song contemplates several abstract perspectives drawing from personal expression as well as from the film and its metaphors. The appropriate expression and vehicle for such emotions and concepts is not something taken for granted. Power to the people, peace out and blame Canada.

Marvellous!

Other pop implosions: Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Ghostface Killah beating up 5O Cent, Lil Kim getting caught lying to a Federal Grand Jury...

AND... (this is a thread for gossip, rumour, disaster, bad behaviour, tragedy and farce...)
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
the beach boys being reduced to playing to 50 pensioners in a nursing home in leeds. this was like 3 years after they were one of the biggest bands in the world.

there were so many implosions in the beach boys history.
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
yeah - I read the massive ny times article about GnR a few weeks ago. it's amazing stuff.

buckethead's an interesting character indeed

I found it particularly amusing that 2 of axl's recruits met on the project, then broke off and started the band a perfect circle. they recorded their own album on the cheap in between G'n'R sessions, and have become extremely successful as a result.

there's still a really strong work ethic in certain sectors of the US rock scene - artists branching out and collaborating, rather than sticking to a single project and putting all of their hopes in a single contract. I suppose josh homme is a mini-axl rose - hiring and firing on a regular basis (but, unlike axl, consistently delivering the goods as a result). in the UK you so often see musicians disappear once what they perceive to be their only hope gets dropped by a label or dissolves.
 
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hint

hint

party record with a siren
... but I should add that the article prompted me to find a couple of live recordings online of new G'n'R material and it was surprisingly poor. :eek: not that I expected to enjoy it much, but I at least thought they'd have some songs by now.
 
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puretokyo

Mercury Blues
and as for pop implosions, what about Prince? maybe more of a 'pop fizzle'... Bobby Brown had a fairly hard fall as well - see Whitney Houston.
 
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polystyle

Well-known member
Implo -Expo

The G & R story was a good read on how much money a label can have to spend ...
Axel spend a ton of money , label kept doling it , can't tell if he enjoyed it tho'
'Ol Buckethead has been around for awhile - that he was drafted by Axel was a wild stretch.
Rammellzee worked with him recently and they cooked some dirty metallic stuff,
was listening to some with him on Tue's.
I hope BH does something great and gets some cred on his own , not just as a side player for Axel's and Laswellians.
Ramm was talking about Axel hanging out on a traffic island South of Houston St. bk in the day ,
which sounded pretty strange !

Re: Josh H . One day I rd Queens' will break up , next day I see notice they will sign records in town .
Josh prolly got next gang all lined up .

Under silly OG stuff , the 50 Cent - The Game small battle took up some ink inches ,
the footage of the tow of them apologizing onstage was telling .
With Game's face being what it is , hard to tell smiling from smirking .
50 can laugh all the way to his new Video game , mo press , mo press

Whitney & Bobby . Don't fall on yer nose(s), might break

Prince ? well, he's got enough $ and seclusion to last a couple lifetimes ,
and they don't get to stay 'on top' forever . He still makes a load of $ and last disc sold not that badly.
 
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fldsfslmn

excremental futurism
polystyle des said:
Prince ? well, he's got enough $ and seclusion to last a couple lifetimes ,
and they don't get to stay 'on top' forever . He still makes a load of $ and last disc sold not that badly.
Click to expand...

This is one of the sharpest moves I've seen, actually. Prince's last concert tour included a copy of the CD for each concert goer, and the accountants laid it out so that this constituted a sale of the album (recorded as a sale in a record store would be) rather than somebody getting a freebie with their ticket. Prince can still absolutely fill the house (three nights in Toronto, each one sold out to the nuts), but I wager not so many of those fans would have bought the new album of their own volition. And thus the album is seen to "sell well" and earns its respect in a clever way. I haven't heard it, though.
 
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Beast of Burden
And, ok, what's the low-down on R. Kelly - why's he not in the same hot water bubble bath full of little people as Jacko?

Care to fucking explain????

Fuck the minutia of grime; what about the minutia of fuck-ups?

From Charlie Parker to X-tina, or whatever.
 
M

Melchior

Taking History Too Far
oliver craner said:
And, ok, what's the low-down on R. Kelly - why's he not in the same hot water bubble bath full of little people as Jacko?

Care to fucking explain????
Click to expand...

Presumably because fucking adolescents is not seen as being as bad as fucking pre-adolescents?
 
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