Damn, Sheryl Crow doesn’t care for American Idol. “Let’s face it, it undermines art in every way and promotes commercialism,” she’s quoted as telling Ladies Home Journal. Well, I only followed Idol regularly during its second season, and that was because of the girl I was dating at the time, so I’m not defending the show here. But c’mon, Sheryl, are you trying to write my material for me? (more…)

By now you’ve no doubt scratched a runway into your forehead trying to make sense of “The Definitive 200,” a list of the “top 200 albums of all time.” Issued by the National Association of Record Manufacturers and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this stupefyingly wrongheaded document seems an attempt to remind us all that the album format is still viable in this age of 99-cent downloads. But it shoots itself in the foot with such incomprehensibly incompetent rankings that the whole thing is just one big embarrassment. (more…)

Yahoo! is reporting that Velvet Revolver, who are scheduled to induct Van Halen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, is now supposedly going to perform in the band’s place at the ceremony. I don’t know how true that is yet, so it seems premature to rant about it, as Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch blog did this morning. But this bit of news, which closely followed the press release I got last night announcing this year’s presenters, begs the question: What does Velvet Revolver have to do with Van Halen? For that matter, what does Eddie Vedder have to do with R.E.M., the band he’ll be inducting? (more…)

I don’t have much to say about last night’s Grammy Awards broadcast, namely because I didn’t see it. I’ve got a good excuse — my wife and I took my in-laws out to dinner to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary. Otherwise, I probably would have turned it on, watched the Police perform “Roxanne,” bitched about them going with such a boring and obvious choice, and flipped over to Spike TV’s Tom Berenger “Sniper” marathon before I could catch a mistaken glimpse of the Real Hard Chili Poopers winning an award for furthering the cause of mediocrity. (more…)

So the Police, as expected, announced plans for a big reunion tour today. I kind of feel obligated to mention it here, although I don’t have anything to say about it that I didn’t already say this past weekend at my day job: If you’re interested, read it here.

From today’s New York Times (first-time visitors will need to register to view the whole thing):

“He won over the teeny-boppers long ago, but in his incarnation as a sexy-smooth crooner with a hip-hop edge, Justin Timberlake has gained some unusual fans: hipsters. ”

One expects to see Timberlake’s peach-fuzz visage staring at us from the cover of Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone. But the last time I checked, the New York Times still prided itself on being a newspaper and not a cog in the publicity-industry machine. (more…)