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Earlier this week, I took a look back, as is required of all self-important music critics, at the best of the year's sounds. Next week, I intend to turn to the best of the year's rock and roll looks. Today, therefore, it's either dealing with the year's best smells -- and in rock and roll, that can be a chore -- or looking ahead to 2007, the year that will begin with us being spared one more embarrassing show from James Brown.
Yeah, I know, but if you caught the late Godfather of Soul's Bluesfest show a few years ago, you'll understand. It's sad to see the man go, but in many ways JB left us a long time ago.
Shame, really.
(And Brown is not the first performer to choose to leave this world rather than fulfill a concert obligation in Ottawa. Blues guitarist Roy Buchanan, for example, chose to hang himself upon realizing that Ottawa was among the next stops on his 1988 tour.)
But at least the one-time Hardest Working Man in Show Business was granted one last triumph at the Apollo Theater. As well he should have been. Oh, and a movie -- though like Ray Charles before him, Brown bowed out of production of his bio-pic too soon.
We won't see Brown's life depicted on the big screen (and/or on the small screen at the World Exchange) until 2008, so the man will otherwise not figure into the coming year, other than in the inevitable flood of hastily-arranged hip-hop tributes.
Also a shame, really.
So what does lie ahead, all you rock and rollers? Well, new music from 2Pac, for a start. And newer and better Idols to make life worthwhile.
Possibly new music from The Rolling Stones, either in the form of a live album or a studio album that Keith Richards will suggest is reminiscent of Exile on Main Street. (In that it is an album by The Rolling Stones.) Meanwhile, former Stones producer Andrew Oldham will attempt to remix old tracks into one continuous piece, to be called Hatred, or something like that.
Release from Yoko
Guns 'N' Roses' occasionally-anticipated Chinese Democracy is due to hit shelves March 6. Or not. Yoko Ono, meanwhile, has something called Yes, I'm a Witch slated for February release. That's witch. Not wit. Though she does try.
And lock up your sons: Michael Jackson is reportedly back on American soil. That could be interesting. After all, Britney Spears can't create all the scandals, you know. She too has to think about the children, now and again.
Having been named artist of the year in Spin and person of the year in Time, we shall all let such praise go to our heads. The results are already evident on YouTube. Still, I was flattered to have finally been recognized by Time, if disappointed to have not been contacted for a comment. Seems like the least they could do, frankly.
I'd like to predict that 2007 will be the year in which local artists are finally recognized outside the 613. But there's still an uphill climb ahead of us. I mean, sure, The Hilotrons, The Fiftymen, As the Poets Affirm, My Dad vs Yours, Sleeping Pilot, The Bella Bombs, The Million Dollar Marxists, The Acorn, Black Actors, Embassies of Denmark, The Department of Foreign Affairs, The Soft Disaster, The Solid Senders, The Flaps, Weapons of Mass Seduction, Captain Foxy, The John Henrys and Ukrainia are good. But they're no Nickelback.
Mind you, as long as they promise to continue to not be Nickelback, 2007 should be a fine year for all of the above. And for all of us. Here's to repeating as people/artist of the year.