Honestly, I try to be nice. . .

Music review: The Strokes try to find their way back

By The Burg Staff on Mar. 30, 2011
BY MATT ASHARE
To alter a quip from Ben Franklin, in this world nothing can be certain but death, taxes, and the inevitability that rock music will from time to time circle back to find renewal in the past.
In the fall of 1991, it was Nirvana who exploded convention by restating the suburban teen angst of punk in terms that captured something essential about the alienation of the times, ushering in the rebirth of a certain brand of aggressive “guitar rock.“
Ten years later, in the fall of 2001, the out-of-nowhere emergence of an odd little band from New York City — the Strokes — heralded the re-emergence of another particular brand of retro guitar rock that, ah, captured something essential about the alienation of the times ... or something like that.
     If Nirvana got their point across with bolded, arena-sized hooks and confessional, if often oblique lyrics, then the Strokes delivered their message in italics, with slanted melodies and the enchanting vocals of Julian Casablancas, a master of debauched elegance with a gift for singing in subtext.
     Spurred on by early British hype that proclaimed the NYC fivesome rightful heirs to the downtown cool of the Velvet Underground and “Walk on the Wild Side” Lou Reed, the Strokes employed a scaled-down, underproduced aesthetic that created the impression they’d arisen fully formed from the garage — or, in this case, a cramped Lower East Side rehearsal — on their RCA debut, “Is This It” (no question mark needed).

     Unlike Cobain, who came out of nowheresville with the flannel shirts to prove it and a giant chip on his shoulder, the Strokes were privileged prep-school kids slumming it in second-hand-store black with affected yet intense nonchalance that was intoxicating. I mean, there’s just something so blithely charming about the way Casablancas slurs his way through “Last Nite,“ one of several stand-outs on “Is This It,“ and a song that, amid insistent, even upbeat guitars, essentially can’t be bothered to care about a girlfriend who feels “so let down” and “so left out.“
     A lot has happened to the Strokes in the past decade, most of it not so great. Following up “Is This It” was indeed a tall order, but bleeding the seedy out of the cleaned-up 2003 disc “Room On Fire” and 2006’s even cleaner “First Impressions of Earth” was just a bad move.
In the wake of declining record sales, the band opted for a “much needed break,“ which left rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. free to pursue his own pop pursuits on two adequate solo albums and led Casablancas to explore the dance floor in his own wry manner on 2009’s “Phrazes For the Young.“ Still, I was hopeful when I heard that the Strokes had regrouped to record their fourth album. One can always hope. . .
    It’s not that there’s nothing to admire about the new “Angles.“ For one, Nick Valensi has developed into a formidable lead guitarist. And the band locks into the same propulsive groove on “Under Cover of Darkness” that drove “Last Nite” home, even if it’s a kinder Casablancas who earnestly croons “I’m tired of all your friends listening at your door/And I want, what’s better for you.“ (On “Last Nite” he at least sounded tired.) When synths mix with guitars on “Two Kinds of Happiness,“ Casablancas affects an arch deadpan that brings to mind the Cars. And then Valensi steps all over the song with far too much noodling, as he does way too often on “Angles.“
     In the end, I found myself humming “Last Nite,“ which is just another way of saying thanks to the Strokes for reminding me to go back and spend some quality time with “Is This It.“
Ashare is a freelance writer based in Lynchburg and former music editor for The Boston Phoenix. http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/music_review_the_strokes_try_to_find_their_way_back http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/music/other_stories/documents/04726984.asp

R.E.M. COLLAPSE INTO NOW

Music review: R.E.M. Return To Form With “Collapse Into Now”

