Time Warp: Music Facts That Put 2015 in Perspective
The Nirvana baby is how old now? Hendrix was paid how much to headline Woodstock? These music facts put 2015 in perspective.
Kidz Bop has how many albums out? The Nirvana baby is how old now? Hendrix was paid how much to headline Woodstock?
Time is a strange beast, constantly destroying its own creations. Most of the time we cope with it by simply forgetting unnecessary information. But there are important lessons in the history books, and that's as true in music as anywhere else. Get some perspective on your life and the career arcs of your favorite artists with this wide-angle view of the world of music.
1.Taylor Swift's 1989 has sold more albums than Austria has people.
Worldwide, Swift's album 1989 has sold more than 8,600,000 copies. That's more than Austria's entire population of 8,526,429 people. Some other countries that have less people than number of Swift albums sold? Israel, Bulgaria, Sierra Leone, Finland, Ireland, and Switzerland. Does this mean T. Swift is building an army of fans to take Austria for her own, then leave it and write a spiteful song about the Alps?
Time will tell.
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3.Earl Sweatshirt was born the year Ready to Die was released.
Ready to Die was released by The Notorious B.I.G. in 1994, the same year a young man now known Earl Sweatshirt was born. Today Earl is 21, and his second full-length album I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside, is out now.
Though they hail from different coasts and belong to different generations, Earl is an embodiment of the lyrical and rhythmic creativity Biggie helped pioneer.
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5.The Nirvana Baby is now in his 20s.
Spencer Elden is most commonly known as the "Nirvana Baby," the infant gracing the album cover of Nirvana's breakthrough album Nevermind. At the time of the photograph, Elden was only four months old. Today he is 23 years old, and seems pretty well-adjusted for a guy who flashed his junk to the world before he could walk.
In a recent interview with the Guardian, Elden says, "My parents took me down to the photo shoot, apparently they blew in my face to stimulate my gag reflex, dunked me in, took some pictures, and pulled me out. And that was it. They were paid $200 and went to eat tacos afterwards. No big deal."
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7.Paul McCartney's Kanye collab came 44 years after The Beatles broke up.
McCartney was not only featured on Kanye West's 2014 single "Only One," he also helped write and produce the hit. Shortly afterwards in 2015, McCartney collaborated with West again on "FourFiveSeconds." The two songs instantly permeated every level of music and also happened to be quality work.
The Beatles broke up on April 10, 1970, a full 44 years before Paul got together with Kanye. In between, he kept busy with Wings and a solo career that's still going. In terms of longevity, Paul's only real competition these days are The Rolling Stones, who we'll get to. In terms of staying relevant and working with new artists, however, Paul stands alone. Pretty impressive for a dead man.
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9.Justin Bieber's first Youtube video came 30 years after Elvis' last performance.
Justin Bieber's rise to fame started in 2007. After getting second place in a local singing competition covering Ne-Yo's "So Sick", Bieber's mother posted the video on YouTube, eventually resulting in the mass of Beliebers dominating today's internet. But before Bieber, there was Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll. You could even say Bieber is following in the footsteps of Elvis who was also a sex symbol that drove his fans crazy and ran afoul of the law every once in a while.
By his last concert, however, Elvis had bloated into a shadow of his former self and had one foot in the grave. The 1977 show took place in Indianapolis, Indiana. Elvis was 42 and would pass away just months later. So careful with that rockstar lifestyle, Biebs. You don't want to end up fat and dead.
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12.Tupac and Biggie would be in their 40s.
Tupac, born on June 16, 1971, would 43 today. Biggie, born on May 21, 1971, would be 42. It's a fool's errand to try and imagine how the world would be different with them here today, but it's safe to say the careers of today's rappers (Kendrick Lamar and Jay Z, to name a couple) would have taken a different path.
Alas, they didn't make it this far. But their memories survive in their music. And in somewhat unnerving portraits of what they would look like today.
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[caption id="attachment_511775" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Image via XXL[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_511777" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Tupac & Jada Pinkett Shakur via John Gara/Buzzfeed[/caption]
14.The Rolling Stones have been around for 53 years.
