...I feel compelled to drag you through 16 years of disgraceful, atonal Oscar bilge. Close your eyes and imagine lithe, unitarded interpretive dancers striking avant-gardalicious poses on a stage full of fog and pyrotechnics...
1990: 'Sooner Or Later (I Always Get My Man)' (Dick Tracy). Technically a smart, vaguely campy torch song in the classic tradition. I love the brassy arrangement, the lyrics are spot-on...but I do wish someone like Cassandra Wilson, Sade, Tracey Thorne or John Legend would reinterpret it because, coming out of Madonna's superficial yap Stephen Sondheim's depression-era vernacular sounds like hollow pastiche. Monkeys will fly out of my butt the day I concede that Madonna is anything more than a pop song stylist on a par with Ronnie Ronnette or Mary Shangri-la, which is high praise because Ronnie Spector and Mary Weiss are The Real Thing(s). Jazz is simply beyond Madonna's ken. 'Beautiful Stranger' from Austin Powers (not nominated) is an all-time-great pop single but 'Sooner Or Later' is a diamond in the rough, still wallowing in obscurity, just waiting to be discovered by its true chanteuse. Other long-forgotten poop nominated this year: 'Blaze Of Glory' (Young Guns II), music and lyrics by Jon Bon Jovi. P.U.! Um...Dwight Yoakum? Randy Travis? Clint Black? WILLIE NELSON?! 'Cuz Bon Jovi doesn't exactly evoke the wild, wild west, yo. 'I'm Checking Out' (Postcards From The Edge)Songwriter Shel Silverstein should have been plastered all over the cover of Rolling Stone years ago for writing 'A Boy Named Sue' and I'll admit this nomination was a fairly progressive pick for the geriatric music branch of AMPAS but these days it's sounding a little retro/corny...like it should have been a Broadway showstopper circa 1968. The Simpsons goofed on it at some point while hazing rehab staple Liza Minnelli and that's recognition enough for this "I'm Still Here!" fecalheap.
The other two nominations are not worth getting into. Seriously.
1991: 'Beauty And The Beast' (Beauty And The Beast). Just as I ignore anime because I don't quite "get" it and thus I fear it, I don't think I'm qualified to discuss the colonialism-boosting, weirdly sexualized Disney fetish that unfortunately swept the nation last decade so I won't even try. I'm sure it's a pretty song but it gives me diarrhea every time I hear it so I just don't hear it. My apologies to sweat-suited tourists everywhere. Losers this year: Bryan Adams and 'Be My Vest' by Monty Burns.
1992: 'A Whole New World' (Aladdin) Horrid Jesus Camp/American Idol/entitled white-folk fodder. I hate this fake-ass, lazy, deathmarch to Heaven anthem with every fiber of my Christian-weary body. Go away whole new world! Give me Dr. Doolittle and 'Talk To The Animals' any day: At least that was pagan and earthbound. 'Beautiful Maria Of My Soul' (Mambo Kings) was lovely but live action brown people sang it so naturally pre-Ellen AMPAS adjudged it as pornography.
1993: 'Streets Of Philadelphia' (Philadelphia) AMPAS likes its fags dead or sociopathic so the music branch threw a trophy at Bruce Springsteen's Dead Fag Love Theme. The thing is, this is an extraordinary, transcendent olive branch to the afflicted. Obviously I'm conflicted per the music branch of The Academy. Neil Young lost this year but his song (also from Philadelphia) is so one-note and trebly that it's practically unsingable. Celine Dion would shatter the Sears Building attempting to sustain that note at that octave so thank goddess it lost. Also nominated: 'The Day I Fell In Love' (Beethoven's 2nd). Evidently, dog movies inspire Oscar-nominated love themes (see: The Magic Of Lassie (1978)). Why is that?
1994: 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' (The Lion King). Horatio Sanz has forever tainted my appreciation (or lack thereof) of late-phase Sir Elton so I can't take this piece of doody very seriously at all. Besides the fact that it's straight-up, phone-it-in hackwork, what the hell does this song have to do with African wildlife anyway? You could plop this pungent turd in any movie, any movie at all, and it would suit it just as well. Imagine: 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight (Love Theme from Midnight Cowboy), 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' (Love Theme from Orca), 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight (Love Theme from Jesus Camp)...it's the most generic calcified corpse of a song ever! No one could resurrect this stinker from the dead...not Charo, not Peter Allen, not Klaus Nomi, not P-Funk...nobody. If I had energy enough to recall a single verse of 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight', I'd hate it. But as it stands, it's a black hole of anti-music for anti-people. But consider the alternatives: 'Hakuna Matata', 'Circle Of Life'...and people pay $100+ to see the stage play?!
1995: 'Colors Of The Wind' (Pocahontas). You can take comfort in the fact that it doesn't get any worse than this:
Everything else from here on out is cake-walk compared to this ghastly death rattle.
'Kumbaya' is a Disco Inferno compared to this Calvinist hymn to No Fun Whatsoever.
Aphex Twin should remix this room-clearing eggfart a thousand times just to be a bitch.
Rush Limbaugh rogers himself with a cucumber and moos like a beefalo at Limosine Liberal Hypocricy while basking in the whore's bath that is all the ersatz, multi-culti cheerleading as expressed by 'Colors Of The Wind'
So there you have it: My dada word-collage ode to 'Colors Of The Wind'.
But seriously, 'You've Got A Friend In Me' (Toy Story) may have been the more memorable choice but when all is said and done, 1995 was a godawful year for Oscar tuneage.
1996: 'You Must Love Me' (Evita). Pretty terrible in the Celine Dion sense of the word 'terrible' but Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice had to win an Oscar sooner or later and this is less offensive anything from Phantom Of The Opera so I guess we should thank our lucky stars that this reprise of 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' triumphed over the Streisand/Bryan Adams/Hamlisch/Robert 'Mutt' Lange ballad that no one remembers from The Mirror Has Two Faces.
How's that for a run-on sentence?
1997: 'My Heart Will Go On' (Titanic). You might think that I would stump for Elliot Smith's 'Miss Misery' (Good Will Hunting) this year, but...in fact...'My Heart Will Go On' is a terrific song and it most definitely deserved to win. Ham-fisted Celine Dion had no business wringing the life out of it at all but if, say, Alison Krauss, Nanci Griffith or Emmylou Harris would have sung it in the first place you would hear this song, in all its elegant simplicity, pan-flute and all, for what it is: A gorgeous Celtic folk ballad. I hope it finds new life after the taint of Dion is long forgotten. In other 1997 music branch of The Academy news: LeeAnn Rhimes needs to work with Rick Rubin because Diane Warren destroyed her career with another Lite FM staple: 'How Do I Live' from ConAir.
1998: 'When You Believe' (The Prince Of Egypt). To be honest, I can't recall the song or the Disney film it soiled but Broadway's Stephen Schwartz wrote it so I'm sure it sucks as much as I suspect it does.
1999: 'You'll Be In My Heart' (Tarzan). Kenny Loggins, Usher, John Tesh and The Phantom Of The Opera all covered this testament to the artistry of Phil Collins...but Hey! Phil Collins wins an Oscar at long last! So fuck you Aimee Mann (Magnolia) and Randy Newman (Toy Story 2) who wrote far superior songs this year! He's Phil Collins, Bitch!
