Headlines for December 16, 2009
By: Roisin Bonner
Courtney Love Loses Custody of Frances Bean
In a story that we're filing under "bleak," Courtney Love has reportedly lost custody of her 17-year-old daughter Frances Bean Cobain, the product of Love's marriage to Kurt Cobain. Assuming guardianship of Frances are Kurt's mother, Wendy O'Connor, and sister, Kimberly Dawn Cobain. The case has been sealed, so details of why Courtney has been deemed unfit to care for Frances are scarce. This is the second time Courtney has lost custody of her daughter: in 2003, Frances was transferred to the custody of her grandmother after Courtney OD'ed on OxyContin.
Timbaland, Say it Ain't So
Super-producer and songwriter extraordinaire Timbaland has announced that he is "done with hip-hop," according to The Guardian. Ever the prudent economist, Timbaland explained his shift in focus from hip hop to pop in terms of where the money's at: "After my last album, I know where my bread and butter is at. Seventy-five per cent [of my audience] are women who love Timbaland and most are the women who watch... Sex and the City [and] Desperate Housewives. All the real go-to-the-bar women... and mostly European women... So it's not a person who loves mostly hip-hop. It's a person who loves everything besides hip-hop." Although Timbaland has long been collaborating with pop musicians like Justin Timberlake and Katy Perry, the announcement is a pretty big loss for the world of hip hop.
Fun With Marketing from Broken Bells
Broken Bells, aka The Shins' James Mercer and Danger Mouse, are about to launch their debut album; and while we couldn't confirm the album title, the first single is called "The High Road". And you can hear it, more or less, across various Internet portals. The duo are dropping cryptic hints and dispatching oddball song clips in advance of the LP's release, spawning a kind of cute little game that one imagines will amp up interest among both music nerds and computer geeks. First, the band sent an email to their d-list composed entirely in binary code, which, when translated, said, "the high road is hard to find." Then, banner ads on various websites appeared with shadowy figures who look kinda like Broken Bells. Clicking on one of them takes you to URLs that are anagrams of Broken Bells that play loops of slices of songs, a different one each time you refresh. Charming!
Peppers Lose Frusciante?
The Red Hot Chili Peppers may have just lost the best element of their band. Rumour has it that guitarist John Frusciante has left RHCP and is being replaced by Josh Klinghoffer. Frusciante, who played with the band in their early years and contributed significantly to their success, left the group in 1992, overwhelmed by the band's success. After a hiatus that saw him battling drug problems and entering rehab, Frusciante rejoined RHCP for their Californication album. A secret source quoted by NME stated that "Mentally, John checked out a long time ago. He's interested in doing his own thing, his own albums—the whole big rock band machinery just doesn't appeal to him anymore."