By The Burg Staff on Mar. 23, 2011
By Matt Ashare
The first time I gave up on R.E.M. was back in ’88, when they released “Green,” an all-too-conventional “pop” album that seemed to undermine everything the band stood for.
I mean, here were the guys who essentially created the template for indie rock — punk inverted into a kind of thoughtful, sensitive, yet still subversive folk-inflected rock, an enticing whisper rather than a threatening scream — blatantly mugging for the masses on the MTV-ready single “Stand.” Argh!
    But I got over it: although it may best be remembered for the upbeat “Shiny Happy People,” 1991’s “Out Of Time,” which won one of the first Grammys for “Best Alternative Music Album,” was redolent with moody mystery, insinuating melodies, and lyrics that were cryptically poetic enough to get me back on board. Besides, by then the notion of “selling out” had lost any real meaning and the idea of Pete Buck as guitar hero and Michael Stipe as international pop star was at least amusing, if not inspiring.
     My second fallout with R.E.M. was more severe. I’ve never begrudged a band of R.E.M.‘s stature for experimental detours — U2 worked through their misguided mid-’90s electronica flirtations and wound up with “Beautiful Day.” But when Bill Berry, the band’s original drummer retired in 1997, Stipe, Buck, and bassist Mike Mills just seemed lost. The subsequent album, “Up,” was an amorphous, impenetrable downer that set the band adrift. I wasn’t even particularly aroused by the rousing, politicized, hard guitar-driven “Accelerate,” the perhaps too finely focused 2008 disc that, to these ears, oversold the concept that R.E.M. were back on solid green ground.
     Now, maybe it’s a misreading (that’s half the fun of parsing Stipe’s best lyrics), but “I was wrong/I have been laughable wrong” sure sounds like an apology to me. That’s a line from “Discoverer,” the pounding opening track of R.E.M.‘s new “Collapse Into Now.”
Buck’s guitar rings mightily, Mills thumps along melodically, and Stipe’s practically testifying as big chords coalesce around a bigger backbeat. “That just the slightest bit of finesse/Might have made a little less mess/But it was what it was/Let’s all get on with it, now,” he sings with warmth, humor, and defiance.

     Buck keeps things churning as “All the Best” announces itself with Stipe shouting “So over me/So pie in my face” before making this declaration of intention: “I’ll sing in rhyme/I’ll give it one more time/I’ll show the kids how to do it/Fine, fine, fine.” Go Michael! (I’m reminded that Buck actually did show the kids how to do it earlier this year when he guested on the Decemberists’ “The King Is Dead.”)
     The guys go for gorgeous on the largely acoustic “Überlin,” the mandolin-laced “Oh My Heart,” and the yearning “It Happened Today” (featuring an Eddie Vedder cameo). And they nail it. Not sure how Canadian electro-punk provocateur Peaches found her way into the party, but she and Stipe have some infectious fun poetry slamming on “Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter.” And the original punk-poet priestess, Patti Smith, turns up singing a counterpoint to Stipe’s “Song of Myself” spoken wordings (“I am Walt Whitman proud. . . This is my time and I am thrilled to be alive, living blessed, I understand”) on the album’s closer, the feedback haunted “Blue.”
     Let’s just say that, 30 years after the nascent murmurings of R.E.M.’s arresting 1981 single “Radio Free Europe,” I’m happy to be back on board. Again.   
Ashare, a freelance writer based in Lynchburg, is a former music editor for The Boston Phoenix. http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/music_review_r.e.m._return_to_form_with_collapse_into_now

A St. Paddy's Day Present from Dropkick Murphys

Springsteen lends his voice to Dropkick Murphys’ Irish-punk

By The Burg Staff on Mar. 16, 2011
By Matt Ashare
Back in ’99, the Boston-born ‘n’ bred Irish-punk juggernaut Dropkick Murphys hit the national alt-rock airwaves with “10 Years of Service,” a prescient pro-union anthem that asked “Who’s gonna save us -from this lonely picket line?/Ten years of service but I’m still not worth your time.” In 2004, their amped-up reworking of “Tessie,” a 1902 Broadway musical number, became a rallying cry for an improbable Red Sox World Series run. The following year, on “The Warrior’s Code,” it was a Woody Guthrie poem that provided raw material for the hard-hitting Celtic-rock gem “I’m Shipping Off to Boston,” a track featured prominently in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 film “The Departed.” And just a few weeks ago, the Dropkicks lent their support to protesting public union workers in Wisconsin by issuing a limited edition t-shirt adorned with the title of their latest pro-union call to arms, the blunt and folky “Take ’Em Down.”
     So maybe I should have seen Springsteen coming down the pike. That’s right, 12 songs into the 13-track “Going Out In Style,” Guthrie-loving blue-collar Bruce does his proud best to out-gruff Dropkicks’ singer Al Barr’s bulldog bark on a slamming mandolin-laced cover of the “Zeigfield Follies” ballad “Peg ‘O My Heart.” It’s just one of the high points on this fittingly raucous St. Paddy’s Day present from a band who have never been shy about mining the past for material.
     It’s been over three years since the Dropkicks’ last studio album. But bassist Ken Casey, the only remaining member from the original 1996 lineup and the guiding force behind the Dropkick Murphy ethos, has been far from idle. Instead of bashing out a dozen or so mosh-and-stomp rockers, Casey set out to create an ode to Cornelius Larkin, a fictional immigrant who leaves Ireland at 16, is drafted into the Korean War, has a bunch of kids, and is memorialized in the disc’s liner notes, an obit written by noted Boston memoirist Michael Patrick McDonald (“All Souls,” “Easter Rising”).
     It’s not clear how “Sunday Hardcore Matinee,” a loud, fast romp through the glory days of old-school, all-ages punk that has multi-instrumentalist Jeff DeRosa racing to keep up on banjo, relates to the life Larkin might have led. Or where Larkin fits into the yearning Civil War epic “Broken Hymn,” with its clarion tin whistle melody.

