With reissues of their entire catalog and their own video game, Beatlemania is sweeping the country again. Although the band has been broken up over 40 years, they have still maintained a special place in the hearts and minds of millions, as well as an undeniable spot on the pantheon of musical greats. So what better way to celebrate Paul, John, George and Ringo then to slap them on the front of a T-shirt?
The Japanese clothing brand A Bathing Ape (or simply Bape) is the latest to jump on the craze. They collaborated with Apple Corp. Ltd — the Beatles' multimedia corporation — to release a capsule collection line of clothing featuring the band. The line will feature a number shirts and sweaters as well as a coin pouch and will probably cost a pretty penny.
The Beatles X COMMME des GARCONS line is expected to release later this month, while there is no official word on the release of the Bape x The Beatles collaboration. Please Please Me, With the Beatles, Help! and Revolver are in stores now — along with a couple other ones, I think.
Why settle for one controversial image when a half dozen will do? That seems to be the tactic Rihanna is employing on the cover to "Russian Roulette," the first single from her upcoming album Rated R. It's got everything: the giant, gleaming blade "R" logo; the blood-dripping track title; a sinister peek-a-boo eye patch; gold corset; and, of course, her provocative barbed wire-wrapped torso.
While it's just the companion image to her single (so who knows what the actual album cover will look like?), the edgy picture has already set tongues wagging and gotten us thinking about some of our other favorite envelope-pushing album artwork.
» What's more disturbing? The image of a buzz saw slicing through a man's tight trousers as his bloody hands hold onto a metal codpiece, or the title Animal (F*** Like a Beast)? Whatever you think, metal band W.A.S.P. found out in 1983 that what really offended people was foul language, so a pair of stars were cloned in to cover up the offending word. Read more...
Today marks an interesting cosmic date in the universe of the Beatles, as it is the birthday of the late John Lennon. Born in Liverpool in 1940 (in the middle of a German air raid at the height of World War II), Lennon lead a hardscrabble childhood but loved music (especially early American rock and roll) and ended up fronting the most inventive and important bands in the history of pop music. As the recent release of "The Beatles: Rock Band" has proven, the band's influence still runs quite deep, from Pearl Jam to Silversun Pickups to Jack White to TV on the Radio. Lennon was tragically cut down in 1980 by a disturbed guy named Mark David Chapman. Lennon was survived by his wife Yoko Ono (who just released a new album) and his two sons, Sean and Julian.
Strangely, today is also Sean Lennon's birthday (he turns 34 today). He has managed to carve out a nice musical niche for himself, first as a touring member of Cibo Matto back in the '90s and then as a solo artist. He was signed to his first record contract by Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys and put out his solo debut Into the Sun in 1998. He bounced around a few different projects in the following years, then made his return in 2006 with the woefully overlooked album Friendly Fire. That album featured the single "Dead Meat," a spacey little psychedelic pop tune with a tremendous video directed by Michele Civetta.
According to Uma Thurman's character in "Pulp Fiction," there are only two types of people in the world: Beatles people and Elvis people. While that's a reasonable question, it's also like comparing apples to nuclear submarines, as the Beatles and Elvis were working in different enough idioms where it doesn't make sense. But the debate that has been raging for decades between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones makes a lot more sense. Both were English rock bands borrowing American music and channeling it through their own personal points of view. The Beatles erred more on the side of pop and R&B, whereas the Stones decided to make the gutter blues even dirtier. Being a Beatles fan means you prefer classicism, while erring on the side of the Stones probably means you're a punk rock kid at heart.
When MTV News caught up with Pearl Jam's Mike McCready to talk about "Rock Band" (his band's new album Backspacer will be available for download for the game the same day as the record gets released), the conversation came around to the Beatles (and specifically "The Beatles: Rock Band"). While McCready admits the Beatles were "phenomenal," he admits that he's more of a Stones guy.
It makes sense, as McCready is a feisty punk rock kid at heart. The rest of the members of Pearl Jam are probably Beatles guys (save for drummer Matt Cameron, who definitely seems like a Stones guy). The most ironic thing? Even John Lennon sort of became a Stones guy during his later solo period.
