During the presidential campaign, John McCain kept getting in trouble with various musicians for stealing their godless liberal music and using it to promote his candidacy. Heart, Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, Boston, Van Halen and the Foo Fighters all got pissed at him at various points. But only Jackson Browne sued the Arizona Senator. McCain used "Running on Empty" in a campaign ad, and Browne, whose new album features a song about hanging out in Castro's Cuba, was not happy. Now, McCain has countersued Browne, because why not. According to McCain's two motions, Browne infringed on McCain's right to free speech. McCain also says "that rather than damage the song's commercial potential, his use 'will likely increase the popularity of this thirty year-old song,'" which makes plenty of sense to us. John McCain probably has all his Flickr photos licensed under Creative Commons too, right? [THR]

After we went to all the trouble of offering Spitzer hooker Ashley Dupre seven—seven!—different career choices yesterday, what does she do? She goes and tells Diane Sawyer, "I want to go after my music and do what I love. And not lose track of who I am on the way. I'm trying to pursue my music. I'm still living for it. I'm not gonna give up my dream. I'm not going to change. I'm not going to let this change who I am. And what I love." All of those short declarative sentences do not change the fact that your song "All We Want" is just the sort of generic R&B bullshit blathering that has already largely destroyed our nation's airwaves. We say this as a friend! Regrettably, Ashley is listening to her other friends: her MySpace friends. Like Whitney Houston, and "Fin" from Williamsburg:

We've been hard on Common, the "conscious" Chicago rapper who spends an inordinate amount of time making ads for damn near everybody and then coming up with weird justifications for how he's still keeping it real. Now his new TV ad for Zune, the off-brand iPod that Common called "a representation of me," is out. And he's pulled godfather of the beat Afrika Bambaataa into the advertising web along with him! This, along with The Roots signing on as Jimmy Fallon's house band, is pounding my capability for sincere outrage into a sense of zombie-like acceptance. Watch the full ad below and surrender:
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This past weekend, a hip hop blog called Nah Right posted a YouTube interview with ?uestlove, a member of hip hop live band supergroup The Roots. And he said that The Roots were retiring from touring in order to become the house band for Jimmy Fallon when he takes over Conan O'Brien's late night show next year. But that video was quickly pulled, so everyone has been scrambling to find out whether this apocalyptic... thing is actually true. NBC has no official comment, but we hear that it probably is. Essaywhuman?!!!??! This is one of those things that proves you're getting old. I've never had a group that I actually like go the late night house band route. Springsteen fans saw Max Weinberg take his act to Conan's show; and I'm sure there were some jazz heads who were flabbergasted to see their main man Kevin Eubanks signing up with Jay Leno. But The Roots? The Illadelph generals opening up for that stuttering mop-headed ball of suck, Jimmy Fallon? It's kind of tragic. On one hand, we'll get to see The Roots on TV every night; on the other hand, Black Thought opening for Jimmy Fallon every night is the cultural equivalent of Miles Davis playing his horn on the subway platform to back up a semi-trained dancing spider monkey. To the extend that The Roots are a hip hop group, it's pretty fucking shocking. To the extent that The Roots are a hipster group, that's the end of that. They still give one of the best live shows anywhere, and the thought that the only way to see them live any more will be in the middle of the afternoon in a Midtown studio between periods of Jimmy Fallon snickering at his own cue cards is just an atrocious thing. But they're old and so are we, so everyone is tired. Now I will go and cut myself repeatedly.

It's been known for more than five years that Prince is a Jehovah's Witness who goes door-to-door trying to win converts to the austere faith, as mentioned in this week's New Yorker. Less appreciated: the musician's growing distance from the liberal artistic values that pervade show business, despite his move to Los Angeles seven years ago. As Claire Hoffman writes, Prince has a budding relationship with Christian conservative media mogul Philip Anschutz, of Denver, and seems to be opposed to gay marriage and adoption. These can' be popular views among Prince's fellow California-based rockers:

