‘A lot of her music has a very big influence of everything from rock to pop to hip-hop,’ producer tells Mixtape Daily. By Rob Markman Willow Smith Photo: Getty Images Behind the Beats: Jukebox Willow Smith took music fans by surprise in 2010 when she dropped her debut single, “Whip My Hair.” Will Smith’s swagged-out offspring blended a pop sound with a distinct urban sensibility, and producer Ronald “Jukebox” Jackson was largely responsible for the platinum hit. So what’s next musically for the 10-year-old singer? Jukebox tells Mixtape Daily that Willow is in the process of finishing up her Roc Nation debut . “I did like eight, nine songs on Willow, so right now, we’re in the process of just trying to close out the album,” he said. “It’s just the whole process. You got to think about it: She’s a 10-year old girl. She’s gotta have a life, she’s gotta be a kid.” According to Jukebox, the album will contain a myriad of sounds. “Willow is kind of a combination of what ‘Whip My Hair’ was. Willow just isn’t a pop star, she isn’t just an urban artist; she’s very international,” he explained. “A lot of her music has a very big influence of everything from rock to pop to hip-hop.” On “Rock Star,” fans will hear a different side of Willow, and Jukebox — who also did the music for Swizz Beatz and Chris Brown’s “Dance Like a White Girl” — hopes it will be her next hit. “Next single which I’m praying for is a record I did called ‘Rock Star.’ … She’s been performing it everywhere. It’s getting very great reaction,” he said. “We also did a record with Diggy Simmons that’s incredible. … She’s just a combination of everything pretty much.” For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines . Related Artists Willow Smith Jukebox
Onetime ‘120 Minutes’ host Dave Kendall relives that Sunday night the generation-defining clip debuted. By James Montgomery, with reporting by Andréa Duncan-Mao Kurt Cobain Photo: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images On September 29, 1991, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video premiered on MTV’s “120 Minutes,” an event that, in the years that followed, would come to signify the beginning of rock’s great renaissance and usher in a cultural shift that would define a generation. Of course, back then, it was just another video on another Sunday night, and no one — not even “120” host Dave Kendall — thought otherwise. “I have to say, quite honestly, as soon as I heard that record and saw that video, I had no idea they were going to be as huge as they were,” he laughed. “I was very, very impressed. I was moved but I really didn’t have any idea it would explode to the extent it did. There’s the truth.” To be fair, no one did. And so, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the album “Teen Spirit” was meant to promote — Nevermind, of course — MTV News spoke with Kendall about the days before Nirvana became the biggest band in the world and about the alt-rock explosion that followed in their immediate wake. Needless to say, once “Teen Spirit” hit, everything changed and, as host of “120,” he had a front-row seat for all of it. “At that time, most of the music ‘120’ was playing was quite separate from the rest of MTV. Some stuff had crossed over — like, we played Midnight Oil, we played Sinead O’Connor, we played Depeche Mode, the Cure — but a lot of our stuff was really closeted. It was still in this ‘alternative’ genre,” he explained. “So the mood in the building at that point was ‘Some alternative acts might cross over, the others wouldn’t.’ Like, if MTV had known that Nirvana was going to be as huge as they [were], they would’ve world-premiered the video in prime time, not late-night Sunday on ‘120 Minutes.’ But then, I didn’t know either!” And how could he? After all, since creating “120 Minutes” in 1986 (and beginning hosting duties soon after), Kendall had been focused on trying to find bands he loved — “I was a bit stuck in my Anglo-centric, industrial, techno-pop mode,” he laughed — and hadn’t been paying attention to the storm that was brewing in the Pacific Northwest. So when the “Teen Spirit” video appeared at MTV, he’d never even heard of the band that would subsequently change the world. “I hadn’t heard Bleach, I wasn’t that aware of new, American rock … when I first heard the Nevermind record,” he said. “I thought it was going to be another Seattle record, so I was a little suspicious and a little resistant to it because I thought it was going to be a lot of guitars, sort of a ’70s feel. I didn’t think it was going to be something new,” he continued. “And then when I heard it, I knew I’d been wrong. It wasn’t just heavy, it wasn’t just rock, it was real melancholy, real passion, real vulnerability, the way it married intense rage with deep melancholy and sadness. And that really touched me.” Little did Kendall know that within a year the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video would help bring “120 Minutes” to the mainstream and forever alter the