Big News of the Week: Ben Silverman Gets Canned: Thanks to his decision to make 10:00 the Jay Leno Hour I called Ben Silverman the Most Inept Executive in America and now it looks that I will be looking for a new mantle to lay that award upon now that Silverman “is returning to his entrepreneurial roots to form a new venture.” Basically a nice way to say dude got fired. Of course the Leno Hour was just one of many bad decisions that included the Knight Rider reboot, Kath & Kim import and at least thirteen other one and done shows by my count, failing to launch any show in his tenure despite marketing giants like the Olympics and the Super Bowl at his disposal.
Replacing Silverman as the Chairmen of NBC Entertainment is Jeff Gaspin who has been running Universal’s cable outlets including USA which, if I am not mistaken, has a higher rated Thursday thanks to Burn Notice and Royal Pains than NBC’s The Listener this summer. Before joining Universal, Gaspin worked at VH1 in the late nineties where we can thank him for Behind the Music and Pop-Up Videos.
Coalition Links of the Week: With the Project Runway premiere coming up, Buzz challenged you to match some past designs with their creators. (BuzzSugar)
And they made the final cut on So You Think You Can Dance and Vance KNOWS you're (expletive deleted) about stuff about the Top 4. (Tapeworthy)
This week, Jace had an exclusive interview with Doctor Who's David Tennant, who talked about his legacy to the Doctor Who franchise, the upcoming End of Time Christmas Special, and the Doctor's sartorial choices. (Televisionary)
Dan shared a video about a boy and his fake girlfriend by the band Telekinesis. (TiFaux)
Kings: Another week, another show to say goodbye to. As much as I appreciate the networks killing off all these shows for the summer instead of making up buy/rent the DVD to see them, it seems harder to watch these shows go now than knowing you are watching the last episode at the end of the normal television season. A great image of Silas walking down the street to crash his son’s coronation. You can stream current episodes over at NBC.com. You can also download Kings on iTunes.
Pardon the Interruption: Not one but two new games on PTI when it is been years since the last time they introduced a new segment. I didn’t care too much for Word! but Making the Grade has some promise. But the true test of the games is just how bad Dan Lebatard will mess them up. You can download the PTI podcast on iTunes for free.
Charm School with Ricki Lake: And Risky is the winner. Yawn. And are they not doing a reunion show this season? You can also download Charm School with Ricki Lake on iTunes.
Rescue Me: The girls pretty much interacted why I dislike texting. Seriously, just talk to the person, not text them calling them a cunf (granted, that was funny). Well that and hate typing on such a small keyboard. Despite knowing it was going to happen sooner or later, it was weird seeing Maura Tierney after everything that was going on with her. That and it was just an odd sequence. And really, the more of chief’s wife, the better. You can stream current episodes over at Hulu.
The Philanthropist: Another great exotic setting of… San Diego? But I love that Teddy’s punishment for stealing credit card was to force him not to fight, the ultimate insult to a marine. You can stream current episodes over at NBC.com. You can also download The Philanthropist on iTunes.
Free Download of the Week: Pawn Stars (iTunes): Go behind the scenes of a Las Vegas pawn shop on the latest History show where you can find suck artifacts as a 1996 Gold Metal, Benny Binion’s hat, and a Patriot’s Super Bowl ring. Hey, it takes a lot of money to cheat like Bill Belichicken and his goons do. You can also check the show Sundays at 10:00.
Video of the Week: I really never understood the concept of Comic-Con. Why fly all the way out to San Diego just to spend the week indoors under a costume? It is even more worthless now that pretty much everything goes on gets leaked to YouTube eventually. And now studio some studios are even releasing full panels for everyone to watch suck as the Chuck panel as seen below. Unfortunately they do not include the Jeffster performance. But that is what YouTube is for.
Next Week Pick of the Week: Scooter McGavin’s 9th Green, Tuesday at 8:00 AM on your Feed Reader: A little bit of self promotion as I hit my 1500th post on Tuesday (barring any unforeseen calamities). And dare I say it is my most ambitious post to date on the 9th Green. And it should considering I have been working on it for two years. So set aside a few minutes on Tuesday because it may take a while to digest it. And if you have not done so already, subscribe to the 9th Green so the post will land up in your feed reader on Tuesday so you will not have to remember to return then.
