Mariah Carey featuring Rick Ross and Meek Mill, "Triumphant"
Mariah Carey's officially on American Idol now, which means her latest career comeback is in full swing, which means it’s time for that first big career comeback single. By the look of that cover art and the presence of Ricky and Meek, it looks like Carey is channeling her "Honey” prime, just swapping out a Bad Boy remix for a Maybach Music one. I am very, very onboard with this decision.
Welcome back to our series Rembert Explains the ’80s. Every so often, we'll e-mail 25-year-old Rembert Browne a video from the 1980s that he hasn't seen. Rembert will write down his thoughts as he's watching it, then we'll post those thoughts here. This week's installment was selected by Grantland editor-in-chief Bill Simmons: Bob Dylan, rehearsing "We Are the World." If you have an idea for a future episode of Rembert Explains the '80s, e-mail us at hollywood@grantland.com.
Bob Dylan can add another line to his extensive CV: (alleged) art plagiarist! Last night, ArtsBeat brought to our attention Internet grumblings about an exhibit of Dylan’s paintings, “The Asia Series,” currently on display at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. According to the gallery’s official description, the paintings are based on Dylan’s travels “in Japan, China, Vietnam, and Korea” and are billed as “firsthand depictions of people, street scenes, architecture and landscape.” It turns out, though, that some of the paintings are actually faithful copies of old photographs. For example, here’s one that knocks off a 1950 Dmitri Kessel photo of three dudes playing Siamese chess. (The fan site Expecting Rain has a bunch more.) Whoops!
Bill Simmons: I'm ashamed to admit that I watched some of VH1 Classic's 30th anniversary celebration of MTV two weekends ago. OK, I watched most of it. Fine, fine, I DVR'ed all 12 hours and ripped through those 12 shows like a fat kid plowing through Halloween candy. MTV Classic not existing might be our single biggest television failure — you can't even believe how many iconic musical and pop culture moments that channel produced until they're randomly flying at you in a totally haphazard manner.
Jay Caspian Kang: Agreed. There needs to be a station where I can watch Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train,"GNR's "Patience," the "Ladies Night" collaboration between Missy, Li'l Kim, Da Brat, Left Eye and Angie Martinez, and "Mr. Wendal" all in a row. Also, I need to be able to judge my adolescent crush on Kennedy in hindsight.