show’s playlist too. It’s little wonder, then, that he’d leave the show the following year, though, with the benefit of 20 years’ worth of hindsight, he can finally appreciate everything that happened following the premiere of that one little video. And, much like the rest of us, Kendall’s still amazed by it all. “It definitely changed the landscape of alternative music at that point. It had become slightly more guitar-heavy over the previous couple of years, partly because of the Seattle grunge influence, but that was the record that ushered in the ‘grunge era’ into the ‘alternative mainstream,’ ” he said. “It brought guitars back into the music, and took the emphasis away from keyboards and synthesizers. It was gutsy and heavy and authentic, and that’s what changed the landscape. Nirvana opened people’s eyes.” Stick with MTV News as we reveal the Nevermind You Never Knew , celebrating the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s definitive album with classic footage, new interviews and much more. Related Artists Nirvana
Kurt Cobain was disappointed with the first version — so he went in and edited it himself. By Gil Kaufman Kurt Cobain Photo: MTV News It’s one of the most iconic videos in music history, up there with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” or Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” But to hear late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain tell it, he wasn’t that happy with how the final version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” turned out, which is why he went in at the last minute and tweaked it himself. “Although it worked … I like the video overall, but it wasn’t what I pictured in my mind,” Cobain said in a December 13, 1993, interview with MTV News about the clip that helped launch a rock revolution and turned his band into unwitting grunge poster children. “When I come up with an idea for a video, I want it to be translated exactly how I see it in my mind … and it just wasn’t that way.” Nirvana’s rise to fame, in their own words. Cobain — who was notoriously hands-on with all the imagery associated with the band, including creating the artwork for their album covers — said Nirvana just didn’t take enough time to prep themselves for the shoot. “We didn’t prepare ourselves enough to have as much control as we wanted to,” he explained, perhaps alluding to the fact that the clip was the first one the band filmed after making the huge leap from cash-strapped Seattle indie label Sub Pop to major label Geffen/DGC as a still mostly unknown new act. Cobain described walking in on the first day of shooting of the video — for the first single from what would become their smash breakthrough, 1991’s Nevermind — with director Sam Bayer (Green Day, Justin Timberlake, The Strokes) and realizing that the set did not look as he had imagined or drawn in his storyboarding for the clip. “I told him what I wanted, I drew pictures of it, and I walked in and it wasn’t what I wanted,” Cobain said. “It looked like a Time-Life commercial to me, with that backdrop, it just looked like such a contemporary … you know those kind of commercials where people are sitting there trying to sell aspirin or something? Or an AT&T commercial? That’s what it looked like to me; it looked too contemporary.” Even though he was disappointed with the look of the set, Cobain had high praise for the super-jacked real fans who were trucked in to fill out the bleachers in the studio for the exhausting 12-hour shoot. “Still, the kids made the video,” he said. “Even after Sam had edited it … he edited it and sent it to me and I didn’t like it, and I flew down at the last minute to L.A. and edited it myself. I threw in a few extra things which pretty much saved it.” Reluctant to toot his own horn (while, you know, totally tooting his own horn), Cobain added that there was “a lot of really good” footage that Bayer had shot that wasn’t used. “If a lot of that hadn’t been used, it would have been a really bad video,” he laughed, alluding to the shots of the (over) excited kids trashing the set. “There wasn’t really a lot of that, and most of the stuff that was used looked really contrived. There was no spontaneity in it. So I just threw all the spontaneous parts in.” Stick with MTV News all week as we reveal the Nevermind You Never Knew , celebrating the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s definitive album with classic footage, new interviews and much more. Related Videos Nirvana: The Nevermind You Never Knew
Twenty years. That’s long enough to make you feel nostalgic (or just old), and it’s how long Seattle rock band Pearl Jam has been in existence as of this year. That milestone is marked by a new documentary, Pearl Jam Twenty , chronicling their tragic beginnings as Mother Love Bone, through their triumphs to the present. Almost Famous director Cameron Crowe the band members themselves combine to make a riveting film, one about much more than music history and hits. The group’s impact on its fans and the musical culture at large is nearly peerless. Check out the trailer below, then read Movie Fanatic’s Pearl Jam 20 review : Pearl Jam 20 Trailer