Apparently the Windows Easy Transfer does not live up to its name as I try to transfer files from my old computer to my new. It does not help that I have been trying to do it through my network and I keep getting disconnected during the transfer. Of course if it were truly Easy, it would let you start right back up instead of making you start from the beginning. But anyways. As I try to do this successfully (I am going to try doing it through my iPod today) take a listen of two of my favorite songs of the new year.
After the most mediocre year last year (see 30 Best Albums of 2007) I thought 2008 was looking up while listening through the almost 200 potential songs that will appear in next week’s Best Songs of 2008 list. Despite being plethora of great songs, there were not really any great albums. There were plenty of good albums released in the last twelve months and here they are.
If you are interested in reading my original review of these albums, check out the link below the album and if you are interested in buying them on iTunes, click on the album link. If you want to buy the physical CD, head over to Scooter McGavin’s Amazon Store where you can order them there:
With his frantic release schedulable, prolific songwriting, and genre bending catalogue, Ryan Adams could be the rock version of Prince, if Prince himself wasn’t already the rock version of Prince. And even though he hasn’t changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol (yet), Adams sure has his eccentricities like his gangsta rap album he released through his website and it is not wise to request Summer of ’69 at one of his live shows.
Even with wide range of songs, his last couple albums have themselves been relatively narrow like the soft rock of 29, the country rock of Nashville Nights and the puck rock of Rock ‘n’ Roll. His latest album Cardinology is more diverse than those albums and even more than his last outing Easy Tiger. As one can guess by the title, this is another album where Adams is backed by The Cardinals who really shine on tracks like Let Us Down Easy.
That diversity makes Cardinology Adams’ best work since Gold. The album opens with a trio of tracks, Born into a Light, Go Easy, and Fix It which is the closest Adams have ever gotten to stadium anthems, the later featuring a smooth bassline that sounds lifted from a The Bravery song. Adams goes back to his punk rock roots with Magick that might as well had been recorded in his garage and sounds better for it.
Then there is the impassioned Sink Ships, which starts out as a folk song but ends with Adams screaming “The War Is Over” even though he is left on one of those sinking ships. Cobwebs sounds like something The Killers left off Sam’s Town even though it would have been one of the better songs on the album. And for those that go to Adams for their super sad song fix, go straight to the end of the album for Stop, a piano and strings ballad that is sure to satisfy your current fix.
Here we are a week into the New Year, but I want to take one last look at 2007 (for full Best and Worst of the year, be sure to click on the Best of 2007 label at the bottom of the post). First my annual list of artists that had the most impact on be over the past twelve months:
Top Artists of the Year
1. Lily Allen (Best Song: 1, 8, 12, 18, 66; Best Album: 3; Best Video: 5, 11, 15, 23; Best Performance: 25): Just to show how much impact Lily Allen had on me this year, in twelve years of making Best Songs of the Year list, no artist has had more than two songs in the top twenty let alone four. And it looks like many of you liked her too because as you can see below, her album review was the third most viewed post of the year.
2. Kanye West (Best Song: 3, 6, 53, 72, 87; Best Album: 5; Best Mash Up: 21; Best Video: 1, 4, 18; Reader’s Poll: 2; Best Performance: 15): Even though not nearly as good as his first two albums, Graduation still ranks in the top ten best rap albums this decade. And no other artist had a better viral year thanks to his internet only videos for Can’t Tell Me Nothin’ and his remix for Throw Some D’s.
3. Amy Winehouse (Best Song: 4, 29, 50, 92; Best Album: 6; Best Mash Up: 9; Reader’s Poll: 3; Best Performance: 23): Yeah she went neck and neck with Britney Spears for most clinically insane celebrity of the year, but unlike Spears, Winhouse managed to put out a great album this year.
4. Alicia Keys (Best Song: 10, 24; Best Album: 1; Best Mash Up: 15; Best Live Performance: 1, 9, 14, 20): As I Am may not lived up to expectations, but it was good enough to land her the best album of the year. Also she ripped off some great performances to promote it.
5. Ryan Adams (Best Song: 5, 21, 42, 90; Best Album: 4; Best Video: 10): A year and a half was the longest hiatus of his career and the extra time paid off with East Tiger being his best album in a while. Of course then Adams promptly released an EP not that long after. We will have to wait to see if he goes back to three albums in 2008.
