Is it time to close down the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

I was a rock critic in a past life, so every year around this time, I still get a ballot allowing me to vote for my favorite nominees in the annual election at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Actually, I don't get to choose my favorite bands at all. The Hall of Fame is a notoriously top-down institution, with an elite group of insiders making up a nominating committee that pre-selects their own idiosyncratic idea of the worthy candidates. So all of us lowly peons are only allowed to vote for 5 out of 12 possible candidates, which judging from this year's nominees makes for slim pickings.

The list (read it and weep): ABBA, the Chantels, Jimmy Cliff, Genesis, the Hollies, KISS, LL Cool J, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Stooges and Donna Summer.

It's pretty pathetic when you consider that you can vote for the Chantels and Darlene Love, but not for Linda Ronstadt, Steve Miller, Chicago, Rush, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Journey, Dire Straits or Stevie Ray Vaughan, just to name a few of the ineligible worthies. It's no wonder that Joel Selvin, the veteran San Francisco critic (and former member of the hall's nominating committee), has blasted the hall for its insular decision-making. He heaps most of the blame on Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, the hall's co-founder and dominant force, who is believed to be behind the mysterious last-minute selection of Grandmaster Flash over the Dave Clark 5, with Wenner apparently pushing aside the DC5 (finally inducted in 2008) so the hall could have a hip-hop group in the fold. 

"This thing has sunk to a shameless level of manipulation and behind-the-scenes chicanery," Selvin told the Detroit News in 2007. "If it were a public institution--which it is--it would be held up for public ridicule."

Despite my own shared concerns--I think it would a perfectly appropriate idea to close down the hall for repairs for a few years, until a few more deserving bands become eligible--I still feel obligated to vote. But I'd like some help. Take a second look at the names of the 2010 nominees above and let me know who you'd vote for--and why. Those of us who are actual voters are asked to choose a maximum of five nominees, using numbers (1-2-3-4-5) to signify our preferences. You can do the same. Here's how I'd make my choices as of now, but I'm open to being swayed by any especially passionate or persuasive arguments:

1) The Stooges. (They were short-lived, but had an indelible impact on my teen psyche. Any band that had the one-and-only Iggy Pop on board makes the cut for me.)

2) The Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Local L.A. boys made good, they capture the tumultuous spirit of rock and have made some terrific records along the way.) 

3) Laura Nyro. (Nearly forgotten today, she was a seminal influence on Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash and untold other singer-songwriters.)

4) LL Cool J. (Probably not a major artist, but in his day, he was the epitome of cool.)

5) KISS. (I'm not a member of the Army and I think Gene Simmons is pretty obnoxious, but they were the voice of a generation--no one can forget their first KISS concert.)

Photo: The Rock and Roll Hall Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Credit: Reuters

This is still Spinal Tap

From our friends in the Pop Music department comes Steve Appleford's report on the new album from Spinal Tap, "subject" of the 1984 Rob Reiner-directed mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap." During the interview for the story, actors Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest stayed in character as Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel, respectively.

The new album, "Back From the Dead," was recorded in January at the Village Studios in Los Angeles. It was released last week on the band's Label Industry Records, with 19 tracks, a DVD interview disc and an elaborate foldout diorama of the musicians as action figures.

Among the newer songs is "Warmer Than Hell," a climate change anthem written for the band's performance at the Live Earth concert in 2007, where St. Hubbins introduced the lyrics: "Satan sat in Surrey / sweating like a pig. / He said, 'Is this just a fluke / Or maybe something big?' "

Fans will recognize many songs ("Big Bottom," "Stonehenge," "(Funky) Sex Farm") from the film, recorded in a studio for the first time, sometimes with such guest players as John Mayer and Steve Vai.

"We said, 'Why don't we make these tracks sound as best they can be?' " says Tufnel, "with us controlling it, with loudness, sonic integrity."

"It's just an ability to have these songs enjoyed the way they were meant to be enjoyed," says Smalls, "with royalties flowing to us."

Read the full story here.

Photo: Harry Shearer, left, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest as the members of Spinal Tap. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Summit hires new 'Twilight' director, right? Wrong!

