I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t clue everyone in to the greatest indie music secret out there: LCD Soundsystem.
If you like your dance/indie-rock music fun, clever, ironic and somewhat tongue-in-cheek (Yes, PLEASE! Sign me up!), then LCD is for you. And if you’re a geek that just likes to shake it, you’ll find plenty to love about NYC’s hippest dance-rock artist. The band is part Talking Heads, part David Bowie, part Cake and part New Order. Yeah, that’s a retro-heavy list of influences tossed into a modern sensibility.
Soundsystem is the brainchild of James Murphy - an overweight, hairy music nerd (surely no personal connection there) who once moonlighted as a DJ until people caught on to just how brilliant his remixes are. In 2002, he released the snob-rock anthem, “Losing My Edge,” chronicling the rise and fall of an indie record store clerk who “had everything before anyone.” (I’m looking at YOU, Schoolkids Records!)
He followed that up with a brilliant 2005 self-titled release featuring “Daft Punk is Playing at my House” - for my money, the best dance song of the last decade. “Tribulations” was also a minor hit.
Last week, the follow-up - Sound of Silver - was released to thunderous critical acclaim, and for good reason. The album is less dancy and more cohesive than the first album, but no less clever. And for the first time, Murphy writes songs around feelings instead of soundbites. First single “North American Scum” is smashing, but it’s a little worn by this point.
“Someone Great” is the pinnacle of his achievements thus far - a quiet, drony ode to a lost loved one that makes the specifics of grief universal:
“The worst is all the lovely weather
I’m stunned it’s not raining
The coffee isn’t even bitter
Because, what’s the difference?”
The rest of the album hangs in equal parts heart and silliness. The title track plays with late-70s Bowie vocals and a ridiculous repeated refrain. Album opener “Get Innocuous!” spreads its groove across five minutes of analog-synth madness. And “Watch the Tapes” meditates (not too hard) on the cult of indie-rock stardom.
Okay - so this blog has gotten music heavy. I can’t help it if there’ve been some great albums coming out this year.
When you’re on your deathbed, there’s ample amount of time to reflect on the important things in life. And while the grim reaper’s claw still rests lightly around my throat, I think I’m cured of my tonsil leprosy just long enough to blog about a moment of clarity I had around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday (okay, it was actually a fever dream).
Sometime between groans of pain and torturous throat-boil moans of agony, I realized that it’s been exactly a decade since many of my favorite albums were released. 1997 was a good year for me in general (licensed to drive, first love, etc…). But the most important and lasting effect of that year was the nearly month-by-month release of instant-classic albums.
So I’d like to take a minute to revisit the highlights. Some of the records you probably heard, others I’d recommend you rush out and get immediately.
The year started with a bang. Blur released their woo-hooing, self-titled fifth album in February. Beyond “Song 2″ - that “Starship Troopers” and hockey arena staple - the highlight of the album was the way in which the Brit-pop band blended their overt Britishness and pretty melodies with messy, American lo-fi production.
In March, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds dropped The Boatman’s Call, a 12-song rumination of love and loss. Cave has always been known for his crazed live shows and his violent, intense lyrics. For the first time, he toned it down and slipped gracefully into middle age, creating a classic album of torch songs, love songs and hate songs like “Idiot Prayer,” the post-coital “Brompton Oratory,” and “Where do we go now but Nowhere?”
In April, Depeche Mode released Ultra, the first without key member and arranger Alan Wilder and also the first since lead singer David Gahan’s brush with suicide and overdoses on heroin. The album cranked out several modern rock hits, including the marvellous “It’s no Good,” a throwback to the melodicism of their 80s hey-days. The album itself was gritty and muted, and felt torn from the pages of songwriter Martin Gore’s own substance abuse issues and doubts about the band’s future.
In June, Michael Penn came through with Resigned - easily the best singer-songwriter album of the decade. I still haven’t heard one better. I’m not a doctor (though after all the visits I’ve had this week, I feel like one) but if that song above - “Try” - doesn’t grab you and make you want to hear more, there’s something seriously, life-threateningly wrong with you. The album gave Penn the chance to flex his lyrical muscle, while playing with Beatle-isms, George Harrison style. It’s a masterpiece.
In July, we got two splendiferous offerings.
