Loose Ends

 

• If you're a celebrity, Marilyn Manson would make a great friend.  [Jossip]
• Kanye West is rubbing off on Tom Cruise.  [BWE]
• Mariah Carey managed a spectacular comeback, but is the same possible for other celebrities who have fallen from grace?  [NovaSlim]
• And David Beckham is apparently taking his fashion inspiration from K-Fed.  [Just Jared]
• Interview with Marcel McCalla, of Footballer's Wives.  [Rod 2.0]
• Wentworth Miller wants more hardcore fans, instead of the teenyboppers who remember him as the sk8r boi from Mariah Carey's videos.  [BiggestStars]
• TV pilots that never became shows.  [PopMatters]
• Has M. Night Shyamalan jumped the shark?  [PopWatch]

News and Nonsense

 

• Kaavya Viswanathan is just a product of her generation; she was probably just trying to show how easy it is to incorporate the idea of sampling (as they do it in the music business) to the literary world.  Too bad it didn't catch on– maybe in a few years… [Gawker, Jossip]
• CW sweeps in to clear out the clutter of unwatchable sitcoms on WB and UPN, but who knows if the few good shows will actually survive?  [SFGate]
• Fellow tenants in the building that NY's Hot 97 called its home apparently couldn't take a little random gunfire and the odd stabbing here and there.  [Eurweb] 
• Why make movies when you can be Tom Cruise's beard?  Katie Holmes takes the trophy for golddigging; she managed to put up with Tom Cruise's weirdness for this long because of the paycheck she's been promised.  [A Socialite's Life]
• Nicole Richie finally admits that she has a problem with her weight, because she can't find anything stylish to wear in the children's department.  [The Bosh]
• Hugh Grant to join the cast of Ocean's 19 13.  [Entertainmentwise]
• Most Americans can't find Iraq on a map, because it doesn't have a Starbucks… yet.  [Independent]
• Will Jay-Z take over at The Source?  [Jossip]

Emo News Reporting: A New American Trend

Tara Taghizadeh of PopMatters takes a look at the prevalence of subjective reporting in American television news coverage:  

… In an era when network news audiences are dwindling and viewers are instead opting to receive their news from the Internet, is it only a matter of time before anchors are extinct? Or is it that anchors will have to follow in the footsteps of [Anderson] Cooper and provide a more intimate, "touchy-feely" version of the news; that is, news which is deemed more subjective, rather than objective? The networks are also facing considerable challenges from cable news (especially, the right-leaning Fox network) and the Internet. Network news gained momentum with 9/11, but since then, more and more viewers are eager to turn to cable news shows (such as Fox and MSNBC and blogs) for what appears to be personal, biased commentary (hence the popularity of the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity), and for more immediate, breaking stories which the Internet offers readily.

It has long been said that the evening news has always been about the personality of the anchor rather than about the news itself (case in point: the legendary Walter Cronkite, who was known as the "most trusted man in America"), and therefore the current lineup of anchors is merely a popularity contest. What else can possibly explain CBS' decision to hire away the bubbly, cheerful [Katie] Couric — who seems to be a perfect fit for the light fare of morning TV — to lead its serious evening newscast? Can this be explained in any way other than the "Anderson Cooper effect"? That is; that star power is far more important than the actual content of the news itself? As Tim Goodman writes in the San Francisco Chronicle in an article titled "Sure, Cooper is cute and young, but get a grip CNN" (12 October 2005):

The Anderson Cooper cult of personality must end. That may be difficult, given that he's the Poster Boy Anchor and Future of Broadcast Journalism, so perhaps merely containing him would be a start.

In another article in TomPaine.com ("Must-Cry TV", 20 September, 2005), which explains Cooper's outburst at a local politician regarding the aftermath of Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans and other Gulf areas, Richard Bradley quotes CNN boss Jonathan Klein as saying: "I think other news executives are drooling over [Cooper.] He brings a new dimension to the job, which is a concept of an anchor as a kind of missionary. It's a new model for thinking about what the anchorperson ought to be." Bradley states: "Forgive me for not salivating, but is crying on television… really what a television news anchor 'ought to be'? I don't want my newscasters to be missionaries."

Sour Notes

• Interview with Amel Larrieux.  [PopMatters]
• "Hyphy Juice" sounds like the last thing you'd want to give to a kid.  [Davey D]
• Pink is a free spirit, but only with other women.  [WWTDD]
• Janet Jackson has dropped her extra weight in record time, but her music is what really needs a makeover.  [Media Take Out, Cake and Ice Cream]
• Jewel ditches the pop sound and goes back to what made her famous.  [AP]
• Profile of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  [Independent]
• Cher to take over the cheesefest once Celine Dion leaves Las Vegas.  [Queerty]
• Debbie Harry gives a shout out to Lil' Kim.  [Davey D]
• Don't call it a comeback: Interview with Pearl Jam.  [CNN]

Wednesday Whirl

 

• Nick Lachey says he's not interested in dating Lindsay Lohan.  Apparently, Brett Ratner feels the same way.  Maybe they're trying to maintain at least 6 degrees of separation between themselves and Paris Hilton… At this rate, Lindsay should just try shagging Paris herself, to save everyone a lot of headaches and extra trips to the STD clinic.  [Hollywood Tuna, The Bosh]
• Paul Bettany mistakenly thinks that it takes a baseball cap to make you look like white trash; obviously, he doesn't pay much attention when he looks into a mirror.  [Just Jared]
• Sex toy, or baby toy?  (NSFW, obviously) [via Queerty]
• Somehow, I think even when Madonna turns 80, we will still be subjected to seeing her do things like writhing around topless with a horse and other farm animals.  [Towleroad]
• Gabriel Aubry tells us exactly why Halle wants to adopt a child.  [Gabsmash]
• Interview with Keke Palmer of Akeelah and the Bee.  [Courier News]
• Is Hollywood experiencing a British invasion?  [Telegraph]
• Scarlett Johansson likes to imagine that she's really clever, and Alicia Keys likes to imagine that she's as much of a draw as Scarlett.  [Letters to Famous People]
• JLo has not yet realized that her agents can only be held partially responsible for her crappy movies.  They only choose the projects; they're not the ones acting in them.  [IDLYITW]
• VH1 might actually be even worse than MTV now.  [D Listed]

The Death of the Album?

  There is nothing worse than buying an album only to discover that there are only a handful of tracks on it that are decent enough to listen to more than once (or all the way through, for that matter).  It seems to be the norm, though, to find albums that are nothing more than one or two good songs with 8 tracks of filler between them. 

The days of enjoying an album by playing it from the first track to the last are long gone; people are wired to find the specific songs that they like, download/record those, and leave the rest for someone else to get a headache trying to wade through.

Pierre Hamilton of PopMatters expounds on the music single, and how the success of singles sales is leading to the death of the album:

A magnet for the masses, the single attracts audiences and money. To sell albums, you need one. Failure to comply provokes the old record label standby, "We can't sell this album; we don't hear a single." At one time or another, Wilco, Fiona Apple, and the Hives, among countless others, have been targets of this tired tirade…  One song now maligns or defines you and one hit song is the exact distance from obscurity to overnight success. Sadly, the album is an afterthought…

Everybody has a hustle; singles lie. Not always, but often enough, it is art altered for mass appeal — calculated commoditization. It is the free sample in the supermarket that leads to a purchase neglected and regretted once at home. The single says, "Believe me, I am the best this artist has to offer." It may not be true but we — the public, the media, the consumers — buy it because it tasted good from a platter.

The rest of the article can be found here: "The Tipping Point: The State of the Single, Part One"  [PopMatters]