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Taylor Swift, you know, sold the most records last year with not one but two albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore.” That was right on the heels of her “Lover” album. I’m talking millions. Like it was 20 years ago, not the current horrid state of the music biz.
Not streaming. I’m talking hard sales. CDs and downloads.
Now hitsdailydouble and Buzz Angle predict that on Friday, when the cows come home, Swift’s re-recorded “Fearless” album will hit the 300,000 mark on its debut. That will be 200,000 CDs and downloads, and another 100,000 streaming equivalent.
“Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” will be the so far biggest release of 2021, biggest debut, biggest everything.
And it’s only April. My guess is we get at least one original album more in 2021, and one more re-release, of either “Red” or “1989.”
One day soon, when Taylor writes her book, it will be something. I hope she’s filming all this recording (I’m sure she is) for a documentary. Good for her! She’s a role model for all us lazy asses out there!
Ex supermodel Paulina Porizkova wants our attention. So she’s posing a nude, a lot, on Instagram, and on a foreign edition of Vogue.
Paulina was married to Cars rocker Ric Ocasek until he got sick. The, Ric said in his will, Paulina “abandoned” him for “Bill and Ted” screenwriter Ed Solomon. Then Ric died on Solomon’s birthday. Paulina said in interviews that the morning she discovered Ric was after he was left alone all night at home despite being gravely ill. She was bringing him coffee when she came home and found him.
Paulina once starred in a very good indie film called “Anna” that got Sally Kirkland an Oscar nomination. Now she appears on Instagram and other social media, claims to be broke even though the townhouse she shared with Ric– she’s technically his widow– sold for $10 million. He claimed to have a small estate, but he may have hidden his assets in trusts away from her.
Being a rock wife ain’t easy. Being a rock widow? A little better.
Oscar ballots go out tomorrow, April 15th. Academy voters have five days to do their thing.
This means it’s time for last minute negative campaigning. Suddenly, front runner “Nomadland” got hit with a big, nasty article in the LA Times yesterday. This beautiful piece of cinema about a woman’s loss and her foray into the world of people living in RVs is suddenly anti-labor. I nearly fell off my chair laughing.
I didn’t need Perry Mason to figure out the culprit here. Their fingerprints were all over it. Perry needn’t ask Paul Drake or Della Street to investigate. We’ve been here before. “Someone” has a motive to try and knock off “Nomadland” from its perch.
Can you imagine if Perry had all the movie publicists and Oscar specialists in the courtroom at the same time? He’d be grilling an executive on the stand when one of them would stand up and shout out, passionately, “I didn’t meant to do it. I couldn’t help myself!”
So Josh Rottenberg of the LA Times says that “Nomadland” is being criticized for not depicting ‘gig life” properly, and not investigating Amazon’s seasonal work force. I have news for Josh, who is a good reporter I enjoy reading: “Nomadland” is not a documentary. It’s a work of fiction inspired by true stories. It’s the saga of Fern, a widow without money, who is trying to adjust after her husband dies and her town shuts down. It’s a film so full of light and hope, I can’t believe anyone would go out of their way to criticize it.
But this anti-“Nomadland” campaign serves two purposes. It attacks not only the film, but Amazon, which — though it does have warehouse workers who I’m sure need better care — also has movies in the Oscar race. So tossing Amazon into the story has the value added benefit of making Oscar voters consider not voting for their movies. It’s brilliantly evil.
Look, “Nomadland” is the best film of the year. Since Frances McDormand has stepped back from the Best Actress race, I vote for Viola Davis in “Ma Rainey.” Emphatically. “Nomadland” will win Best Director for Chloe Zhao, and maybe cinematography and editing. I’m sorry Swankie wasn’t nominated for supporting actress, and David Straithairn, under-appreciated, for supporting actor. A great film, one above a group of excellent 2021 films.
Ellen DeGeneres is really having a serious problem now. Maybe that’s why she keeps flipping $40 million houses.
For the week of April 4th, Ellen’s afternoon talk show hit an all time low in the ratings– just 800,000 viewers average for those five days. That’s down 11% from the prior week, and around 300,000 viewers off since the beginning of the season.