The first was Sarah McLachlan’s long-awaited Surfacing, which officially kicked off the Lilith Fair craze. While slighter than 1993’s Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, as pure pop albums go, it’s a total stunner and has worn its decade well. Runs of singles don’t get much better than “Building a Mystery,” “Sweet Surrender,” “Adia” and “Angel.” Voices don’t get much better than hers, either.
Radiohead also dropped the seminal OK Computer, a decade-defining album that launched 1,000 imitators. Admit it: The first time you heard the epic 6-minute “Paranoid Android,” your mouth was agape. That the rest of the album fit so neatly and flawlessly around that genre-defying single was even more remarkable. And then, when you consider that the band recorded the 12 uber-paranoid, twitchy songs in the haunted house English country manor of Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman), makes songs like “No Surprises” and “Lucky” ever more impressive.
Bjork returned to Earth in October to hand us Homogenic her best batch of songs yet. While the alternative music press was still cartwheeling over Radiohead’s album, many missed this quiet little gem and her two best songs ever: “Joga” and “All is Full of Love.” After conquering house and big band, Iceland’s fairy princess revealed she’s best when she deals with the human heart.
In November, a little band called The Verve began making waves with “Bittersweet Symphony” and a Nike commercial that eventually put them at No. 1 and found them earning no cash from the hit thanks to the greedy mitts of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (who argued that using a symphonic version of their song is as flagrant as using the real thing). No matter. The Verve disbanded within a year, leaving Urban Hymns - a tear-stained, old-soul of an album - to remember them by. It’s often hard to say whether an album is a classic on its first spin, but when you’re tossing off pearls like “Sonnet,” “Space and Time,” “Lucky Man” and “Rolling People,” the conclusion is almost inevitable. Richard Ashcroft still has the voice of a legendary frontman, even if his band never quite got there.
And, closing out the year, Catherine Wheel’s crowning achievement, Adam and Eve, was thoroughly ignored by the masses on both sides of the Atlantic. This could be my favorite album of all time, with just enough melody, pomp and Pink Floyd-ian grandeur to reel me in every time I spin it. Ten years on, songs like “Phantom of the American Mother,” “For Dreaming” and “Here Comes the Fat Controller” still leave me in a tailspin after I hear them. They exist in their own worlds.
It’s difficult to believe that there could ever be a better year in my life - musically, or otherwise, - than 1997. These albums serve as a reminder why. Not just because they’re great, but because they, like all great music, return me to the times I first heard them.
Forget reading this for now. Go ahead and scroll down a little and just push play on that YouTube clip of Amy Winehouse’s startling single “Rehab.”
Back with me? Okay, good, good because I want you to hear me now: Amy Winehouse could be this year’s crossover phenomenon.
As you heard, the British R&B singer is nothing short of a marvel, and the evidence on her stunning sophomore album, Back to Black (released Tuesday), proves she’s more than a one hit wonder. Black has been out for months in the UK, topping the charts there for weeks, winning her an Ivor Novello songwriting award and shortlisting her for the 2006 Mercury Prize. Those of you scoping out Charlie Kraebel’s blog might have already heard “Rehab” in the Britney Spears spoof.
The hype is deserved. Winehouse’s chops already feel legendary. Her voice crackles like Billie Holliday’s, catches like Ronnie Spectors’, and smolders like Etta James’. And her songwriting is top notch. It blends ’50s R&B with Motown - back to back, songs like “Just Friends,” “Back to Black” and “Love is a Losing Game” play like a classic soul album. This album alone probably won’t put her in the history books, but it proves she knows how to use her voice, write a song (and write to her strengths) and emote better than most anyone around right now. In short, it’s set her up for a promising career.
But if you’ve had your ear to the ground, you might have heard a bit more about this blues-ing, boozing songbird. Winehouse is a drunk. Famously drunk. Smashed. Plastered. Blotto. Yeah - Janis Joplin drunk. One story going around says she actually threw up onstage during a show, and continued singing. That’s not soul - that’s punk all the way!
I’m hoping she won’t let her drinking overpower her, because I’d really like this new master of the 3-minute soul raveup to stick around and wipe the slates clean of some half-assed yodelers and American Idol rejects out there.
This weekend, I had the pleasure (and pain) of seeing two distinctly different movies while in the Greater Kinston Area. These films re-affirmed some much-needed faith in movie-going as an escapist passtime.