2000: 'Things Have Changed' (Wonder Boys) Whew, the nineties sure stank up the place didn't they? The music branch of The Academy had a lot to atone for and boy, did they...they turned right the fuck around and blessed gnarly Bobby D. with an Academy Award. The New Millenium. Things are gonna change, I can feel it...never mind that the other nominated songs were unlistenable tripe, including, and most especially, Bjork's bad-trip swan-dress anthem 'I've Seen It All' (Dancer In The Dark).
2001: 'If I Didn't Have You' (Monsters, Inc.). Adult-contemporary Pixar pap but some of that shit is quite comforting, actually. I'd love to have a bunch of Counting Crows rub me down with Lubriderm as they croon 'If I Didn't Have You' from Monsters, Inc. into my ear. Also nominated: Paul McCartney (Vanilla Sky), Sting (Kate & Leopold) and Enya (Lord Of The Rings). Zzzzzzz.
2002: 'Lose Yourself' (8 Mile). WHAT?!! HELLO!!! Holy shit, I'm up, I'm up. It's a new day for music branch of The Academy because they're listening to Hot 100 FM, they're Friendstererd and they'll call you every 10, text you every 5. No more Connie Stevens/Muppet musical extravaganzas for these thugs. No sir. A truly weird choice but does this mean we're gonna be subjected to Celine Dion freestyling it up at The Excalibur in Vegas come 2042? Also nominated: U2 (Gangs Of New York), Paul Simon (The Wild Thornberrys Movie), and the most skipped-through song on the Chicago soundtrack: 'I Move On' (Kander & Ebb).
2003: 'Into The West' (Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King). Annie Lennox certainly is bad-ass, god knows, but this joint is one dreary trudge through ambient poop. It sounds like an Oscarcast fanfare bumper as orchestrated by Howard Shore, which no doubt is the very reason it triumphed over much earthier, more deserving work by Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett (Cold Mountain). It's right up there with all that garbage-y 90's-era Disney Oscarbait, it's just that atrocious. But Annie rebounded with her masterwork 'Bare' a year later so she's pardoned for this embarrassing misstep.
2004: 'Al Otro Lado Del Rio' (The Motorcyle Diaries). Glorious choice. How much do I love this song? It's so catchy, melodious and deceptively simple that I predict it will become a standard along the lines of 'Besame Mucho' or 'Desafinado'. Sublime pick and wholly unexpected.
2005: 'It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp' (Hustle & Flow). Who the fuck can predict which way the music branch of The Academy is gonna swing these days? I thought Dolly Parton was a lock for her not-so-great 'Travelin' Thru' (Transamerica) but here we have it. 'Niggaz', 'shit', and 'fuck' in an Academy Award winning song...chanted like a mantra...first time ever. Is this progress? Hard to say, but it makes for a more interesting contest...
2006: 'I Need To Wake Up' (An Inconvenient Truth) A more interesting choice than any of the nominated 'Dreamgirls' songs but I suspect that this award is more of a political broadside than a blessing upon a truly good song. But then again Melissa Etheridge strikes me as more of a right-minded scold and less of a good-timing, party-pumping betch so I might be a tad prejudiced. I need to warm up to this song before I can make a fair judgement...I have yet to hear it all the way through so I plead ignorance.
Best Oscar Winning Song(s) Ever: 'Theme from 'Shaft' and 'In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening' (tie)
Worst Oscar Winning Song Ever: 'Colors Of The Wind'.
Take all that for what it's worth, y'all.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Oscar Poop II: The Jennifer Warnes Years
We're surveying Academy Award winning songs, year by year, and we're getting bloated and gassy but we've got Tums to chew and poop to shovel so let's soldier onward...
1975: 'I'm Easy' (Nashville) The obvious choice although 'I'm Easy' is not nearly the rollicking singalong that 'It Don't Worry Me' is. It does however hold up fairly well as proto-sensitive-country-stud-shlock a la Keith Urban. Let's take a look at the other atrocities Oscar lined up for our listening pleasure: 'How Lucky Can You Get' (Funny Lady)Kander & Ebb phoning it in. Who sang it on the Oscarcast? Connie Stevens and some muppets probably. 'Now That We're In Love' (Whiffs)Ah yes, Whiffs. I'm pretty sure it was about mustard gas. 'Richard's Window' (The Other Side Of The Mountain)Not to be confused with Joni Mitchell's 'The Last Time I Saw Richard'. Olivia Newton-John sang it but it didn't make the cut on any of her Greatest Hits releases so I guess it was drivel. 'Theme From 'Mahogany' (Do You Know Where You're Going To)' I remember watching the Oscars in 1975 and Diana Ross lipsynched this on a bridge in Amsterdam via satellite dressed in white fur. The Boss was and is a freak of nature. The song's okay but all those key changes...
1976: 'Evergreen' (A Star Is Born). Godawful. Love soft as an easy chair? I'll take 'Ave Satani' (The Omen) anyday! I sing it on the subway, I whistle it while waiting in line @ Tillie's on DeKalb and Vanderbilt...I know all the lyrics by heart! Can you believe it took TWO WOMEN to conjure the lyrics for 'Gonna Fly Now' (Rocky). TWO!!!! "Trying hard now/it's so hard now/trying hard now..."
1977: 'You Light Up My Life' (You Light Up My Life) Well it was number one on the Billboard charts for most of 1977. You almost have to throw an Oscar at it...albeit at the expense of the best Bond theme ever: 'Nobody Does It Better' (The Spy Who Loved Me). Check out Aimee Mann's electrified, post-orgasmic tribute on 'Shaken and Stirred: The Best Of Bond'.
1978: 'Last Dance' (Thank God It's Friday). Quite simply, the right choice. I'm sure 'When You're Loved' (The Magic Of Lassie) was favored but 'Last Dance' endures. 'Hopelessly Devoted To You' (Grease) was also nominated...why do people go apeshit over the Grease Soundtrack? My theory is that we were all so proud that we persevered and held on to our allowances long enough to shell out the ten bucks for the double album. Because the music is, well, really gay. Maybe 1978 was the gayest year ever. I'm fairly certain it was.
1979: 'It Goes Like It Goes' (Norma Rae). Pretty brave choice, given the fact that it's depressing as all hell. You might think Lucinda Williams sings it on the soundtrack but it's really Jennifer Warnes, who sings roughly %40 percent of all Oscar-nominated songs over the next fifteen years. She didn't sing 'Rainbow Connection' (The Muppet Movie)however...that's Jim Henson and Frank Oz eating mushrooms and fiddling with new multi-tracking technology at Electric Ladyland.
1980: 'Fame' (Fame). The music branch of AMPAS really dropped the ball this year. 'Fame's' lyrics could have been scrawled on the back of a fricking Mead double-pocket Nadia Comenici folder by none other than that future schlockmistress herself, Linda Perry, they're so trite. Where's Blondie's 'Call Me' (American Gigolo)? "Roll me in designer sheets/I'll never get enough"? I'm sure even The Golden Globes had good sense enough to nominate that work of sheer brilliance...but not The Academy. These were dark, dark years for The Academy.
1981: 'Arthur's Theme' (Arthur). I rest my case.
