Media Research Failure/Music: Difference between revisions

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* ''The Ottawa Citizen'' described [[U2]] as "a Brit band". Apparently, the editor of that paper forgot that since 1922, Ireland is ''no longer part of the United Kingdom''.

** A recurring problem with Irish musicians (and indeed other celebrities). MTV has referred to Westlife as British (you would think they at least should know better).

* "The Prince of Denmark's March" by Jeremiah Clarke is incessantly called "Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary". (The prince referred to is not Hamlet, but Queen Anne's husband.)

** To clarify why that throws ''Rolling Stone'''s musical credentials into a snit, not to mention the writer's ability to do math: combining measures of four and two gives tens or long threes (sixes, but divided differently) with possibly the occasional fourteen. (why not eights or twelves? they have their own rules, and if they don't follow them they're something else)

** ''Rolling Stone'' probably got this wrong by counting the fourths in the verse - giving 22 (4x5+2) and then dividing by two (for no apparent reason).

* ''[[Kids in The Hall]]'' theme song creators "Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet" are often referred to as a "surf band". Hence, their song "We Are Not A Surf Band".

* For high hilarity, check out the US media coverage of the rise of Beatlemania. When the first reports of [[The Beatles]] and their massive British success started trickling across the ocean, it was portrayed as some sort of quasi-religious cult centered around a bunch of untalented losers who sing "yeah yeah yeah" over and over. When they hit America, many people struggled to understand what made the music so different. It sounded like rock-and-roll, but everyone knew rock-and-roll was that 50s fad that ended when Elvis went into the Army.

* People keep on writing [[Meat Loaf]]'s name as one word, when it's actually two.

** His early promotional material flip-flopped on this as well.

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by [[Pink Floyd]] in the song, "Have a Cigar"'. "The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think, [[I Am Not Shazam|oh, by the way, which one's Pink?]]"

** According to David Gilmour, this was actually something that producer-types frequently asked.

* 2 Live Crew's album ''As Nasty as They Wanna Be'' raised a big controversy because of their infamous song "Me So Horny" which apparently had a 'graphic description of the destruction of a woman's vagina' in it. The line in question was "I know he'll be disgusted if he sees your pussy busted", ''i.e.'', deflowering a girl, not mutilating her privates. However, conservative groups, including Focus on the Family, failed to recognize it as a slang term, even though it's clear in the lyrics that the girl is consenting to all this and is just doing naughty things like many teenagers will do. In the end, this actually helped raise the group's popularity.

* "We're Not Gonna Take It" by [[Twisted Sister]] was also a victim of the [[Moral Guardians]] where supposedly a boy was calling his father a 'disgusting slob' who was 'worthless and weak' and then blasting him out of the window. In the video, the FATHER was berating his son (a [[Shout-Out]] to the actor's [[The Neidermeyer|previous role]] in ''[[Animal House|National Lampoon's Animal House]]''), and his [[Shout-Out|SON blasts the father out by playing a loud note on his guitar]]. Nothing really violent there unless you think all those old Bugs Bunny or Popeye cartoons were violent. Then the boy [[Everything's Better with Spinning|spins around and turns into frontman Dee Snider]]. The rest of the family (besides the parents) turn into the other band members, and what follows is just a bunch of cartoon-ish hijinks where the father tries to get into the house and subdue Twisted Sister, only to either crash or fall out the window. No blood or anything - pretty tame compared to a lot of violent movies. The song itself isn't about violence at all either, but freedom and enjoying life without others dictating every aspect of it without reason. Focus on the Family, The PMRC and these other conservative groups really needed to do more research before protesting something that they deem wrong or evil. While they're at it, they should probably look up the definition of irony.

* Although you can't really blame anyone, Gnarls Barkley is a ''duo'', not an actual person.

* [[Chris Brown]] has been known for his R&B music and singing. After he had [[Would Hit a Girl|that incident with Rihanna]], news reporters kept referring to him as a [[Unfortunate Implications|"rapper"]].

* Lupe Fiasco planned to retire with ''LupE.N.D'',. However, his contract required that he make 3 more albums before doing so. Fiasco has stated that he plans on releasing three albums, and then ''LupE.N.D.'' However...

** Despite this, ''to this day'', there are people who think that he's retiring after LASERS.

* Metallic hardcore band Converge themselves [http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_llg7k2EZdk1qjl4w9o1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1309210670&Signature=IH8a7PMDzFzLbIn7%2FmxHxB1%2Bi8U%3D pointed out an example of this in ''Terrorizer'' magazine ]. The band (who are almost all straight edge) answered the questions with joke answers and were surprised that they were accepted at face value.

* [[David Bowie]]'s groundbreaking 'Berlin Trilogy' is often referred to as being produced by Brian Eno. While all parties involved have noted Brian Eno's huge influence on the records, the fact is that the actual production was down to Tony Visconti. Tony Visconti himself has complained about how critics can't seem to be bothered to read sleeve notes which quite clearly state 'Produced by Tony Visconti & David Bowie'

** They also have a habit of not doing simple checking through BMI and ASCAP databases for songwriters with similar names. [[wikipedia:Tim James (music producer)|This Tim James]] and [[wikipedia:Tim James (country music songwriter)|this Tim James]] are combined into one listing on Allmusic, but two seconds in the BMI database would show them to be two different people.

* Contrary to popular belief, [[Barry Manilow]] does not write the songs that make the whole world sing. That would be the spirit of Music, not Manilow himself. In fact, the very last line of the song is "I am Music, and I write the songs.". As Manilow is constantly at great pains to point out, ''he didn't even write that song''; [[wikipedia:Bruce Johnston|Bruce Johnston]] did.

** It cites a [[The Bible|Scripture verse]] claiming that miniskirts are sinful, despite the fact that Swift has never been seen wearing one.

** It says that [[Miley Cyrus]] is primarily a [[Country Music]]ian (again, wrong).

** Indeed, [[Jesus Is Savior|that website]] has become rather infamous on various message boards for how insane and inaccurate it is. Many of its other articles contain other glaring inaccuracies, over-analyzing minor things, extreme fundamentalism (of the "women's pants are evil!" variety) and Bible-thumping condemnations of almost everything under the sun. There have been some mutterings that the site is actually a [[Stealth Parody]] because [[Poe's Law|it's so unbelievable]]. Because there are so many examples of this trope on that site, we'll leave it at this blanket description instead of listing every little thing.

* CNN once had a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeEIteQmpHE brief report] on the video of "Bad Apple!!" - a song with a fairly [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bad-apple convoluted history]. To those who know the real story (or even a basic outline), it seems CNN gathered all of its facts from simply watching the video shown. As the comments show, it rather enraged Touhou fans.

* Some sources have claimed that Navin Harris sang backing vocals on Olivia Newton-John's songs "Let Me Be There" and "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)". This "fact" stemmed from a piece of vandalism on [[Wikipedia]] that went unnoticed for two years. Mike Sammes was the actual backing vocalist.

 

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