92 Year in Review : The Cover Thing : Year of the Bare--and Other Fun Atrocities
It was the year everyone went too far.
“Sex” auteur Madonna, the dominatrix of hype, bared her breasts at pizza counters, gas stations and fashion shows, finally crossing the line from pop provocateur to self-parody.
Ice-T fought the law--and the law won, causing such a stink that the rap star withdrew his band’s “Cop Killer” song.
Sister Souljah said: “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”
Everybody made a spectacle of themselves: Howard Stern bared his bottom on the MTV Awards. Dr. Dre got arrested again. After dismissing Mike Tyson’s rape victim as “a bitch,” Sinead O’Connor tore up a photo of Pope John II on “Saturday Night Live,” which earned her a scolding from (of all people) Madonna for “ripping up an image that means a lot to other people.”
It was also the year record companies went from impassioned guardians of free speech to staunch defenders of corporate responsibility, a switch which neatly coincided with angry criticism from stockholders and political leaders over rap lyrics advocating violence against police.
It was also a year of unexpected fashion trends:
Kris Kross put their pants on backward and started a teen craze. Axl Rose wore shorts. Marky Mark wore underwear. Prince wore a yellow pantsuit.
Jon Bon Jovi got a haircut. House of Pain wore goatees. Billy Ray Cyrus wore a ponytail. Elton John wore a wi . . . well, more hair than he wore last year.
As always, it was a banner year for pop follies. To celebrate the music world’s clown princes, Pop Eye presents its yearly roundup of dubious achievements, inglorious moments and show-biz misadventures:
And Make Sure the Courvoisier Is Chilled to 49 Degrees, Will Ya?: The 1992 edition of Frank Sinatra’s concert rider specifies that his dressing room be supplied with: 12 rolls of cherry LifeSavers, 24 sodas (“75% diet”), six boxes of Kleenex, a carton of unfiltered Camels, six linen napkins, one bag of miniature Tootsie Rolls, a hot plate with two burners, and one bottle each of Absolut vodka, Jack Daniel’s whiskey, Chivas Regal scotch, Beefeater gin and Courvoisier cognac.
At Least He Didn’t Make Them Watch the Miniseries: Bruce Janu, a teacher at Chicago’s Riverside Brookfield High School, started the Frank Sinatra Detention Club, punishing tardy students by making them stay after school and listen to Sinatra songs.
They Must’ve Forgotten That He Wrote a Song With Bob Dylan: Hearing that music writers backstage booed when he won a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal, Michael Bolton angrily dismissed pop critics as “chimpanzees who throw paint on Rembrandts and Van Goghs.”
Maybe Macaulay Culkin’s Little Brother Wasn’t Available: When producers were casting the ABC-TV miniseries “The Jacksons: An American Dream,” Michael Jackson asked that they find a white child to play him as a young boy.
Does This Mean We’ll Have to Call Him ‘King of Perfume’?: Michael Jackson released his first line of perfume this fall, lending his name to a fragrance for men, Legende de Michael Jackson, and a fragrance for women, Mystique de Michael Jackson.
But Physically He Feels Like Keith Richards: At the end of a long baseball season, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jose Rijo told a local sports writer: “Mentally, I feel like Marvin Gaye--dead.”
Don’t Worry, at Least She Didn’t Eat Any Fried Foods: Vanity Fair quoted Courtney Love, lead singer of Hole and wife of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, saying she used heroin early in her pregnancy. Still pregnant, Love posed for a photograph accompanying the Vanity Fair article with a lit cigarette in hand. Then editor Tina Brown, while letting the heroin comment pass, ordered the cigarette airbrushed out of the photo because, a VF spokeswoman said, “smoking during pregnancy endangers the baby’s health.”
Press Release of the Year: The Shock Ink publicity firm boasted that its Irish rock-band client, Fatima Mansions, had recorded a song advocating cop killing two years before Ice-T’s song surfaced, saying the band’s tune included such memorable lyrics as: “Kill a cop, ahhh, why the hell not?”
Wait Till He Gets His Fatima Mansions Album in the Mail: Outraged over the lyrics to Body Count’s “Cop Killer,” Charlton Heston stood outside a Time Warner stockholder meeting in Beverly Hills and recited the song’s lyrics.
He Still Hasn’t Found What He’s Looking For: During U2’s Zoo tour this year, Bono placed phone calls from the stage to British prime minister John Major, the White House, the Home Shopping Club, a pizza delivery chain and a phone-sex service.
We Knew He Was Old, But Not THAT Old: When Bill Clinton takes the oath of office Jan. 20, Mick Jagger will be older than the president of the United States.
And the ‘Bill Clinton Being-All-Things-to-All-People Award’ Goes to: Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, who appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: “Corporate Rock Magazines Suck.”
Election Campaign Quote of the Year: Trying to make a case for voting Democratic this year, Atlantic Records exec Danny Goldberg told a music industry convention crowd: “The difference between Tipper Gore and Marilyn Quayle is the difference between a bad toothache and a heart attack.”
If They Gave a Grammy for Homophobia It Would Go To: Def Jam Records tycoon Russell Simmons, who told the Washington Post one reason he bowed out as co-founder of rap magazine Vibe was because “they didn’t hire one straight black man to work on that magazine.”
Pop Stardom Has Its Ups . . .: Amazed by her first brush with pop notoriety, Tori Amos told Hits Magazine: “I went from a failed child prodigy to being called a bimbo in Billboard at 23.”
. . .and Its Downs: Nerves frayed after Wilson Phillips’ new album flopped on the charts, Carnie Wilson told Entertainment Weekly: “It’s a high-stress job. I’m 24 and I feel like I’m 40.”
Oh, Now We Understand: Angry that A&M; Records refused to release a song titled “Bullet With Your Name On It” (sample lyrics: “If you ever, ever put a nightstick up to my head / I’m gonna shoot ya (expletive) ass dead”), rapper Intelligent Hoodlum justified the song’s lyrics, telling the Village Voice: “It’s about people empowering themselves against the police.”
What Do You Mean, Not Even One Mention of Billy Ray Cyrus?: According to an Entertainment Weekly head count, Michael Crichton’s controversial novel “Rising Son” featured the following pop star references: Madonna (seven), Cher (two) and Michael Jackson (one).
Busch League: Blaming “dinner and drinks” before the show, an apparently inebriated Hank Williams Jr. ended his Bonner Springs, Kan., concert after 15 minutes, prompting Budweiser to withdraw its sponsorship of his tour.
Did We Leave Out Tawdry?: “What’s extraordinary about Madonna,” Roger Waters told US magazine, “is that she’s made all these rotten records and she’s this awful, ugly, dull person who--by virtue of the fact that she’s completely shameless and blatant and cheap and bad--has become successful.”