Critics accuse director Cameron Crowe over fawning over the band, but fans probably won’t mind. By Eric Ditzian Eddie Vedder in “Pearl Jam Twenty” Photo: Vinyl Films In a neat bit of pop-culture convergence, the 20th-anniversary commemoration of Nirvana’s Nevermind (which MTV News has been feting all week long) is coinciding with another grunge-centric, two-decade celebration: Cameron Crowe’s documentary about the founding and globe-spanning success of Pearl Jam . “When I saw the early … edits of it, I thought it was very interesting and kind of exciting and, like I said, it runs the gamut of all those emotions,” guitarist Mike McCready told us in May. “And it actually put in some sort of musical perspective the past 20 years, like, ‘Oh yeah, we did do that, we did do this’: the Ticketmaster thing, there was Roskilde, there were all these issues, and there were these great highs and interesting beginnings. The story it tells is: Why did it work, and why does it still? It made more sense when I saw the movie.” After debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, “Pearl Jam Twenty” is set for a one-night-only premiere at theaters across the country Tuesday (September 20). The early word from critics is that while the doc gives fans unique access to the band, especially in early footage hauled out from the achieves, it suffers from director Cameron Crowe’s hagiographic treatment of his subject. But that might just be exactly what PJ devotees are looking for. The Comparison “Cameron Crowe’s feature doc … is among his most effective and deeply felt work. … Every rock act possesses a mysterious alchemy that becomes a kind of mythology; as a portrait of one of the biggest bands in the world, ‘Pearl Jam Twenty’ doesn’t so much capture that alchemy as describe it. But it does so with passion, and even the unconverted will find a convincing case for the band’s longevity, popularity and influence.” — Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter The Focus “Crowe, who does a remarkable job of collecting archival footage from the band’s earliest days (and even before that) focuses heavily on [the band’s early days]. He narrates the beginning (before getting almost totally out of the way), setting the stage for the late ’80s and early ’90s, when Seattle was the rock music capital of the world. Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell talks about how there was a wealth of bands, but unlike in New York or Los Angeles, the competition tended to be more friendly than cut throat. Even later, when the twin towers of the Seattle scene — Pearl Jam and Nirvana — seemed ready to face off after Kurt Cobain slagged Pearl Jam’s music for being too mainstream, they resolved their differences before Cobain died.” — Melinda Newman, HitFix The Fandom “The cinematic equivalent of a concert T-shirt, XXL biodocu ‘Pearl Jam Twenty’ gives another awesome souvenir to die-hard fans of the chart-topping Seattle scenesters-turned-cult faves while leaving others to wish there was a thesis in former rock-journo Cameron Crowe’s two-hour puff piece. Finding a pulse only in the band’s late-reel performance of ‘Alive,’ a lusty passage that would’ve begun a pic intent on making a case for the group’s greatness, ‘Twenty’ simply counts the years from 1991 via sludgy backstage and onstage footage whose rarity can’t forgive its inclusion. Crowe’s critic mentor, the late Lester Bangs, would cringe.” — Rob Nelson, Variety The Frontman “Before Vedder was vaguely mystical and a little inscrutable, he was boyish, smiley and uninhibited. Vedder doesn’t come through any clearer after ‘Pearl Jam Twenty,’ but the band’s journey remains a thoroughly entertaining one. Any enterprise like this is inherently self-congratulatory, but the film is best considered from Crowe’s perspective: that of a fan.” — Jake Coyle, The Associated Press The Final Word “[It] suffers from being an all-out fawnapalooza. Crowe, a former Rolling Stone reporter, wastes unprecedented access to one of modern rock’s most private, compelling and enigmatic acts to create little more than a promotional video for Pearl Jam’s non-stop tours. There’s plenty to elicit fist pumps from steadfast fans, largely because of rare archival footage. (A silly slow dance between security guard-turned-rocker Eddie Vedder and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain is lump-in-the-throat poignant). Yet Crowe glosses over too many of Pearl Jam’s darkest days — a drummer’s mysterious firing, addiction battles, nine fans dying at a show — to keep non-Jammers from getting bored.” — Joseph Rose, The Oregonian For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Artists Pearl Jam