Do you feel that tingly spark in the air today, especially as you near Times Square? It's because Total Request Live, MTV's long-running afterschool music video special is coming to an end after ten years, signing off on Sunday with a special big send-off bash. Yes, one of the last remaining programs on the cable net to still air videos (albeit at truncated lengths and often interrupted by shrieking teenagers) will be no more, ceding like everything else to the Date My Moms and Hills of the world. Ironic, because in some ways, actually, the top 10 videos of the day countdown show helped create the new MTV landscape that eventually came to usurp it. The draw of TRL was never really the actual videos. It was the spectacle view of dizzying Times Square, the live-ness, the celebrity appearances, the affable and comfortably hip hosts (Carson Daly! And, um, Jesse Camp! And that girl from One Tree Hill!) It was really about the lifestyle of liking music, the thrill of just being thrilled, the ecstasy and immediacy and bittersweet fever dances of being a kid and out of school and having stumbled upon this great big infinite thing called Personality (I like this song—I am rock! You like that video—you are pop!). That celebration of the culture of music, rather than the music itself, has spilled over into the network's current top hits, like The Hills. That particular reality dollop of non-fat Cool Whip expertly employs the hit songs of tomorrow to evoke, along with the swirling cameras, a soaring and sprawling range of feelings. Like music usually is in real life, music on MTV now serves as the illustrative background to the people dating and getting made and dancing and competing and existing in the fore. And we've TRL to blame/thank for that—for adding a bit of shape to the world as it's seen through the MTV lens. It said "here we are, set at on all sides by movies and television and pretty people and hormones, and here, in brief, is the soundtrack to accompany all of it. And you chose it." And those huge picture windows overlooking the crowds and lights and glitz, through which we could look out and others could look in! A glass case of emotion! !!! Click to view

"Police say the executive who succeeded Jay-Z as the head of hip-hop music label Def Jam Recordings has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound near Atlanta." [AP]

Bob Dylan's new album of outtakes, "Tell Tale Signs," has some great countrified blues numbers for coping with the coming depression. And in a seeming nod to the tough times, the folksinger streamed the album for free on NPR's website for a week ("Bob Dylan Understand The Weak Economy," said the Times). And yet when the compilation finally dropped earlier this month, aficionados had to pay $130 to get all 39 tracks. That you could buy a smaller, poor man's version for the usual $20 or so was no consolation to hard-core online fans, some of whom vowed to aid and abet piracy in an act of revenge. They shouldn't get too flustered at their hero, judging by Gustavo Turner's review in the Boston Phoenix. You can safely blame Dylan's "mafia" entourage.

Musicians writing novels! Alterna-MILF Liz Phair is writing one, Ryan Adams is publishing a novel plus a book of poetry, and the Observer reports that Bad Seed Nick Cave has just sold his second, titled The Death of Bunny Munro. Cave's first novel, published in 1989, was called And the Ass Saw the Angel. It was really good, according to Galleycat. They also add, "Cave once chewed us out on a nationally syndicated radio show when we called in to say how much his novel reminded us of Flannery O'Connor!" Geez, what an insult. An excerpt of his first book follows.You'll notice two things here: first, all I did was search inside the book for the word "sex," naturally. Secondly, Cave shows a fondness of writing in regional dialect, like Irvine Welsh and Eugene O'Neill.

Well Kanye West, we've got to give it to you. In the past we've mocked you for your blog, your anti-hippie rants, your comical self-importance, and your muppet show. But that was before you filled a room with dozens of nude women as a backdrop for your record release party. Critics who enjoy nude women loved it! Here's how these creative, out-of-the-box tactics worked for Kanye and his media friends—Nakedness below:

When Radiohead unveiled the then-breakthrough gimmick of letting anyone pay whatever they liked to download its In Rainbows album, opinion was pretty much split between those who thought they had discovered the future of the music industry, and those who thought that nobody in their right mind would pay more than $0.01 if they didn't have to. Well, now the (approximate) sales figures are finally out:

So Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie are finally getting divorced. It's a very shocking thing, since earlier this summer, when reports of a pending divorce surfaced, Madonna's flack assured the world that the couple had "no divorce plans." Could it be that the flack, Liz Rosenberg—a charter member of our list of lying flacks—told something less than the full truth? After the jump, Liz's side of the story, and then the other, more accurate side: We asked Liz Rosenberg about this discrepancy between what she said earlier, and what's happening now. Her answer: "there was no pending divorce earlier this year." So, we asked, does that mean that, for example, the Sun's report that Madonna "initially planned to move back to the US with their three children in July" is false? "yes," Rosenberg replied. Well, how credible is Liz Rosenberg? She told the world in 2006 that Madonna was not adopting a baby in Malawi. Although, of course, Madonna did adopt a baby in Malawi. What else do we know about Rosenberg?