    But you gotta take inspiration where you find it. And “Going Out In Style” is never less than inspired. From the martial drumbeat that crashes into the wall of guitars and bagpipes on “Hang ‘Em High,” a bruising sea-chantey that wouldn’t be out of place in the hands of Davy Jones and his “Pirates of the Caribbean” crew, to the disc’s celebratory title track, a homage to Boston that references Fenway Park and Mt. Calvary cemetery, and drops the names of Mayor Menino and NOFX frontman Fat Mike amid what sounds like an impromptu funeral after-party, “Going Out In Style” is a tribute to certain simple pleasures. Raising a glass of whisky. Singing along to shout-along choruses. And, of course, hearing Springsteen channel his inner punk.http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/springsteen_lends_his_voice_to_dropkick_murphys_irish-punk

Liam Gallagher Beats Brother Noel to the Punch with Beady Eye

Music review: Beady Eye Look Back Toward the Beatles

By The Burg Staff on Mar. 09, 2011
By Matt Ashare

Every couple or three years, it seems, another English band steams across the Atlantic, their bags stuffed with the kind of hyperbolic press that's a Brit-crit staple, promising a nostalgic new twist on the sounds of swinging ’60s London or class of ’77 punk. In 1994, it was Oasis, a brother fronted group who were said to have one foot defiantly planted in both eras. Singer Liam Gallagher's fuck-all sneer was definitely — no, maybe — a third cousin twice removed from Johnny Rotten's spiteful delivery; guitarist Noel Gallagher wrote hard, indelible riffs that carried more than faint echoes of the Lennon/McCartney songbook; and Oasis were saddled by over-eager scribes with the unfortunate moniker "The Sex Beatles."

       All's well that ends well, I suppose: After years of brotherly squabbling, bad behavior, and big hits, Liam and Noel went out with a bang that erupted into a fist fight on stage in France two years ago. Since then, it's been Liam, not Noel, who's been working his way back to the USA babe, with three Oasis regulars, guitarists Andy Bell and Gem Archer, and drummer Chris Sharrock, in tow. This new band of non-brothers, strapped with the rather unsavory sobriquet Beady Eye (false modesty, or was "The Liam Gallagher Project" already taken?), aren't looking to make a break with the past so much as perpetuate the brand: "Different Gear, Still Speeding," as the title of their debut suggests, makes a few minor modifications to the machinery, but Liam's not shy about steering this trusty old chasis up and down the same long and winding road Noel's always favored.

       Ok. I'll stop with the Beatles allusions. There are simply far too many Lennonesque moments on "Different Gear" to enumerate here, not to mention direct cops from "Revolver," "Imagine," etc. . . There’s even “Beatles and Stones,” a retro Faces rocker that loudly proclaims “I’m going to stand the test of time/Like Beatles and Stones.” But first, Liam lets Noel have it, with a big, banging, wall-of-guitars monolith cheekily titled "Four Letter Word," as in "I don't really know what I'm feeling/A four letter word really gets my meaning." It's 1994's Definitely, Maybe all over again, only now we know exactly who rhymes like "It's about time your mind took a holiday/You're all grown up and you don't want to play" are aimed at.

