The new “Guns N Roses” song

Chinese Democracy is now listenable at YouTube, album out November 23.

Nothing changes on New Year’s Day

Bono looked a lot younger back in 1982, but the lyrics are timeless:

And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year’s day

Get “Trapped” All Over Again

New chapters of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” are now out, and they are at IFC.com, of all places.

Green Day does the Simpsons Theme

I Wanna Be Your Plaintiff!

The multilingual Avril Lavigne has been sued for allegedly ripping off a 70s band. The handy song comparison is at YouTube.

Similar as these may be, pop songs sound alike all the time. Whether this meets the legal standard of “substantially similar” I can’t say.

More info here.

Lavigne’s Vancouver-based manager, Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, claims the suit “has no basis. There’s nothing similar (between the two songs),” he says. “Our musicologist says there is no similarities of melody, choral progression or meter.”

McBride, however, may settle the suit out of court if the costs of defending the case start to prove too high. He says, “You are forced to consider doing this because American lawyers can do these cases on contingency. If I defend and win, it costs me $300,000 U.S. If I go to get my costs back, the other party declares bankruptcy. You end up footing the bill.”

McBride adds, “Avril has insurance that covers off these sort of suits that are so prevalent in this business.”

So the lawsuit is probably not going to end up in court.

Watching Live Earth

According to the official web site, you can watch the Live Earth concerts on MSN. Here’s a list of artists playing the various concerts, the first of which is being held in Australia and actually begins at 9pm east coast time in the US tonight.

I am most interested to see Metallica’s performance from London. They apparently have some new material — hopefully it’s different from St. Anger — that they have been performing at concerts the last few months. Some of it has been showing up on YouTube.

And in conclusion, go and save the environment, won’t you?

Jimi Says Happy Fourth

Avril Lavigne Gets Multicultural

The enjoyably awful song “Girlfriend” becomes even more peculiar when translated into Mandarin.

Link via Slate. Avril Lavigne did the chorus of the song in eight different languages, apparently, with the rest of the lyrics remaining in English. I wonder if the people from the other countries mind having a Canadian mangle their language. I guess it’s doing very well all over the world so far, in spite of the YouTube commenters’ taking issue with her accent. Here’s a story from MTV on the translation choices.

There are YouTube links to versions in Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian too, in case you were wondering how to tell off your romantic rivals across the globe. I think it works best in Japanese with the short, choppy syllables; of course, I have no idea what the hell she’s saying, but it makes me feel eclectic.

Does Linkin Park Have a Point Here?

Let me first say that I like Linkin Park; they’re the best rap-rock fusion going, and their music gets the blood pumping. That said, what is up with their new music video?

Arresting imagery, yes. A coherent message? I don’t see one. And how did they get away with showing the World Trade Center collapsing? I thought airing video of that had become taboo. Anyway, I’ll turn it over to the band.

MC Mike Shinoda told Launch that the clip, which switches between the band performing and stock footage of world events, was definitely intended to make a statement. “I think there’s a certain, a few different statements being made in the video,” he said. “It’s very, you know, aware of the social and political climates here in the States and in the world, and, you know, it’s not meant to be political per se — we’re not a very political band, I don’t think anything’s being said in the video that has never been said before. I just think that this video is the kind of thing that could start conversations and get people thinking, and that’s exactly what we want.”

OK, but what kind of conversations? What kind of thinking? The video seems to me to show lots of bad things people have caused, from international poverty to environmental degradation. Is this supposed to encourage activism to fix these problems? I just felt disgusted about the world after watching. Nickelback did this sort of thing a lot better in their recent video, I think.

“Go Long or Go Home” Is Told to Stay Home by CBS

CBS has banned from its air a Maxfli ad featuring John Daly boozing on a golf course and playing music in a bar.  Of course, this will do nothing but add to the interest in the commercial, which is on YouTube.

My conclusion upon viewing that is that perhaps John Daly should be banned from singing in public, forget about the alcohol stuff.

The CBS advertising policy also confused me.

Wade said that the CBS guidelines do not allow alcoholic beverages to appear in ads when an activity involves a level of alertness, the paper reported.

What is an activity that doesn’t require a “level of alertness”? I guess you can sit on the couch and watch TV while drinking a beer, though that wouldn’t be such an exciting commercial.