1982: 'Up Where We Belong' (An Officer And A Gentleman). Safe, Jennifer Warnes-y comfort food: Although the thought of Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes lifting each other up where they belong makes me a little queasy. Also nominated: A muppet song, A Bond song, A Motown song ('Endless Love'), and the first of Randy Newman's gazillion Best Song nominations: 'One Hour With You' (Ragtime).
1983: 'Flashdance...What A Feeling' (Flashdance). As a rule, I'm not a fan of corporate 80's music in general and this cluttered, trendy piece of Eurotrash defies me to dance to it. Was this ever really hip? Flash dance? I know what I feel when I Flash Dance and that's a whole lot of crysal meth with my pants down around my ankles @ The Cock. ;) Also nominated this year: Rosie O'Donnell's queer mating call, "Tommy Can You Hear Me" from Yentl.
1984: 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' (The Woman In Red). I applaud the Academy for giving Stevie Wonder an Oscar but this song really, really bites. It sounds to me like it was written in 1883. I sometimes hear this in bodegas and Polish diners and it makes me feel unclean. 'Let's Hear It For The Boy' (Footloose) would have been the more savvy selection.
1985: 'Say You, Say Me' (White Nights). Crap! Ick factor = Off the charts. Lionel Richie gave us Nicole and this stewed, greenish-yellow turd. Thanks Lionel. Your funky bunch membership has been revoked...'Brick House' and 'Machine Gun' notwithstanding. Also nominated: Huey Lewis and more Lionel Richie. Bad music branch of The Academy! Bad!
1986: 'Take My Breath Away' (Top Gun). Because its Berlin, because it's vaguely new-wave-ish, and because it's not the hated 'Danger Zone' from the same soundtrack, I'm willing to give this Prom Theme a break , even though it vaguely reeks of wopatuli and pork rinds. Also nominated: 'Somewhere Out There' (An American Tail), 'Mean Green Mother From Outer Space' (Little Shop Of Horrors...not a bad pick really), some Henry Mancini poop from a bad Blake Edwards/Julie Andrews old-people comedy, and Peter Cetera.
1987: '(I've Had) The Time Of My Life' (Dirty Dancing). More Jennifer Warnes pop music to menopause to. I've never actually seen Dirty Dancing but I do remember the tight rolled up denim shorts phenomenon that made everyone's ass look flat. I ate soup at a table next to winning songwriter Frank Previte in The West Village a couple years back, that's my Oscar Brush With Greatness. Shame on the music branch of The Academy for not recognizing Willy DeVille's 'Storybook Love' (The Princess Bride). Mink DeVille was a great, great CBGB's mainstay and I love them.
1988: 'Let The River Run' (Working Girl). Movie tunes sucked so bad this year that the Academy could deem only three songs as nomination-worthy. Carly Simon triumphed over Phil Collins as all of America downed shots, smoked a victory bowl and went straight to bed.
1989: 'Under The Sea' (The Little Mermaid) Not so good but what're you gonna do? Pixar wasn't around yet, everything else nominated was puerile trash...fuckit!
More Oscar sniping to come...
1975: 'I'm Easy' (Nashville) The obvious choice although 'I'm Easy' is not nearly the rollicking singalong that 'It Don't Worry Me' is. It does however hold up fairly well as proto-sensitive-country-stud-shlock a la Keith Urban. Let's take a look at the other atrocities Oscar lined up for our listening pleasure: 'How Lucky Can You Get' (Funny Lady)Kander & Ebb phoning it in. Who sang it on the Oscarcast? Connie Stevens and some muppets probably. 'Now That We're In Love' (Whiffs)Ah yes, Whiffs. I'm pretty sure it was about mustard gas. 'Richard's Window' (The Other Side Of The Mountain)Not to be confused with Joni Mitchell's 'The Last Time I Saw Richard'. Olivia Newton-John sang it but it didn't make the cut on any of her Greatest Hits releases so I guess it was drivel. 'Theme From 'Mahogany' (Do You Know Where You're Going To)' I remember watching the Oscars in 1975 and Diana Ross lipsynched this on a bridge in Amsterdam via satellite dressed in white fur. The Boss was and is a freak of nature. The song's okay but all those key changes...
1976: 'Evergreen' (A Star Is Born). Godawful. Love soft as an easy chair? I'll take 'Ave Satani' (The Omen) anyday! I sing it on the subway, I whistle it while waiting in line @ Tillie's on DeKalb and Vanderbilt...I know all the lyrics by heart! Can you believe it took TWO WOMEN to conjure the lyrics for 'Gonna Fly Now' (Rocky). TWO!!!! "Trying hard now/it's so hard now/trying hard now..."
1977: 'You Light Up My Life' (You Light Up My Life) Well it was number one on the Billboard charts for most of 1977. You almost have to throw an Oscar at it...albeit at the expense of the best Bond theme ever: 'Nobody Does It Better' (The Spy Who Loved Me). Check out Aimee Mann's electrified, post-orgasmic tribute on 'Shaken and Stirred: The Best Of Bond'.
1978: 'Last Dance' (Thank God It's Friday). Quite simply, the right choice. I'm sure 'When You're Loved' (The Magic Of Lassie) was favored but 'Last Dance' endures. 'Hopelessly Devoted To You' (Grease) was also nominated...why do people go apeshit over the Grease Soundtrack? My theory is that we were all so proud that we persevered and held on to our allowances long enough to shell out the ten bucks for the double album. Because the music is, well, really gay. Maybe 1978 was the gayest year ever. I'm fairly certain it was.
1979: 'It Goes Like It Goes' (Norma Rae). Pretty brave choice, given the fact that it's depressing as all hell. You might think Lucinda Williams sings it on the soundtrack but it's really Jennifer Warnes, who sings roughly %40 percent of all Oscar-nominated songs over the next fifteen years. She didn't sing 'Rainbow Connection' (The Muppet Movie)however...that's Jim Henson and Frank Oz eating mushrooms and fiddling with new multi-tracking technology at Electric Ladyland.
1980: 'Fame' (Fame). The music branch of AMPAS really dropped the ball this year. 'Fame's' lyrics could have been scrawled on the back of a fricking Mead double-pocket Nadia Comenici folder by none other than that future schlockmistress herself, Linda Perry, they're so trite. Where's Blondie's 'Call Me' (American Gigolo)? "Roll me in designer sheets/I'll never get enough"? I'm sure even The Golden Globes had good sense enough to nominate that work of sheer brilliance...but not The Academy. These were dark, dark years for The Academy.
1981: 'Arthur's Theme' (Arthur). I rest my case.
1982: 'Up Where We Belong' (An Officer And A Gentleman). Safe, Jennifer Warnes-y comfort food: Although the thought of Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes lifting each other up where they belong makes me a little queasy. Also nominated: A muppet song, A Bond song, A Motown song ('Endless Love'), and the first of Randy Newman's gazillion Best Song nominations: 'One Hour With You' (Ragtime).
1983: 'Flashdance...What A Feeling' (Flashdance). As a rule, I'm not a fan of corporate 80's music in general and this cluttered, trendy piece of Eurotrash defies me to dance to it. Was this ever really hip? Flash dance? I know what I feel when I Flash Dance and that's a whole lot of crysal meth with my pants down around my ankles @ The Cock. ;) Also nominated this year: Rosie O'Donnell's queer mating call, "Tommy Can You Hear Me" from Yentl.