Let’s start with “300,” an already-blockbuster smash hit that will most-likely dominate the late winter box office for some time to come. The hotly anticipated film is an adaptation of Frank Miller’s (”Sin City”) graphic novel depiction of the Battle of Thermopylae, in which the King Leonidas and his Spartan army of 300 fended off the Persian army of thousands upon thousands.
The movie is visually stunning, and every scene is filled with eye candy -whether it’s the epic battle scenes, eye-popping CGI backdrops, or scantily clad (sometimes unclad) women (men too, if that’s your thing). A few scenes stood out, such as an early hail storm of Persian arrows descending upon the Spartans and Persian troops silhouetted as they’re forced off the side of a cliff. But it’s easy to tell that director Zack Snyder ran out of ideas after about the fourth beheading. The dialogue is horrendous - even for a comic book adaptation - and the acting is largely cringeworthy.
Gerard Butler, as King Leonidas, is excellent. He definitely has the charisma to carry the part, and given some better material to work with, would have carried the film to success. His intensity, both in battle and in the movie’s slower moments, is noteworthy. And Lena Headley, as his queen, is utterly stunning. I’m not sure I remember too many lines she delivered, but I’ll be damned if she didn’t look the part. She carried herself as respectfully as a semi-nude queen can.
What “300″ ultimately becomes is a cheap amalgamation of “Braveheart,” “Lord of the Rings” and “The Scorpion King.” It works about as well as a that combination sounds, but it looks great doing it.
On Friday night, I ventured out to see “Zodiac,” the newest David Fincher (”Seven,” “Fight Club”) offering. The story revolves around the late-’60s, early-’70s sensational, unsolved Zodiac Killer case.
It held me riveted for its entire 2 hours and 45 minutes.
There could be a couple personal reasons for this: I’m a reporter, and the action centers around the San Francisco Chronicle’s newsroom and the killer’s letters to the editor. Also, I have a not-so-secret passion for studying serial murder cases. This movie fed both interests.
Beyond that, it’s just a particularly well-told story, and Fincher’s direction - and the way he weaves between the film’s three main characters - is masterful.
Jake Gyllenhaal again proves himself reliable, and is quickly becoming just about the best actor of his young generation. He’s endearing and believable as amateur sleuth and Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith. Robert Downey Jr. turns in one of his usual frantic, flamboyant performances as crime reporter Paul Avery, and Mark Ruffalo aims for and hits some surprising depth as a tortured S.F.P.D. detective.
It’s an eerie film, tough to forget and all-too-easy to remember as soon as the lights go out and you’re left alone in your bedroom. One scene in particular is one of the creepiest I’ve ever seen on film. It left the hairs standing on the back of my neck for a good couple hours.
Overall, I’d give “Zodiac” an ‘A’: Great story, well-adapted screenplay, solid performances and classy, restrained direction that reveals the psychology of the hunter and the hunted.
Anyone else want to chime in? What’s good out there?
What follows is a damnation of emo, a genre of music more baneful than goth and somehow more annoying than polka:
I know I’m probably going to take the heat from legions of mindless, pasty-skinned teenage sheep, but I need you all to look up from your Alternative Press, pull your assymetrical (read: Stupid) haircut aside, open your ears and hear this:
My Chemical Romance is an almost incomprehensibly stupid band, and you endanger yourselves by listening to their music.
Before you get your skinny-cut Ts in a wad, let me tell you that I’m no stranger to mope-rock. I’ve done time with the true originals of the genre (Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode - and most importantly - Morrissey and The Smiths). Yes, there is comfort in surrounding your hyper-hormonal persons in despair-coddling, grey rock and hollow, thumping synthesizers. It feels good to scrawl your existential angst in secret notebooks you hide under your bed while you hear some po-faced artist describe in detail just how alone you really are. And you probably were switched at birth. Your “parents” won’t ever “get” you, and will just never understand how truly hard your life is. To quote Ally Sheedy’s character in the teen-angst bible “The Breakfast Club:” When you grow up, your heart dies.
I would be fine with all this - and your adoration of a patently terrible band - if you really were alone. But I always see you in groups, wearing your Atreyu t-shirts and black bangles on your arms, snickering and mocking the others around you for being so conformist. Nay, 15-year-old hypocrites - you are the conformists, the rats to My Chemical Romance’s pied-piper whine-fests.