Are you a Stones person or a Beatles person? Leave your thoughts in the comments or head on over to Your.MTV.com and make your voice heard!
"The Beatles: Rock Band" finally arrives today (along with the completely remastered Beatles back catalog, available in both stereo and mono formats), and last night Conan O'Brien celebrated the game's release by welcoming George Harrison's son Dhani to "The Tonight Show." In addition to being the child of a Beatle and the frontman for the band thenewno2, Dhani was also instrumental in the development of the latest game in the "Rock Band" franchise. He was integral in recruiting the participation of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and he told O'Brien that the whole experience began with his enthusiasm for music-based video games like "Guitar Hero." They also discussed the strange disconnect that sometimes occurs when actual musicians — guitarists in particular — attempt to pick up the game. Harrison said that McCartney and Starr had the same problem and encouraged people like Slash to play on the "Expert" setting in order to get a more realistic effect.
As a wrap-up, Harrison and O'Brien jammed together on "Birthday," with Conan playing McCartney's replica viola bass and Harrison sitting in on drums. O'Brien, who admitted to struggling with the game, said that the stream of notes he was trying to follow was "like a sobriety test." But Harrison (as well as "Tonight Show" staff member Aaron Bleyaert and "Tonight Show" band member Mark Pender) had a complete grasp not only on the instruments but also on the vocal harmonies, which are integral to this particular version of the game. Check out the interview and performance below, and be sure to grab "The Beatles: Rock Band" today.
No matter what sort of musician you are or what kind of band you're in, your musical personality tends to match up with one of the Beatles. Are you the strong-headed leader type? You're probably John. Do you prefer the sweeter side of music, and of life? You're likely a Paul. Is spiritualism more your thing? It's George for you. Are you the underrated goofball? Hello, Ringo. Whenever there's a quartet with distinct personalities, it always ends up that way. In Kiss, Paul is John, Gene is Paul, Ace is George and Peter is Ringo (note that the instrumentation lines up there exactly). In Mötly Crüe, Nikki Sixx is the Paul, Mick Mars is the George and Tommy Lee is Ringo. (Are there any drummers who aren't Ringo? Towards the end when Nirvana was a quartet, Pat Smear was sort of brought in to be the Ringo, with Kurt as the John, Dave Grohl as Paul and Krist Novoselic as George.)
If you look at the Dead Weather, it seems like it'd be obvious that Jack White is the John, as he's the guy who assumes leadership and seems to have the most passionate outlook about what the band is supposed to be. But based on the interview he granted us backstage at the Outside Lands Festival, he's apparently more of a lover than a fighter.
So if Jack White is the Paul, then how does the rest of the band shake out? Based on the interview, it's clear that Jack Lawrence is the Ringo (he went on a long riff about how good he is at making prison weapons), and according to White's explanation of the writing process, Alison Mosshart is the John. That makes Dean Fertita the George, which makes perfect sense, as he's the sensitive silent type. With that settled, when can we hear Jack White's version of Wings? In any event, you'll be able to figure out which Beatle you are starting tomorrow, when "The Beatles: Rock Band" hits the streets.
When MTV News caught up with Incubus backstage just before their Friday-night set at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco last week, frontman Brandon Boyd, guitarist Mike Einziger and bass player Ben Kenney shared their personal experiences with Beatles songs, their different approach to soundchecks and the stress of putting together a greatest-hits album. But perhaps the most revealing confession came from Einziger, who admitted that he once played one of his own songs on a video game and was massacred.
"I played our song 'Stellar,' and my then-14-year-old sister absolutely schooled me," Einziger said. "It was a little humbling."
Boyd had a similar experience with music-based games. "I tried it once and I sucked," he said. But that doesn't mean they're down on "The Beatles: Rock Band," which drops next Wednesday, September 9. "[The Beatles] wrote music that as much as you wanted to get it out of your head, it was sort of stuck there. That's not easy to do," Einziger said. "['Rock Band'] is really fun, and a lot of young people are going to discover the music of the Beatles through video games, and I'm OK with that."
