Blog Posts by Chris Willman

In the annals of the Most Disastrous Shows Ever, there is a new entry. Folk-rock singer Michelle Shocked had the plug pulled on her concert Sunday night after launching into an anti-gay-marriage speech that led most of the audience to walk out.

Did we mention that her fans largely lean well to the left, thanks to the liberal politics that previously infused much of her music, and that the gig where she chose to come out (so to speak) as an Old Testament-citing preacher on homosexual issues was in the heart of San Francisco?

Michelle Shocked, in more peaceful timesWord of the debacle began spreading via social media even before the operator of Yoshi's interrupted Shocked's performance to announce that, as a gay man, he could not allow the show to continue and she would have to leave the stage. Ironically, Shocked had spent much of the show asking the crowd to engage with her and even pick her set list via Twitter. It's unclear whether she had any idea that, within hours, outraged former fans would be using that same forum to

Bret Michaels of Poison is turning the big five-oh... but his head scarf doesn't look a day over 40!

In honor of his 50th birthday on March 15, we take a look back at what he'll be most remembered for the rest of his decades. And no, it's not the most inexplicable reality show of all time, Rock of Love, although that's a close second, but the most celebrated metal power ballad ever to come down the pike, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

The tune was Poison's lone No. 1 single, reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the final week of 1988 and carrying over into the first two weeks of '89. But for a song that's nearly half as old as Michaels himself, it's inescapable. For that, you can thank or blame classic rock radio, Glee, Miley Cyrus, the Broadway and film versions of Rock of Ages, Regis Philbin, pop culture shout-outs in everything from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey to The Simpsons... and the fact that Michaels himself seems to re-record it about every other year.

Back in 2009,

Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience doesn't officially come out till March 19, but since fans can already hear the whole thing streaming on iTunes, most critics aren't holding their reviews for the release date. The consensus: He's turned himself into much more of an old-school smoothie on this effort... and the reviewers consider themselves happily smoothed. The praise-to-negativity ratio for 20/20 seems to be running about 90/10.

"The 20/20 Experience"Some of the positive notices stop a bit short of ecstatic, but the overall tone is overwhelmingly positive so far. Numbers and grades tell the tale, as Timberlake's comeback earned a top four out of four stars from People; four out of five stars from both Rolling Stone and the New York Daily News; three out of four stars from USA Today; and 88 out of 100 from Billboard. The critic for Entertainment Weekly waxed a bit more tepid but still gave the album a mostly favorable B grade. The only major outlet wanting to be on record as truly down on the effort at

David Bowie was "the man who sold the world," all right--the man who sold the world on the idea that he was retired for good.

Bowie poses in front of a photo of his younger self with William S. BurroughsIt was only in January that we found out his decade-long disappearance wouldn't be a permanent one--when he used his 66th birthday as the occasion to spring a new single on us without so much as a leak that he'd even darkened the doorway of a recording studio. With this week's release of his comeback album, The Next Day, he's the man who got good reviews from the world, too, as critics rush to proclaim it his best work since the 1980s, if not '70s.

The supersecrecy leading up to the release represents quite a hat trick in an age when literally almost nothing about celebrities is held secret. How'd Bowie manage to pull the wool over our eyes for the past 10 years, when fans assumed he was in failing health since his 2004 heart problems, or content to quit the business to quietly raise his daughter out of the limelight, or both?

The front cover of 'The Next Day'For starters, he wasn't fooling for

Has the Saturday Night Live stage ever been more crowded than it was at the close of this weekend's episode? Jay-Z, Paul Simon, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Alec Baldwin, Candice Bergen, and Andy Samberg were among the non-cast members squeezed onto the set for the collegial close, not to mention an unnamed tuba player.

That may provide the biggest testament to Justin Timberlake's star power and comedy chops: that he was able to preside over the most star-studded and cameo-crammed episode of SNL ever and not be overshadowed. But then, he had to learn how to stand out as the brightest star among luminaries back when he was sharing a stage with Fatone, right?

Just in case the other Justin who recently hosted should get any uppity airs, Timberlake's monologue turned into a lengthy sketch establishing him as the newest member of the exclusive "Five Timers Club," earning a smoking jacket and lounge privileges reserved for hosts who've gotten multiple

Sure, like everybody else, you’ve listened to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon so many times that you can recite not just every line but every heartbeat, clock tick, and cash register ring by heart. But how much do you really know about the landmark prog classic, which is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this month?

To celebrate the 40 years we’ve been listening to what is arguably the preeminent rock album of the 1970s, here are 40 things you ought to know about Dark Side. Because lunacy breeds albums about lunacy, and albums about lunacy breed lunatic obsessions with album trivia. Let’s start with that iconic cover art, shall we?

The original prism coverThe band members spent three minutes deciding on the front cover. Designer Storm Thorgerson brought seven designs into the Abbey Road studio where they were still recording. “The band trooped in, swept their gaze across the designs, looked at each other, nodded, and said ‘That one,’ pointing at the prism. Took all of three minutes,” Thorgerson recalled

Blake Shelton (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)Blake Shelton may seem like a laconic fellow, but behind that casual country ‘tude, there’s obviously a lot of drive that lets him keep three irons in the fire—namely, the imminent arrivals of a new album, a new season of The Voice, and his annual hosting stint for the Academy of Country Music Awards.

During Nashville’s Country Radio Seminar this past week, Shelton sat down with a few key programmers and DJs to preview his forthcoming album, Based on a True Story, which comes out March 26. In a conversation after the playback, he talked about some of the new record’s more provocative songs (like “I’ve Still Got a Finger”) and also how changing partners on The Voice and the ACMs might change the tenor of those gigs. We sat in on the chat and bring you some highlights, here…

On how the chemistry of The Voice has changed by subbing in two new judges:

“The dynamics of the show now are different. I didn’t realize till Cee-Lo and Christina took some time off that that show is really

Jack White has a story about his first impressions of country singer Ashley Monroe. “When I first heard her,” he told me recently, “it was years ago”—back around 2006, to be specific—"when I was driving around and I heard her on the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. I actually pulled over, because I was going into a shop but I was like, ‘I gotta wait and hear what this girl's name is, because I really love her voice.’ And they finally said Ashley Monroe, so I tried to remember that.”

Ashley MonroeWhite continues the tale. “A couple weeks later I'm at the airport and these two girls come up to me and they want an autograph. And I said, 'Okay, what's your name?' And she goes, 'Ashley.' And I said, 'Ashley what?' 'Ashley Monroe.' And I said, 'You're not the singer Ashley Monroe, are you?' And she said, 'Yeah, I am.' I said, 'Oh, I heard you on Grand Ole Opry a couple weeks ago.' 'You're kidding me.' And I see this other girl getting a little bit miffed you know. And' I said, 'Yeah, I really love your