1984: 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' (The Woman In Red). I applaud the Academy for giving Stevie Wonder an Oscar but this song really, really bites. It sounds to me like it was written in 1883. I sometimes hear this in bodegas and Polish diners and it makes me feel unclean. 'Let's Hear It For The Boy' (Footloose) would have been the more savvy selection.
1985: 'Say You, Say Me' (White Nights). Crap! Ick factor = Off the charts. Lionel Richie gave us Nicole and this stewed, greenish-yellow turd. Thanks Lionel. Your funky bunch membership has been revoked...'Brick House' and 'Machine Gun' notwithstanding. Also nominated: Huey Lewis and more Lionel Richie. Bad music branch of The Academy! Bad!
1986: 'Take My Breath Away' (Top Gun). Because its Berlin, because it's vaguely new-wave-ish, and because it's not the hated 'Danger Zone' from the same soundtrack, I'm willing to give this Prom Theme a break , even though it vaguely reeks of wopatuli and pork rinds. Also nominated: 'Somewhere Out There' (An American Tail), 'Mean Green Mother From Outer Space' (Little Shop Of Horrors...not a bad pick really), some Henry Mancini poop from a bad Blake Edwards/Julie Andrews old-people comedy, and Peter Cetera.
1987: '(I've Had) The Time Of My Life' (Dirty Dancing). More Jennifer Warnes pop music to menopause to. I've never actually seen Dirty Dancing but I do remember the tight rolled up denim shorts phenomenon that made everyone's ass look flat. I ate soup at a table next to winning songwriter Frank Previte in The West Village a couple years back, that's my Oscar Brush With Greatness. Shame on the music branch of The Academy for not recognizing Willy DeVille's 'Storybook Love' (The Princess Bride). Mink DeVille was a great, great CBGB's mainstay and I love them.
1988: 'Let The River Run' (Working Girl). Movie tunes sucked so bad this year that the Academy could deem only three songs as nomination-worthy. Carly Simon triumphed over Phil Collins as all of America downed shots, smoked a victory bowl and went straight to bed.
1989: 'Under The Sea' (The Little Mermaid) Not so good but what're you gonna do? Pixar wasn't around yet, everything else nominated was puerile trash...fuckit!
More Oscar sniping to come...
Monday, February 19, 2007
Reason To Take Morphine And Live #1: Oscar Winning Songs (Part One)
It's bound to happen:
Celine Dion, pushing eighty-something and playing Atlantic City yet again, singing an "Oscar's Favorite Jams" medley featuring Three 6 Mafia's 'It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp' and her own paint-peeling caterwaul 'My Heart Will Go On' from Titanic.
I just hope my personal caregiver is kind enough to wheel me up front and center so I can shake my fist at the heavens and curse that hog-calling, chest-thumping catwoman to the fiery bowels of a holy-roller hell.
I can get with most music I hear but some crap just sticks in my craw and, because I'm a glass-half-empty kind of guy, I become obsessive about tuneage that makes my ears bleed...like Britney Spears' 'Toxic' or Lionel Richie's 'Say You, Say Me'. So I get a little irritable. It's a Scorpio thing, I think.
Did you know 'Say You, Say Me' won an Oscar for Best Song, 1985? No joke. Now imagine Celine Dion screeching that little nugget to the cheap seats.
The Academy Awards are famously schizophrenic when it comes to blessing movie songs with Oscars. Throughout the nineties The Academy was all Hollie Hobbie and unicorns and all crushed out on Disney poop but now they're mistaking themselves for The Grammys as they show love to Dylan and Enimem and Beyonce'. I'm predicting Beyonce's boring 'Listen' will win this year over Melissa Etheridge's typically earnest 'I Need To Wake Up' which is a damn shame because the only song from Dreamgirls worth the price of an iTunes download is 'And I Am Telling You, I'm Not Going' but alas, it was written for the stageplay, not the film itself, so it's ineligible.
The first song to win an Oscar (1934, btw) was a Rogers/Astaire dance number called 'The Continental' from The Gay Divorcee, It entailed "dangerous rhythm" and kissing while dancing 'The Continental'. I've never actually danced 'The Continental' but I imagine it's something like The Lambada ("The Forbidden Dance") so I'll give Oscar his propers for recognizing The Sexy. I'm downloading Artie Shaw & Tommy Dorsey's swing version of 'The Continental' right now. Maybe I can turn the lesbians on to Continentalling later in the week, we'll see.
1935: 'Lullaby Of Broadway' (Golddiggas of '35)...fairly iconic selection, can't argue with that.
1936: 'The Way You Look Tonight' (Swing Time)...another Rogers/Astaire ditty. Tough year because it triumphed over Cole Porter's 'I've Got You Under My Skin', but an unimpeachable choice overall.
1937: 'Sweet Leilani' (Waikiki Wedding) Timeless steel-guitar classic! Bing Crosby sang it first and Chris Isaak covered it to great effect. Brave choice, music branch of The Academy!
1938: 'Thanks For The Memory' (Big Broadcast Of 1938) Bob Hope's theme song. It's okay, but better than 'Jeepers Creepers' (Going Places)? I doubt it.
1939: 'Over The Rainbow' (The Wizard Of Oz). A song so loaded with childhood baggage that even straight guys grow braids and get misty-eyed whenever OTR strokes their earholes. The other nominated songs apparently slunk off with their tails between their legs because I haven't heard of any of them.
1940: 'When You Wish Upon A Star' (Pinocchio) . I'd have to be a complete asshole to hate on this one although I'm pretty fond of 'Down Argentine Way'. Leon Redbone's growly re-interpretation of Jiminy Cricket's octave-climbing croon drives me to smoke opium and dream of blue fairies.
1941: 'The Last Time I Saw Paris' (Lady Be Good) Major Oscar boner. This steaming pile of treacle bested 'Chattanooga Choo Choo" (Sun Valley Serenade), 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company C' (Buck Privates) and "Blues In The Night"...Dinah Shore bumping and grinding "my momma done told me/when I was in kneesocks"...think of it! Where is the justice? I ask you!
1942: 'White Christmas' (Holiday Inn). How this Christmas carol eeked out a victory over 'Pig Foot Pete' (Hellzapoppin') and 'I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo' (Orchestra Wives) is anybody's guess.
1943: 'You'll Never Know' (Hello, Frisco, Hello). Gramma Muggs loved this song so I guess I have to get behind it but it's kind of a drag, really. 'That Old Black Magic' (Star Spangled Rhythm) has more ummph, if you ask me.
1944: 'Swingin' On A Star' (Going My Way). I have to cop to the fact that I'm a Sesame Street-schooled self-empowerment song aficianado from way back and quite frankly I wouldn't rather be a fish, a pig, or a mule so this song speaks to me...although is it better than 'The Trolley Song' from Meet Me In St. Louis? My Film Genres professor would think not.
1945: 'It Might As Well Be Spring' (State Fair). Fuck that. 'Accentuate The Positive' (Here Come The Waves) sets it off everytime.
1946: 'On The Atchison, Topeka And The Santa Fe' (The Harvey Girls). A rare 'scat moment' for The Academy. Well done.
