 |
Oh, man. Part of the backlash we've been getting lately is about how MTV doesn't cover music anymore and is nothing but reality television. Well, not the News department. We've been here the whole time!
And now we come to you with a compromise: reality television about music. And also the circus that is "Rock The Cradle." MTV News' Shawn Adler reports from backstage:
If you had told me 10 years ago that in 2008 I would be going to a concert to see Eddie Money, Dee Snider, MC Hammer, and Olivia Newton John perform together, I would have acted incredulously. But if you had told me I would be going to a concert to see their CHILDREN perform, I would have tied you to the stake and burned you for witchcraft.
Shawn's backstage observations after the jump.
Yet there I was last night at CBS Studios for the premiere episode of MTV’s “Rock the Cradle,” where celebrity scion duke it out to be crowned – actually, I have no idea what they’re after, something about a record contract and a cash prize. But, really, any excuse to get Bobby Brown in a studio audience. (If you watched last night’s episode, you know exactly what I mean).
You would also know how crazy talented the contestants really are. But what you don’t know is how much the kids are so very much like, well, kids. The natural comparisons, of course, are to their famous parents, but when was the last time Olivia Newton John shook and swayed and looked on the verge of tears before a performance, as her daughter Chloe Lattanzi did last night? When was the last time Kenny Loggins made a bee line for a hug from his mom after a song, as his son Crosby did? When was the last time Dee Snider asked for anyone’s advice about anything before a show, as his son Jesse did? (Dee’s totally unironic, hilarious, advice to his son: “Son, be pretty!”)
(As an aside, Dee might, in fact, be one of the funniest people I’ve ever talked to. In the greenroom before the show, as we waited for the signal to hustle in to the theater, Dee told me that he was a little confused by the whole concept, since rock to him was ROCK. “Rock out with your c-ck out,” he said. “And I don’t see anybody with it out.” Also, he made fun of Eddie Money for being a stage dad, and that was awesome. Money’s response? “Who am I, Joe Jackson?”)
But back to the show. I can’t really speak to who sounded the best live, since, oddly, they put me right next to a speaker and I was therefore nearly deaf most of the evening. Also, I’m not really an expert anyway. But the two contestants who swayed the live crowd the most were, hands down, Landon Brown and Lucy Walsh. One got the highest score of the evening, the other got one of the lowest. Go figure.
Deaf or not, I don’t know how I can avoid going again, though, at least once. I wound up having a lot of fun at “Rock.”
Also, the host looks like an “If they Mated” experiment between Topher Grace and Ryan Seacrest, so the show has that going for it too.
Did you watch last night’s episode? What did you think? Sound off below.
Comments