By contrast, “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” which airs earlier in the day, averages 1.8 million. Ellen is now being beaten by low quality shows like Wendy Williams and Maury Povich.
At the same time, her weekly NBC nighttime show, “Game of Games,” has lost half its audience this season, sinking to around 1.5 million viewers per week.
Most of this can be attributed to the reports of backstage chaos and a toxic work environment, producers being fired, and celebrities complaining about their treatment.
Some of it can be tallied to overall low viewership for syndicated shows in the last couple of weeks. Constant interruptions for news bulletins and hearings, press conferences, etc are a big problem for afternoon shows.
Still, Ellen keeps pulling in A list stars. But they have less and less to promote because of the pandemic curtailing movie releases, etc. All of this is a bad omen heading into May sweeps.
“Jeopardy!” is in jeopardy since Dr. Oz took over as guest host. His second week at the podium sank the venerated game show to 4.9 million viewers. Dr. Oz’s first week was higher by 300,000.
When Ken Jennings took over from the late Alex Trebek in January. he kept the ratings at a steady 6 million. But when Jennings left, Katie Couric came in and numbers started to dip. Couric’s run caused some damage, but Dr. Oz– who the fans petitioned against– has left the show in a precarious situation. In between there was show EP Mike Richards.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is on now, and we won’t know what’s happened with him until next week. But the PR machine issued an interview with Richards yesterday loading praise on Rodgers. That’s a sign they know things aren’t going well. The interview read like an act of desperation.
There are still weeks and weeks to come of guest hosts starting next week with Anderson Cooper, then Bill Whitaker of “60 Minutes.” actress Mayim Bialik, and Savannah Guthrie, followed by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. There’s no plan for Levar Burton, who has a big fan following. It looks like “Jeopardy!” will wait till Labor Day to announce Jennings, or some new permanent host. I wonder if they can wait that long.
But a few days ago, the Rolling Stones dropped a lyric video to their 1969 cover of Stevie Wonder’s “I Don’t Know Why.”
And I don’t know why. And I also don’t know why this track was never on a proper album. It finally turned up on a miscellaneous ABKCO album “Metamorphosis” in 1975. (Fans: I’m using a current photo. I know this wasn’t the group at the time.)
Mick Jagger must be getting antsy not being on the road in the studio with the Rolling Stones. He’s dropped a new single this morning, with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. The lyrics are all about COVID, masks, and the vaccine, which Mick is promoting. He’s sending up the anti-vaxxers.
Mick is rocking! And the single is great! I love it!
Remember, the last Rolling Stones single– which went to number 1– was called “Living in a Ghost Town.”
“I wanted to share this song that I wrote about eventually coming out of lockdown, with some much needed optimism – thank you to Dave Grohl for jumping on drums, bass and guitar, it was a lot of fun working with you on this – hope you all enjoy Eazy Sleazy !”
