What’s worse?

So apparently the lead singer from Live, Ed Kowalczyk, is kind of a dick:

On November 30, 2009, Taylor revealed that the “hiatus” was more likely a permanent split. He cited Kowalczyk’s demand for a $100,000 “lead singer bonus” at the 2009 Pinkpop Festival and a 2005 contract that made Kowalczyk the sole signatory of the band’s Black Coffee Publishing company as reasons for the break-up.
At the end of May 2010, the other three members of Live filed a lawsuit against Kowalczyk and their former business manager in the New York State Supreme Court. Among their demands were $225,000 in unpaid publishing money and royalties for songs written by the band that Kowalczyk sold on his website. It was also noted that in 2005 Kowalczyk presented the other band members with an ultimatum: Either agree that all songs on future Live albums would be credited as written by Ed Kowalczyk or he would leave the band.

But before you side with these guys, know this: the rest of the dudes in Live went on to form a band called The Gracious Few with the singer dude from Candlebox.   Euchhh.

2010
07/27
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Robert Palmer + Duran Duran + Chic = ….

Let’s look back to 1985.  Duran Duran were on top of the world, having had 5 top 20 hits in the US from 3 different albums in the span of a year.  But they were also on the verge of breaking up, and bassist John Taylor and guitarist Andy Taylor were looking for something to do.  Robert Palmer had been releasing music for 15 years, both with bands and as a solo artist, but he’d only had one moderate hit (“Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)“), way back in 1979.   As a member of Chic, Tony Thompson had played on some of the biggest disco hits, but the band had gone on hiatus in ’83.

Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but this rather random group of musicians, all at loose ends, somehow came together to form the most awkward-looking supergroup ever: POWER STATION.

Can’t you just feel the love?

They only recorded one album.  Let’s take a look at this doozy of an ’80s album cover, designed by John Taylor:

Their sole album included the top 10 hit “Some Like It Hot.”  (Fun factoid: video stars transsexual supermodel Caroline Cossey!)

They also had a hit with a cover of T. Rex’s “Get it On (Bang a Gong)”, an idea too terrible to even contemplate.

After the success of the album that provided him with his biggest hit to date, Robert Palmer ditched the group to record another solo album.  This disc, Riptide, borrowed heavily from the Power Station sound and scored him an even bigger hit: “Addicted to Love.”

Power Station wanted to tour, but was now out a vocalist, so they brought in Michael Des Barres, a.k.a. the co-writer of “Obsession”, a.k.a. Murdoc from MacGyver, a.k.a. ex-husband of Pamela Des Barres (groupie legend and author of I’m With the Band).  The Des Barres version of the band only recorded one song — for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Commando! — before breaking up.

2010
05/12
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Guess who’s helping Howard Jones?

You probably know Howard Jones from every dentist office visit you’ve made in the past 20 years.  Here, bite down on this fluoride tray full of synthy poppy goodness… and guess what famous musician produced and played on this track (answer after the break)

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2010
05/05
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A little bad, a little good

BAD: Dammit, Kid Rock is the 99th best selling musician of all time in the U.S.

GOOD: This awesome 7″ cover:


2010
05/04
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Guess who’s helping Frida?

There once was a lovely Swedish woman named Anni-Frid Lyngstad.  As a member of ABBA, she recorded some of the most insidiously catchy songs of all time, but alas, her name was not so catchy, so when embarking on a solo career, she changed her name to Frida.  Just Frida.  She had the biggest hit of any ABBA-related solo project with “I Know There’s Something Going On.”  Here, have a listen… you might have a sneaking suspicion that something about it sounds a little familiar.  Guess which famous musician produced and played on this track? Answer after the break!

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2010
05/04
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Seals and Croft

Yeah, this Seals and Croft:

Mmmmmm, that rock is so sooffffffft.

But did you know that in the early ’60s, they were both members of the Champs, best known for the instrumental hit “Tequila!”?  Dios mio!

2010
05/03
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Meredith Brooks

Just in case you were looking for another reason to detest the one-hit wonder behind the infintely annoying fakey feminist ’97 song “Bitch”…

she produced Jennifer Love Hewitt’s album, BareNaked.

If you want to be depressed about the state of the music industry, consider that this was Jennifer Love Hewitt’s fourth album.

2010
04/29
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Gary Wright

He’s got a generic name and only one hit album, but Gary Wright is slightly more interesting than his footnote position in the annals of rock would have you believe.

That one hit album was called The Dream Weaver.  God, isn’t this album cover hideous?

Gary claimed that The Dream Weaver was the first-ever all keyboard/synthesizer album, but Wendy Carlos got there almost a decade earlier — bad form, Gary!

The album’s biggest hit?  “Dream Weaver,” duh!

Wes Craven said that “Dream Weaver” was the inspiration for A Nightmare on Elm Street. I dunno if that makes the song more badass or the movie a little bit lame.

“Love is Alive” was also a number 2 hit.

Your last bit of Gary Wright trivia: played piano on Nilsson’s “Without You”!

Now you can go back to forgetting about him (if you can erase that album cover from your brain, that is).

2010
04/28
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The tangled web that connects Depeche Mode with The Macarena

Vince Clarke was one of the founding members of Depeche Mode, and wrote “Just Can’t Get Enough,” among other songs.  He ditched the band in ’81.

He’d eventaully go on to form Erasure, but first, he formed Yaz (or Yazoo in the UK) with Alison Moyet.  I remember her mid-’90s solo output getting some coverage in the music press, but I couldn’t name a song of hers.

Yaz’s debut UK single was “Only You.”  Its b-side, “Situation,” was released as their lead single in the US and became a minor hit.  Clarke sings lead on the song; the only discernable touch of Moyet’s voice is her laugh, repeated throughout the song.

…

You probably don’t want to remember “The Macarena.”  But remember that sampled woman’s giggle in the beginning?  That’s Moyet’s laugh from “Situation.”

2010
04/27
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Gerry Rafferty

You know him.  He did “Baker Street,” that song with a saxophone chorus that probably gave birth to the ’80s saxophones-in-rock fad.  (EDIT: Whoa, I’m right!  “The eight-bar alto saxophone solo led to a resurgence described as “the ‘Baker Street’ phenomenon.”[1] There followed a jump in saxophone sales, and a noticeable increase in the use of the instrument in mainstream pop music and TV advertising.”)

But did you know that he was one of the founding members of Stealers Wheel (y’know, the band who did “Stuck in the Middle With You,” not Bob Dylan like you probably thought)?

Wikipedia also alleges that Gerry Rafferty has become considerably more, uh, interesting in his old age:

The newspaper Scotland on Sunday reported that Rafferty was asked to leave the Westbury Hotel in London during July 2008. This report stated that the hotel manager had claimed that other residents were distressed by his habit of relieving himself in various corners of the hotel and that his suite was also in a disgraceful and unusable condition.[5] He then checked himself into St Thomas’ Hospital suffering from a chronic liver condition. The same report claimed that on 1 August 2008, Rafferty had disappeared, leaving his belongings behind, and that the hospital had filed a missing persons report.[5] However, this was rebutted by the Metropolitan Police who stated that no such missing persons report existed.[9]

After unconfirmed sightings and unauthenticated reports that he was in contact with his family, on 17 February 2009 The Guardian reported that Rafferty, “who has battled alcoholism for years”, was in hiding in the south of England, being cared for by a friend.[10]

2010
04/27
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