  Noel Gallagher of Oasis |
Here's the best of what pop and rock stars had to say to yours truly in 2005:
2005 RANT OF THE YEAR
Noel Gallagher of Oasis wins the prize for best quote as he summed up Live 8 to the Sun's Jane Stevenson:
"But I don't like the way that somebody suddenly decides that all the bands in England are going to fookin' play and everybody jumps to attention.
"No, it's the general thing that rock stars should be doing something to fookin' sort this out.
"The fate of the African continent does not fookin' depend on a load of fookin' musicians in Hyde Park singing fookin' shit songs to kids. And they're saying they're fookin' raising awareness for it.
"If you're not aware of it by now, you can be aware of it for the half-hour. But I bet you that 99% of that audience will walk out while they're still eating McDonald's on the way home and won't realize that by actually standing in McDonald's you're perpetuating poverty in some way.
"I think, more effective is taking out some of the fookin' government leaders in Africa and starting again, really. A crook is a crook right? Saddam Hussein sat on a load of oil, right? Look at (Zimbabwe president Robert) Mugabe, sat on a load of shit. So he gets to perpetuate evil against his people.
"Team America -- the American army -- should be in Africa, shouldn't they? All the little puppets going around taking out African leaders. That would be my solution to it. Well, I mean if they really want to do good for the world. That's what I'd do.
"I don't believe pop music, or Annie Lennox singing Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) is going to do anybody any favours, apart from Annie Lennox."
AWARD-WORTHY QUOTES:
"I might put on the Quebecois traditional outfit, like a hunting vest and snowshoes and a big tuque and T-shirt saying, 'Come and get our water, motherf--ckers!'"
- Montreal Grammy nominee Benoit Charest jokes about a possible outfit
"My mom says, 'It's just nice to be nominated.' But she's wrong. It's nice to win."
- David Foster on the Grammys
"You make music from your heart and everything, you speak your soul. But when someone asks you a question, you're not actually supposed to speak your mind."
- Kanye West on telling reporters backstage at the 2004 American Music Awards that he was "definitely robbed" when he walked away empty-handed
"All my awards are important. I've got a museum full of awards and they're great. I mean, every time I get one I holler, 'Museum!' "
- Loretta Lynn
"I like the part about 'best work.' I'm not sure I like the part about 'in three decades.' " - Neil Diamond on his latest album, 12 Songs, being called his best in 30 years
SPEAKING THEIR MIND:
"I was hanging all over AC/DC singer Brian Johnson. C'mon - guys who write songs about venereal diseases? I think I can go up to them."
- Kathleen Edwards on being unafraid to approach AC/DC backstage at SARS-Stock in 2004
"We weren't just like, 'Oh, my God, I just want to absorb everything you have to say.' We were just more like, 'Want a beer?' I think they liked the fact that we weren't just up their ass, basically."
- Kings Of Leon drummer Nathan Followill on getting the opening slot for U2
"I'm not that vain to think, 'Well, I'm just going to ditch my movie career for a while and go on the road with this piece of crap."
- actress-turned-singer Minnie Driver
"I thought it was f--king amazing. Did they have irony in the '60s? I don't know."
- ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl on watching Paul Anka doing a lounge version of Smells Like Teen Spirit on Letterman
"I saw Paul and Bono being fabulous and I saw four stupid guys in Pepper suits. I thought Paul should have worn the suit and Bono and Bob Geldof should have worn them. Then it would have been a real statement."
- Ringo Starr on Paul McCartney and U2 opening the Live 8 concert in London with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with four Beatles' lookalikes in band suits
"I don't think America is open to a Canadian kid coming across and telling them exactly what hip-hop is about. They're basically ignorant of Canada. For all they know it's a northern place that you come to and ski."
- K-OS on not holding his breath for a U.S. breakthrough
"Obviously, at this point, FOX has done a full investigation of it, independently, and found out that he is full of crap."
- Clay Aiken on Corey's Clark's claims he had an affair with American Idol judge Paula Abdul
ON DISCIPLINE, OR LACK OF IT:
"I just said, 'It was now time to sing and put my pants back on.' "
- Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears on giving up go-do dancing for music
"I would say it's exactly the same life except we swapped an Oldsmobile '98 for a tour bus, and the aftershows are a little more perverse."
- Kings Of Leon drummer Nathan Followill on the difference between touring as a rock band or previously as the sons of a travelling southern preacher
"We just got so coked out in the late '80s that we didn't know left from right."
