There seems to be a lot of music posts lately regarding music-related t-shirts, but one story you will not see on The Week’s Worst News is that of Disney using Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures cover art as inspiration for a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Now, don’t get me wrong: this isn’t necessarily the kind of news I would hope to see on music websites. But, to be honest, it was kind of funny, if just for the fact that one of the most wholesome brands on the planet was marketing a design based on a not very wholesome source. And, at least there was significant follow-though with this story, with original members of Joy Division contacted and the shirt eventually going off the market. But still, I would hope we would be talking about actual music more often than music merchandise, but, you know, I have to admit that we all got a good laugh from this incident. Now, on to The Week’s Worst News.
5. Wilco Is In A Popeye Cartoon
The Story: Wilco’s likeness appeared in the Sunday comics in Popeye, along with a boat and a spinach brand named after the band.
The Problem: This story originated as a simple enough blog post on the Anti- blog, but was picked up across the web by major news outlets as a top story. I guess the interest here is that it’s a little weird for Wilco to be in a comic, but, seriously, this is basically like reporting that The New Pornographers have a song in a TV commercial or that you heard Best Coast at a Chili’s. Indie music is everywhere these days and if the music news media published stories about every time one of our favorite artists shows up on a sitcom, or commercial or comic, well, we just wouldn’t have time to post actual music. This kind of stuff should be reserved for the blog post it was originally seen in, and maybe thrown up on Tumblr. To make things worse, Wilco later in the week premiered a Popeye music video for “Dawned On Me,” removing any mystery as to what the relation between the band and the sailor were.
4. More Wilco: Check Out This Wilco Cover
The Story: This coming week, Wilco will be releasing an iTunes session. As is usually the case with these, a previously unavailable cover will be featured on the album, in this instance Nick Lowe’s “Cruel To Be Kind,” featuring Lowe himself. Prefix posted the following headline: “Nick Lowe, Wilco: “Cruel To Be Kind” (iTunes Session) (Video).”
The Problem: Now, my anger about this post stems further than just the title. The post on Facebook that lead me to the story read like “Check out Wilco’s cover of ‘Cruel To Be Kind'” or something of that nature. But, regardless, this is the classic bait and switch. The story, unfortunately, did not feature the whole song, but, rather, a commercial for the iTunes release that features the tune and lasts for 43 seconds. This should had been properly labeled for what the story featured, an album teaser. But, as a scoop for a new Wilco cover, this news piece is completely disappointing and misleading.
3. Check Out Bon Iver’s Grammy Poster
The Story: Bon Iver is this year’s unexpected “indie” Grammy nominee. This is funny because Justin Vernon has gone on record before as saying that the Grammys are bullshit. Finally, to promote their February 12th television show, the Grammys made the Bon Iver promotional poster that you see above.
The Problem: The story is literally to show you that poster above. That is it. And this was picked up by news outlets across the internet? Any other text on the “incident” would just retread the old ‘Bon Iver vs. Grammys’ story, with the one small bit of news coming in the form of Bon Iver not being invited to perform at the ceremony. But, Bon Iver + Grammys will surely be a marketable subject in the coming weeks, so it is best to get some relevant content up, right?
2. Man Is The Bastard vs. Akron/Family
The Story: Yep, we’re talking about t-shirts. See that skull up there? Well, it is originally Man Is The Bastard’s skull. But (gasp!) Akron/Family is now featuring it on a t-shirt as well. How dare they!?
The Problem: Unlike last week’s KoL vs. No Age t-shirt scandal, this one (originally here) is obvious in its guilt. Also unlike last week’s story, this one features two bands that appeal to a very small demographic. What does appeal to a large group? Language like this: “FUCK YOUR U.S. TOUR – YOU SUCK MULE DICKS YOU FUCKING HUMAN MANURE” and “YOU GUYS ARE GODDAMNED THIEVES AND YOU SUCK. FUCKING LOGO STEALING LOSERS. FUCK YOU !!!!!” Are we really to be sympathetic to someone who responded to anything by talking like this? Oh wait, they are “hardcore.”
But, most annoying about this story, or non-story, is that Akron/Family had the most reasonable response to this mess by saying it was an homage, thus quickly getting into a civil discussion with the Man Is The Bastard camp. The whole thing was squashed by the time most people knew it was happening. Good thing the music community is quick to the draw with their beef stories, or else we could have missed this one completely. Are bands fighting really such big click-getters that we must post on even the most random of fights? And that brings us to…
1. Soundgarden vs. Kanye West
The Story: ”Sounds like there’s children playing music there,” singer Chris Cornell quipped to his irritating, booing fans. “Retarded children, retarded as in held back. There’s no other word for it.” – Chris Cornell on Kanye West at Australia’s Big Day Out.
The Problem: First of all, this is the source for this story that was picked up by a number of major news outlets. If you are going here for your website’s news content, uh, well, I just think that we have different goals with our websites.
Secondly, how many times have you been at a music festival and heard one performer make a joke about a previous performer or complain about someone? It happens all the time and is hardly worth writing down and trying to cause more trouble. Because, that is all this is. Some people in the media are trying to start a fight, not reporting on a fight that is actually happening. And, bonus worst story of the week points go to Stereogum, who added this: “What I’m most surprised about, honestly, is that there were fans in the Soundgarden audience while a Kanye West performance was also happening.” So, apparently, you are going to use Soundgarden to drive traffic to your site and then talk shit about them? If we could live in a world where news stories like this didn’t exist, my job at The Week’s Worst News would be a success.
Read last week’s worst news.