The toxic sludge the band calls music is so overwrought and heavyhanded, with any other generation of teens, I’d have hoped America would be smart enough to avoid the insipid pandering of it all. Just look at the song titles on their self-important new album, The Black Parade: “Dead!” “This is How I Disappear,” “Cancer,” “Disenchanted.” They even start their album with a song called “The End.” How ironic! So clever!
Alas, I have been forced to teach classes of your age group and ilk and have seen the slovenly vomit you call critical thinking en masse.
But to My Chemical Romance, your band members, producers, handlers and image consultants, I bequeath you to cease and desist. On some level, don’t you feel guilty about exploiting the millions of 13-16 year olds? If you have no conscience, don’t you think you could at least curb the melodrama and detour toward something less serious everyonce in a while? I liked your band so much better in the 1980s when you were called The Cure, and again in the early-mid ’90s when you dubbed yourself Smashing Pumpkins. At least back then you were able to balance your mopey-ness with humor and fun (1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me) or at least back up your pomposity with sprawling albums and songs that defied genre (Siamese Dream, Melon Colie and the Infinite Sadness).
But if I have to hear Gerard Way sing about how he’s the voice of the fallen and damned over the sound of a marching band, squealing that he’ll “carry on” one more time, I might have hijack the Sound Shop for a record burning party. He’s trying so hard to be taken seriously, I find it just impossible to. (At least Morrissey has the guts to poke fun at himself and his brood of doe-eyed whiners in the process. At least Depeche Mode and The Cure write about enjoying something - even if it is sex. And at least Trent Reznor has the decency to come up with something sonically interesting.)
But this is the kicker. The final straw. The end between us, My Chemical Romance: Let Muse go.
How dare you take it upon yourselves to hijack maybe the best prog-rock band working to open for you on tour. Muse - the British three-piece who for once draw valid comparisons to Queen and Radiohead - released what could have been the finest album of 2006 when Black Holes and Revelations dropped last summer. It had it all - love songs, drama, political statements, virtuosic guitars, visions of apocalypse, anger, and nuance. And of course America ignored it, but it will go down as one of the best albums this decade. Mark my words.
And now, My Chemical Romance, you kidnap this band - a group of real musicians - to open for you, not just at your April 26 Charlotte show, but on all the shows at each leg of your tour. For shame. I just refuse to go stand around with a bunch of greasy 14-year-old boys (and their moms) when I want to get my rock on.
This is your last chance to redeem yourselves, MCR. For the love of all that is good and pure, please disband and allow music to thrive and grow once more.
Was anyone excited, surprised or otherwise interested in last night’s Oscar outcomes?
For once, I’m not stating this out of hipper-than-thou pride: I predicted every winner before their names were called.
I saw Forrest Whitaker and Dame Helen Mirren’s Oscars coming back in September. Critics were falling all over themselves to see who could give each of them the most hyperbolized praise (and Whitaker’s was an awfully showy bio-pic performance).
If they didn’t give it to Scorcese this time, he never, EVER would have gotten it, and “The Departed” - it was good, entertaining and suspensful. I’m glad to see a dark Oscar winner.
Jennifer Hudson for “Dreamgirls”? Yawn. Alan Arkin for “Little Miss Sunshine”? Okay, but what a weak category.
I’m not sure things could have been any tamer. And honestly, how many of these movies actually came to local theaters? I know the two I saw (”Little Miss Sunshine” and “The Departed”) were in theaters in other parts of the state. I’ve since rented some of the others.
The mere fact that Ellen DeGeneres’ hosting job made more headlines than the films and nominees in the weeks running up to the show says a lot about the industry’s predictability. Is it really such a big deal that a successful comedienne is hosting the Oscars, even if she does play for the other team? (”Look, honey: A real, live lesbian at a major Hollywood event! Does it make us gay if we laugh at her?”)
So, truth is, if you missed the show, you probably didn’t miss anything. I know I didn’t see the broadcast, but woke up feeling like I’d put those 3.5 hours to better use.
strong>David Bowie is the best, most important musician to appear after The Beatles disbanded.
I will not be swayed from this position, so there’s little use trying (though I invite you to).