In other Elvis news, the Elvis that is Costello is, for some reason, going to make a guest appearance on Fall Out Boy's new album. Statement from band front-boy Pete Wentz, and a question from your humble editor, after the jump. Statement: "At some point everyone is gonna find out. So, I guess its time to let the cat is out of the bag. We didn't want to talk about this before we actually heard it because its a once in a lifetime experience. We've announced a couple of guests on the record but "I wish you luck with a capital F" is just one of the thousands of genius ideas thought up by Elvis Costello and he's gonna be singing on Folie a Deux. this isn't a typical appearance as he's alongside the guys in a couple of the decaydance bands on the song. Either way this has been an amazing experience for fall out boy as he is one of our heroes, especially so for patrick. We can't wait for you to have the chance to hear it." Question: Okay, I don't know much about current music. Nothing, actually. But I've been led to understand over the last few years that Fall Out Boy sucks. Is that not true? Have I been misinformed? It was funny when Costello popped up in Talladega Nights, but this? What shit is this? [AbsolutePunk]

Nothing says "Comeback" like full-on, baby-oiled nudity! Britney Spears' hotly (?) anticipated "Womanizer" video is out. She dances, she sings, she beats up dudes while wearing really high heels. What more could anyone ask for? Check it out after the jump.

Hip Hop Weekly is an execrable, half-assed attempt at a hip hop version of Us Weekly. HHW was founded a couple of years ago by Dave Mays and Benzino, the guys who ran The Source into the ground through sheer selfishness before being forced out. Suffice it to say there's no reason to have a sympathetic view of the magazine's existence. Which makes this epic email fuckup on their part—reprinted below!—that much more enjoyable: HHW, we hear, has trouble paying its vendors, writers, and photographers. Or just doesn't want to. Either way, lots of people who have done work for the magazine are pissed at it. So it was pretty dumb for HHW to (mistakenly?) blast out an invitation to its 50th issue release party to a long list of contributors who hadn't been paid yet. Cue the responses!

Tin Pan Alley, the stretch of West 28th Street (between Broadway and 5th) where songwriters like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Scott Joplin worked and published over the decades, creating some of the best pieces of the American songbook, is now up for sale. It's being hawked at some $44 million, ending an era that, well, really ended in the 1950's. But whatever, chronological semantics aside, it's a significant group of buildings that are essential pieces of the city's cultural history and now, well, they'll probably be condos. A listing recommends that the buildings be torn down, and that some sort of awful high-rise be erected in their place. Probably all steel and glass. No soul.

1935: Is it back? Economically, maybe, who knows. Fashion-wise? Andre Benjamin certainly believes so fiercely! Andre, a.k.a. Andre 3000 of Outkast, long ago gave up rollin down the strip on Vogues and slammin Cadillac doe's in favor of acting, singing weird songs, and designing fancy menswear under the label "Benjamin Bixby." It features old-style things like breeches and waistcoats and "plus fours," something I could not even identify despite being a stylish man myself. So: is this a mark of progress, or something to scoff at? Take a look!: Despite the fact that his clothing line is perhaps not for me—and perhaps something that would cause me to make jokes were I to spy it on the street, offending as it is to my traditional small-mindedness—there's no denying that Andre is a guy with an actual claim to being an artist, whereas just about every other celebrity designer just has a claim to being a narcissist. So good for him!

Verysmallarray.com is an awesome site that makes charts such as "#1 Hit Songs from 1950-59 graphed by genre." Colorfully. Witness the rock and roll incursion when you click to enlarge, friend. [VSA]

Hip hop music was formally unveiled on an August night in 1973, when DJ Kool Herc started cutting two identical records back and forth to keep the freshest part playing, making the world's first break beat. It was only a matter of a few short years until the "up jump the boogie to the bang bang boogie," and another few years to "Sucker MCs call me sire," and then things really started rolling, and within a decade there was Puffy rapping about money while dressed in money driving a money car made of money. And who lost out? Kool Herc himself. The man is the walking embodiment of hip hop's shunning of its quasi-spiritual roots:

The internet is great for turning random people into momentary stars, then allowing them to fade out into nothingness. But don't you wonder what ever became of all those strange characters you see in funny YouTube clips? Sure you do! Usually you're only left with your own conspiracy theories. But one person at MetaFilter came up with a crazy idea: call somebody! That's how he helped solve the mystery of Sonseed, the totally captivating Christian ska band whose Christ-tastic "Jesus Is My Friend" recently became a viral YouTube hit, only to be accused of being a fraud. Oh, they're only too real: MetaFilter user nickskye actually looked up the lead singer of Sonseed, Sal Polichetti, and called him up. They are no hoax, says Sal (who also sent Idolator a kind of nasty letter saying the same thing earlier this month):