Pop Shots - Día de los Muertos

Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is hitting you with thoughts on everything from Amy Winehouse’s postmortem popularity, to an 80s icon’s off-putting ideas regarding murder, to how to dispose of your raver material now that the Electric Daisy Carnival Experience is being pulled from a host of theaters, and since it’s Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

* Rapper Jadakiss once rhymed “dead rappers get better promotion.” As it turns out, this is also true of singers who have recently passed away. When Michael Jackson died his entire catalogue saw a spike in sales, and the same has just happened with Amy Winehouse, who’s “Back to Black” album reentered the Billboard albums chart at number nine with sales of 37,000, almost all of which happened within 36 hours of her passing. With this trend in full swing Hollywood Records can't wait for Lindsay Lohan to kick the bucket so they can finally move some copies of the Herbie Fully Loaded soundtrack.

* A lot of people in the music industry have been wondering where all the money has gone. Some have blamed downloading, other have blamed marketing departments, but the fact of the matter is it’s all gone to U2. The group’s 360 tour, which began on June 30th of 2009 and ended this past Saturday after 110 shows in total, grossed $736.1 million dollars and was attended by 7.27 million people. You may not want to do the math on that one, because if you do you’ll find that the average ticket price was over $100. So there’s your new business plan, music industry, charge irresponsibly for things that you know people will pay for!

* 80’s icon Morrissey managed to offend thousands with a statement he made at a concert in Warsaw, Poland, this past week when he compared the mass murders in Norway to fast food. The outspoken vegan (and by “outspoken” I mean “douchebag”) said “We all live in a murderous world, as the events in Norway have shown, with 97 dead. Though that is nothing compared to what happens in McDonald's and Kentucky Fried S**t every day.” What he should have said is “if you thought those murders in Norway are bad, just wait till you hear what I do to this next song!”

* Miley Cyrus has a new tattoo, an equal sign on her ring finger that’s supposed to represent marriage equality. Honestly, it looks more like a burn mark and could easily be mistaken for a post accident scar after a bad trip to a Benihana. I gotta give it to the kid, though, at least she isn’t afraid to say something, even if permanently marking up her body is the way in which she chooses to say those things.

* Friday night’s Kings of Leon concert in Dallas, TX, hit a bit of a snag - one member of the band didn’t feel like performing. Lead singer Caleb Followill left the stage, complaining of vocal issues and being hot, saying he’d be right back. The only problem was he never returned. Tweets from the band implied there are much bigger issues going on with the group. At this point they could certainly “Use Somebody” to sing a couple songs for them.

* If you’re looking for an Electric Daisy Carnival Experience you’re going to have to look a little harder as after this past week’s “melee” after the Hollywood premier of the rave documentary has led to the Regal and AMC chains of theaters dropping the film. The incident actually happened at an unaffiliated post-screening party held by DJ Kaskade, and police in riot gear ended up showing up, fighting off the crowds that came to see him. If you’re at a loss for what to do with all those glow sticks you bought for the occasion, here’s a pretty cool idea:


And with that, my time is up for the week, but I'll be back next week with more shots on all things pop.