The Rolling Stones formed in London in 1962. That year was the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis and marked the first time people could tune in to a cross-Atlantic television signal. Also in 1962: you could buy a dozen eggs for 32 cents, a gallon of gas for 28 cents, and tuition to Harvard was $1,520.
The Stones, of course, are still touring with great success, selling out shows around the world with songs that have proved to be timeless classics. Our only regret is that Mick Jagger didn't stick with this hair.
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16.There are now 28 Kidz Bop albums.
Cripes. The newest album Kidz Bop 28 is slated to be released March 23, 2015, number 28 in the series' history. It's been a while since the original Kidz Bop was released in 2001, with kids covering pop hits like Britney Spears "Oops!... I Did it Again" and Smash Mouth's "Superstar."
The most recent version includes covers of Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk" ("I'm too hot, hot yeah!") and Calvin Harris' "Blame." Time to get funky, kids! Put that juice box DOWN!
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18.Jimi Hendrix was only paid $18,000 to headline Woodstock.
For headlining and closing out the festival with his epic rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner," Hendrix was paid $18,000 for his services. Adjusted for inflation, that's $115,122 today. Not too shabby.
But Calvin Harris is pulling down nearly three times that much per show, and no offense to Dr. Harris, but Jimi was one in a billion.
Today the likes of Justin Bieber, Justin Timberland and Madonna require a cool $1 million for one performance. But can they do this?
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20.Eminem's daughter Hailie is a freshman in college.
Hailie was made famous in Eminem's songs, but she's done just fine on her own, too. She graduated from high school last spring, was homecoming queen with a 3.9 GPA and is currently studying at Michigan State.
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22.Dr. Dre's last album was released when Drake was still on Degrassi.
15-year-old Drake (then Aubrey Graham) got his big break in 2001 when he was cast as Degrassi's Wheelchair Jimmy. Back then, Dr. Dre had just released The Chronic: 2001 and was still a fixture in the rap game. The two have gone separate ways since. Drake has skyrocketed to fame as a rapper, and Dre has built a media empire around his Beats headphones—without releasing any other music.
Coincidentally, 2001 is also the year Dr. Dre made a rare appearance on film in the Denzel classic Training Day. He played Paul, one of Denzel's crew. And he was pretty good! "You a long way from Starbucks, homie."
23.It's been 25 years since Milli Vanilli had their Grammys taken away.
Milli Vanilli members Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan might have been dancers and models, but singers they were not. After winning the 1990 Grammy award for Best New Artist, the award was taken away in fall of the same year after their legendary lie was uncovered. To be fair, they were young artists who, in the end, were taken advantage of by the evils of the music industry. R.I.P Rob Pilatus.
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25.It's been 24 years since the creation of the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.
The Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album was created in 1991, maybe as a reaction to the Milli Vanilli fiasco the year previous. Its first winner was Sinéad O'Connor for her album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got.
This year's winner? St. Vincent's self-titled album. Other notable winners have included Radiohead's Kid A (2001), Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York (1996), and Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeux Phoenix (2010).
The Grammys may get a lot wrong, but at least they get it right sometimes.
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27.George Clinton has worked with everybody from James Brown to Kendrick Lamar.
George Clinton has been. The Parliament Funkadelic legend's list of collaborators reads like a who's who of modern music, from the sixties up to the present day: James Brown, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Wu Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Outkast, Redman, and, most recently, Kendrick Lamar. Salute the god when you see him.
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29.Wu-Tang Clan's new album will come out more than a century after their first.
In addition to a custom-made, one-of-a-kind box, the long-awaited Wu-Tang album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin comes with a clause that prevents commercial release for 88 years. This means that the Wu's last album will come out commercially in 2103—that is, 110 years after Enter The 36 Chambers.
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31.Only five hip-hop artists have ever gone diamond.
Outkast, Eminem, Tupac, Biggie and MC Hammer (?!) are the only artists from the genre to surpass the Diamond sales category (10+ million records sold), and given recent trends in album sales and the advent of digital downloads and streaming, this might be the final list.