Artistic transitions are hard. Nay, next to impossible. Especially when loads of money and stardom are involved, the overwhelming majority of bands come apart at the seams or hit a creative wall they never manage to scale. As much as I love certain bands, I don't believe most of them ever do anything as interesting as the work of their initial heyday. Radiohead is special in that they created some of the most interesting music of 1990's, then overcame incredible pressures to create music that was just as good but markedly different from the stuff that made them famous.

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A few years ago, singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright endeavored to produce his own modern opera. It was called Prima Donna and, as one might expect from a French-language anachronism penned by an already idiosyncratic artist debuting in New York City, it didn't do very well either commercially or critically. But then, Rufus Wainwright has more or less cemented himself as the kind of recording artist who does that sort of thing regardless of success. He only briefly flirted with the pop charts in the late 90's before he decided to put his considerable talents into pursuits that better fit his classicist leanings. As a pop record, All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu doesn't press the right buttons. It's quiet, sad and rarely catchy. Taken as a work of heartfelt performance art, it makes a lot more sense, especially coming from the guy who decided to reimagine Judy Garland's entire Broadway show.

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Of all the eras in the history of pop music, the rising and failed stars of the late 80's through the mind 90's have the least to envy. All told, it was a pretty suffocating atmosphere. Where the late 70's and most of the 80's were a heyday for independent labels and a stunning amount of experimentation, the 1990's rise of corporate "alternative" music did more to stifle good bands than any previous cash-grab. It's hard to believe today that there was a time when MTV really was a media monster. Along with a couple notable magazines (Rolling Stone and Blender come to mind), that cable TV network was a platform that sold billions of dollars worth of records. The stuff that got on the air was almost guaranteed to succeed, while the stuff that didn't chart on the music video countdowns might as well have never been recorded. Looking at Radiohead's early days, it's a wonder that the band survived that toxic period of corporatized music.

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Justin BieberJustin Bieber did a comedy sketch last night (4/10/10) on "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) with guest host Tiny Fey. Justin Beiber was the musical guest and the two songs he sang, he has sung before elsewhere. The skit was okay. But skits don't sink and swim just on the performance of the actor, but also by the strength of the writers. The SNL writers should have provided him with better material. There were a few laughs, but mainly the material sank. Justin Beiber did okay with the material he was given.

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In Part One of this article, I called the music Nine Inch Nails definitively pop, if only because of high record sales and widespread name recognition. It can't exactly be said that Trent Reznor aimed for the pop charts, though. Especially in the past decade, NIN's albums have barely touched the accessibility of the band's first three albums. Listening to Reznor's post-2000 work, it's a bit easier to understand both what made his music in the 90's so special and what has marginalized his sound in the 21st century. Trent Reznor, and by extension Nine Inch Nails, is more interested in experimentation than hit-making. These days, Reznor can afford to make whole albums based on fiddling and fund tours all on his lonesome. As such, the radio songs have all but dried up.

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There's a major disconnect between critical consensus and the public consumption of pop music. I've heard respected music journalists refer to Trent Reznor and his work as Nine Inch Nails as being "the most vital artist in music" and "the poet laureate of rock", but it's really hard to see any immediate influence descending from Reznor into modern pop. And yes, though he made a mix of metal, synth, goth and industrial, I consider Trent Reznor's music to be pop, more or less. He's had several #1 albums and none of his studio releases fell short of financial success. What puzzles me is why NIN was always so popular but no major musical acts outside of substandard angst-rock like Korn, forgettable crossover successes like Orgy or overstated imitations like Marylin Manson did anything with Reznor's incredibly sharp take on modern sound.

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Erykah BaduFriday, April 2nd, Dallas Police Department decided to walked the line and cite  Erykah Badu for disorderly conduct for  shooting  her music video, "Window Seat," while  stripping naked. The charges were filed after Dallas police received a formal complaint from a witness to the nude shoot. The Associate Press reports that a Texas woman filed an indecency complaint with police officials after she and her mother witnessed Ms. Badu shooting the guerrilla-style video completely naked. Erykah Badu  could have faced more serious charges. The Dallas authorities decided to issue her a citation that requires that she pay a fine, which can be mailed in to resolve the legal matter.


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Justin BieberYesterday could have been called Justin Bieber's Day, no his career is not a joke. It's is that just he is so hot with a mega-army of fans that everybody wants to get on the Justin Bieber bandwagon. Yesterday, the popular comedy site, Funny or Die,  adopted Justin Bieber. Yes, adopted him, by making him the star of their April Fools spoof. 

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Popular music fans are discovering a wealth of available material on the Web because of various projects to digitize the magazines that chronicled the rise of pop music, particularly in terms of rock and roll.

A fan has placed carefully digitized complete issues of KRLA Beat, the earliest American newspaper to cover top-forty music. The Beat which was published by a Pasadena radio station began in 1964 as a small four-page newsletter, but grew to a sixteen page weekly, and then a 24 page bi-monthly before it ceased publication in 1968. You can find a careful, thoroughly documented collection of almost all the issues here.

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Erykah BaduErykah Badu has a hot video on the Internet. She performs the hit song Window Seat, from her newly released album, New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh, and she strip off her clothes on a public street.

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