Nine moments musicians would like us to forget
AS last week’s Miley Cyrus ‘twerking’ furore demonstrated, even shameless rock stars can embarrass themselves.
Miley’s bumping and grinding to Robin Thicke and his ‘rapey’ smash, ‘Blurred Lines’, is not unusual. Since the first guitar was picked up in anger, musicians have walked a woozy line between exhibitionism and self-parody.
Rather than raise pulses, Madge and Britney’s tongue-tangle at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards came off like shameless pandering, as if the 10m audience comprised only 13-year-old boys.
There was also something creepy and vampiric about the lamprey-like fashion in which 45-year-old Madonna attached herself to 21-year-old Spears’ face.
One of the set pieces in U2’s 1997 Popmart tour featured the band emerging from a giant, mechanised lemon. Unfortunately, hydraulic fruit technology was still in its infancy and, at a gig in Norway, the lemon declined to open. Bono, The Edge, and co had to climb back out, so that the fruit could be rebooted.
Nobody would mistake Kanye West (inset) for a shrinking violet. Even by his ego-maniacal standards, however, his stage invasion at the 2009 MTV VMAs (are you seeing a pattern here?) was breathtaking. Taylor Swift had just won ‘best video’, and Kanye seize the mic stand and insist that Beyonce should have won it. “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you … I’ll let you finish,” he said. “But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time.” Cue criticism from President Barack Obama and a humiliating apology on the Jay Leno how.
Talk about classy winners. Receiving a ‘best video’ award from the INXS frontman at the 1996 Brit Awards, Noel Gallagher — ostensibly the sensible one in the band — declared ‘Has-beens shouldn’t be presenting awards to gonna-bes’. Hutchence is said to have been hugely hurt by the remarks, and Oasis’s days as plucky outsiders were over.
What is it about out-of-control celebs and lugubrious award ceremonies?
Towards the end of Michael Jackson’s admittedly OTT turn at the 1996 Brits, at which Oasis cut loose, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker was spotted at the edge of the stage, waggling his bum. He seemed the worse for wear, even if he later insisted he was making a profound sociopolitical statement. “My actions were a form of protest at the way Michael Jackson sees himself as some kind of Christ-like figure with the power of healing. The music industry allows him to indulge his fantasies because of his wealth and power.”
We’ve all forgotten the words to a song — but the president of the United States isn’t usually watching. That’s what happened to country-pop pin-up Simpson (inset right) at a 2006 Dolly Parton tribute show.
Singing to an audience that included President George Bush, Simpson flubbed a line in Parton’s smash ‘Nine to Five’, then fled the stage, her face streaked in tears.
Perry’s last tour featured an eye-watering selection of props and set pieces. But the set didn’t always go off without a hitch. At a concert in London, Perry’s hair became entangled in her spinning, peppermint bra, requiring the intervention of a stage hand. Her insurance company subsequently declined to cover the battery-powered undergarment.
For some reason, MTV makes rock stars lose all sense of propriety — and sometimes safety. Performing their hit, ‘Lithium’, at the 1992 VMA, Nirvana’s Kris Novoselic threw his bass guitar 25 feet in the air, only for it to smack him on the head. He staggered backwards, visibly in distress.
Novoselic later claimed to have faked concussion to avoid looking like an idiot. A bit too late for that, Kris.
Shortly before the 2004 heart attack that brought the curtain down on his career for ten years, David Bowie copped a lollipop in the eye at a gig in Oslo.
Though the concert continued as soon as the offending confectionery had been removed, Bowie is said to have been traumatised by the incident (he had damaged the same eye in a schoolyard brawl decades earlier).
It was his last tour, and while he has recently released an album, it is unclear whether he will ever step on stage again.
In the middle of their 2004 Superbowl duet, Justin Timberlake snatched at Janet Jackson’s top a little more enthusiastically than was perhaps required. Audiences were treated to a high definition glimpse of Ms Jackson’s upper torso — and the phrase ‘wardrobe malfunction’ was minted. ‘Nipplegate’ generated 540,000 complaints.
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