The Performers Scheduled for the Inauguration Youth Ball Leave This Blogger Wondering If Someone Might Have Missed The Point

This upcoming Tuesday there will be several parties held around Washington to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama (YES! FINALLY!). Many of these parties, known as Balls, will feature performances from several high-profile artists. For the Youth Ball (which, I'm sorry, just sounds awfully patronizing) the festival organizers and MTV will broadcast...live...to all of us American youth...(hold your breath now)...Kanye West, Fall Out Boy, and Kid Rock. This less than impressive lineup leaves me wondering, this is the Youth Ball, right?



Now, I understand why these artists were selected. Kanye and Fall Out Boy both have astronimically high numbers of teen fans, and Kid Rock...well he has some. But couldn't they have picked some artists who are a little more relevent for 2009? As a Youth Ball, shouldn't it feature artists who a large amount of us are listening to now? Here's a few of the reasons why this selection of artists isn't the right fit:



First of all, how did Kid Rock get picked? When one thinks of a Youth band, Kid Rock definitely does not jump to mind. His last album, Rock N Roll Jesus was released all the way back in 2007, with singles such as "So Hott," "Amen," and the incredibly annoying mash up of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Warron Zevon, "All Summer Long." Doesn't it just scream hip and new? Oh wait...



Secondly, where has Fall Out Boy been? Thier latest album Folie a Deux debuted only a month ago at number 8 on the billboard charts, and has now fallen to 25th place. However, only two years ago, Infinity On High came out at number 1 and has since sold over a million copies. Could this be a trend perhaps?



Kanye is also having trouble in that department. 808's and Heartbreak came out in November, and sold over 400 thousand copies. That is impressive, but not when you compare it to Graduation's 900 thousand sales in it's FIRST week. "Love Lockdown" is a fun song, but we all know that it's not the Kanye we're used to.

All in all, this Youth Ball will be rocking this new term with-well not quite a bang I'm afraid.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1602981/20090117/west_kanye.jhtml
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.vnuArtistId=12517&model.vnuAlbumId=1077161
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.chartFormatGroupName=Albums&model.vnuArtistId=489932&model.vnuAlbumId=1185733
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.8192