Hip-hop/dance producer/DJ reportedly died from fatal injuries on Tuesday after roof of his Paris home collapsed. By Adam Murphy DJ Mehdi Photo: Taylor Hill/ WireImage French hip-hop/dance producer DJ Mehdi, who began his career on the underground Parisian hip-hop scene, died on Tuesday (September 13). According to several reports , the DJ/producer (born Mehdi Fav
Indie band takes MTV News on a post-Bumbershoot vintage-shopping spree in Seattle. By Matt Elias David Price of Brite Futures Photo: MTV News SEATTLE — On a sunny Sunday morning, local band Brite Futures stood outside of the Fremont Vintage Mall, still riding high from playing the main stage at the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival the previous day. Despite a late night of celebrating, BF graciously invited MTV News to check out one of their favorite hometown haunts. “We’re here at the Fremont Vintage Mall,” singer Shaun Libman explained. “This is a place with a lot of crazy stuff, and we always find something weird and cool here.” Thus, we went into the kitschy vintage store with three-fifths of the band. As for the other two members, singer/guitarist Luke Smith told us, “One actually has a real job. I shouldn’t say that, but he’s working at a cafe right now. And the other is our drummer, and he just floats around and we never really know where he is.” Inside the store, an eclectic blend of choice records, vintage threads and everything in between (like a velvet Elvis painting) is laid out on two levels. The band quickly took to a set of ’90s neon Looney Tunes caps, which, if you think about it, perfectly sum up the synth-happy indie-rock band: bright, fun and electric. Moving on, Libman spotted a faux-snakeskin trench coat. “Everybody has to have one snakeskin jacket in their repertoire,” Libman declared. “If anybody can pull that off, Luke Smith can.” Without hesitation, Smith threw on the coat and posed for our camera. Once he found his choice, the other members went on the hunt for their personal picks. After sifting through some records, singer and multi-instrumentalist Claire England saw a totally rad ’80s gold gown. “This is my prom dress,” England said. “Who’s your prom date?” Libman asked. “Justin Bieber,” England coyly replied, adding that they would slow dance to one of his songs while he sings it to her. The band continued on, finding an old prosthetic leg, a bin of black-light posters and a vintage Seattle SuperSonics hat (from their beloved former home team, whose arena they played in the day before). Spending the morning with the band, it was hard not to be enveloped by their enthusiasm. After all, they’ve got a new album, Dark Past, dropping November 1. It’s BF’s first full-length since 2008’s Glistening Pleasure, when they were known as Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head (a name Natalie Portman apparently wasn’t cool with). With infectious singles like “Baby Rain” and “Too Young to Kill,” no doubt you’ll be hearing a lot more from this band over the coming months. But before then, the band had to settle on some purchases at the Fremont Vintage Mall. At the checkout, they decided on one of the Looney Toons hats, the gold ’80s prom dress, a vinyl soundtrack from Disney’s “The Rescuers,” the snakeskin coat, a prosthetic limb and a plastic flamingo — you know, just your average Sunday purchases in Seattle. Related Artists Brite Futures
‘I’m gonna put on a hell of a show,’ rapper tells MTV News. By Rob Markman Big Sean Photo: Imeh Akpanudosen/ Getty Images Big Sean is ready to take his show on the road. Beginning October 2, the G.O.O.D. Music MC will begin his I Am Finally Famous Tour, a 30-city run that concludes November 25 in Los Angeles. “I’m embarking on my first solo tour this fall, and I passed up a lot of good opportunities, but I’m still gonna be a part of those opportunities one way or another,” Sean told MTV News. “I really thought it was important to do my own solo tour.” The Detroit rapper most recently was out on the road with Wiz Khalifa as part of his Rolling Papers tour, and in the past he talked about the possibility of joining Jay-Z and Kanye West on their Watch the Throne run. Sean didn’t confirm or deny that he’ll hit the road with Hov and ‘Ye, but judging from the already announced WTT dates, Sean’s involvement in it looks unlikely. For this run, Sean tells MTV News that he’ll be hitting smaller venues so he can build a closer relationship with his fans. “I think that’s really important for my first time out. Building my tour base I really wanted to have something intimate, something people will remember forever,” he said. “I’m gonna put on a hell of a show. I’ve been getting my cardio up, working out, taking this sh– serious.” Dates for Big Sean’s I Am Finally Famous Tour:
Amanda Knox is back in court in Italy, appealing her conviction for the 2007, high-profile murder of Meredith Kercher, whose sister publicly appealed for justice. Knox and Kercher were college exchange students – Knox from Seattle, Kercher from the UK – when Meredith was foun
