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Musical chairs
Flesh and blood Roger and him Sharps & Flats Neighborhood girl Sharps & Flats From Bauhaus to tract house Sharps & Flats
BROWSE THE MUSIC ARCHIVES
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HAIL, SONY! | PAGE 1, 2
Country people are from a whole 'nother planet. They got lots of big teats and hats and hee-yuk jokes about how weird you rock 'n' rollers are. Put the "Garbage" in the "Hole"! Hee-yerk! Snaw! Why don't they just finally segregate the country from the rock once and for all? The music worlds, they collide. The country folk are all fat and sincere, their clothes are all boxy and wrong. They should have their very own awards show, where they can ooze over Garth and Vince Gill till the cows come home, and get as Lawrence Welky as they wanna be and talk about Jesus until their gums bleed. Give the country people all the car commercials and family values; let Madonna and Courtney and Sheryl all gnaw each other into rock 'n' roll kibble with their big teeth. Ohp! It's time for the social consciousness song, the one that benefits that really good cause. "Lean on Me," a high-gospel crossover screamer featuring a fictional little boy living with AIDS, was this year's Bono vehicle. Bono, Charity Whore, is always willing to wave his arms in the air for sentimental pornography. Everybody on the stage was trying to out-soul each other, all the churchified Africans pulled out their biggest and loudest, and the unrestrained combat-wailing that ensued was truly unintelligible. I guess that ever since "We Are the World," there is a general idea that if you pack as many hollering people as possible onto a "good cause" album, you are somehow creating an Emotional Experience ($$$$$$$$). I was glad to see Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner receive a coveted verge of death award for their comedy album. They were funny. Where was Courtney Hole? Where was Jewel? -- not that I was shattered not to see her or anything. Well, who remembers those snaggle-toothed blonds when faced with the sheer perfection of Shania Twain!!!! Shania Twain rocked the house in an Aerosmith spread-eagle, wearing a pair of tight vinyl hip waders, a strapless corset and a micro-mini, looking like a British bondage model as created by Christian Dior. I loved that part of the song where she started barking, arf arf! While the writhing studio musicians with the double keyboards and white violins and rubber pants enacted guitar solo-like pain simulations, the camera crept closer and closer to the black hole up Shania's tiny skirt. Hoooooooeeeee! Why were all the musicians wearing goggles, you may have wondered? Didn't you see the set-pieces ejaculate at the end? The Backstreet Chicks, the Dixie Boyz, all wearing Bob Mackie adhesive napkins, partying with the Jheri-curled rednecks. Aren't they kyewt? Alanis Morissette demurely yodeled a hit movie theme song, with her seaweed hair, Fiona Apple-style. She really tore it up in Celtic Sinéad O'Connor style with her orgiastic philharmonic and smoke machine, but the last shot of her really needed a bucket of pig blood to fall out of the rafters, "Carrie"-style. Alanis is OK. She's well spoken and relaxed, not nearly as offensive and grimily self-referential as Sheryl Crow, and at least she writes a lot of her own stuff. Leave Alanis alone, you guys. Hey, did you catch that crazy sexy Latin guy in the leather pants, hollering all crazy with that crazy horn section?! People on stilts! OK!! My husband screamed, "OK Already! I'll fuck him!" He was wigglin' and wigglin'! Mucho caliente halftime Super Bowl action!!! Crazy drums came through the audience! Ricky Martin is Lord of the Latin Song!!! Hopla!! Cut to reaction shot of Jennifer Lopez. Thank you, Sony!!! Did I thank Sony? I really wanna thank Sony!!! Foxy Brown was wearing her best set of honkers and a dress smaller than a Starbucks cup jacket. If that tattoo wasn't covering her pubic hair, we coulda seen everything! Boo-yah! Will Smith?! There's no stopping that guy! He's the Tom Hanks of Rap! Cut to reaction shot of comely brown wife. He's just so goddamned affable. The heavy-hitters were coming. The obnoxious light boards in the background became stained-glass church windows, because we were preparing ourselves for the heart-opening magic of Celine Dion. Candles. Weeping symphonics. Blind Italian opera guys. Christ, that was so bee-yoo-tee-ful! Get me a lotion-flavored Kleenex! My angina! Question everybody was asking themselves one hour into things: Who is getting jiggy with Shania Twain? Ricky Martin? They're both covered with scented oils and skintight unborn calf garments. Lauryn Hill won. I guess they realized that she had to. I guess the Grammy voters realized that if Natalie Imbruglia or the Backstreet Boyz beat Lauryn Hill, L.A. would go up in flames again. Thank God for Lauryn Hill, because she has only been on the cover of everything a few times, so far. She is refreshingly positive and black in that beautiful way we loved Bob Marley so much for: courageous and sincere. Still -- and I say this with regret -- it is hard not to look at her in terms of Outrageous Label Support, the big Push that gave us perennial pop-goblins like Sheryl Crow and Jewel and everyone else we're supposed to be buying. It's nice that the big label has chosen to rub its prime time all over the likes of Hill, who is very talented and real. Babylon is burning, however, and Lauryn's hair is already standing on end from the hot sucking wind tunnels she has, so far, walked through unscathed in her little white dress. I hope her nice family and Psalm 40 can save her from the inevitable vampirism that befalls big stars. I loved that speech by the president of the Recording Arts and Sciences, Michael Green, thanking the fans, the music lovers, for giving us so much money. Making us reach for more difficult-to-reach money; higher, for taller money. Then that part where he said that music was powerful medicine, so he was working with all the doctors of America to give new mothers a CD of Sheryl Crow's "The Globe Sessions," for the early development of future money in newborns. Hey, isn't that a black and white photo of Sam Cooke? He's dead. Otis Redding. Dead. Smokey Robinson. Dead? That montage was a little fore-runner of the obligatory Jazz Guilt Hour with Wynton Marsalis, in honor of Duke Ellington, also dead, but born 100 years ago! Gosh, music sure does add a lot to movies, said George Lucas, drunk. TITANIC. We all knew we'd have to hear that song again when we got into this. We knew Celine wasn't here to sit around in a bunch of bugle beads, looking like a stretched cat. Record of the Year! My Heart Will Go On!!! What didya think? Oh please, who do you think you are, you fringe 5 percent of the nation who can't stand Celine? You 1,700 mean-spirited malcontents reading my column? You don't have your finger on the pulse! You're just JEALOUS!!! Thank you, Sony. Sony, Sony. Sony makes the movies that make the music!
Cintra Wilson is a frequent contributor to Salon. She lives in New York. |
