If “A Christmas Carol” came to Hollywood, rap star Kanye West would be Scrooge and 9 year-old Frankie Jonas, the youngest Jo Bro, would make a great Tiny Tim, according to results in a survey of more than 1,900 children, teens and adults that was released on Wednesday.
Also, when E-Poll Market Research asked respondents for its annual holiday survey what “celebrity” they would most like to spend New Year’s Eve with, U.S. President Barack Obama came out as one of the top choices, along with talk show host Oprah Winfrey and singer Taylor Swift.
But it was the feature of the survey that identified celebrities with popular Christmas characters that produced the most noteworthy results and labeled West as the new Scrooge.
West received widespread scorn after he took the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards in September, and it appears that the survey results are proceeding along that wavelength in calling him the year’s Scrooge. Frankie Jonas, who has a recurring role on the Disney television show “Jonas” and voiced the main character in this year’s animated film “Ponyo,” is so young that it’s probably a natural pick for survey respondents to link him to Tiny Tim, although fortunately for him, he has none of Tiny Tim’s tragic infirmities.
The survey also identified television weatherman Al Roker with Frosty the Snowman, “American Idol” alpha judge Simon Cowell with the volcanic Heat Miser from the Christmas TV classic “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” and sometimes scary actor Christopher Walken with the spindly Jack Skellington, the lead character in Tim Burton’s 1993 film “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
E-Poll Market Research said it linked the celebrities to Christmas characters by having survey respondents describe attributes of celebrities, and then matching those findings with Christmas characters with similar attributes.
In another part of the survey, respondents named heiress Paris Hilton, divorced reality stars Jon and Kate Gosselin and singer Britney Spears as the celebrities they hope get “stranded on an island in 2010″ and forgotten about.
Source: Reuters
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Posted by ChasinDatPaper on December 17, 2009 at 11:00am
The last 12 months are likely to be remembered for their eclectic cultural sweep -- as the year Tiger Woods was sucked into a vortex of groupie hell, Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme came tumbling down and “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” became a legitimate dinner party talking point. But at street level, ’09 will go down in the annals for something else entirely. It was the year hip-hop finally plunged face-first into full-blown alcoholism.
We’re not talking about “You can find me in the club / bottles full of bubb” -- or any of that namby-pamby, bling-era conspicuous consumption (Jay-Z, as well as every other MC to rhyme “Cristal” with “pistol,” please pay your waitress and leave). Mainstream rap went giddy, downright hiccuping drunk, glorifying alcohol consumption. This year, the pop charts were awash with MCs and R&B crooners extolling the virtues of chasing a buzz and winding up wasted -- hopefully with some kind of sexual conquest to offset the bar bill.
Somewhere, Charles Bukowski and Dylan Thomas are probably tuning in to Power 106 FM. Meanwhile, auto-tune savant T-Pain and Crunk’s capo di tutti capos, Lil Jon, emerged as this year’s preeminent champions of booze-sozzled hip-hop. So herewith, the top 9 (as in '09) most alcoholic-enabling hip-hop songs of the year.
“Shots” – LMFAO featuring Lil Jon
Jägerbombs, lemon drops, Jello shots and kamikazes as well as premium liquors such as Ciroc Vodka and the rappers’ de facto favorite (judging by its ubiquity in hip-hop songs since 2006) Patrón tequila all get a shout-out on this Crunk-inflected club-banger. Even if the song’s “we came to party” ethos is hardly groundbreaking, its hook remains unforgettable: Lil Jon hoarsely screaming the word “shots!” 16 times in a row.
“Blame It” – Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain
“Blame it on the Goose, got ya feelin’ loose / Blame it on the 'trón, catch me in a zone / Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol,” Foxx sings with no small amount of added Auto-tune attitude in this boudoir jam that was all but inescapable on Top 40 radio earlier this year. Yes, he is talking about Grey Goose and Patrón. But later in the song, he lays bare his reasoning: by continuing to fill a potential love interest’s cup, she’s more likely to lose her inhibitions – “Fill another cup up / Feelin’ on your butt what?”
“Crack a Bottle” – Eminem featuring Dr. Dre and 50 Cent
“So crack a bottle / Let your body waddle / Don’t act like a snobby model / You just hit the Lotto,” Em sing-raps on the chorus of this party track. The operative thinking here conflates sobriety with snootiness and getting wasted with winning a lottery jackpot.
“Crazy Night” – R. Kelly featuring R. City
“This Hennessy got me,” R. Kelly croons on the lead cut from his latest album, “Untitled.” Then he gets to the chorus: “If you’re drinkin’ what I’m drinkin’, put your hands up in the sky / If you’re thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, you’ll say, 'What a crazy night!' ” But R’s consumption hardly stops there. In the song, he also brags of a “thousand dollar” bar tab, concluding, “I need another shot of that Bacardi” -- recklessly ignoring the inevitability of a hangover such booze mixing will provoke.