Pearl Jam’s Ten, Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger celebrate 20th anniversary along with Nirvana’s Nevermind. By James Montgomery Pearl Jam’s Ten Photo: Epic As the music world gears up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Nirvana ‘s Nevermind, it’s also bears mention that there were no shortage of other magical, massive and equally mythological albums that hit stores in 1991. To celebrate the year when rock truly rocked, MTV News has been asking some of today’s biggest acts (everyone from Blink-182 to DJ Skrillex) to remember their favorite albums from that truly epic year. So far, we’ve looked back at Metallica’s Black Album, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Dinosaur Jr.’s Green Mind, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and Slint’s Spiderland. And now, a couple of professional music fans reminisce about two other game-changing 1991 releases: Pearl Jam ‘s Ten and Soundgarden ‘s Badmotorfinger : Pearl Jam, Ten A little more than a year after they formed from the ashes of Seattle’s Mother Love Bone — with an assist from a gas station attendant/surfer from San Diego — Pearl Jam roared to life with Ten, an album that not only ranks as a cornerstone of American rock, but one of the most successful debuts of all time. Few bands went from relative obscurity to international superstardom with the speed of Pearl Jam, a breakneck pace seemingly predicted on tracks like “Once” and “Why Go.” Of course, Eddie Vedder’s contemplative, everyman (yet otherworldly) ruminations on “Black” and “Jeremy” added depth and breadth to the sonic squall. A classic in every sense of the term, Ten remains Pearl Jam’s most popular release to this day, and the fact that the band is still going strong proves that not all overnight success stories have to come with an unhappy ending. Also, rather indirectly, it remains the greatest thing Mookie Blaylock has ever been (loosely) associated with, even better than Oklahoma’s run to the 1988 NCAA title game. As Remembered by Amy Lee, Evanescence : “We moved from Rockford, Illinois, to Little Rock, Arkansas, when I was 13. It was really hard, you know, right at the wrong age, didn’t have any friends, didn’t know anyone, moved to a new school. It was real preppy, didn’t fit in … all that classic stuff. And, at the same time, there was some music that I was addicted to, like, needed it, and Pearl Jam’s Ten was one of those records. I had the tape … and I would listen to it, turn it over, listen to the whole other side, start it over again. All night. Like, I could just lie in bed and cry or think … that was the outlet. I love that record. I love ‘Black,’ that song’s just so totally beautiful, I could listen to that one over and over. ‘Alive,’ ‘Jeremy,’ probably the biggest song on the record for me. That video, that kind of horrifying, childlike experience, it completely moved me and touched me. That had to be the song for me. I wore that tape out, completely. And, I remember, the [liner] had them with their hands raised, together, and I had that on my wall. … They felt like I felt, and their music described things I couldn’t say out loud. And that idea and revelation was so inspiring to me, like, I wanted to live inside the songs.” Soundgarden, Badmotorfinger They’d break through to the big time with the follow-up, 1994’s Superunknown, but to the purists, Badmotorfinger remains Soundgarden’s crowning achievement, a sludgy, leaden thing that channeled the bludgeon of Black Sabbath and the keening vocal pyrotechnics of a million hair-metal frontmen. And, in the process, the band created an album that was heavily indebted to the past, while still managing to forge new territory that left their grunge contemporaries (and contemporary critics) grasping at straws. Pounding, primal, precise … all the adjectives apply here, and on songs like “Rusty Cage,” “Outshined” and “Jesus Christ Pose,” they often apply at the same time. As Remembered by Matt Pinfield, host of MTV2’s “120 Minutes” : ” Badmotorfinger is such a great record, and it says a lot about the band and their songwriting, just the crazy time signatures on tracks like ‘Rusty Cage’ and ‘Jesus Christ Pose’ — it took balls to write a song and do a video like ‘Jesus Christ Pose’ back in the day — but also, if you look at how songs like ‘Outshined’ have lasted, how incredible they are as a band. Chris Cornell, one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time, Kim Thayil, one of the most incredible guitar players, just dirty, sludgy, tuned-down. Ben Shepherd, a powerful bass player who plays rhythm with his bass, and, of course, Matt Cameron, one of the greatest drummers … still going strong, looks as young as he did then, playing with Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. So, I love Badmotorfinger. It’s one of the greatest albums in a year that had so many really great albums.” Share your favorite memories of 1991’s seminal albums in the comments below! Related Videos Death Cab, Blink-182, Skrillex Remember Classic Albums From 1991 Related Artists Evanescence Pearl Jam Soundgarden Nirvana
