What are celebrities listening to?

I think we’re all musically challenged in the sense that we all could use some help.

It matters not if you are a doofus with a tin ear, or a graduate of Juilliard, or even if you’re a famous recording artist who collects platinum records as if they were trading cards. When you sit down to kick back, unwind and turn up the volume, a handful of suggestions can turn an ordinary listening session into an audio orgy.

That’s why I love the concept of the celebrity playlist. Who better to suggest music than a celebrity?

Celebrities by and large have lots of disposable income. They can walk out of their local record store with armfuls of CDs if they want to. Better yet, so as not to be recognized, they can stay home and download. In between  gigs, they have lots of time on their hands, so all they really do is watch movies and listen to music. These people are professionals. They know leisure a lot better than the layman.

In perusing one of my favorite download sites, I came across a bunch of celebrity playlists. It’s an eclectic mix of recognizable names from various fields. Naturally, their musical tastes are all over the map. And most of the selections seem to fit the individual.

For instance, there is Sheryl Crow. She is currently dating Lance Armstrong, who recently won his sixth consecutive Tour de France. He is also being dogged by questions about the use of performance-enhancing drugs. So I thought it curious that one of Sheryl’s selections on her celebrity playlist is “The Needle and the Damage Done” by Neil Young. Is this some sort of Freudian slip? Or is it, as suggested by another of her favorites, simply a “Sign O’ The Times”?

What gets Barry grooving

Ethan Miller / Reuters file Barry Manilow likes listening to Diana Krall and Ella Fitzgerald.

Barry Manilow also has a playlist. As you probably are aware, Barry is a showman. He enjoys nothing better than performing live. After all, he began as Bette Midler’s piano player in New York’s Greenwich Village, playing gay bathhouses. That’s apparently when he overcame any fear of performing in front of people, since he likely used that old public-speaking trick of imagining your audience naked. Except it really was.

Barry’s playlist is all live music, featuring “The Look of Love” by Diana Krall and “Mack the Knife” by Ella Fitzgerald. He also included one of his own live songs, “Every Single Day,” which I found to be a little odd. I know movie stars hate to watch their own films, so I assumed the same went for singers listening to their own music.

But then I realized that Barry is not the only one. Beyoncé’s list has two songs by Destiny’s Child as well as two of her solo efforts. Jody Watley has two by herself, plus one that she wrote for Destiny’s Child and another that she wrote for Shalamar. Do these people really sit around all day grooving to their own music? Do they snap their fingers, tap their feet and exclaim, “Wow, this is good”?

It’s either that they have an unhealthy obsession with their own talent, or this is a cheap marketing ploy designed to peddle their work. Of course, one superb aspect of the celebrity playlist is that you can pick and choose which songs you want to buy and download. If that weren’t the case and you were forced to buy them all, then Beyoncé’s celebrity playlist likely would include every song she has ever recorded.

A little help from her friend
Liz Phair offers one of her own songs, too. The difference is that she compiled her playlist with help from John Cusack. I can’t figure out if they’re an item, or if they just keep running into each other at Tower Records. It could be that Phair saw “High Fidelity” and wanted to keep the fantasy going. Regardless, their list is a delicious mix of pop and rock, including such selections as “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder and “Sweet Jane” by the Cowboy Junkies.

Stuart Ramson / AP No suprise that Missy Elliott likes listening to hip-hop.

Cusack includes Phair’s “Never Said,” which is labeled “explicit lyrics.” That’s the only one on their list so labeled, which suggests to me that profanity is not a big part of their lives. But then there’s Adam Sandler and Missy Elliott.

Adam apparently likes his language salty. He has 35 selections on his playlist, and 11 are labeled “explicit lyrics.” That doesn’t bother me. I was far more offended that he included “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul. That could warp a kid’s mind.

Nine of Missy’s 21 selections are so labeled, which represents a higher batting average than Adam’s. But most of her picks fit into the hip-hop genre, so it’s actually a surprise the percentage isn’t higher. The fact that she found 12 hip-hop songs that didn’t feature “*&%$#@” and “&%$##*” is a real achievement.

I particularly like Kevin Bacon’s playlist. He offers a rich assortment, including “Rosalita” by Bruce Springsteen, “Hey Ya!” by OutKast and “One Note Song” by Tenacious D. It appears to be designed so that someone will listen to one of his selections, then recommend it to a friend, who will recommend it to a friend of theirs, and so on, so that eventually there is six degrees of separation between Kevin and other music lovers.

James Patterson, who wrote “Along Came a Spider” and other thrillers, includes “Rock the Casbah” by the Clash, “Come as You Are” by Nirvana and “Corduroy” by Pearl Jam. With taste like that, you can understand why this man writes murder mysteries and not romance novels.

One disappointment is Ruben Studdard, of “American Idol” fame, whose entire celebrity playlist is made up of Luther Vandross songs. That didn’t take a lot of effort. Then again, considering Ruben’s bulk, he’s probably used to playing one artist’s CD at a time so he doesn’t have to keep climbing out of his chair.

Aside from that, celebrities know their music. It’s probably the only area of their lives during which they do all the listening.

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