In an age where cell phones can discreetly film the private moments of both regular folks and celebrities, and with bloggers hitting their keyboards at the mere scent of a story, there’s a Big Brother aspect to celebrity that makes the missteps and foibles of the famous public fodder in an immediate, invasive way. But going on record―making an actual statement to the press―well, you’d think some of these long-time music biz types would be a little savvier by now.
Presenting Gibson’s Stupidest Rock Quotes of 2007:
1. This year, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher joined the ranks of Noel Coward, Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde as one of England’s Top Ten great wits—aye, the Guardian Unlimited says it is so. This begs the question: in the future, will college courses filled with academics pore over Oasis lyrics, looking for hidden meanings in Liam’s tossed-off diatribes? We can only hope.
Here’s the quote that has Liam rubbing elbows with literary greats: “Americans want grungy people, stabbing themselves in the head on stage. They get a bright bunch like us, with deodorant on, they don’t get it.” Tru dat. Lost the dude at “deodorant.” I mean, does Iggy Pop wear deodorant? How many people are even close enough to smell the band anyway?
2. Kelly Pickler is the country waifette who parlayed her “you’re going to Hollywood!” American Idol Cinderella story into a gold record, last year’s Small Town Girl. Pickler’s Tennesee Williams-esque tale of her jailbird dad and estranged mother has been delivered time and again with faux wide-eyed naiveté in an accent that’s 100 percent country ham (Look it up―it’s a super salty ham beloved in native North Carolina; see “redeye gravy”). Although there are scads of Pickler-isms, her performance on FOX game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? cemented her dumb blond rep for all time. The big question is: Why would her “people” put her on the show in the first place―was this a ploy to keep her “real” with her core demographic? To remind peeps that the dumb blond act isn’t a put-on but that she’s really as dumb as a box of red dirt?
When asked which country’s capital is Budapest, Pickler said, “This might be a stupid question …I thought Europe was a country. Let’s see, Budapest? I never even heard of that. I know they speak French there …don’t they? Is France a country? I don’t know what I’m doing.”
3. Struggling musician Gene Simmons, he of the endless farewell tours and merchandising chutzpah, gave Billboard a piece of his mind last month. On why those pesky college kids and their downloading are ruining the music industry: “Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They’ve got freckles. That’s a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit’s mask.”
4. Tommy Lee: “I would never do a stupid show like ‘Rock of Love.’”
Really, is this just sour grapes because his ex-old lady’s ex-boyfriend, Bret Michaels, got the gig? I mean, what reality show would Tommy Lee NOT do? Kid Nation? America’s Next Top Model? Get over it Tommy!
5. During a Sirius Satellite Radio interview regarding her philanthropic work in Africa, Madonna deadpanned, “I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon―but I want to stay alive.” For all you Madonna fans out there, it gets even better. Here’s the extended dance remix of this quote: “For me we need to be Jesus in our time.”
6. Joe Trohman, Fall Out Boy. Meanwhile, in response to a New York Daily News item about a source telling OK! that Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz’s girlfriend Ashlee Simpson was “poison” to the band, guitarist Joe Trohman took to his blog to say, “We don’t have any ‘pals’ that gossip to the tabloids over our business. Those kind of folk are called douchebags, and we don’t fraternize with douchebags. We also don’t blame a certain someone for our lack of a Grammy nod. That’s absolutely f—ing absurd. We might be irrational, chemically imbalanced babies, but our discontent is only directed at those who we feel slighted us to a degree.”
7. Ted Nugent. You’d be hard-pressed to find the single best quote of hunter-griller/strident rocker Ted Nugent. The guy is the U.S. mint when it comes to coining a phrase―always un-PC, always offensive. Without even touching on his now infamous political banter, Ted, in a 2007 Wall Street Journal article titled “The Summer of Drugs,” ranted about Hendrix and Joplin, then went on to blame “stoned, dirty, stinky hippies” for “rising rates of divorce, high school drop-outs, drug use, abortion, sexual diseases and crime, not to mention the exponential expansion of government and taxes.” He also put forth this opinion: “Turned off by the work ethic and productive American Dream values of their parents, hippies instead opted for a cowardly, irresponsible lifestyle of random sex, life-destroying drugs and mostly soulless rock music that flourished in San Francisco.”
OK. So imagine that all the music Ted is implicitly condemning had never been allowed to happen. Then imagine that you’re going home and all you have to listen to is Double Live Gonzo!, and thank your lucky stars that it did.
8. John Lydon. Dear John, it’s not our fault you agreed to fritter away your reputation on the wretched TV show Bodog’s Battle of the Bands. But man, Rotten turned rotten at a launch for Guitar Hero III―which he was paid to promote―calling it “rubbish,” saying it was teaching you how “not” to be a rock star, then launching into an F-bomb rambling diatribe on everything from the labor party to landslides, declaring at one point: “I am England!”
Anarchic? Maybe to a 15-year-old. Savvy marketing? Mos def.
9. Say yes, yes, yes, yes: Amy Winehouse plays a disorderly show (surprise, surprise) in Birmingham, during which she’s clearly drunk, and fires this salvo to the disappointed audience: “Wait ’til my husband [Blake Fielder-Civil] gets out of incarceration. And I mean that.” (A one-man ass-whoopin’ to an entire audience? Hmmm).
Adding new layers to the definition of what it takes to be constantly referred to as the “troubled singer,” Winehouse gives a painful interview to Blender with this gem of a quote as to why she doesn’t do drugs anymore. She “doesn’t have time...I take, like, anti… I take stuff for my depression. Prescriptive stuff. But I don’t take it.”
10. Christina Aguilera: “Where’s the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?”
She’s a singer OK? Not a cartographer. Be nice.
Bonus Quote, courtesy of Jessica Simpson: “People use music as a utensil to better themselves.”
And if you made the list―don’t worry. The wonderful thing about the world getting progressively more stupider is that someone is going to top you pretty soon. Here’s to 2008!