- Billy Idol on the reason for his split from guitarist Steve Stevens
"I don't know how on earth to re-introduce her book. Because I can't say, 'What a great butt!' "
- Robert Plant on famous groupie Pamela Des Barres asking him to write a new introduction to I'm With The Band
"It was a drag man. I'd never been in jail before. Here I was 68 years old and it's the first time. Well, I said, 'I guess I've done that now.' "
- Glen Campbell on his 10-day jail stay last year for extreme drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident
ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER ONE:
"I had a little convulsion. It wasn't anything that major, but it meant that I had to stop, which was kind of wonderful for me."
- Marianne Faithfull on her collapse before a concert in Milan in Dec. 2004
"I've almost died loads of times. I actually read my obituary once in The New York Times in 1987 or '88."
- wild-man rocker Billy Idol
"Lyrically, I'm kind of on my own. They will throw out some suggestions sometimes (like), 'I like that ass.' I'm like, 'Guys, as much as I would love to put that in there, I think it's going to take it somewhere else.' "
- Beck on reuniting with production duo The Dust Brothers on his latest record
"Certain things are limiting - Michael Jackson didn't have choruses like 'That's the crack music n-gga.' That might throw off parents slightly."
- Kanye West on how his new song, Crack Music, must diminish hopes of his latest album, Late Registration, breaking the sales of Jackson's Thriller
"I'm still 17 inside. I still want to know what the first French kiss feels like, what holding hands feels like, what it's like to experience the voice of the spirits in Grand Canyon - all of that."
- Carlos Santana
"I didn't think, 'This is the end of my career.' There was definitely moments of 'What's going to happen to me?' "
- Ashlee Simpson on her SNL lip-synch debacle
"I thought, 'I had such balls!' "
- Liza Minnelli on watching herself in the restored Liza With a Z 1972 TV special
"I said 'No way, that would be like so embarrassing - the song stylings of Sandy Cohen --what am I going to do? Luck Be A Lady Tonight when I'm putting my socks in the drawer?' "
- Peter Gallahger on initially resisting The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz's desire to have him sing on the show
"Looking back on it, I've been a square peg in a round hole."
- controversial Irish singer Sinead O'Connor
ON GETTING OLDER AND POSSIBLY WISER:
"When we get together on stage, he has told me he sings better, I've told him I play better."
- Randy Bachman on his relationship with Burton Cummings
"If somebody my age isn't asking the questions that I'm asking on the record, or talking about the themes I'm talking about, then they're just trying to sell soap. I've done that. I've sold soap, and I'm not really interested in doing that anymore."
- Sheryl Crow
"It's great to be 60, in a funny way. I know I'm on the downward slope, but I have my skis on and I'm just having a ball."
- Bette Midler
FAMOUS PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT EACH OTHER:
"Courtney Love tried to show him her boobs. We were like, 'Dude, stay away from her. She's a freak!' "
- Kings Of Leon singer Caleb Followill on his father attending the band's L.A. gig
"You just walk in and Peg's in the kitchen getting stuff ready. David Crosby's by the fire, smoking a joint. It's like, 'What the f--k?' But it's cool."
- Dave Grohl on attending a barbecue at Neil Young's house the night before his annual Bridge Benefit concert in San Francisco
"I never thought I'd see Larry playing keyboards at a U2 show."
- The Edge on drummer Larry Mullen Jr.'s coming out from behind his kit on their Vertigo tour
"The thing we've created, Eurythmics, becomes another head on your shoulder. It's kind of daunting sometimes, and really good fun other times."
- Dave Stewart on working with Annie Lennox for several decades
"I think he would have adopted him."
- INXS guitarist Tim Farriss on what the late Michael Hutchence would have thought of his replacement, Canada's J.D. Fortune
"Maybe when we're old and on the cruise ship - The Diana Krall-Elvis Costello Christmas Show. We'll be out there with our little walkers."
- Diana Krall jokes about when she'll record a Christmas duet with hubby Elvis Costello
"That high school boy that was inside of us all, who just wants to jam, is still there."
- Lenny Kravitz on Steven Tyler
"If has to be stressful to know that you can't really sing."
- Sheryl Crow on Lindsay Lohan
STYLE COUNCIL:
"I get female groupies, but I don't get male groupies. I have women who offer to sleep with me all the time. But not men. They're all talk and nay action - as we'd say in Scotland."
- Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson
"I've always appreciated mistakes rather than perfection, you know. I don't trust anything that's too perfect. And there's an old expression, 'The better the voice, the less you can trust what they say.' "
- Leslie Feist
"A lot of times I don't try to overtly dress sexy. In fact, I've actually made an extra effort not to. It's important to me that people know I am an artist, and not just some men's trophy model."
- Fergie
