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Suite 101: Reservation Blues
Synopsis of Reservation Blues . . Robert Johnson’s mysteriously appears at the Spokane Indian Reservation crossroads and passes his legendary …
Black Kids, Partie Traumatic
Great; but only if you’re too young to have heard it all before.
Beck, Modern Guilt
A far from guilty pleasure.
The Corrections, Repeat After Me
This is a likeable but underwhelming album: Coldplay won’t lose any sleep.
The Sugars, The Curse Of The Sugars
The Leeds trio prove themselves well worthy of the buzz that’s been surrounding them.
Rick Astley’s "Never Gonna Give You Up" Ignites Viral World Wide Internet Meme!
Two decades after it became a mantra of late-’80s pop - and rode the charts in over a dozen countries around the world, hitting # 1 in more than half of them - “Never Gonna Give You Up” by British hitmaker Rick Astley took on a YouTube life of its own in 2008, when the classic video sparked the ‘Rickrolling’ phenom as a viral Internet meme. To date, according to SurveyUSA, as many as 18 million Americans have been ‘Rickrolled,’ with more than 30 million views registered at YouTube alone.
“Never Gonna Give You Up” now becomes the opening track on a brand new collection, PLAYLIST: THE VERY BEST OF RICK ASTLEY, the latest entry in the Playlist Series launched earlier this year. With a new liner notes essay by DJ Mike Cimicata, THE VERY BEST OF RICK ASTLEY arrives in stores July 8th on RCA/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
Recalling the origins of “Never Gonna Give You Up” in 1987, Cimicata notes how unlikely it was “that the track’s powerful vocals could have emanated from the lungs of a young, clean-cut English recording studio assistant named Rick Astley.” Jumping ahead to 2008, when “more than 18 million internet users clicked on an innocent-seeming YouTube link they received via emails, instant messages, and blog posts from friends and colleagues, most had no idea they had fallen victim to the playful internet hoax that created a new fervor surrounding that same song.”
“You’ve been Rickrolled!” was a punch-line that Internet users around the world actually began seeing in 2007, when - instead of being connected to the Web link they had clicked on - they were connected to the video clip posted on YouTube for “Never Gonna Give You Up.” American audiences picked up on it as far back as June 2007, when Carson Daly ‘Rickrolled’ his audience one night with the video.
The prank became viral as users learned how to pass it along. As reported in The Guardian (London), the Church of Scientology was ‘Rickrolled’ in February 2008, in conjunction with street protests against the Church in London, New York, Washing¬ton DC, and Seattle, which proceeded after the co-opting of the Church’s website. At the protests, thousands chanted along with the song’s chorus, played on boomboxes.
The ‘Rickrolling’ protests continued at several college basketball games the next month, before the games and during breaks, with the footage also making its way to YouTube, as reported by the New York Times. YouTube was ultimately the focal point of an April Fool’s Day 2008 prank, when all videos on the site’s home page were linked to ‘Rickroll.’ Several other websites also participated, but YouTube grabbed the lion’s share of attention, registering 6.6 million plays, and 43,000 comments from visitors.
One of the immediate effects was “Never Gonna Give You Up” jumping inside the Top 100 to #77 on the Amazon chart, followed by ringtones and ringbacks quickly made available. Also in April, as the Major League Baseball season got underway, the ‘Rickroll’ phenom found another outlet: the New York Mets announced that the song had won an Internet poll (with over 5 million votes) to be played as the sing-along during the 7th inning stretch of the opening home game; and at the Pirates opener in Pittsburgh the next day, several fans performed the song on the Jumbotron. Numerous other examples of ‘Rickrolling’ have been reported throughout the media during ‘07-08.
Rick Astley’s reaction to the ‘Rickroll’ craze has been good-natured: “I think it’s just one of those odd things where something gets picked up and people run with it,” he said. “But that’s what brilliant about the Internet . it’s bizarre and funny.”
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Watch Billy Joel’s Target-Exclusive Performance of "Piano Man"
Watch Billy Joel performing “Piano Man” on Target-exclusive version of “The Stranger 30th Anniversary Edition” DVD on CNN!
Is 50 Cent Dissing T.I. On G-Unit’s ‘You So Tough’? ‘It’s Absolutely For The Public To Decide,’ MC Says
50 Cent dances around the question of whether he’s dissing T.I. on G-Unit’s “You So Tough.”
John Mayer Admires Paramore’s Punk Attitude, Pete Wentz’s ‘Heart And Brain’
John Mayer commends pop-punks Paramore for opening for him and says he’s recorded three songs for his next LP.
Nightwish ‘Slaying The Dreamer’ & ‘7 Days To The Wolves’ Live Videos
Nightwish posted live footage of their ‘Slaying The Dreamer’ and ‘7 Days To The Wolves’ performances at Kaisaniemi Park in Helsinki, Finland on June 26th. Watch the performances below the fold.