1947: 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' (Song Of The South). Alright. So I had a childhood crush on Bobby Driscoll and when he got gored by a bull in Song Of The South I cried. Sue me. What I failed to notice throughout all of my pained distraction is the possibility that James Baskett as Uncle Remus singing 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' might be kinda racist. All I knew was that the guy seemed like a kind soul, the song was catchy as hell, and the Tar Baby sequence was a boot in the pants. Good choice.
1948: 'Buttons And Bows' (The Paleface). I can take or leave Bob Hope and any one of his Hit Parade golden oldies...all I know is this is the year 'The Woody Woodpecker Song' lost The Academy Award and that fucking stings!
1949: 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' (Neptune's Daughter). Yessssssss. The fact that a double entendre this slinky won an Oscar makes me almost want to forgive every Phil Collins song ever nominated.
1950: 'Mona Lisa' (Captain Carey, U.S.A.) 'Mona Lisa' is a slick piece of work and god knows I'm a 'King' Cole fan. A truly inspired choice. Especially since the sinister shadow of 'Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo' (Cinderella) looms large on the nominee list. What if it would have won? Imagine the Dion scat possibilities!
1951: 'In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening' (Here Comes The Groom). Finally, my man Hoagy Carmichael bags himself a trophy! A very inspired selection although I hope I never have to sit through this late-phase Capra-corn turd of a movie. Also nominated: 'A Kiss To Build A Dream On' (The Strip) which you may remember from the Sleepless In Seattle soundtrack. I don't remember it because there's no way in hell I'd sit through that dreck either.
1952: 'High Noon (Do Not Foresake Me My Darlin')' (High Noon). I can't comment one way or the other on this particular choice...although word on the street is that some sad, hapless actress sang another nominated song, 'Thumbelina' (Hans Christian Anderson) to her thumb on 1953's Oscar telecast. I can just picture my dad's 23 year old self scowling with woozy displeasure.
1953: 'Secret Love' (Calamity Jane) I'm pretty crazy about this song, in fact I used it as a soundtrack to a play I wrote for a grade-school talent show way back in the sixth grade. Nature vs. Nurture? Discuss.
1954: 'Three Coins In A Fountain' (Three Coins In A Fountain). This frat-house kegger singalong never grows old, does it? I kid of course, but how this obscurity won over 'The Man That Got Away' (A Star Is Born) is a riddle for the ages...download Jeff Buckley's rendition of the torchy Garland classic and discover for yourself if you don't believe me.
1955: 'Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing' (Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing). Oy. Obviously the Academy nominating committee skipped out on the Blackboard Jungle screening ('Rock Around The Clock').
1956: 'Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)' (The Man Who Knew Too Much). Sly Stone stole it from his girlfriend Doris Day and made it his own, which is cool, but really 'Written On The Wind' is probably the better choice.
1957: 'All The Way' (The Joker's Wild). Most people know it as the 'You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You' song. It's a classic late-nite lounge favorite so no argument here...although Bowie's version of 'Wild Is The Wind' throws light on the sheer epic scope of the piece (not to mention the fact that all that Bowie melodrama is clearly inspired by Nina Simone's take on the same song).
1958: 'Gigi' (Gigi). Why?
1959: 'High Hopes' (A Hole In The Head). Anyone who's ever watched 'Laverne And Shirley' knows this chestnut. I really loved that show. Why isn't it out on DVD?
1960: 'Never On A Sunday' (Never On A Sunday). Ever have a gyro after a long night of hitting the hooch? Then you've heard this peppy homage to whores everywhere. Trust me. You have.
1961: 'Moon River' (Breakfast At Tiffany's) Breakfast was far darker than I ever imagined it would be thus the song truly lends itself to the rueful tone of the pic. If ever there was a movie song married to its source, it's this one. Gotta love it, my huckleberry friend. Surprise nomination that year: 'Town Without Pity'. Great, great Gene Pitney song. I include it in my set every so often. Very high drama and Phil Spector-ish.
1962: 'Days Of Wine And Roses' (Days Of Wine And Roses). Elevator music without peer. 'Walk On The Wild Side' was nominated that year but, alas, not the Lou Reed 'and the colored girls go doo-do-doo' song you're thinking of.
1963: 'Call Me Irresponsible' (Papa's Delicate Condition) Has anyone ever heard of this movie? The song is a finger-snapping delight, but I've never seen this alleged Jackie Gleason vehicle in any of my local indie film-snob rental shops. wtf? I'm assuming it entails a fat, sweaty dude experiencing morning sickness and who wouldn't want to see that?
1964: 'Chim-Chim-Cheree' (Mary Poppins). I'm sorry but Julie Andrews bores the snot out of me and there's no way you can convince me that 'My Kind Of Town'..."chicago is..." is a worse song than this garbage. I can understand romanticizing a shit job such as 'chimney sweep' but did I dance around singing 'Poo-Poo Pa-Doo' as an ass-wiping Certified Nursing Assistant? Nevermind.
1965: 'The Shadow Of Your Smile' (The Sandpiper)Now we're getting into some serious Ray Conniff Singers territory: Music everyone's chain-smoking great aunt can agree on. Is it a good song? Hard to say because everytime I hear it, I'm in a library checking my email and surfing porn, thus I remain oblivious.
1966: 'Born Free' (Born Free). Lionesses, blonde European bitches in khaki shorts...Andy Williams. It all basically sucks. How did 'Alfie' not win this year?
1967: 'Talk To The Animals' (Doctor Doolittle). Oscar's greatest shame. The worst song ever to win anything at anytime, anywhere. True dreck. Unbearable movie, craptacular song...and of course Hollywood had to go and remake it.
1968: 'Windmills Of Your Mind' (Thomas Crown Affair) Babysitter-friendly psychedelica. Dusty Springfield covered it and so thus It. Is. Good.
1969: 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head' (Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid) I don't quite understand what this sticky-sweet sunshine-pop song is doing in this period movie. Nor can I wrap my brain around the fact that 'Everybody's Talkin'' from Midnight Cowboy was not even nominated. But we move on...
1970: 'For All We Know' (Lovers And Other Strangers). Bread's David Gates wrote this 70's wedding march warhorse under an alias and I can see why. The Carpenters rose to fame with their rendition of the piece of shit and it de-sexed them forever. Yuck.
1971: 'Theme from 'Shaft' (Shaft). What?! My theory is that this is the year the entire music branch of The Academy dipped into some really good skunk weed and talked turkey with Angela Davis or I don't know what the frick was going on in L.A. in 1971 but...wow!...way to support the Black Moses!
1972: 'The Morning After' (The Poseiden Adventure). Not so bad, considering the only real competition this year was Michael Jackson's ode to a rat: 'Ben'. Something about Maureen McGovern's precise phrasing brings it home for me. Kind of chilling.
1973: 'The Way We Were' (The Way We Were). If anyone were to karaoke this Oscar-winning dirge in 2007, they'd be stoned to death. It's just that unacceptable.
1974: 'We May Never Love Like This Again' (The Towering Inferno). The Towering Inferno had to win something since it was backed by not one but two studios...'We May Never Love Like This Again' is 'The Morning After' but a little more succinct. It's heard on the soundtrack for less than a minute at most and you'd barely notice it because it's sung by a non-descript lounge act as an all-star cast mills around the bar greeting one another.