If there's a revelation here, it's that Liam and co. manage to find plenty of fine, familiar melodies without Noel's guru-like guidance. Their several stabs at “Wonderwall” grandeur culminate with Liam earnestly crooning “it’s not the end of the world, oh no/It’s not even the end of the day.” But it’s not even end of the album: “Different Gear” fades to blue with “The Morning Son,” tempting tedium with a six-minute neo-psychedelic opus that ends in a mess of drums Noel might have nixed. 
http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/music_review_beady_eye_look_toward_the_beatles 

To Be or Not to Be a Radiohead Fan

http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/music_review_radiohead_get_back_to_business_on_king_of_limbs

Music review: Radiohead Get Back to Business on “King of Limbs”

The Burg Staff on Mar. 02, 2011
By Matt Ashare
When we last heard from them, Radiohead — that enigmatic big little band from England — seemed bent on shaking up a business model that had stood since the dawn of vinyl. With no label support, the group invited fans to pay what they wished in 2007 for a download of “In Rainbows.” The strategy also served as an effective marketing campaign, as cultural pundits scrambled to grasp the meaning of it all. Inevitably, perhaps, the music was overshadowed by media static.
  Sitting here now, with an actual CD of “In Rainbows” nestled on a shelf next to the band’s 1993 debut, “Pablo Honey” (“Creep” anyone?) and “OK Computer,” the bold, guitar-driven 1997 album that established Radiohead as a major musical force — a subtler but no less cerebral Pink Floyd, or maybe a less overtly political heir to U2’s grand guitarscapes, with singer Thom Yorke cast as the digital age’s reigning king of pain — two thoughts come to mind. For all its airy synth textures, electro-beats, and disembodied vocals, “In Rainbows” is far more accessible, and enjoyable, than I remember. More importantly, while its original mode of distribution seemed to challenge conventional notions of what music is worth, in the end Radiohead profited from an old-school paradigm: the download, like the bygone vinyl single, was simply a loss leader — a tease — for an $80 “In Rainbows” deluxe edition, and that handsome CD on my shelf. Radiohead simply put a new twist on the tried and true.
  They’re at it again. After abruptly announcing on Valentine’s Day that a new Radiohead album, “King of Limbs,” would be available as a download the following Saturday, the band created a bigger stir by delivering the “disc” a day early. “Limbs” didn’t benefit from the big build-up to “Rainbows,” but it created a stir nonetheless. Forthcoming, in late April or early May: Vinyl and CD, as well as a deluxe “newspaper” version featuring two 10-inch vinyl disc, a CD, and over 600 pieces of “artwork.”
  With eight tracks that fly by in under 40 minutes, “Limbs” feels even more like a loss leader than “Rainbows.” Longer than most EPs, but shorter than an LP, perhaps it’s meant to suggest that, in the age of downloads and digital media services like Pandora, those analog-era designations are no longer useful. And, yet, “Limbs” does have something akin to the ebb and flow of an “album.” The first half — yes, I’m finally going to mention the music — is flush with du-jour dubstep rhythms.
  The fluttering piano the introduces the first track, “Bloom,” quickly gives way to a rushed beat that feels like it’s tripping over itself and Colin Greenwood’s nearly subsonic bass (no guitars in sight). Yorke’s apparitional voice is front and center, but the only lyric I can make out is “Open your mouth wide/Universal sigh.”
  Typical Yorke: at once inscrutable and evocative.
  Guitarists Johnny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien arrive with an insistent scratch of a riff on “Morning Mr. Magpie,” and insinuate “Little By Little” with a bit of melodic interplay.
But it’s back to scattershot drums ‘n’ bass for the wordless exercise “Feral.” And then, viola!, the white lab coats come off and we’re back on quasi-familiar ground: the piano chords of “Codex” carry faint echoes of “Karma Police”; “Lotus Flower” has the verse/chorus structure of a potential single; acoustic guitars ground “Give Up the Ghost”; and for all his mumbling, Yorke doesn’t stumble over the key line of the final track, “Separator.” With guitars swarming like pixies around his spectral falsetto, he warns, or promises, “If you think this is over, then you’re wrong.”
  The album as unending project: a business model for the 21st century. 

Boston's Dropkck Murphys Stand Up for Wisconsin Unions

Not sure I miss Boston so much as I do a certain Boston state of mind. And I can't think (right now, at least) of a better of way of summing up that sentiment than urging anyone who might happen upon this little post to follow the link below. Not going to wax poetic on the many virtues of Dropkick Murphys brand of blue collar Irish-punk. And I don't think I have the words to express how utterly wrongheaded the Republican governor of Wisconsin is. Others have held forth on his attack on unions far more eloquently than I am capable of right now. . . Oh, buy a "Take 'em Down" t-shirt from the DKMs if you can. . .  http://www.dropkickmurphys.com/2011/02/22/take-em-down-the-dropkick-murphys-stand-with-wisconsin/

Blast from the Past: Michael Jackson and Ozzy Osbourne

Here's a little blast from Pop Rocks past. Obviously it wasn't written in 2009. . . Don't remember the original pub date, but the Phoenix republished it in July of 2009. Guess someone there liked it. . .

