Top five musical idols who need to drop autobiographical tell-alls, stat
Categories: An Affront to Serious Music Criticism
Chin-stroking musos everywhere were stoked to learn that next week's issue of Rolling Stone will include an excerpt from Life, the long-awaited, drug- and debacle-soaked memoir from storied Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. This in a season that will already see the release of stocking-stuffer/page turners from Jay-Z, Rick Springfield, Ricky Martin, uber-producer Daniel Lanois, and White Zombie's Sean Yseult.
(Barbra Streisand penned a doorstop about architecture and design; maybe pick that one up for Mom.)
This got Gimme Noise thinking about rock tell-alls that don't exist, but totally should. Here are five pop/rock stars who need to give up the autobiographical goods, pop their memoristic cherries.
1. Courtney Love
Lewd, crude, rude, and always wrapped up in one lawsuit or another, Mrs. Kurt Cobain number one with a bullet on this list, and if I listed each and every reason why, I'd crash the City Pages server. The alienation of enablers. The precocious, pinballing international childhood. The narcotics binges. The public conflagrations. The scatterbrained, indecipherable Myspace posts. The self-flagellating anthems. The crusading for musicians' rights; the surprisingly cogent public speeches. The multiple fortune losses. That special, special Village Voice photo. (You know the one.) The redundant, self-loathing series of plastic surgeries. The leapfrogging from alt-rock demi-god to alt-rock demi-god.
2007's Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love offered selected fragments, but I want the whole picture, while Love still draws breath and roams the earth.
2. Bobby Brown
One could argue that Clipse member Malice is already sort of inadvertently writing Brown's autobiography. The guy was, briefly, one of the planet's biggest R&B stars - and for a longer time, married to another one of the planet's biggest R&B stars - then he totally blew it, tanked, became the sort of total car-crash embarrassment that there's no coming back from.
It's probably too late for some sort of big-scale return for Brown, but I have a feeling that the one-time New Edition member and his management would probably be shocked by the outpouring of good will and sympathy that a coming-totally-clean bio could generate at this point.
(Barbra Streisand penned a doorstop about architecture and design; maybe pick that one up for Mom.)
This got Gimme Noise thinking about rock tell-alls that don't exist, but totally should. Here are five pop/rock stars who need to give up the autobiographical goods, pop their memoristic cherries.
1. Courtney Love
Lewd, crude, rude, and always wrapped up in one lawsuit or another, Mrs. Kurt Cobain number one with a bullet on this list, and if I listed each and every reason why, I'd crash the City Pages server. The alienation of enablers. The precocious, pinballing international childhood. The narcotics binges. The public conflagrations. The scatterbrained, indecipherable Myspace posts. The self-flagellating anthems. The crusading for musicians' rights; the surprisingly cogent public speeches. The multiple fortune losses. That special, special Village Voice photo. (You know the one.) The redundant, self-loathing series of plastic surgeries. The leapfrogging from alt-rock demi-god to alt-rock demi-god.
2007's Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love offered selected fragments, but I want the whole picture, while Love still draws breath and roams the earth.
2. Bobby Brown
One could argue that Clipse member Malice is already sort of inadvertently writing Brown's autobiography. The guy was, briefly, one of the planet's biggest R&B stars - and for a longer time, married to another one of the planet's biggest R&B stars - then he totally blew it, tanked, became the sort of total car-crash embarrassment that there's no coming back from.
It's probably too late for some sort of big-scale return for Brown, but I have a feeling that the one-time New Edition member and his management would probably be shocked by the outpouring of good will and sympathy that a coming-totally-clean bio could generate at this point.
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