Celine Dion, pushing eighty-something and playing Atlantic City yet again, singing an "Oscar's Favorite Jams" medley featuring Three 6 Mafia's 'It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp' and her own paint-peeling caterwaul 'My Heart Will Go On' from Titanic.
I just hope my personal caregiver is kind enough to wheel me up front and center so I can shake my fist at the heavens and curse that hog-calling, chest-thumping catwoman to the fiery bowels of a holy-roller hell.
I can get with most music I hear but some crap just sticks in my craw and, because I'm a glass-half-empty kind of guy, I become obsessive about tuneage that makes my ears bleed...like Britney Spears' 'Toxic' or Lionel Richie's 'Say You, Say Me'. So I get a little irritable. It's a Scorpio thing, I think.
Did you know 'Say You, Say Me' won an Oscar for Best Song, 1985? No joke. Now imagine Celine Dion screeching that little nugget to the cheap seats.
The Academy Awards are famously schizophrenic when it comes to blessing movie songs with Oscars. Throughout the nineties The Academy was all Hollie Hobbie and unicorns and all crushed out on Disney poop but now they're mistaking themselves for The Grammys as they show love to Dylan and Enimem and Beyonce'. I'm predicting Beyonce's boring 'Listen' will win this year over Melissa Etheridge's typically earnest 'I Need To Wake Up' which is a damn shame because the only song from Dreamgirls worth the price of an iTunes download is 'And I Am Telling You, I'm Not Going' but alas, it was written for the stageplay, not the film itself, so it's ineligible.
The first song to win an Oscar (1934, btw) was a Rogers/Astaire dance number called 'The Continental' from The Gay Divorcee, It entailed "dangerous rhythm" and kissing while dancing 'The Continental'. I've never actually danced 'The Continental' but I imagine it's something like The Lambada ("The Forbidden Dance") so I'll give Oscar his propers for recognizing The Sexy. I'm downloading Artie Shaw & Tommy Dorsey's swing version of 'The Continental' right now. Maybe I can turn the lesbians on to Continentalling later in the week, we'll see.
1935: 'Lullaby Of Broadway' (Golddiggas of '35)...fairly iconic selection, can't argue with that.
1936: 'The Way You Look Tonight' (Swing Time)...another Rogers/Astaire ditty. Tough year because it triumphed over Cole Porter's 'I've Got You Under My Skin', but an unimpeachable choice overall.
1937: 'Sweet Leilani' (Waikiki Wedding) Timeless steel-guitar classic! Bing Crosby sang it first and Chris Isaak covered it to great effect. Brave choice, music branch of The Academy!
1938: 'Thanks For The Memory' (Big Broadcast Of 1938) Bob Hope's theme song. It's okay, but better than 'Jeepers Creepers' (Going Places)? I doubt it.
1939: 'Over The Rainbow' (The Wizard Of Oz). A song so loaded with childhood baggage that even straight guys grow braids and get misty-eyed whenever OTR strokes their earholes. The other nominated songs apparently slunk off with their tails between their legs because I haven't heard of any of them.
1940: 'When You Wish Upon A Star' (Pinocchio) . I'd have to be a complete asshole to hate on this one although I'm pretty fond of 'Down Argentine Way'. Leon Redbone's growly re-interpretation of Jiminy Cricket's octave-climbing croon drives me to smoke opium and dream of blue fairies.
1941: 'The Last Time I Saw Paris' (Lady Be Good) Major Oscar boner. This steaming pile of treacle bested 'Chattanooga Choo Choo" (Sun Valley Serenade), 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company C' (Buck Privates) and "Blues In The Night"...Dinah Shore bumping and grinding "my momma done told me/when I was in kneesocks"...think of it! Where is the justice? I ask you!
1942: 'White Christmas' (Holiday Inn). How this Christmas carol eeked out a victory over 'Pig Foot Pete' (Hellzapoppin') and 'I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo' (Orchestra Wives) is anybody's guess.
1943: 'You'll Never Know' (Hello, Frisco, Hello). Gramma Muggs loved this song so I guess I have to get behind it but it's kind of a drag, really. 'That Old Black Magic' (Star Spangled Rhythm) has more ummph, if you ask me.
1944: 'Swingin' On A Star' (Going My Way). I have to cop to the fact that I'm a Sesame Street-schooled self-empowerment song aficianado from way back and quite frankly I wouldn't rather be a fish, a pig, or a mule so this song speaks to me...although is it better than 'The Trolley Song' from Meet Me In St. Louis? My Film Genres professor would think not.
1945: 'It Might As Well Be Spring' (State Fair). Fuck that. 'Accentuate The Positive' (Here Come The Waves) sets it off everytime.
1946: 'On The Atchison, Topeka And The Santa Fe' (The Harvey Girls). A rare 'scat moment' for The Academy. Well done.
1947: 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' (Song Of The South). Alright. So I had a childhood crush on Bobby Driscoll and when he got gored by a bull in Song Of The South I cried. Sue me. What I failed to notice throughout all of my pained distraction is the possibility that James Baskett as Uncle Remus singing 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' might be kinda racist. All I knew was that the guy seemed like a kind soul, the song was catchy as hell, and the Tar Baby sequence was a boot in the pants. Good choice.
1948: 'Buttons And Bows' (The Paleface). I can take or leave Bob Hope and any one of his Hit Parade golden oldies...all I know is this is the year 'The Woody Woodpecker Song' lost The Academy Award and that fucking stings!
1949: 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' (Neptune's Daughter). Yessssssss. The fact that a double entendre this slinky won an Oscar makes me almost want to forgive every Phil Collins song ever nominated.
1950: 'Mona Lisa' (Captain Carey, U.S.A.) 'Mona Lisa' is a slick piece of work and god knows I'm a 'King' Cole fan. A truly inspired choice. Especially since the sinister shadow of 'Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo' (Cinderella) looms large on the nominee list. What if it would have won? Imagine the Dion scat possibilities!
1951: 'In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening' (Here Comes The Groom). Finally, my man Hoagy Carmichael bags himself a trophy! A very inspired selection although I hope I never have to sit through this late-phase Capra-corn turd of a movie. Also nominated: 'A Kiss To Build A Dream On' (The Strip) which you may remember from the Sleepless In Seattle soundtrack. I don't remember it because there's no way in hell I'd sit through that dreck either.
1952: 'High Noon (Do Not Foresake Me My Darlin')' (High Noon). I can't comment one way or the other on this particular choice...although word on the street is that some sad, hapless actress sang another nominated song, 'Thumbelina' (Hans Christian Anderson) to her thumb on 1953's Oscar telecast. I can just picture my dad's 23 year old self scowling with woozy displeasure.
1953: 'Secret Love' (Calamity Jane) I'm pretty crazy about this song, in fact I used it as a soundtrack to a play I wrote for a grade-school talent show way back in the sixth grade. Nature vs. Nurture? Discuss.
1954: 'Three Coins In A Fountain' (Three Coins In A Fountain). This frat-house kegger singalong never grows old, does it? I kid of course, but how this obscurity won over 'The Man That Got Away' (A Star Is Born) is a riddle for the ages...download Jeff Buckley's rendition of the torchy Garland classic and discover for yourself if you don't believe me.
1955: 'Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing' (Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing). Oy. Obviously the Academy nominating committee skipped out on the Blackboard Jungle screening ('Rock Around The Clock').
