You have to understand that to me, Elvis Costello is The Latest Thing. He came along late in my life — after I was married and had kids already — so it’s actually a testament to his considerable talent that I became a big fan of his. He was the last popular musician to enter the ranks of my favorites along with the Beatles and others from my youth.
So normally, I would not have gotten the joke when Stan Dubinsky over at USC sent this link with the message, “Kanye West insults the USC website.” I’m still not entirely sure I get it, but at least I know who Kanye West is — sort of. That’s because my 23-year-old daughter went to “The Producers” with me last night, and since I had gone early to check in with the stage manager, we had time to chat before the show, and we started talking about current events, and she mentioned this West guy.
All day long, I’d been seeing references to him on Twitter, but I didn’t know what it was about. My daughter explained it. OK, so now I see why some people were referring to him and Joe Wilson in the same breath. Then she said something about Serena Williams, and I knew who she was, but didn’t know what she had done to cause the world to buzz. I don’t follow sports, either. (FYI, I just learned that USC will have a home football game on Saturday, which means I will stay over on my side of the river all day to avoid the craziness. I appreciate the warning, and thought you might appreciate my passing it on.)
Good thing we had that chat, because now all this stuff has entered the print universe — some of it was the subject of a column in The Wall Street Journal this morning — and I’m glad I knew about it going in.
But I still can’t tell you of anything Kanye West has ever sung.
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Just tried to amend my ignorance on Pandora, but none of the Kanye West numbers rang any bells for me. I HAD heard that Taylor Swift song, though, even though I couldn’t have told you who she was… So it’s not like I’m totally deaf, dumb and blind to popular culture.
Now I’m listening to some lesser-known 10cc…
I’m not alone! Joe Biden hadn’t heard about Kanye West either…
Kanye’s “Golddigger” is pretty good and “Jesus Walks” has some interesting lyrics.
They covered “Golddigger” on the new Fox show “Glee” last week.
Glee is worth your time more than Kanye is.
Peace out.
My son shared with me some Kanye West quotations:
“My greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.”
“I penetrate pop culture. I write Broadway-level melodies that transcend any genre.”
“I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade.”
Sounds like somebody I don’t WANT to know…