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On its second day of release, the Bob Marley movie “One Love” fell back to Earth.
After making over $14 million on Wednesday, the commotion has calmed down.
Thursday’s take was $3.85 million, bringing the total two days to a still very successful $17.9 million.
Tonight begins the crucial weekend push. Paramount could see a total of more than $30 million by Sunday night.
The movie’s release has been good Marley’s music, anyway. His greatest hits have risen right up the charts. Audience interest on Rotten Tomatoes is still high at 95% even though reviews are less than stellar.
Regardless, I will try and see “One Love” this weekend, just for the music, if nothing else!
Here’s the update on “Vultures 1,” Kanye West’s new album.
Kanye uploaded the album to all the streaming services through a service called FUGA, which is owned by Downtown Music here in New York. He did the upload on Saturday, when no one was paying attention. It seems like when Downtown/FUGA realized what happened, they pulled it off as many streaming services as possible.
West apparently did the upload on Saturday, after being rejected by FUGA on Friday. It seems he did it behind their backs, but they’re not commenting.
I’ve been directed to a statement they made earlier:
“Late last year, FUGA was presented with the opportunity to release Vultures 1. Exercising our judgment in the ordinary course of business, we declined to do so.”
“On Friday, February 9, 2024, a long-standing FUGA client delivered the album Vultures 1 through the platform’s automated processes, violating our service agreement. Therefore, FUGA is actively working with its DSP partners and the client to remove Vultures 1 from our systems.”
FUGA now tells me they’re totally out of this, and they’ve been informed there’s a new distributor.
Currently, “Vultures” is off of iTunes/Apple and Amazon. It still seems to be on Spotify, although one track is missing. That’s because the Donna Summer estate filed a take down notice over an unauthorized sample.
A couple of “Vultures” tracks are still on iTunes. That’s because Kanye uploaded them through a different service called Create Music from Los Angeles. It’s unclear if they will follow suit.
So the reason for all this does seem to be objections to West’s antisemitic statements, and maybe because the album is explicit and vulgar. Kudos to these people for exacting editorial control. But the removal has nothing to do with the streamers. It’s the distributor. The streamers — Apple, Amazon, etc — just want to make money. They have no moral imperative.
Big stars have labels that do the uploading. But without a label, West is left to these devices, using an indie distributor. Even when he was signed to DefJam he often uploaded material without telling anyone. But that was before he was revealed as an admirer of Hitler.
The family of Beach Boy Brian Wilson says that since the untimely death of his wife Melinda from cancer, Wilson will get new conservators.
A report says papers were filed because Wilson suffers from dementia. Just remember, no matter what, Brian Wilson has been a musical genius, one of the great composers in American history.
Brian and Melinda have five adopted children. Wilson, who made a great comeback after marrying Melinda, obviously requires quite a bit of help personally and in running his business. Luckily he has the resources to make it happen.
Wilson was left in poor physical, mental, and financial shape by his late former “adviser,” Dr. Eugene Landey. But he’s had a musical comeback over the years that demonstrates how well Melinda took care of him. Her death recently at age 77 was a shock.
The Wilson family — including singing daughters Carnie and Wendy — posted:
“Following the passing of Brian’s beloved wife Melinda, after careful consideration and consultation among Brian, his seven children, Gloria Ramos and Brian’s doctors (and consistent with family processes put in place by Brian and Melinda), we are confirming that longtime Wilson family representatives LeeAnn Hard and Jean Sievers will serve as Brian’s co-conservators of the person. This decision was made to ensure that there will be no extreme changes to the household and Brian and the children living at home will be taken care of and remain in the home where they are cared for by Gloria Ramos and the wonderful team at the house who have been in place for many years helping take care of the family. Brian will be able to enjoy all of his family and friends and continue to work on current projects as well as participate in any activities he chooses.”
On “This is Me…Now” Jennifer Lopez has a song so personal and intimate there are SEVEN credited writes. That would be “Dear Ben Pt. II,” a sequel to a song on “This is Me…Later” from 20 years ago.
Even Cyrano de Bergerac was a lone ghost writer. He didn’t have six companions.
There’s one song with SIXTEEN writers. Each one contributed a word. It’s called “Hearts and Flowers.” It was written at a conference table, with people zooming in!
Lopez has another song that relies heavily on Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett’s “Superstar.” She also has tracks based on the Justin Timberlake song “Cry Me a River,” and another on a Chris Isaak song. Even the sampled songs have groups of people — all needed for heavy lifting when they stole the original. It’s like an “Ocean’s 11” movie.