1956: 'Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)' (The Man Who Knew Too Much). Sly Stone stole it from his girlfriend Doris Day and made it his own, which is cool, but really 'Written On The Wind' is probably the better choice.
1957: 'All The Way' (The Joker's Wild). Most people know it as the 'You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You' song. It's a classic late-nite lounge favorite so no argument here...although Bowie's version of 'Wild Is The Wind' throws light on the sheer epic scope of the piece (not to mention the fact that all that Bowie melodrama is clearly inspired by Nina Simone's take on the same song).
1958: 'Gigi' (Gigi). Why?
1959: 'High Hopes' (A Hole In The Head). Anyone who's ever watched 'Laverne And Shirley' knows this chestnut. I really loved that show. Why isn't it out on DVD?
1960: 'Never On A Sunday' (Never On A Sunday). Ever have a gyro after a long night of hitting the hooch? Then you've heard this peppy homage to whores everywhere. Trust me. You have.
1961: 'Moon River' (Breakfast At Tiffany's) Breakfast was far darker than I ever imagined it would be thus the song truly lends itself to the rueful tone of the pic. If ever there was a movie song married to its source, it's this one. Gotta love it, my huckleberry friend. Surprise nomination that year: 'Town Without Pity'. Great, great Gene Pitney song. I include it in my set every so often. Very high drama and Phil Spector-ish.
1962: 'Days Of Wine And Roses' (Days Of Wine And Roses). Elevator music without peer. 'Walk On The Wild Side' was nominated that year but, alas, not the Lou Reed 'and the colored girls go doo-do-doo' song you're thinking of.
1963: 'Call Me Irresponsible' (Papa's Delicate Condition) Has anyone ever heard of this movie? The song is a finger-snapping delight, but I've never seen this alleged Jackie Gleason vehicle in any of my local indie film-snob rental shops. wtf? I'm assuming it entails a fat, sweaty dude experiencing morning sickness and who wouldn't want to see that?
1964: 'Chim-Chim-Cheree' (Mary Poppins). I'm sorry but Julie Andrews bores the snot out of me and there's no way you can convince me that 'My Kind Of Town'..."chicago is..." is a worse song than this garbage. I can understand romanticizing a shit job such as 'chimney sweep' but did I dance around singing 'Poo-Poo Pa-Doo' as an ass-wiping Certified Nursing Assistant? Nevermind.
1965: 'The Shadow Of Your Smile' (The Sandpiper)Now we're getting into some serious Ray Conniff Singers territory: Music everyone's chain-smoking great aunt can agree on. Is it a good song? Hard to say because everytime I hear it, I'm in a library checking my email and surfing porn, thus I remain oblivious.
1966: 'Born Free' (Born Free). Lionesses, blonde European bitches in khaki shorts...Andy Williams. It all basically sucks. How did 'Alfie' not win this year?
1967: 'Talk To The Animals' (Doctor Doolittle). Oscar's greatest shame. The worst song ever to win anything at anytime, anywhere. True dreck. Unbearable movie, craptacular song...and of course Hollywood had to go and remake it.
1968: 'Windmills Of Your Mind' (Thomas Crown Affair) Babysitter-friendly psychedelica. Dusty Springfield covered it and so thus It. Is. Good.
1969: 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head' (Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid) I don't quite understand what this sticky-sweet sunshine-pop song is doing in this period movie. Nor can I wrap my brain around the fact that 'Everybody's Talkin'' from Midnight Cowboy was not even nominated. But we move on...
1970: 'For All We Know' (Lovers And Other Strangers). Bread's David Gates wrote this 70's wedding march warhorse under an alias and I can see why. The Carpenters rose to fame with their rendition of the piece of shit and it de-sexed them forever. Yuck.
1971: 'Theme from 'Shaft' (Shaft). What?! My theory is that this is the year the entire music branch of The Academy dipped into some really good skunk weed and talked turkey with Angela Davis or I don't know what the frick was going on in L.A. in 1971 but...wow!...way to support the Black Moses!
1972: 'The Morning After' (The Poseiden Adventure). Not so bad, considering the only real competition this year was Michael Jackson's ode to a rat: 'Ben'. Something about Maureen McGovern's precise phrasing brings it home for me. Kind of chilling.
1973: 'The Way We Were' (The Way We Were). If anyone were to karaoke this Oscar-winning dirge in 2007, they'd be stoned to death. It's just that unacceptable.
1974: 'We May Never Love Like This Again' (The Towering Inferno). The Towering Inferno had to win something since it was backed by not one but two studios...'We May Never Love Like This Again' is 'The Morning After' but a little more succinct. It's heard on the soundtrack for less than a minute at most and you'd barely notice it because it's sung by a non-descript lounge act as an all-star cast mills around the bar greeting one another.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Reason To Take Morphine And Die #3: The Kelly Phenomenon
I felt this coming, like a rumbling in my bowels.
I'm walking down 1st Avenue in the East Village and I can't help but overhear two baby hipsters discussing Tom Skerritt's body of work. Can he act? Um, he was kinda good in 'The Great Santini'....
What the fuck?
Now I know New York City is all bohemian and cinephile-tastic and shit...but...Tom Skerritt?
Within twenty four hours of that moment of zen I'm overhearing and actually having conversations peppered with slack-jawed belligerence:
"Betch!"
"Deck!"
...and punctuated with those three evergreen syllables of regurgitated cranial pablum: "ohmigod!"
Yes, indeed: ValSpeak rears its ugly, empty head again and suddenly it's 1982...AGAIN! I can smell that year all the way from 2007, it stunk so bad (it was The Year Of My Italian Exchange Student...not worth going into here).
Turns out that the source of this dismal revival is a man in a dress who calls himself Kelly. You can't log onto MySpace without Kelly unpacking the 'rules/sucks' dichotomy over electroclash bleats and shrieks at top volume. Funny? Yes. On Friday, February 16th, 2007, yes, it is fairly amusing. But by, say, March 16th, 2007 your mother will be calling you "betch!" or "deck!" or worse, your 3 year-old nephew will be chanting "let me borrow that top" and you'll want to puke. Or gag you with a spoon or whateverelse L.A. she-tards are saying these days.
So log onto http://www.betchslap.com and get it over with.
You'll laugh, you'll share the videos with friends and then with any luck at all, you'll forget.
Cheers, betches.
I'm walking down 1st Avenue in the East Village and I can't help but overhear two baby hipsters discussing Tom Skerritt's body of work. Can he act? Um, he was kinda good in 'The Great Santini'....
What the fuck?
Now I know New York City is all bohemian and cinephile-tastic and shit...but...Tom Skerritt?
Within twenty four hours of that moment of zen I'm overhearing and actually having conversations peppered with slack-jawed belligerence:
"Betch!"
"Deck!"
...and punctuated with those three evergreen syllables of regurgitated cranial pablum: "ohmigod!"
Yes, indeed: ValSpeak rears its ugly, empty head again and suddenly it's 1982...AGAIN! I can smell that year all the way from 2007, it stunk so bad (it was The Year Of My Italian Exchange Student...not worth going into here).