Sure, Michael Jackson was brilliant for about five years and was universally loved for more than a decade - but, uh, he’s Wacko Jacko. And, yes, Elton John and Billy Joel released hit singles and albums for decades - but neither have had a truly lasting influence on pop music beyond extending Paul McCartney’s melodicism. Nirvana and Pearl Jam’s sound has a strangle-hold on rock radio, but their modern-day counterparts lack almost any thoughtfulness or inspiration that made those band’s few vital albums hold up over time. REM sputtered after Bill Berry left, and though U2 have had sustained success, I’m not sure how far outside the arena the breadth of their canon will travel (see previous blogs). And as much as I love Radiohead, I can’t deny that the quality of the band’s output has fallen sharply since Kid A.
Bowie is often loathed by musicians for favoring style over substance, and for relying on gimmickry to sell his songs. If nothing else, no one could deny that Bowie is a brilliant businessman. He knows how to market himself, his image and his music better than any other in history.
He was the first artist to shift his image, chameleon-like, with each album. He was the space man. He was the folkie. He was Ziggy, the alien rocker and Aladin Sane (read: A lad insane); both glam-rockers with a taste for apocalypse and bisexuality. He was (my favorite) the coke-addled Thin White Duke, a soul singer without a soul. He was the German avant-garde artiste on three wildly different “Berlin-era” albums in the late ’70s, and in the ’80s he was suddenly a recovering superstar.
With “Ashes to Ashes” in 1980, he preceded MTV by a year recognizing early the importance music video would have in marketing. He was the first artist allowed to spend $1 million on a video - full of dated special effects and Armageddon clowns. In the mid-90s, Bowie Bonds made him the first artist to put themselves out for trade on the market and made him the richest musician alive. In 1996, he was the first artist to use the internet to release music to a widestream audience with “Telling Lies” from Earthling. In 1999, he launched his own internet browser software and subscription, Bowie.net.
He brought the glamour of the underground scenes to prominence. He stole what worked from them, and molded his pop sensibility to their craft. Other artists worked the styles and images he used and sometimes did it better (T.Rex., Kraftwerk, The New York Dolls, The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed), but none were as versatile, slick or successful. He made Iggy Pop a star, provided Brian Eno a popular output and influence, gave a fledgling Luther Vandross a foot in the door in 1975. He lent a mainstream credibility to Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails when they toured together in 1996. He brought electronica and jungle to the mainstream in 1997.
Then there are the songs and albums. For four decades, Bowie has remained a strong singles artist, rarely failing to put at least one classic song on an album: “Space Oddity,” “Life on Mars?” “Changes,” “Ziggy Stardust,” “Suffragette City,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Cracked Actor,” “Drive-In Saturday,” “Watch That Man,” “Rebel Rebel,” “Young Americans,” “Fame,” “Golden Years,” “TVC-15,” “Sound and Vision,” “Be My Wife,” “Heroes,” “D.J.” “Look Back in Anger,” “Boys Keep Swinging,” “Ashes to Ashes,” “Fashion,” “Let’s Dance,” “China Girl,” “Modern Love,” “Blue Jean,” “Cat People (Putting out Fires),” “Loving the Alien” (production excluded), “Underground,” “This is not America,” “Jump (They Say)” “The Buddha of Suburbia,” “Strangers When We Meet,” “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson,” “Hallo Spaceboy,” “I’m Afraid of Americans,” “Slow Burn,” “Sunday,” “Reality,” and (PHEW!) “Never Get Old.”
And the albums. I always return to Aladin Sane, Station to Station, Lodger and Scary Monsters. They are all nearly flawless and are like a time capsule of their respective periods.Outside, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Low and Hunky Dory aren’t far behind.
So, whether he’s a soulless media whore and far too self-conscious, or one of the most brilliant, prolific artists to live, Bowie’s influence on modern music is incalcuable. Madonna aped his persona changes and marketing ploys, the entire New Wave movement in the early ’80s copped his glam, make-up wearing image, and countless artists have tried to recreate the detached cool of his late-’70s output. Few have done so successfully.
Midway through the year, there started to be murmurs about Ryan Gosling giving an Oscar-caliber performance in a small indie film called “Half Nelson,” about an eighth grade history teacher who’s also a crack addict.
I hope Gosling, writer/director Ryan Fleck and everyone else involved with the film will forgive me for pishawing the film simply for its premise. Unless it’s the kids that drove him to drugs (as a former eighth grade teacher, I will vouch for the likely possibility), I didn’t really care to see it. Well, turns out Gosling made the Oscar cut. He’s one of the five lucky actors in the running for the statue.