You wonder how this could be acceptable. Even more, how Ben Affleck and Matt Damon managed to get someone to cook up an original song for their Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. Maybe JLo should have paid attention to that.
The Lopez album drops at midnight with a zillion dollar short video she paid for. This is a disaster waiting to happen. We’ll listen for more later tonight. Meantime, here’s the title track, with the Timberlake sample, sung in they key of Ouch.
Indeed, vocal prowess is not the highlight here. JLo is neither a Jennifer Hudson nor a Mary J. Blige. Her voice is thin and shrill. You can imagine cats running up poles when the songs are played. I give her credit: she’s just singing, there’s no effort to fix it up and make it better. This is really her now: rich, comfortable as a celebrity, and won’t make apologies. That’s sort of cool.
Unfortunately the committee written songs are pretty bad. Most of them are ballads or mid tempo, and that doesn’t help. Lopez sounds a lot like she’s gulping for air trying to figure these things out. The songs feel like they’ve been composed by AI. “Make me a Jennifer Lopez song” you type into the program. And these are what you get.
The Kanye West album “Vultures” was removed from most digital platforms because of a take down notice from Donna Summer’s estate. It was just restored to iTunes and Spotify but without the song “Good Don’t Die.” (iTunes still has six other tracks they’ve de-listed.)
West says on Instagram that the album has been removed from all digital platforms and it should be ordered on his website. But all about but one song has been reloaded.
Summer’s estate complained that West used a sample of “Love to Love You Baby” without permission on “Good (Don’t Die),” which caused the trouble. Ozzy Osbourne, separately, threatened legal action over a sample of one of his songs.
Unfortunately this had nothing to do with objectionable lyrics. The platforms don’t care about that!
Keep refreshing…
EARLIER Yesterday, Kanye West’s “Vultures,” was number 2 on the iTunes Top 200.
Today, it’s gone.
The album has vanished from all the iTunes charts– singles, albums, rap albums.
Have sales simply stopped? Or has iTunes stopped offering it?
The album is full of vulgarities and features an antisemitic reference that is ugly, hateful, and repellent.
If Apple has decided not to distribute the album, more power to them. It would be incredible if someone in the music business executed some editorial authority. It would be a miracle!
Keep refreshing.
Usually, I add a YouTube link for a song from an album, but I can’t in this case because the material is so objectionable.
Beyonce has all top 5 spots on the iTunes top 100. Four of them are different versions of “Texas Hold ‘Em.” One is “16 Carriages.” They are each Beyonce’s advance singles from her “Act II” album, coming next month.
The Beehive is buzzing! They contacted each other on social media, and stuffed the iTunes ballot box. Very smart: they’ve learned from other fan bases how to get their star to the top!
Part of the drive was to keep Kanye West away from the top of the charts. It worked. Kanye’s record, “Carnival,” dropped off the chart completely after spending one day on it. No “Vultures” tracks are on the chart at all despite the bragging by its creator. (The album is top 5 on the albums charts.)
Some blog wrote yesterday that the country turn was a bad idea for Beyonce. Hmmmmm…
The Bob Marley movie “One Love” made an outstanding $14 million last night in its mid week opening.
Not bad!
Marley has a huge following internationally, which seems to have translated into huge numbers apparently.
The film, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, and stars Kingsley Ben Adir as Marley, Lawshana Lynch plays Rita Marley, Bob’s flamboyant wife.
This is a film with an interesting divide: critics didn’t like it, with just 44% on Rotten Tomatoes. At the same time, the audience score is 95% . The word is the music sequences are spectacular.
If the numbers catch on, Paramount will be popping Champagne corks!
The Super Bowl was so super that it killed off HBO’s Sunday night ratings.
Both “True Detective: North Country” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” were down by 60% from the previous week because everyone in the world was tuned to CBS.
HBO knew trouble was coming. They released “True Detective” on Friday, but it didn’thelp. The key demo was down by 63.6%, the total viewers — 371,000 — was off by 48%.
The cabler obviously expected the Chiefs-49ers to be over quickly. But it went into overtime and extended into the 10pm hour. This harmed “Curb” tremendously. The Larry David show was down 60% and 39% respectively, with total viewers at just 257,000.
