WTF?
Bat-shit moments from this century so far.
QUESTIONABLE COVERS
Who can forget Black Label Society taking Procol Harum’s 60s classic A Whiter Shade Of Pale to places it had never seen – and should never have seen? Or Children Of Bodom’s take on Britney Spears’ Oops!… I Did It Again (Children Of Bodom + Britney Spears – there’s a reason why those names look wrong together), or Limp Bizkit creating new depths of aural atrocity with their take on The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes? But nothing in the realm of oh-no-they-didn’t/oh-shit-they-did car-crash covers can hold a candle to Celine Dion and Anastacia’s You Shook Me All Night Long. Remember that one? Thought you’d suppressed it from your mind for good? Yeah, us too. Sorry to bring the horror back again and ruin your day.
UNLIKELY COLLABORATIONS
Sometimes you can see these coming a mile off. Other times… well, not so much. The pairing of Lou Reed and Metallica, who teamed up for the ill-fated Lulu in 2011, being the most obvious. In 2018 Sting joined forces with Shaggy for the album 44/876. In 2009 Alice In Chains brought in Elton John to play keyboards on Layne Staley tribute Black Gives Way To Blue. That one actually worked well, even if it looks strange on paper. Still, it wasn’t as spill-your-coffee surprising as Brian May announcing that he and Dappy (aka the fella from N-Dubz) were doing a song together. They have not collaborated since.
U2 INVADE YOUR IPOD
In a feat akin to musical junk mail, U2 worked with Apple to ensure that their 2014 album Songs Of Innocence was given away to an estimated 500 million iTunes users. This meant that, on release day, those millions woke up to find U2’s (not-so-glowingly received) album on their devices, regardless of their music taste. The reason? Bono and co. were afraid that no one would listen to it otherwise. Not the strongest argument for a band in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, with 22 Grammys and an estimated 170 million record sales to their name.
SPOTIFY MAKE PLAYLISTS FROM YOUR DNA
Sounds weird, is weird. And yet it’s sort of interesting. In a nutshell, in 2018 Spotify joined up with genealogy website Ancestry.com to enable customers to input their DNA results and get a playlist based on the geographical regions in their family tree as well as on their listening habits. Interested? Find out more about how to make your own DNA-derived playlist (hell, maybe you’re looking for something to do under lockdown?) at www.ancestry.com/cs/spotify
THREATIN ARE A BAND! OH NO, WAIT…
The puzzling brainchild of Jered Eames, Threatin were the band that… well, weren’t. In November 2018, Eames booked a full European and UK tour, having fabricated a substantial (and fake) social media following for the band and assuring venues that hundreds of tickets had been sold. Almost no one showed up. A year later, Eames played a gig at London’s Underworld attended by about 60 people (many of whom left before the show finished), amid insinuations that the whole thing was a deliberate stunt, with a documentary to follow. It was all very odd.
FYRE FESTIVAL: THE BIGGEST EVENT FRAUD EVER?
In 2018 a 26-year-old American called Billy McFarland teamed up with rapper Ja Rule to devise a luxury music event called Fyre Festival. Set on an island in the Bahamas, it was wildly hyped with extravagant promises and photographs of models running around on beaches. Millions of dollars were secured in investment – fraudulently, it turned out. Revellers arrived on Exuma to find the island paradise was far from that. Scenes resembling Lord Of The Flies ensued. ‘Island getaway-turned-disaster!’ one headline screamed. Fyre Media had claimed to be worth $90 million, but authorities alleged that they did only about $60,000 in business. A $100 million class action – one of at least eight lawsuits – followed. McFarland is currently in prison.