I hate to be the skunk at the picnic, but Summit Entertainment has not -- I repeat NOT-- hired "Orphanage" director Juan Antonio Bayona to direct "Eclipse," the third film in the wildly successful “Twilight” series. That would be the exact opposite of the "news" you read earlier today, first in Nikki Finke’s post on Deadline Hollywood and later in Dave McNary's seemingly authoritative Variety story, which baldly stated that Summit "has tapped Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona to direct 'Eclipse.' "

By sheer coincidence, I had lunch today with Erik Feig, who’s president of production at Summit and the man most involved with managing the hit series of films. ("New Moon," the second film in the series, begins production later this month with Chris Weitz at the helm.)

Feig was shocked to see the media reports saying Summit had hired Bayona, since -- ahem -- they’re not true. "The 'Eclipse' directing job hasn’t been offered to Juan Antonio or anyone else," he told me. "We’ve met with three or four talented filmmakers and we’ll be meeting with three or four more other candidates before we make any decision. No one has been offered the job."

Feig added that no one even bothered to call to check out the rumors before printing them, something that has become an all-too-often occurrence in the Wild West free-for-all that constitutes today’s Web-based entertainment coverage. "Nikki never called Summit or any of the producers, and Variety ran it off her blog without calling us either, which I find doubly irresponsible." (In fairness, McNary did call Summit’s PR rep, who would not confirm the story.)

The fact that the initial stories were erroneous didn’t stop everyone else on the Web -- including many of my favorite blogs -- from not only linking to them, but rewriting them in a way that repeated the falsehood. That includes everyone from the Vulture, whose post was headlined "Juan Antonio Bayona to Direct 'Twilight 3,' " to our own Hero Complex, which led its account by saying: “It’s official, according to the trades, the filmmaker behind the hypnotic horror film, 'The Orphanage,' will be brought in for the third 'Twilight' film."

I mean, if you can’t trust the Hollywood trades, who can you trust, right? As it turns out, Bayona was in town and had a Wednesday meeting with Summit execs, who are certainly impressed by his resume. Bayona has also met with "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer, who has a lot to say about any key creative choices made on each film in the series. On the other hand, Bayona has told friends that he isn’t sure he wants to tackle the film. Though he also admires the series, he's concerned about how much creative involvement he would have coming in to direct the third installment in a series, where most of the casting and character development is already in place.

The real lesson here: The madcap pace of the Web, where everyone gets hits by linking to newsie items about cultural hot buttons, is creating an environment where you have to check stories out before you reprint them -- or you end up with egg on your face. (Trust me -- it's happened to me too.) This is just the latest example of a story that was good but, alas, too good to actually be true. 

Did the Boss go Milli Vanilli at the Super Bowl?

Lost in all the hullabaloo over Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl appearance, Wal-Mart apology and scathing attack on Ticketmaster is the revelation that Springsteen's heralded E Street Band ... didn't actually play live at the Super Bowl.

As the Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot reveals in this interview with Grammy-winning producer Hank Neuberger (who oversees the broadcast audio at the Grammy Awards telecast), everyone at the Super Bowl prerecorded their performances, including Jennifer Hudson and Faith Hill as well. Springsteen's vocals were live, though it's unclear from the Kot story whether the other singers were live or not, having clearly been asked -- by Super Bowl organizers -- to tape their performances and record backing tracks. Hudson's publicist says that "Hudson's mike was on" -- she was singing live to a backing track at the request of the Super Bowl producers.

Is this new? I guess not. Lots of singers (think Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson) have been ridiculed for their use of backing tracks during live performances. Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma also played to a recorded track during the presidential inauguration last month. But what about the Boss? A legendarily exciting live performer, should he have made it clear ahead of time that his band wasn't actually performing live at a mammoth media event like the Super Bowl, where everything is bound to go under the microscope? It wasn't like everyone was just miming to a record -- the band rehearsed and then recorded the new versions of the songs Springsteen performed on Sunday.