Why HBO just didn’t rerun old shows and wait a week is a good question. But maybe fans of the shows will catch up before this Sunday’s run. “Curb” improved a little this past week (I watched it after the game), but let’s get the characters out of Atlanta. They’re trying to prove a point. “Curb” is not about that. As Larry used to say about “Seinfeld,” we learn nothing from each episode.
There are some people who want China’s social media company, TikTok, to be outlawed — at least for impressionable viewers.
Not Anna Wintour or the Metropolitan Museum. They announced today that TikTok would be sponsoring the next Met Ball in May. The meaning: What used to be a haute couture, high fashion money loser has devolved into a Halloween party available to the highest bidder.
And the celebrities involved this year guarantee a Halloween for the ages: Bad Bunny. Jennifer Lopez, Thor aka Chris Hemsworth, and “Dune” star Zendaya. (Anna Wintour must love “Dune.” Timothee Chalamet was her celeb guest from the first “Dune.”) TikTok CEO Shou Chew, often grilled by Congress over the social platform’s potential harm to children, and the creative director of excessively overpriced Loewe, will preside over the activities. Expect Kardashians, and maybe even Kanye West in a hooded jumper with his naked wife.
The theme is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”
Notably not mentioned as sponsor is Conde Nast, over which Wintour presides. They’ve laid off hundreds of staff in the last year, and changed course several times. If they donated money to this chicanery, there would be at least some outcry from the media.
Every year the Met Ball spends lavishly, loses lots of money, but gets massive attention for its lunacy.
What a Valentine’s night in New York for Oscar nominated Bradley Cooper and his spectacular “Maestro.”
Somehow all the talk about “Oppenheimer” and other nominated films has dominated the Oscar conversation this season, leaving this extraordinary work about Leonard and Felicia Bernstein off to the side.
But tonight a large portion of the NY Philharmonic played selections at David Geffen Hall in New York from the “Maestro” soundtrack, conducted by the Metropolitan Opera’s superstar Yannick Nezet-Seguin in a sublime presentation that mixed audio and video clips from the film. There were also top notch live performances from a 50 member chorus, top star soloists, and even Oscar nominated “Maestro” actress Carey Mulligan.
A dashing Cooper appeared in black tie and made some introductions explaining that the event was put together very quickly — by Netflix publicist Kelly Dalton— to promote “Maestro” but also as a salute to Bernstein’s three adult children, who were all in attendance. (The movie wouldn’t have happened without them turning over their father’s papers and files to Cooper.) So were noted bold faced names like Matthew Modine, Candice Bergen, Ellen Burstyn, Spike Lee, Victor Garber, Chris Meloni, Tovah Feldshuh, Hope Davis, Celia Weston, and more.
Geffen Hall, still shining a year after its opening, was the right place for this: Bernstein lived in his life in this building when it was Philharmonic Hall. The sound now is even richer and more alive, something Bernstein would have appreciated. He’d also have appreciated Cooper’s meticulous tribute to him. Nezet-Seguin sure does. He worked with Cooper for years on this project. At a conversation on stage after the 90 minute show, the conductor told Cooper: “You are a hero to all musicians.” Why? Because classical musicians are not treated like Beyonce or Taylor Swift. But Cooper made them feel that way.
This was not an easy program to put together overnight. The orchestra played pieces by Beethoven, Schumann, Mahler, and W.C. Handy, plus selections from “West Side Story,” “Candide,” “On the Town.” They also delivered Bernstein’s own classical compositions as heard in the film. Interspersed were the clips, which helped set up the orchestra. There is nothing like live symphonic music. You could feel the audience levitating.
And then there was the surprise of Mulligan and actor Zachary Booth recreating their comic patter of William Walton’s “Sir Beelzebub” from “Maestro” in character as Felicia Montealegre- Bernstein and Mendy Wager. They were sugary Floating Islands meeting Noel Coward, and the audience went wild. Booth is very talented. Mulligan is awe inspiring. What can’t she do?
Revealed in that three way conversation at the end, in fact, was that Mulligan didn’t know much about Bernstein or his world when she joined the project years ago. She’s a quick study. She just jumped in soaked it all up. As for Cooper, “Maestro” is a towering achievement. Nezet-Seguin wondered aloud how Cooper could have created, directed, and starred in this movie. (Isn’t this what happened to Orson Welles in his day?)
Kudos to all the vocal soloists involved tonight including Nick Blaemire, Mallory Portnoy, Kate Eastman, 14 year old show stealer Malaki Bayoh, Ann De Renais, Samuel Oladeinde, and Philip John Sheffield. Blair McMillan was featured keyboardist.
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