Next some self congratulatory some with the most read posts and such here on the 9th Green. I was going to have the most popular searches, but nine of the top ten were some sore of play on “Best Songs of 2006” with the only other being Megan Hauserman in the nine spot, so that seemed silly to post. But here are the other best of the best. First a note between Most Read Feeds and Most Viewed Posts, the Feeds are based on who is accessing my feed, most likely through a feed reader (but some pirated) where Posts are people who actually came to the 9th Green, and if there are on the top, it is most likely because of Google.
Lastly, for those interested in the Best Songs of 2007 (click here to download the songs) to fit on a single CD, here would be the tracklist which would come in at 78:18 (note: the songs are in reverse order as if counting down the tracks).
1. Everybody Knows - Ryan Adams 2. Dumb it Down - Lupe Fiasco 3. Love Song - Sara Bareilles 4. LDN - Lily Allen 5. Look After You - The Fray 6. Brianstorm - Arctic Monkeys 7. The Game - Common 8. The Underdog - Spoon 9. Our Song - Taylor Swift 10. Alfie - Lily Allen 11. Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen 12. No One - Alicia Keys 13. Read My Mind - The Killers 14. Oh My God - Mark Ronson featuring Lily Allen 15. Tennessee - The Wreckers 16. Stronger - Kanye West 17. Two - Ryan Adams 18. Rehab - Amy Winehouse 19. Can’t Tell Me Nothing - Kanye West 20. Dreaming with a Broken Heart - John Mayer 21. Drivin’ Me Wild - Common featuring Lily Allen
This being the Most Mediocre Year Ever, there is no band that sums that up better than Paramore. The bad got a big push from MTV and their record label thanks to being one of the first bands to sign a 360 degree deal. Yet with all the marketing muscle behind their three singles this year, the band wasn’t good enough to show up on this list nor were bad enough to land of the Worst Songs of 2007 list. So congratulations Paramore, with all the mediocre music put out by bland artists such as OneRepublic, Lifehouse, and Sean Kingston, you managed to be the most mediocre of them all. Although the problem with the most mediocre of them all, even though this is the Most Mediocre Year Ever, you will most likely be forgotten by 2009. Sorry.
Onto the songs that did make the list, the reason this is the Most Mediocre Year Ever is the great songs were really thin at the top this year. Most of these songs wouldn’t have cracked the top ten in other years. With that said, even though there was a lacking of great songs, there was an overabundance of good songs this year to the point that there were ten to twenty songs this year that deserved to make the top one hundred when most years ninety through one hundred are an afterthought most years. But here are the ones that made the cut for this, the last post of 2007. Hopefully I will see you all back here in 2008.
In a story I broke last week, 2007 is the most mediocre year ever. Case in point, last year’s Best Albums of the Year list had fifty albums on it, this year it was hard to scrape thirty this year. Yeah there were a couple albums that could have gotten on this list but I never got around to listening to the whole thing and thus never reviewed (Linkin Park, Jay-Z), but for the most part I got hold of most everything I wanted to review, it was just not that much music this year and of those that I did review there really wasn’t anything great.
Two albums you definitely won’t be seeing on this list are Konvicted by Akon and T.I. vs. T.I.P. even though I got both for Christmas. Should I be offended that someone thought about me, “Now there is someone who would like listening to Akon”? But anyways. If you are interested in reading my original review of these albums, check out the link below the album and if you are interested in buying them on iTunes, click on the album link. If you want to buy the physical CD, head over to Scooter McGavin’s Amazon Store where you can order them there:
It is really hard to complain about MTV and VH1 no longer showing videos anymore because who these days wants to wade through videos that they hand pick when you have almost every video ever made at your disposal whenever you want on sites like YouTube? And here are the best of the best of from the past twelve months. I have embedded the first couple videos, the rest you can click the link to follow to YouTube and if you are interested in buying the videos, click the iTunes links. Now I should mention some of these videos are not safe for work but really nothing on YouTube is all the safe for work because I’m sure you boss wouldn’t be thrilled even if your watching a video of a cat playing with a ball of yarn. But anyways:
1. Can't Tell Me Nothing - Kanye West
2. Trapped in the Closet Chapter 1-12 Recap - R. Kelly
(Hulk vs., The Invincible Iron Man, The Punisher)
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