In addition to getting excited about my T-shirt, the trio also said that despite the fact that they are all working on their own projects, they have a multitude of songs developed during soundchecks on their just-completed tour (Boyd referred to this process as "farting around"). Another Incubus soundcheck tradition? Playing songs for themselves. "We have a lot of songs we really like that don't make sense to play live at our shows," Einziger explained. "Sometimes we have fun with covers, too." When pressed for details, the conversation turned cheeky. "'Careless Whisper,' of course."
During last weekend's Outside Lands Festival, I caught up with one of my favorite bands in Silversun Pickups, the Los Angeles based quartet who channel equal parts power pop, new wave and shoegaze into a fuzzy, buzzy slabs of post-modern rock. We brought them to the artists' hospitality tent (which oversaw the festival's main stage) and sat them in the sun to talk about a handful of subjects. When the subject of the Beatles came up, frontman Brian Aubert raved about both "Glass Onion" (from the White Album) and "Help," which he said described as an excellent punk song.
Silversun Pickups also reserved some love for the lesser members of the Fab Four, as drummer Christopher Guanlao praised Ringo Starr's performance in the 1964 movie "A Hard Day's Night" and Aubert shouted out George Harrison's guitar playing as "classy." Even bass player Nikki Monninger declared herself to be "a George man."
Hopefully the band is set up with a PS3 on their tour bus, as that's where they'll be spending most of their time for the foreseeable future. "We've got some time off in May of 2010," Aubert said. "I'm not trying to be funny — I think we have dates scheduled until then." However, you won't have to wait that long to play along with classics like "Eight Days a Week" and "Get Back," as "The Beatles: Rock Band" hits stores on Wednesday, September 9 for XBox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. For more on one of the most hotly anticipated music video games of all time, stay tuned here and to Multiplayer.
We're only a week away from the release of "The Beatles: Rock Band," the latest installment of the game-changing video game franchise that puts you in the position of Liverpool's favorite sons and gives you the opportunity to play over 40 Beatles songs. For many rock bands, the Beatles are a cornerstone group who tend to inspire early songwriting and enthusiasm for experimentation, but that "Beatles moment" happens differently for everybody.
For Tunde Adebimpe, frontman for Brooklyn space-funkers TV on the Radio, it came a little bit later than what is usual. Though his dad played him Beatles tunes as a kid, he didn't really understand what the band was all about until he had an experience in college with a long documentary about the band. "'The Beatles Anthology' documentary was on, and I watched so much of it," he told MTV News backstage at last weekend's Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco. "I feel like a lot of the arrogance of youth is realizing very deeply that you don't have anything going on, and that's the beauty of art. When you think about it, in an insanely short period of time basically revolutionized a lot of thinking about rock music. Art is either plagiarism or revolution, and I think the Beatles took a lot of stuff knowing that." Adebimpe admits that these revelations were assisted by certain chemical elements, but that shouldn't take away from the fact that they were a great band. Check out his whole story below, and enjoy the background performance by the Mars Volta (we were hanging out just behind the stage where they were shredding on Saturday night).
Late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury broke down boundaries, played to sold out stadiums and with "We Are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You" changed the way we experience sports. But he may have just received his greatest honor. In a poll taken in the U.K., Mercury took the top prize as "Britain's Greatest Ever Moustache." It's hard to argue with that logic, as Mercury's 'stache is pretty killer.
But is Mercury's lip fuzz the greatest in music? As this photo gallery proves, he's got some stiff competition. Brandon Flowers of the Killers sometimes rocks a very Mercury-esque facial accessory, and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer spent a few years carrying a full-on porn-stache. Of course, there are plenty of rockers who have spent their entire careers cultivating their mustaches, like David Crosby's bushy adventure and Bob Dylan's mysterious addendum. And the rap world is not without it's great facial hair either — just check out Ja Rule's fashionable 'stache.
But for my money, I've got to hand the award off to Metallica's James Hetfield, who has always toyed with his facial hair in various forms throughout his career. At the moment, he has a scary-looking goatee, but for a long time he had an elaborate mustache that was second-to-none.
What do you think: Does Mercury's mustache reign supreme or does somebody else take the top nose-tickler prize? Leave your thoughts in the comments or head over to Your.MTV.com to make your voice heard!