I think what stirs up criticism is that we live in a world that is now dominated by so many examples of pseudo events (starting with all the reality TV shows that are actually as carefully cast, scripted and edited as any dramatic fiction) that it feels increasingly unsettling to discover that something so seemingly authentic -- the E Street Band for the first time at the Super Bowl -- is, while not a fake, still technologically altered and rearranged. It creates all sorts of fuzzy gray areas. If it's bad for athletes to use chemical enhancement to improve their performance, then shouldn't we question artists if they use technological enhancement to improve their performance?

I'd like to hear your views on the subject -- as in where should we draw the line between the real and the artificial? As an audience member, I'm slightly squeamish about the blurred lines. But when I spoke to Neuberger, who as a producer is accustomed to dealing with new technology, he viewed the issue in a very different light, saying that using backing tracks is standard operating procedure in public live performances, especially when the artist is suddenly taking the stage in the middle of a football field.

"You're dealing with a staging set-up that would normally take all day, and suddenly has to be done in five minutes," he explained. "You really don't have a choice -- you're at a football game. There's a reliability factor that can't be guaranteed by five minutes of set-up time. The artists have to hear themselves, the mikes and sound equipment have to be all set up -- all that would be at risk if you tried to do a live performance with so little set-up time. The artists are really doing the right thing."

Fair enough. But does the audience have the right to know about the set-up ahead of time? Or would that spoil the illusion?   

Photo of Bruce Springsteen by Morry Gash / Associated Press

Hey Obama, name that tune!

When we were all gathered around the TV Tuesday night, watching Barack Obama on stage in Chicago's Grant Park, basking in the glow of his historical victory, with the returns in and the election safely in the bag, the only question that remained unanswered was: What was that music playing that served as the underscore to Obama's big moment?

It was obviously a movie score, but what movie? The first guess, from someone who figured the campaign was going for uplift, was "Chariots of Fire." Wrong. One of my Chicago pals suggested "The Untouchables," figuring (1) it had a nice local angle and (2) it was about Eliot Ness cleaning up the mob, which has a certain resonance for die-hard Democrats after eight long years of Bush rule. Wrong.

The answer: Obama's triumphant music was from "Remember the Titans," the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film from 2000 that stars Denzel Washington as a tough-minded coach of a newly integrated high school football team. The movie's composer, Trevor Rabin, was at home, watching the speech with his wife when the music began to swell. "We almost didn't get through the thing, because the phone started ringing and it didn't stop," he told me today. "I must've gotten a couple of dozen calls from friends and such. After about the fifth caller, I stopped picking up the phone because I wanted to watch Obama all the way to the end."

Rabin reacted to the way his work was displayed the way most film composers do. "I have to say I was surprised," he says with a laugh. "They played it louder at the rally than they did in the movie. They really cranked it up."

Hearing his music accompany Obama's victory celebration was especially moving for Rabin, who was born in South Africa and whose  family has a long involvement in the anti-apartheid movement. His cousin, Donald Woods, was a newspaper editor who spoke out against apartheid and fled the country after the death of his friend, Steve Biko, who was immortalized in Peter Gabriel's song, "Biko," as well as in the film "Cry Freedom," where Woods is played by Kevin Kline. Sydney Kentridge, another one of Rabin's cousins, prosecuted the South African government on behalf of the Biko family.

"We were a very politically active family," Rabin says. "My father was one of the first lawyers in South Africa to have a black partner, so I grew up very aware of the struggle going on. Coming from that background, it really gave me chills to have my music be a part of the election of the first black American president." As it turns out, Rabin wasn't entirely surprised to hear his score playing at an Obama event. The Obama campaign also used the score after his outdoor speech at the Democratic National Convention, playing it, Rabin says, "at the volume level you'd expect at a KISS concert."

Why did Obama--or someone in his camp--pick the music? I have no official word, though the obvious theory would be that it provided a nice fit for the Obama campaign's theme of inclusiveness and openness to change. "In the movie the football players triumph over adversity, so that's obviously part of it," says Rabin, who's written scores for dozens of films, including "Armageddon," "National Treasure" and "Get Smart." "But I'm guessing the music feels hopeful and stirring, or as my wife would say, invigorating. I guess it represents some of the optimism that Obama reflects."

