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Very Recent History: Big Star's Influence On Katy Perry
MTV, announcing the passing of Big Star bassist Andy Hummel, provides some context for the kids:
Big Star influenced other areas of pop culture as well. "In the Street," one of the songs from their 1972 debut album #1 Record was the theme song to "That '70s Show," re-recorded by fellow power-pop legends Cheap Trick. Plus, the title of Katy Perry's hit "California Gurls" is a nod to Big Star's "September Gurls.""My manager, Bradford, he's from Mississippi, and he's a huge Big Star fan," Perry said. "And with the death of one of their members [Chilton], I had just written that song, and he's like, 'Katy, just for me, will you please title it 'California Gurls,' with a 'u'? People won't even know!' "
Maybe now they will! Sigh. Sorry, Andy.
This is information I do not want in my brain. Please remove it.
Thank you.
Jody Stephens, please get thyself to a doctor for a checkup.
"…one of their members", GRRRAAAAHHH. At least it now unequivocally proven that I was right all along to despise this awful woman. Fucking cultural colonist.
So when's the zombie Big Star collabo with Snoop for an AARP commercial coming out?
I know where Syd Barrett lives.
I know for fact that DeeDee Ramone's Cousin wears a Thin Lizzy shirt to work every day.
I often wonder who will be the subject of these cringe-inducing stories when we're old… which current artist will get an entirely offensive homage from Miley Cyrus's granddaughter's manager?
Why don't you come on back from way out West?
And love me, we can work out the rest.
Isn't Katy Perry in fact from Columbia, MD? Somebody needs to write a song about THOSE girls.
I will defend Columbia to the DEATH, sir.
You can make fun of Potomac all you want, though.
The Real Housewives of DC are about to do all the mockery for me.
The fact that Andy wasn't in the band anymore doesn't make this any less depressing. Agreeing with the poster above who said Jody should get a checkup. Eesh.
This is fucked up.
RIP also to tommy hoehn who kicked around the same fertile memphis power-pop scene releasing two great, unfairly obscure, solo records and collaborating with the scruffs and big star. van duren, are you the only one left?
http://www.memphisflyer.com/SingAllKinds/archives/2010/06/27/local-power-pop-musician-tommy-hoehn-dies-at-55
I'm not sure what the problem is here. The kids have got to find out about music from somewhere. Personally I think it's great that Katy Perry has an obscure Big Star reference in her (mostly rubbish, but still) single.
Y'all a bunch of snobs.
The problem is that it's not a story. It's a bunch of irrelevant nonsense. Spelling a word with a 'U' is a nod to absolutely nobody. The news of the passing of a musician simply does not require context in this manner. "Author James Joyce died today. Plus, twilight author Stephanie Meyer's mom once read the first 30 pages of Ulysses." The kids are not going to actively research a musical group from before their time because someone famous half-assedly titled a song because someone else told her that she should. Unless they are fans of Katy Perry's manager?
Sorry, I can't see this as anything more than the sort of "leave my cult band alone pop star!" attitude that you should grow out of by the time you leave college.
You really don't think that somewhere, some Katy Perry might be curious to check out Big Star after reading that? I find that amazing and not a little condescending. Don't you know how serious music fandom starts?
Dammit. "Katy Perry fan" obviously.
Absolutely not. I care not that much for Big Star. Why would I give a shit about a Katy Perry fan liking a band? There's a lot of assumptions going on here. Chill out on those. This is about pathetic music writing. It's just celebrity writing really.
Questions:
1) Why is Katy Perry connected to the death of a musician. Why? Because the TITLE of her song is spelled in a different way.
2) Why is it spelled differently? Why was the original song spelled like that? For similar reasons? Obviously not. Because the artist's manager felt like making a tribute? To a DIFFERENT MEMBER OF THE BAND.
3) Does the alternative spelling of a title of a song have any relation to the actual music? Is there anything remotely similar to these two artists that might also connect them in some way? No, except maybe they both played in C major once.
4) Does Katy Perry even know the band? The article DOESN'T EVEN SPECIFY. Her manager is the fan. At no point is the only relevant person in the paragraph connected to the dead bassist.
It's absurd. There's no point to it, except to name drop a currently popular human being. It is a shameless manner of connecting the past to the present. "Justin Beiber' dad's friend once liked Thin Lizzy." Well that's soooo interesting, thanks! I'm glad you have a job writing things!
In other news, Bradford (who is both a huge Big Star fan and Katy Perry's manager)reportedly popped out both his eardrums with an icepick when a friend forced him to listen to his client's single "California Gurls" after he admitted that he had never actually heard the song.