It’s a Hit

by will.i.am, David Foster,
Bono,
Mary J. Blige, Faith Hill, Seal

(will.i.am/Interscope/Warner Bros./143)

It’s always a little curious when behind-the-scenes music people
decide that enough is enough, they too deserve their names in lights,
damn it. Take songwriter, producer, and schlockmeister extraordinaire
David Foster, who published his memoirs last November. For sheer
reptilian allure, the book’s title is hard to beat, Hit Man:
Forty Years Making Music, Topping Charts & Winning Grammys.
Making music, you say? Sure, I look at Billboard once in a
while—I’ve heard of you. Topping the charts—hey, watch
where you aim that champagne cork, there, guy. Winning Grammys—my
face was doing fine, sir, without your dick waving in it.

The oblivious-cake-eating-bizzer routine continues on the
Hit Man Amazon.com product
description, which promises surefire page-turners such as “the making
of Unison, Celine Dion’s English-language debut… [Foster’s]
award-winning contribution to Unforgettable: With Love, Natalie
Cole’s comeback album… and the incredible chain of events that
spawned Whitney Houston’s historic blockbuster ‘I Will Always Love
You.'” I can hear you canceling your weekend plans in favor of reading
this book already.

The page is not the only place Foster has decided not to take a
backseat anymore. Hit Man comes with its own CD/DVD, which
chronicles a tribute show in Foster’s honor featuring many of his
most special showbiz friends, including, for an
eight-and-a-half-minute medley of his biggest, most mawkish hits, with
Chicago and solo, the one, the only: Peter Cetera. No, I haven’t
heard it, any more than I’ve actually read Foster’s book. Isn’t knowing
about it bad enough?

I wish I could say the same for “America’s Song,” which a
friend sent me via AIM the other week. I happened to be stoned out of
my gourd at the time, which is the only way to hear the recording
properly—not that hearing it stone-cold sober wouldn’t give you
uncontrollable giggles anyway. “My America! Your America! America is
beautiful!”—in the exact grave cadence you’d expect from
an SNL or Simpsons or South Park parody of an all-star,
save-the-children Obama tribute number. That such obvious mockery is
indistinguishable from the real item is, of course, proof that not even
will.i.am‘s name—much less the
track’s multiplatinum guests, none of whom come close to redeeming
it—could guarantee such a gigantic turd as this one. For that,
you need a behind-the-scenes guy who insists on his name in lights.
Isn’t America beautiful?