Send in the clowns

The wacky worlds of Michael Jackson and Ozzy Osbourne

By MATT ASHARE  |  July 2, 2009

Read more: http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/85906-send-in-the-clowns/#ixzz1FNgbDNbi

TWO OF A KIND

The New York Post got to resurrect its priceless "Wacko Jacko" headline. Barbara Walters scored Super Bowl-level ratings without having to lift a pretty little finger. And Michael Jackson, well, no matter how you slice it, he got screwed royally. That's how they do it in Britain. His first mistake was to give journalist Martin Bashir access to his inner sancta – to his playground-style home, to the floor of a Las Vegas hotel that he'd rented out, to a day out with the kids (three of them) at the zoo. After all these years as a celebrity, Michael Jackson still hasn't picked up the most basic aspects of dealing with the public. He's clueless when it comes to gauging how his smallest actions will be interpreted once they've been writ large across the headlines of the world. And he seems unaware that behind the masses of adoring kids who scream for hugs and autographs wherever he turns up, there's a much larger mass of people who are repelled by him and everything he's come to represent.
  If Jackson hoped to find allies by submitting to a lengthy televised interview, he failed utterly. There will be a few people – myself among them – who feel sorrier for him than they did a few weeks ago. But as soon as someone mentions the millions of dollars he's got in the bank, that pity melts away, and you're left no longer caring what happens to Señor Wacko – especially when he's put in the context of Iraq and North Korea.
  His attorneys are, of course, claiming that it was all – the entire two hours of it – taken out of context. And maybe some of it was. But no amount of backtracking is going to undo the harm the Walters special did to his image. The shot of Michael nervously feeding his youngest kid, fumbling around in front of the camera as if not quite sure where the nipple goes. The hyperactive swing through his "favorite store" – that swanky and heroically tacky Vegas boutique full of million-dollar art objects that Michael apparently owns half of already. That moment at the zoo when he complained to his handlers that his daughter was holding his hand too tightly. The open admission that he spends a large amount of time playing and even napping with school-age children. And the straight-faced denials that he's had any kind of cosmetic surgery except, when he was pressed, two rhinoplasties that were "necessary" to improve his vocal range. Yeah, and I bought that penis enlarger so my underwear would fit better.
  The controversies have only just begun. There will be court battles and countersuits, and tonight (February 20) at 8 p.m., Fox will air Jackson's two-hour rebuttal to Bashir, Michael Jackson Take 2: The Interview They Wouldn't Show You. But the damage has already been done. We all now know what many of us had already suspected: there's something very, very wrong with Michael Jackson. And I'm not sure he'll ever be able to sing and dance his way out of this one.