For once, the hype is deserved. I just peeled myself off the couch, where Gosling and his young co-star Shareeka Epps kept me mesmerized for the hour and 40-minute film. Gosling plays Dan Dunne, a leftist, inner-city history teacher trying to reach his students through the politics of revolution and anarchy. He’s also a basketball coach, a womanizer and a crack addict. During the course of the film, he spirals out of control in the drug’s grip and struggles to hold onto friends, family and his passion for politics.
Along the way, we are introduced to Drey (Sharkeeka Epps), the 12-year-old daughter of a single mother whose older brother is in jail for dealing. When she stumbles upon her teacher and coach smoking crack in the lockerroom, an odd, counter-intuitive and co-dependent friendship develops.
I’m a sucker for understated performances. Truth is in the eyes of an actor, and grandiose, over-the-top charicatures often serve to hide that. Gosling nails every nuance of “Dan Dunne,” in the lifting of his brow and the furtive glances and widening of his eyes - from an addict’s fear and paranoia, to joy, to helplessness. He first made waves in another implausible role: As a Jewish, neo-Nazi in “The Believer.” Six years later, he brings that character’s adolescent frustration to fruition. He’s utterly unselfconscious and never manipulates the audience into feeling sorry for him. I know in my heart that Forest Whitaker will get the trophy, and if he doesn’t, Peter O’Toole should get it simply because this is that legend’s last chance. But I can’t imagine seeing a finer performance by an actor last year, and I’ll be surprised if I see a better one this year.
Epps is even more remarkable - you just have to see her. The girl’s 14 but quietly outdoes everyone with only a handful of lines. She’s all body language, and acts with a lifetime’s worth of soul. When she and Gosling share the screen, they make it hard to turn away.
The movie’s subject matter is uncomfortable, but never grating or exploitive. More compelling is the undercurrent of politics behind it all. What does it mean that the modern revolutionary thinker, idealist and teacher also smokes crack in the girls’ lockerroom? Who is teaching whom and who has most to learn?I can’t say it enough: Cue it up on your Netflix, run to your Blockbuster or just buy a copy at Target. “Half Nelson” will have you thinking long after the credits roll.
The hoopla surrounding Anna Nicole Smith’s death has me sad for a few reasons, the first of which is that we care so much about it.
I like to put up the front that I’m heartless. The truth is that my heart is too big and too easily bruised by the cold and calloused world we live in. I’d thought of thrashing out a snarky “ha ha, she’s dead” blog, but my conscience won’t let me.
The way her death is being handled is too much like her life - one tabloid cover story to the next: A sensationalist search for the father of her baby, a family squabble over inherited riches, suspicion into the unconfirmed cause of death. It strikes me as sad that we still can’t let her rest. Granted, she brought much of the attention on herself and we pandered to her unhealthy interests.
I caught the end of an interview with her mother over the weekend and was struck by how alone she was. The sudden death of her oldest son last summer probably did her in, beyond the loneliness and obvious addictions she suffered from during the taping of her sick reality show.
But enough sadness. Let’s take a look back at some of the moments that made us glad to have Anna Nicole around, however briefly:
Like most American males of my generation, this is how I remember Anna Nicole Smith. The Playboy Playmate and Playmate of the Year have figured heavily in the minds and fantasies of adolescent boys for more than 50 years. But Anna Nicole Smith had something more; a gleam and a hunger in her eyes that translated as desire (even if it was just a desire for stardom and money). Even 15 years later, the buxom blonde’s gaze is inescapable. I know I sure remember being 12 and seeing that cover. Ah, youth.
She’s also the woman who brought golddiggin’ into the ’90s. By marrying a rich oil tycoon, who on a good day looked like Skeletor (see below), she ensured herself dibs to a massive fortune. Well, she probably thought she had until the estate became wrangled in the Supreme Court. Her death will further complicate all of that, I imagine.
In between and around all that, she was a pseudo-celebrity in her own tragic reality show, a Guess Jeans model, and - thanks to fried chicken - a very, very large girl.
So, here’s to you Anna Nicole Smith. You were vivacious. You were greedy. You were stoned. You were beautiful. You were sad. You lived, you suffered, you died. And now you ascend to that Hollywood graveyard in the sky. Thanks for the memories.
