Tuesday Tunes 166: Celebrity

I don’t know why, but somehow the thought that I’d never themed one of this series around the idea of celebrity fell into my head the other day, and it struck me as a good one. There have been loads of songs about what celebrity means, going right back to the days of the glamorous movie megastars right up to the present day, when it seems that any talentless airhead can get on tv depending on who they know or are shagging. I have a much longer list than just the five I play you each week, so may well return to this, but for now here are five rather different takes on the cult of celebrity.

The first is a real gem of a piece of mickey-taking:

Brad Paisley included Celebrity on his album Mud On The Tires (sorry, British readers, but that is how you spell it in Simplified English), and he had a real go at the cult of people wanting to be celebrities. The video includes appearances by a number of people who will probably be more familiar to American audiences than they are over here, including Jason Alexander (from Seinfeld), Jimmy Dickens (country singer, now sadly deceased), James Belushi (Saturday Night Live and loads more) and Trista Rehn (The Bachelorette). And of course there is William Shatner, thankfully in an acting rather than singing role. I think at least five ‘reality’ tv series are parodied, and the Michael Jackson bit is priceless. The album came out in July 2003 and got to #8 in the US, and also topped their Country chart, but it doesn’t seem to have made the charts anywhere else. It’s a good album: as well as this one and the title track it includes the lovely weepie duet with Alison Krauss on Whiskey Lullaby. This track had actually been released earlier as the lead single, in March 2003, reaching #33 in the US Hot 100 and #3 in their Country chart, but again not a hit anywhere else. The video is still one of my favourites.

This next one looks at the desire for celebrity from a more serious angle:

The Kinks released Celluloid Heroes on their album Everybody’s In Show-Biz in August 1972, which peaked at #38 in Australia and #111 in the US, but didn’t make the UK chart. They haven’t had a hit album here since 1968’s Village Green Preservation Society, which rather ironically to my mind is one of only two from their whole catalogue of albums which didn’t make the US chart – after some radio stations banned their records in the sixties for being a bad influence on their susceptible youngsters. This track was later shortened by two minutes and released as a single – this version – in November 1972, but wasn’t a hit anywhere. For me it is yet another example of the genius of Ray Davies’ songwriting, the way he uses words to conjure up images, and it is a beautiful song about how those dreams of celebrity and stardom can come to nothing, other than disappointment.

Many people want to get into movies and make their bid for stardom that way. For others, rock music is their heart’s desire:

When I went in search of a clip for that I wasn’t too hopeful, but I found this and couldn’t resist the (apparently) live studio performance, complete with a nice little introduction to the band by the late David Crosby. The Byrds brought out So You Wanna Be A Rock And Roll Star in January 1967 as the lead single from their album Younger Than Yesterday, which followed a month later. The single got to #29 in the US, but didn’t chart anywhere else. The album peaked at #24 in the US and #37 in the UK. They remain one of my all time favourite bands, and this album is notable not just for this song but also their incredibly good version of Bob Dylan’s My Back Pages. Check it out if you don’t know it, and you’ll see what I mean.

If you do finally make it after all of those struggles, there can be some downsides to celebrity. Apart from all of those girls tearing you apart, you have to deal with the subhumans who steal into your life to photograph your every move, as told in this one:

Just the usual understated little number from Lady Gaga there! There are two versions of the video, the other being marked as ‘explicit’ – this one was steamy enough for me! I love her videos, the story she tells around her songs and the huge production they make of each mini-movie. This is no exception to that, and underneath it all she writes great songs, is a good singer, and knows how to put on a show. Paparazzi was a track on her debut album, The Fame, which came out in August 2008 and again in a revised version, The Fame Monster, in November 2009. As debuts go there have probably been few better. It made #1 in the UK and many other countries, including Canada, and #2 in the US. It has been ranked 6x Platinum in the US, where it has sold more than 6m copies, 11x Platinum in the UK for over 3m sales, and has shifted around 18m copies in total worldwide. This track was the fifth and final single taken from the album, in July 2009, and reached #6 in the US and #4 in the UK. To be honest, I’m surprised there was anyone who hadn’t bought the album by then, so those relatively low placings are pretty respectable. The song describes her struggles in her search for fame and love, and the video portrays her as a doomed starlet, hounded by photographers, who is almost killed by her boyfriend (played by Alexander Skarsgård). It shows her survival, comeback, revenge on her boyfriend, and experiences on the way to fame. The video won two MTV Video Music Awards in 2009 for Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects. I think it’s great, and tells a dark story very well.

For today’s final song I’m playing one that takes a completely different approach. This one tells how the singer’s feeling of loving and being loved makes her feel like a celebrity. It’s by a singer you may not have heard of anywhere else than here but it is a lovely song and video:

Brynn Andre released Celebrity last month on her new album, Honeymoon. If you have a very good memory you may recall that I have played Brynn’s wonderful version of the Christmas classic Let It Snow several times as part of my Advent Calendar. For several years she has largely been absent from the music scene, doing all sorts of other things, like running her own business and having a family, but it was great news for me that she had been making a new album, which is as lovely as I could have hoped for. I played one of its tracks a couple of months ago, and this one is such a good fit for today’s theme and what celebrity can mean to different people. She deserves all the success she can get, but is a good example of how difficult that can be to find. Someone as talented as she needs the lucky break that others get when, to my mind, they merit it far less. Brynn seems a lovely person, as well as a beautiful singer and songwriter, and always replies to comments on her videos, on Facebook and YouTube. If only I had some influence to make her the star I wish she could be!

That’s today’s five tunes done and dusted. Hopefully you found something to enjoy in there: I’m guessing that a few of them might have been unfamiliar to some of you, which I always enjoy. I’ll see you again soon, when with any luck the extreme heat will have died down a bit: it’s been ‘scorchio’ here for the past week. Have a great week, and I’ll see you again soon 🎶