An Obama supporter, Rabin says he'd happily make himself available if the president-elect needs any musical assistance for his inauguration. "I'm just happy to be associated with him in any way," he says. "One of my friends who called on Tuesday said, 'Wow, you've been immortalized!' But for me, it's just nice that anyone recognized the music. Obama didn't need any help. I thought his speech was great. He was uplifting, but he also said--let's get down to business. He seems to know what he's doing." 

The City of Hope has its mojo working

The stock market was down 733 points, the Dodgers were on the brink of being booted out of the playoffs and "Obama vs. McCain III" was on the tube, but instead of staying home, I went out to a party. And what a party! The music business may be in a death spiral, but they still know how to have a good time. Next to the Grammys, there's no bigger night in the music biz than the City of Hope Spirit of Life award dinner, which unfolded last night under a giant, Cirque du Soleil-style tent on the beach in Santa Monica. The dinner raised a record $10 million, with Universal Music Chairman Doug Morris as its drawing card. Since Universal owns Motown Records, the legendary Berry Gordy made a rare public appearance to pay tribute to Morris and introduce the Doug Morris Motown Revue, a killer band of session players who backed a series of Universal label stars doing Motown oldies.

Everyone took a turn in the spotlight. Stevie Nicks, dressed all in black, did the Supremes' "Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart." Erykah Badu funked out to Rick James' "Mary Jane." Mariah Carey crooned the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There." Lionel Richie showed he hadn't lost a step, handling his own "I'm Easy." Duffy, the new Lulu-style neo-soul starlet, sounded totally at home with Smokey Robinson's "I Second That Emotion." Rihanna channeled Diana Ross, doing "Baby Love." If I had to pick favorites, I'd say the Stevie Wonder numbers brought out the best in everyone, with Robin Thicke (who looks like a young Pierce Brosnan) doing "Ribbon in the Sky," Maroon 5 performing "My Cherie Amour" and Michael McDonald belting out a white-haired soul version of "Living for the City."

Before the music began, Nicks gave an emotional speech about her connection to the City of Hope. When Morris got up to speak, he made a special point of thanking Zach Horowitz, the Universal COO who is the driving force behind the dinner, his father having been the City of Hope's chief fundraiser for years. Morris sounded an optimistic note about the future, saying that if new technology had put the industry into its current funk, it could well be new technology that gave it a new lease on life, saying he'd never been more hopeful about the industry's future.   

As good as the speeches and performances were, the real fun was getting to circulate, seeing all the big players from both music and film renewing old friendships or smoothing over old rivalries. The dinner's whopping $10-million take is a tribute to the respect the industry has for Morris, who is the last of the old-style record moguls still in power, reigning over Universal, far and away the industry's biggest company. With Morris in the spotlight, I saw people who rarely show up at these kind of dinners. Top music lawyer Allen Grubman had David Geffen at his table, who sat with producer Irwin Winkler. They seemed an odd couple, until Geffen reminded me that they'd become friends after they both worked in the William Morris mailroom 40-plus years ago.

Between dinner courses, conversation was the sport. I found film director Brett Ratner schmoozing with Warner Records chief Edgar Bronfman. Eagles manager Irving Azoff was huddled with Interscope chief Jimmy Iovine. Music attorney (and sometime novelist) Don Passman gave me a great recommendation for my book club. Revolution Films founder Joe Roth stopped to chat before going over to see his pal Steve Jobs. Talk about smoothing over rivalries. Jobs, who looks even more skeletal in person than he does at Apple presentations, has been locked in a bitter struggle with Universal for years over iTunes music pricing and other issues, but there he was, having shown up to celebrate Morris' big night.