“Maldito Alcohol” – Pitbull
Reggaeton was no stranger to hip-hop’s reigning dipsomania. Exhibit A: Boriquan rapper Pitbull spitting lyrics (in Spanish) such as “I don’t want water / I want a drink”. . . “Damn alcohol, sweet torment / Give me a drink on the rocks.”
“Wasted” – Gucci Mane
“Party, party, party, let’s all get wasted,” the rapper exhorts on this hit single. “Shake it for me baby girl, do it butt naked / I’m so wasted, she so wasted / Tell the bartender send me 20 more cases.” The discrete charms of this hit single don’t end with the incontrovertible logic of its chorus, however. Mane also presumes the intoxication of certain notorious pop divas, mentioning that the booze has got him “geeking like Whitney and Britney.”
“Patrón Tequila” – the Paradiso Girls featuring Lil Jon
We can all agree that Crunkmeister Lil Jon was the man behind this year’s most unabashedly pro-booze music. On this paean to rap’s preferred tipple, though, the Paradiso Girls make vocal a silken threat: “By the end of the night, I’mma have you drunk and throwin’ up.”
“One More Drink” – Ludacris
An unapologetic ode to putting on one’s “beer goggles,” “One More Drink’s” narrative drama revolves around the ramifications of Luda having that proverbial one too many. Drunk driving and bedding ugly women ensues: “Surrendered to the woman / And her bringin’ me home / Because she looked better / Every shot of Patrón.”
“I’m So Gone (Patrón)” – Chamillionaire featuring Bobby Valentino
Chamilly and Bobby Valentino go for the obvious couplet here, rhyming “I’m poppin’ bottles of Patrón” with “all night long.” For the rapper, it’s clear that alcohol provides a palliative for his worldly concerns. “I’mma wash my problems away,” Chamillionaire raps. “Tonight I need a drank.” R&B Lothario Valentino, meanwhile, announces that he doesn’t usually drink but admits he’s “gone” -- read: wasted -- from drinking a mixture of tequila and rose wine.
Source: L.A. Times
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NY Daily News Reports
Get ready for the frump to trump the competition.
Unglamorous singer Susan Boyle stands poised to not only seize the No. 1 slot on Billboard's Top 200 Album chart this week, but to do so with the biggest opening sales of the year.
Though final tallies won't be released until Wednesday, sources say the Cinderella singer's debut, "I Dreamed a Dream," will enjoy sales of between 625,000 and 700,000 albums in its first week.
Those numbers would handily beat the tally of the year's previous opening champ: Emimen, whose most recent CD, "Relapse," sold 609,000 in its first blush back in late May.
Both Billboard and HitsDailyDouble.com predict roughly the same numbers for Boyle, based on early reports from the nation's big-box retailers as well as figures from QVC, which has played a key part in hawking this TV-created star.
A QVC source told The News the network had 83,650 preorders units for "Dream," making it that outlet's top-performing music title in a decade. Amazon doesn't reveal precise numbers, but sources told Billboard that its U.S. pre-orders likewise topped 80,000.
Boyle's CD, like all others released last week, enjoyed one advantage over most other albums issued in 2009. They jumped the common release date (Tuesday) by one day, instead coming out on a Monday (Nov. 23).
Boyle's juggernaut says a lot about new ways of marketing music in the modern age, according to Billboard's Keith Caulfield. While the star has gotten a bit of conventional radio play - mainly on Adult Contemporary stations which picked up on her version of "Silent Night" - Caulfield credits her main success in the States to YouTube. "She became a star there, and the album cover says ‘as seen on YouTube," he says. "When people went to the store last week, I'm not sure they even needed her Today Show performance or NBC Thanksgiving Night special. They already knew her."
Boyle's success isn't the only news on the charts this week.
Despite - or maybe because of - his antics on the AMAs last week, Adam Lambert's album, "For Your Entertainment," will debut at No. 2, with stronger than expected sales of roughly 225,000 units, according to both Billboard and HitsDailyDouble.com. That's nearly triple the sales of Kris Allen, the guy who beat him for this year's "American Idol" crown. Allen's self-titled debut sold just 80,000 copies in its first seven day sales period, which preceded Lambert's by one week. That's the worst opening sales record ever for an A.I. winner.
Still Caulfield sees a silver lining. "Kris sells a lot of individual tracks, rather than full albums," he explains. "Maybe his fans are younger and only have allowances to buy 3 or 4 tracks. They could buy more later."
Either way, says Caulfield, "When it comes to artists like Adam and Susan Boyle, people want the whole package."
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