  Yet there is one issue that's been overlooked in the wake of his public humiliation, and that's the allegation that he's slowly been changing his appearance over the years in order to look more "white." Given the evidence – lighter skin tone, a cleft chin, and that once broad Afro-American nose cut down to the kind of dainty, diminutive, upturned little nugget all those pretty little Lacoste-wearing WASPy girls seemed to have in junior high – it made a certain sense. But white-envy isn't Jacko's pathology – as he enters his fifth decade, it's clear that he's no race traitor. After all, he grew up in an era when white-music moguls had lost their hold on African-American stars who'd been their bread and butter since the jazz age. Black stars were coming into their own in the 70s, and there were just as many white as black performers getting screwed by the man.
  No, Jackson's surgical procedures seem to have been aimed at allowing him to maintain the face of a child. Because what he had to deal with was not overt racism but allegations of questionable dealings among his own family and his parents when it came to managing his money. Add to that the wall of yes-men and yes-women that was erected around the Jackson Five and then the solo Michael Jackson and you have the makings of an adult who's always been treated like a child, and who'd rather spend his free time with the only people he can trust – children.
  Most psychologists will hold that as wacko as Jacko may be, he doesn't fit the profile of a pedophile. No, his is a Peter Pan complex, and it's getting harder and harder to watch as he gets older and older and that facial stubble looks more and more fungal. Those children he invited over to romp around the playground he's built in his backyard are his friends, and that's sad. It's also potentially damaging, because children do need positive adult role models to foster healthy development, and Jackson doesn't qualify. If I had kids, I wouldn't want them spending their afternoons at the Jackson compound – not for fear of molestation but because he's a severe casualty of childhood pop stardom, with all the attending pathologies.
  The pop universe is full of such victims, some of whom didn't even hit the big time until they were at least young adults. Two weekends ago, MTV gave us an amusing, in-depth look at one of the more notorious and successful rock-and-roll casualties currently working the system: Ozzy Osbourne. After spending a couple decades playing Antichrist, first as the leader of Black Sabbath and then as a successful solo artist in the '80s, Osbourne has ingested enough drugs and alcohol to make even simple acts like forming two- and three-syllable words difficult. It also appears he appears he can't construct a sentence without dropping half a dozen f-bombs. But that's all part of what makes The Osbournes, a reality based-based sitcom that takes you inside the home of Ozzy and his family, such a guilty pleasure. It amounts to a sort of a live-action Simpsons, with Ozzy as Homer in the role of the dumb but ultimately well-meaning dad; Sharon as Marge, in the role of the stern, well-bred, clear-spoken authority figure; the pair's older, goofy prodigal son with the questionable A&R job as Bart; and Kelly, the ambitious, amusing daughter with a budding musical career, as Lisa.

  The best thing about The Osbournes – unlike The Jacksons – is that nobody gets hurt. Shron's the brains of the operation, and she seems aware that most of the world – not counting the people who line up to buy front-row seats for the yearly OzzFest – see her husband as a walking joke. Yeah, and she's laughing all the way to the bank. If Ozzy's even half aware of what all those cameras are doing in his house, he doesn't show it. This is a guy who appeared befuddled last season as he sat and watched himself perform on television. And after being mystified by an episode of the Food Network's Two Fat Ladies, all he could muster by way of explanation was, "They're bakin' fooking bread on the television."
  Yet Ozzy too has been embroiled in controversy. In his case, however, it was Pepsi, the multinational soft-drink corporation, that stepped in it. It all started when Pepsi decided not to use a commercial featuring the aggressive and potentially controversial rapper Ludacris. Since it's likely Pepsi had an escape clause in its contract with the rapper, that decision didn't cause any flak. But when Pepsi subsequently opted to make Ozzy the star of a high-profile ad, the Johnnie Cochrans of the world cried foul. After all, if a former antichrist who once bit the head off a bat can be a legit Pepsi spokesperson, then what the hell is wrong with Ludacris? Ozzy may have cleaned up his act in recent years, but every sentence he says on TV still sounds like a bus backing up – and he knows the cameras are rolling. So when a group called the Hip-Hop Action Summit threatened to organize a boycott, the corporation made nice and agreed to pay reparations to the Ludacris Foundation.
  Which is all well and good except for one uncomfortable question that I can't shake: was there really any racism involved in Pepsi's decision to go with Ozzy instead of Ludacris? Was race any more of an issue here than it is in the case of Michael Jackson's surgery? Or was it just an example of the racial card-sharps playing their hand before they had all the facts? Let's face it: Ozzy Osbourne got the Pepsi gig because nobody takes him seriously anymore. He's as harmless as a dotty old uncle. He's Benny Hill with a sketchy past. And he doesn't have anything controversial to say. Ludacris, on the other hand, is a serious rapper with a message that might make some folks – okay, mostly white folks – uncomfortable. And the Pepsi people have evry right to pick spokespeople they feel will offend the fewest cola drinkers. It doesn't take a marketing genius to figure that Ozzy is the more suitable salesman.
The beauty of it all is that there probably wasn't a single Pepsi executive who could have picked Ludacris or Osbourne out of a line-up before this controversy went down. In fact, they'd probably have assumed a guy named Ludacris was a Satanic rocker. This is one case where skin color turned out to be incidental. White or black, Ludacris was never going to make the Pepsi cut, because he's a man with a message. After all, Pepsi didn't have any trouble hiring Michael Jackson back when he looked black. The sad truth is that in today's content-free television, a message is more dangerous than the color of person's skin. Now if the NFL could only hire a few more African-American head coaches. I wonder whether Ludacris is looking for a new gig?