LYRICS —
WE TOOK IT ON THE CHIN
THE NUMBERS WERE SO GRIM
BOSSED AROUND BY PRICKS
STIFFEN UPPER LIPS
PACING IN THE YARD
YOU’RE TRYING TO TAKE THE MICK
YOU MUST THINK IM REALLY THICK
LOOKING AT THE GRAPHS WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS
CANCEL ALL THE TOURS FOOTBALLS FAKE APPLAUSE
NO MORE TRAVEL BROCHURES
VIRTUAL PREMIERES
IVE GOT NOTHING LEFT TO WEAR
LOOKING OUT FROM THESE PRISON WALLS
YOU GOT TO ROB PETER IF YOU’RE PAYING PAUL
BUT ITS EASY EASY EVERYTHING’S GONNA GET REALLY FREAKY
ALRIGHT ON THE NIGHT
SOON IT LL BE BE A MEMORY YOU’RE TRYING TO REMEMBER TO FORGET
THATS A PRETTY MASK
BUT NEVER TAKE A CHANCE TIK TOK STUPID DANCE
TOOK A SAMBA CLASS I LANDED ON MY ASS
TRYING TO WRITE A TUNE YOU BETTER HOOK ME UP TO ZOOM
SEE MY PONCEY BOOKS TEACH MYSELF TO COOK
WAY TOO MUCH TV ITS LOBOTOMISING ME
THINK IVE PUT ON WEIGHT
ILL HAVE ANOTHER DRINK THEN ILL CLEAN THE KITCHEN SINK
WE ESCAPED FROM THE PRISON WALLS
OPEN THE WINDOWS AND OPEN THE DOORS
BUT ITS EASY EASY
EVERYTHING S GONNA GET REALLY FREAKY
ALRIGHT ON THE NIGHT
ITS GONNA BE A GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
EASY SLEAZY ITS GONNA BE SMOOTH AND GREASY
YEAH EASY BELIEVE ME
ITL’L ONLY BE A MEMORY YOU’RE TRYING TO REMEMBER
TO FORGET
SHOOTING THE VACCINE BILL GATES IS IN MY BLOODSTREAM
ITS MIND CONTROL
THE EARTH IS FLAT AND COLD ITS NEVER WARMING UP
THE ARCTICS TURNED TO SLUSH
THE SECOND COMINGS LATE
THERES ALIENS IN THE DEEP STATE
WE’LL ESCAPE FROM THESE PRISON WALLS
NOW WERE OUT OF THESE PRISON WALLS
YOU GOTTA PAY PETER IF YOU’RE ROBBING PAUL
BUT ITS EASY EASY EVERYTHING S GONNA BE REALLY FREAKY
ALRIGHT ON THE NIGHT
WERE ALL HEADED BACK TO PARADISE
YEAH EASY BELIEVE ME
ITL’L BE A MEMORY YOU’RE TRYING TO REMEMBER TO FORGET
EASY CHEESY EVERYONE SING PLEASE PLEASE ME
ITL’L BE A MEMORY YOU’RE TRING TO REMEMBER TO FORGET
Dua Lipa is performing at Elton John and David Furnish’s Oscar party– and for once everyone can go, albeit virtually.
Tickets are just 20 bucks, the show is April 25th right before the Oscars from 7 to 8pm. Buy tickets here. It’s all for the very successful and important Elton John AIDS Foundation, which continues to the leader among celebrity charities.
This will be the best pre-Oscars show ever. It’s sort of cool that the pandemic has forced so many things to go virtual and become very egalitarian.
Lady Gaga’s “ArtPOP,” was a released then and it was kind of a disaster. Overblown, pretentious, “ArtPOP” was wrapped up in Gaga’s obsession with artist Jeff Koons, and just seemed out of touch. The only hit from that album, “Do What U Want with My Body,” with the now incarcerated R Kelly, has been removed from the downloadable version. (And from Spotify.)
But superfans have persisted, and this morning, thanks to a petition and social media campaign, “ArtPOP” is number 2 on iTunes. These fans want a sequel.
Gaga has only just released her “Chromatica” album in the last year. Will “ArtPOP 2” be her next solo project? Her actual next album is a Cole Porter duets collection with Tony Bennett. That’s what I want to hear!
She writes on Twitter:
“The petition to #buyARTPOPoniTunes for a volume II has inspired such a tremendous warmth in my heart. Making this album was like heart surgery, I was desperate, in pain, and poured my heart into electronic music that slammed harder than any drug I could find. I fell apart after I released this album. Thank you for celebrating something that once felt like destruction. We always believed it was ahead of its time. Years later turns out, sometimes, artists know. And so do little monsters. Paws up”
Life will go on. The focus of the show will change because it’s based on books that don’t include his character. But if the ratings are bad in Season 2, or Page doesn’t turn out to be a movie star, you never know, we may see Simon Basset sneak back into town.
The real trick for “Bridgerton” will be the casting as the stories change and characters come and go, just like in a soap opera. Which it is. There are nine “books” in the “Bridgerton” series by Julia Quinn, and it seems like four more in a sequel series, so this could drag on for some time with or without Page. Then, of course, there will undoubtedly be the movie,or two, and a Broadway musical.
