MTV Music Awards

Sept. 13, 2006

This year’s MTV Video Music Awards hit the airwaves and zipped away again (to be repeated endlessly, of course, on the increasingly less-music-videos, more programming MTV channel), with highlights being few and far between. See the Modern Rock Link of the Week below to see one of those few highlights; as for the rest of ‘em, they were pretty much limited to Al Gore’s smarty-pants remarks, Panic! at the Disco’s theatrical performance, and a bloated-and- Botox’ed Axl Rose introducing a rockin’ performance from the Killers. Oh, and the winners? Well, snagging Video of the Year were Panic! at the Disco (for “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”), Best Male Video was James Blunt
(for “You’re Beautiful”), Best Female Video was Kelly Clarkson (for “Because of You”), Best Rock Video was AFI’s “Miss Murder,” and Best Pop Video was Pink’s
“Stupid Girls”...

R.E.M. will be inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame on September 16 in Atlanta, Georgia, and will celebrate the occasion by performing three songs with original drummer Bill Berry, who left the band in 1997 for health reasons. Following the ceremony, R.E.M. will head back into the recording studio to begin work on what will be the follow-up to their 2004 album, Around the Sun - and, while-U-wait, you can snag a copy of the band’s two-CD package And I Feel Fine, which will compile songs from the band’s first five years and which will also include the first authorized release of several rare bootleg tracks; that one will be in stores next week...

A modern film take on the life of Marie Antoinette is set to hit theaters on October 20, as directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Kirsten Dunst as Marie herself, and accompanying this unexpected look at her life is an equally unexpected set of music that wouldn’t usually be heard in a period film, which should make for an interesting mix. The double-disc soundtrack set, due on October 10, will include songs from The Strokes, Gang of Four, Windsor for the Derby, My Bloody Valentine, Aphex Twin, and Air, among others...

Sting has wrapped work on his next album, which has been dubbed Songs from the Labyrinth and which will feature songs by 16th century composer John Dowland as performed on the lute. A PBS special chronicling the making of the album is also in the works, and Sting will be playing three concerts in October in support of the new disc, which are expected to take place in London and Berlin as well as a show at New York City’s Rose Hall, which is expected to be broadcast on XM Satellite Radio...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK: Have you seen OK Go’s latest video for their song “Here It Goes Again”? The one that’s the buzz of the internet, on which they do an elaborately choreographed routine on... treadmills? (Yes, you read that right!) The one that they just replicated live last week (without a single mistake) at the aforementioned MTV Video Music Awards? Check it out online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI...

MINI BUZZ:
In other awards news, Arctic Monkeys have won Britain’s coveted 2006 Mercury Music Prize for Album of the Year...Green Day have wrapped up their respective summer vacations, and have just headed back into the recording studio to begin work on a new Green Day album...GameSpot has announced the release of their upcoming Guitar Hero II videogame, which will include tracks from Stone Temple Pilots and Guns n’ Roses; the game is now set to ship on November 7 for the PlayStation 2 system...
The Shins will be releasing their third album this upcoming January, and have titled it Wincing the Night Away...Indie-rockers We Are Scientists and Art Brut are teaming up for a co-headlining North American club tour that will begin on September 18...
And Muse were voted “Festival Champs” - in other words, the festival band of the summer of 2006 - by the readers of NME Magazine...
And let’s see what you vote to buy out of this week’s new releases...
ON CD:
M. Ward’s Post-War...Persephone’s Bees’ Notes From the Underworld...Stereolab’s Serene Velocity: A Stereolab Anthology... Heaven 17’s Penthouse and Pavement... Jars of Clay’s Good Monsters... and Beyonce’s B’day...
ON DVD:
Suzanne Vega: Live at Montreux 2004... Ginger Baker’s In
Africa... Green Day’s The Only Rhyme That Bites... and Pete Townshend’s Psychoderelict: Live in New York... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.

Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions on this column or your fave musicians? Send ‘em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com