My favorite moment of the evening came when I was talking to filmmaker Taylor Hackford, an ardent music lover who directed "Ray" and the Chuck Berry tribute film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll." Just as we were getting ready to go our separate ways, along came Lionel Richie, who did a song for the filmmaker's "White Nights." Richie jabbed an elbow in Hackford's direction. "This is the guy who came to me and said, 'You have to write a song called 'White Nights,' " Richie said with a mischievous grin. "I told him, 'There's never gonna be a hit song called anything like 'White Nights,' especially not sung by a black man!' "

Hackford cracked up. He said, "What I remember most is that Lionel used to write songs, put 'em on a cassette and throw it into the glove compartment of his car. And when we'd be driving around, he'd take a cassette out and play it in the car." Richie chimed in: "That's how you know if a song works, if it sounds good in the car on the freeway, with the top down." Hackford said, "If Lionel thought the song didn't work, he'd just toss the cassette out the window." Richie laughed. "You never know," he said merrily. "I bet I threw a lot of hits out of that window too."

That was the mood in the music business last night. Times are hard, but everyone always hopes there's another big hit just around the corner.

Photo of Doug Morris by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

The coolest song of every summer

Everyone has their favorite summer song, from Sly's "Hot Fun in the Summertime" to Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" to Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" to Justin Timberlake's "Summer Love." But there's only one song that is a hit every sultry night of every summer: "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." The song is having its 100th anniversary this summer, which has a special resonance for us Cubs fans, since it's also the 100th anniversary of the last time the Cubs won the World Series. Written by Albert Von Tilzer and Jack Norworth, two vaudeville vets who'd never seen a baseball game, "Take Me Out" is now a staple at all ballparks. (To learn more about its unusual history--and see the rarely sung verse about "baseball mad Katie Casey"--go here.)

Anyone's whose spent a summer at Wrigley Field is used to hearing all sorts of visiting celebs, actors, comedians and nutjobs take a whack at the song. The other night, the Cubs-Orioles game was interrupted by some god-awful yowling by "Dancing With the Stars" regular Julianne Hough (sadly, no relation to knuckleballer Charlie Hough), who has released a country album--and recently sang the national anthem at a NASCAR race-- but after hearing her off-key rendition, I wouldn't bet on her future as a singer.

But enough complaints: If you want to hear some amazingly good versions of "Take Me Out," tune in the "Take Me Out" battle of the bands that's been running on ESPN. The sports network has recruited a host of cool groups, who all perform wonderfully idiosyncratic versions of the song. Highlights include a jazzy instrumental version by Branford Marsalis (a Mets loyalist), a bluegrass rendition by the Punch Brothers (who wear Cubs caps) and a rousing "Take Me Out" by Ozomatli, Dodgers loyalists who perform the song salsa-style, with congas, saxophone and stand-up bass. (That's their version at the top of this post.)

ESPN is letting fans vote on nine different performances (still to come, Saturday at 7 p.m., is a new rendition by Candlebox), with a winner announced on July 13. (Go here for more video clips of the performances.) My vote, so far, goes to Ozomatli. If the Dodgers marketing wizards are paying attention, they should invite the band to play the song during the 7th-inning stretch at an upcoming game. The way the team is going these days, any musical inspiration might be a good thing.

To see the all-time, century-worst "Take Me Out" performance, continue reading:

Wal-Mart rocks

    Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal weighed in today with stories about how Wal-Mart has reacted to a declining CD market by striking exclusive deals to release new albums by Baby Boomer-era rockers, notably the Eagles and Journey, whose discs have already been selling at Wal-Mart, and AC-DC, which the Journal says is expected to sell a new album exclusively through Wal-Mart sometime this fall. For aging rockers, the appeal is obvious. Even though younger music fans prefer to download songs for 99 cents on iTunes, older consumers are still buying CDs at a pretty decent clip, with Wal-Mart accounting for roughly 30% of all CD sales.

      I found myself thinking about the Wal-Mart arrangement as I drove back from lunch today with a veteran Hollywood agent. His client list is filled with directors who are the equivalent of those classic rock bands--he reps filmmakers who all had big hits and were once regular Oscar contenders, but who are now largely unemployable at movie studios, since movie studios prefer to hire a cool new (but completely untested) video director than a classy old pro who might be too obstinate or arrogant to listen to the studio's hapless script notes.

     So how does this connect to Wal-Mart?