Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

As this IDIOT HACK from THE PAPER OF RE-CORD BOSTON EDITION INSPIRED me I'm going to look up ALL THE @#$%&* ACTS HE LISTED. (Sorry, this is what a blogger should NOT be -- LONG.)

Franz Ferdinand (cute name. The archduke whose assassination started The Great War? Their fans don't know that. I suspect the band members don't know that.) has a VERY BUSY site. Much as I'd like to I can't copy their PREGNANT bio because it's in Macromedia Flash format, but here is the conversation that STARTED A BAND AND CHANGED THE WORLD:

"Do you want to play the bass then, Bob?"

"No, I'm an artist, not a musician."

"It's the same thing."

"OK, then."

Already they were steeped in self-delusion, which should serve them well as they scale the charts.

Kanye West -- pardon, kanYeWest -- is a [C]RAPPER who loves ugly gold jewelry. But let the infinite suck-up JANN WENNER speak for him:

With the multiplatinum success of his debut album, The College Dropout, Kanye West, 27, had one hell of a freshman year in the music biz. Well, not exactly a freshman year -- he's been scoring major hits since 2001 as a producer for Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Ludacris and others. "Kan the Louis Vuitton Don" -- as he likes to be called -- proved his utter domination by ruling the charts, the radio waves and MTV. He checked in with us on the day he received ten Grammy nominations, more than any other artist this year.

TRANSLATION: He stinks and has a following.

Los Lonely Boys are up-and-comers -- they're performing at halftime of the VITALIS BOWL on December 31! They also have four Grammy nominations, which undoubtedly means they've thanked their publicists in their latest acknowledgements.

(Pardon, I meant SUN BOWL. Isn't Vitalis the stuff Dickie V slathers on his scalp?)

The Streets are BRITISH [C]RAPPERS. Sorry Tony, I think it's too late for the empire.

Gretchen Wilson is a "country" act, meaning (as it does for all contemporary "country" stars) she sings rock with a southern accent. She does seem to have enjoyed some success -- she sold an alleged 3,000,000 copies of one album -- but:

Gretchen joins Christina Aguilera, Lauryn Hill, Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Alanis Morissette and six other talented women whose debut albums hit the three million mark within six months of their release dates.

This may not be a compliment. Also she boasts she appeared on 60 Minutes, which means her publicists know the streak may not last, and given the excellence of today's music they're wise to hedge their bets. But then she did milk the tone-deaf marketing managers at Target into having her sing for some Christmas commercials, so you could say she has a "business" sense.

Scissor Sisters -- well, let's let an always-willing-to-do-a-favor British flack speak for them:

No one had heard of the group before but a quick listen revealed an outfit who ... well, who sounded like early Elton John. Who had the nerve to cover Pink Floyd as if Pink Floyd had been disco queens. Who revelled at the prospect of taking their 'mama' out for a night on the town to swill cheap champagne.... the Scissor Sisters have won the praise of rock grandees including Elton John and Bono (who told them they are the best pop group in the world); sold 1.3 million copies of their album in the UK, as they jostle with Keane and Katie Melua to become the biggest-selling act of the year; written Kylie Minogue's new single; and played to a rapturous reception at all the major festivals this summer, followed by barn-storming sell-out shows at the Albert Hall and (for Halloween) Brixton. So perhaps they did take our advice.

Either way, that's pretty good going for a band that has only been together for two years and is more camp than a row of tents. This has hindered their progress in their native America, where they remain a cult group....

OH oh.

Coheed and Cambria is a "Progressive-emo" band, meaning (judging from this site) "it takes the foundation and pushes the limits. Occasionally they push to the point where they may lose the very fans they've just won over." WELL! They also like comic books and they're working on A GRAPHICAL NOVEL -- meaning they can write without writing! WOW!!!!! (In fairness their latest album was released through Sony Music -- no vanity press for THEIR music!)

The Dresden Dolls call their shtick "Brechtian Punk Cabaret." NUF SAID.

Madeleine Peyroux alone sounds relatively normal -- she sings what one HACK has called CLASSIC POP -- but even here there's a catch:

Jim Manion [whoever that is] enthuses that "Madeleine Peyroux's voice explores a zone all her own that lies between rootsy and classy. Rough edged expressions and subtle tonal slides mix it up with soulful torch singing, pregnant pauses and a true sense of swing."

Does this mean she mangles the tunes?

I will admit these acts have done something most of us will never do -- sell records. But since when do you need talent to sell records? BILLY MURRAY sold them. MITCH MILLER sold them. FABIAN sold them. VANILLA ICE sold them. More to the point, I'd scarcely heard of these ACTS until this IDIOT HACK mentioned them -- and just because you have a Web site doesn't mean people have heard of you. (Gretchen Wilson's Sony-produced site is 111,482 on Alexa.) We can at least understand MRS. SLUT'S success because she has some looks, and a brilliant regiment of agents. Where would she be without her mammoth GALL?

Fans of these show-biz giants could challenge me by citing my previous post on Dr. Kildare's bus-and-truck company. "Who are these jerks? I never heard of ANY of these!" True, it just might be the reverse of my situation with these FORMIDABLE acts. Then again, we have Alfred Drake on his cast album of Kismet, and we have Harold Lang recording Pal Joey -- both among the greatest of musical albums, both issued over FIFTY YEARS AGO, and NOT out of print, and they never will be. We who love these albums can say with certainty these two men had more talent then ten thousand kanYeWests. That kanYe's or the Scissors' or Gretchen's is the music of the moment, endorsed by NEWS HACKS, does not change this. We have the sad tale of Mencken's beloved novelist Joseph Hergesheimer to tell us what can happen to press-endorsed GENIUS.