Are Miley Cyrus' 15 minutes running out?

Miley Cyrus and her show Hannah Montana have been an inside joke with me and a few friends for awhile because we know a guy who is pushing thirty but adores her and considers her the next big Queen of pop music... going as far as to say she is the link and cross between Madonna and Lucille Ball. If it wasn't for the humor of that, I wouldn't even give her the time of day, but it's always been funny to me.

This past week, Miley and Eminem released new albums on the same day. While Eminem was expected to outsell her from the onset as his audience has proven to be more loyal and obsessed over the years, industry insiders and chart watchers expected her to still put up a respectable fight. According to Hits Daily Double, Eminem's album is expected to open with at least 600,000 copies, Miley? 110,000-125,000 copies and expected to open in third place behind last weeks #1 album by Drake.

Why the dip in popularity? Let's examine, shall we.

• Miley recently pulled the plug on her series Hannah Montana. While the fact she is pushing 18 and wanting out of a show she's been doing since she was 12 is understandable, she has taken the opportunity to bash her hit series in many interviews, coming off ingrateful and likely alienating many fans who fell in love with her from her sitcom.
• Her latest single Can't Be Tamed is sinking like a rock at radio and iTunes sales are sluggish compared to some of her earlier hits.
• After five years of being the girl next door from Disney that parents wouldn't mind their six year olds listening to, Miley has almost overnight tried to reinvent herself as a teen sexpot, similar to Britney Spears circa 2000-2001. This turns parents off while at the same time making the older audience she's aiming to win over laughing at how sudden her change was.
  

A few days ago I read an article comparing and contrasting her turn to "sex symbol" with that of Britney Spears a decade ago. Much like Miley, Britney got her start with Disney Channel, and although ...Baby One More Time was fairly suggestive, especially with the video (considering Britney was only sixteen and pushing a Lolita schoolgirl image), Britney was still able to appeal to little kids without parents being too worried. Instead of just overnight going from "good girl" to sex symbol, Britney evolved slowly through a number of videos and by the time she had her coming out party on the 2000 MTV VMA's with the skin-colored getup, the audience was ready and embraced the newly sexual Britney with open arms. With Miley, the sexy act seemed to come out of nowhere and she didn't give herself the bridge to transition from teen queen to sexy pop star and be taken seriously.

Another thing the audience must consider is that with the exceptions of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera (and even in her case, the new Bionic album isn't selling as well as it should), most teen queens have a shelf life of a fruitfly. I remember being a kid in 1987 when Debbie Gibson and Tiffany emerged onto the scene, by 1990 Tiffany was already off the radar and Debbie was releasing her last sizable hit single with Anything Is Possible. They had their moment and the fans moved on to something new (although I am aware that Debbie and Tiffany have continued to make music in the years since). People have been so spoiled by the fact that Britney has been able to last a dozen years in the biz to forget that she was the exception, not the rule. Miley has been famous for nearly five years, and with Hannah Montana going off the air, could it be time for people to be moving on to the next teen queen the way that they abandoned Hilary Duff when Miley came onto the scene? If you want my opinion, Justin Bieber is the new teen princess of pop music, haha.

Watch Miley's homage to Britney here...


Do you think this is just a bump in the road or do you think her 15 minutes are winding down to make way for someone new.

Michael Jackson: One Year Later

picture courtesy of: http://www.tatjana-novak.com

Being June 25th, we mark the one year anniversary of one of the biggest shockers in music history, especially for people my age who grew up on a diet of Thriller and Bad. The legendary King of Pop Michael Jackson died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 50, mere weeks before he was set to embark on a triumphant comeback run of shows at the O2 in London.

Although there are artists I have followed more closely and have been a bigger fan of over the years, Michael Jackson to my age group was equal to what Elvis was to my parents. I was three years old when Thriller came out and I remember watching the music video for Thriller as a kid and running out of the room during the infamous werewolf transformation. I also remember having the album on vinyl and playing it so much that the album was scratched and unplayable, that's when I got it on cassette (I am dating myself here, aren't I? lol). Then came the Bad album which brought forth another great run of hit singles and videos. When he came to Louisville KY in March 1988, I begged and pleaded to get tickets and then got my way. Looking back this was truly a once in a lifetime experience because he never did an extensive tour of America again like this. Michael had a level of superstardom in the 1980's that I have yet to see in any of today's pop stars. For instance, I do like Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Beyonce, but even combined they are barely a blip to what Michael was back then (or Madonna or Prince for that matter).

I continued to support Michael's career afterwards, buying Dangerous on my twelve birthday and also picking up HIStory and Invincible around the time they were released, but while there were moments of genius like Earth Song, Will You Be There and Remember The Time, I felt like Michael had lost his muse when he parted company with producer extraordinaire Quincy Jones and that his music started becoming more self-indulgent and grandiose instead of focusing on giving us great songs. Unfortunately his private life began to overshadow his music and the music career sadly took a back seat to his legal woes and unproven rumors and he spent most of the last decade of his life in seclusion when he wasn't in court.

When Michael announced his return to the stage with This Is It in March 2009, I was pulling for him because seeing him live in 1988, I knew exactly what he was capable of. Seeing his two biggest 1980's contemporaries of the same age, Madonna and Prince, still being in the best shape of their lives and being able to command the stage made me hopeful that Michael was going to be able to prove the world wrong and make a triumphant comeback where you would look past the drastic change in appearance and see a man who can still dazzle the stage like 1984 had never left us. With the concert film, we did get to see Michael prove the world that he had it, but sadly it had to be posthumously.

On June 25th, 2009, I was already upset over the loss of Farrah Fawcett, as Jill was always my favorite one of Charlie's Angels, but her death had been anticipated with her public bout with cancer. Michael Jackson dying came out of nowhere. I remember browsing MadonnaNation and reading that he had suffered cardiac arrest, but not really thinking it was going to be anything fatal because Michael had suffered from health issues for years, but then a few minutes later, TMZ illegally leaked that he had died. For an hour that seemed like days, reports were conflicting from dead to critical condition. Then the news broke. Although I hadn't really been excited over Michael Jackson in years, I had never stopped loving his music, I remember listening to The Way You Make Me Feel on my ipod earlier that very day. It was a very sad and depressing day for music lovers everywhere and for many people my age group, a little part of our childhood died that day. That day feels like yesterday, so its surprising that one year has already passed since he died.

My top 10 fave MJ songs:
1. Billie Jean
2. The Way You Make Me Feel
3. Dirty Diana
4. Rock With You
5. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
6. Human Nature
7. Beat It
8. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough
9. Thriller
10. Earth Song

My top 5 fave MJ albums:
1. Thriller
2. Off The Wall
3. Bad
4. Dangerous
5. HIStory

What are your favorite Michael Jackson songs, videos, memories?

Welcome

Hello everyone, my name is John and I have been a big fan of music my entire life, literally since I was crawling around in diapers. I've had several people tell me I should come up with my own blog and the sort, so I figure its time.

My tastes mainly lean towards pop, rock, dance, r&b, 70's and 80's but I am someone who can listen to just about anything and find something good out of it. Be it metal, country, hip hop, jazz, folk, whatever. I feel like life is too short to limit yourself on what to enjoy. This blog will keep up on news, discussions, talk about artists I love (and there are many) and other things. There will not be links to download music on my site, not because of some personal moral opposition to downloading but because I don't want my blog pulled because the RIAA does keep a look out for these sites and linking you guys to a song I love isn't worth being fined over.

Hope you guys enjoy your stay and I will be posting here quite frequently