Turns out that the source of this dismal revival is a man in a dress who calls himself Kelly. You can't log onto MySpace without Kelly unpacking the 'rules/sucks' dichotomy over electroclash bleats and shrieks at top volume. Funny? Yes. On Friday, February 16th, 2007, yes, it is fairly amusing. But by, say, March 16th, 2007 your mother will be calling you "betch!" or "deck!" or worse, your 3 year-old nephew will be chanting "let me borrow that top" and you'll want to puke. Or gag you with a spoon or whateverelse L.A. she-tards are saying these days.
So log onto http://www.betchslap.com and get it over with.
You'll laugh, you'll share the videos with friends and then with any luck at all, you'll forget.
Cheers, betches.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Reason To Live #4: Heartlessly Ignoring The Idea That True Romantic Love Is Anything More Than A Dream Bryan Ferry Once Had A Very Long Time Ago.
Hey you! Can I be your Valentine? Want some Harvey's Bristol Creme? How about I get you good and baked? I'll introduce you to my next-door neighbor Rosie Perez (nice rack!) if you'll be my Valentine...
How about this: I get you fucked up, we'll shovel Rosie's driveway and maybe meet her, then I freak you 'til dawn and you won't have to do ME at ALL...oh fuck it.
I don't want to be your goddamn valentine anyway.
I'd rather sit under my headphones, listen to 10cc croon 'I'm Not In Love' and stare at Google-search pics of Stephen Stills circa Buffalo Springfield. That shank of man-ass was DOPE...he didn't call his early 70's band MANASSas for nothing...*sigh*...furthermore, Stills could lay down some serious blues. I wonder if he's underrated. I don't follow the retro guitar god polls so much anymore although Rolling Stone seems to like to tell us who the new Claptons are (John Mayer 's one of three new Claptons btw, apparently he's cuter and spikes RS sales moreso than, say, Buckethead ever would).
So this whole concept of romantic love is utterly absent from the Billboard charts right now. Beyonce wants us to get our shit out of her palatial estate but at least she's nice enough to call car service for us. We don't really mean jack shit to Nelly Furtado because we can't say it right although nobody anywhere knows what this pole-dancing scold is trying to say in the first place. Google the lyrics for 'Say It Right'. Uh...say wha?
Fall Out Boy hyperventilates that "this ain't no scene, it's an arms race" and that can't be any good. Sounds like Stump and Wentz are asking for a pre-nup. Akon just wants to fuck us although Clear Channel would have us believe that he wants to "love" us (album version vs. radio edit...you know how it is). And as you scan down Billboard's Hot 100 your heart will positively swell; there's a whole lineup of ghetto thugs just waiting to pull a train on us. Where's Pretty Ricky's redo of ZZTop's 'Pearl Necklace'? Your granny's London Bridge would go right down if you hijacked her iPod with these pretty words:
She was gettin' bombed,
And I was gettin' blown away,
And she took it in her hand,
And this is what she had to say:
A pearl necklace.
She wanna pearl necklace.
She wanna pearl necklace.
So I was going to slap together your standard-issue hipster-cynic downwithlove mix tape but as I'm writing this...nah...too easy. So here's a baldfaced lovesick mix the whole office can agree on:
Anything But Love - The (Real) Tuesday Weld
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing - Jack Johnson
Love Is Everything - Jane Siberry
Soon - My Bloody Valentine
Do You Want To Come With - Stephen Fretwell (wow! Fretwell! Think of the guitar god possibilities!)
I Wanted You To Feel The Same - The Radio Dept.
The Greatest - Cat Power
Let's Dance - M. Ward (yes, the Bowie 'Let's Dance'...slowed down to a funereal pace)
Never Let Go - Tom Waits
Bluer Than Blue - Michael Johnson
Neighborhood #4 (Kettles) - Arcade Fire
Ruby's Arms - Nanci Griffith
Bleed To Love Her - Fleetwood Mac
Honey Child, What Can I Do? - Isobel Campbell w/ Mark Lanegan
You've Changed - Joy Zipper (blame your loveless life on the other guy...works for me!)
I'm Losing More Than I've Ever Had - Primal Scream
We Are Mice - Azure Ray (because we are, after all)
Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
All Mixed Up - Red House Painters (The Cars' 'All Mixed Up'...slowed down to a funereal pace)
Vol. 2
Secret Heart - Feist
Johnny's Garden - Stephen Stills & Manassas
Fidelity - Regina Spektor
Louisiana - The Walkmen (no particular reason...just a really nice track)
Take Me - Karen Dalton
Heartbeats - The Knife
Can't Find My Way Home - Bonnie Raitt w/ Little Feat (live track...Bonnie's fit shaced/stoned to the bejeesus on this one)
Ballad Of A Bitter End - The Poems
Love My Way - Grant Lee Phillips
Forever My Friend - Ray LaMontagne
Thinking About You - Norah Jones
Knife - Grizzly Bear
I Talk To The Wind - King Crimson
All Those Expectations - Peter Bjorn and John
Multiply - Jamie Lidell (always conclude on a positive & funky note)
Enjoy your VD, people.
How about this: I get you fucked up, we'll shovel Rosie's driveway and maybe meet her, then I freak you 'til dawn and you won't have to do ME at ALL...oh fuck it.
I don't want to be your goddamn valentine anyway.
I'd rather sit under my headphones, listen to 10cc croon 'I'm Not In Love' and stare at Google-search pics of Stephen Stills circa Buffalo Springfield. That shank of man-ass was DOPE...he didn't call his early 70's band MANASSas for nothing...*sigh*...furthermore, Stills could lay down some serious blues. I wonder if he's underrated. I don't follow the retro guitar god polls so much anymore although Rolling Stone seems to like to tell us who the new Claptons are (John Mayer 's one of three new Claptons btw, apparently he's cuter and spikes RS sales moreso than, say, Buckethead ever would).
So this whole concept of romantic love is utterly absent from the Billboard charts right now. Beyonce wants us to get our shit out of her palatial estate but at least she's nice enough to call car service for us. We don't really mean jack shit to Nelly Furtado because we can't say it right although nobody anywhere knows what this pole-dancing scold is trying to say in the first place. Google the lyrics for 'Say It Right'. Uh...say wha?
Fall Out Boy hyperventilates that "this ain't no scene, it's an arms race" and that can't be any good. Sounds like Stump and Wentz are asking for a pre-nup. Akon just wants to fuck us although Clear Channel would have us believe that he wants to "love" us (album version vs. radio edit...you know how it is). And as you scan down Billboard's Hot 100 your heart will positively swell; there's a whole lineup of ghetto thugs just waiting to pull a train on us. Where's Pretty Ricky's redo of ZZTop's 'Pearl Necklace'? Your granny's London Bridge would go right down if you hijacked her iPod with these pretty words:
She was gettin' bombed,
And I was gettin' blown away,
And she took it in her hand,
And this is what she had to say:
A pearl necklace.
She wanna pearl necklace.
She wanna pearl necklace.
So I was going to slap together your standard-issue hipster-cynic downwithlove mix tape but as I'm writing this...nah...too easy. So here's a baldfaced lovesick mix the whole office can agree on:
Anything But Love - The (Real) Tuesday Weld
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing - Jack Johnson
Love Is Everything - Jane Siberry
Soon - My Bloody Valentine
Do You Want To Come With - Stephen Fretwell (wow! Fretwell! Think of the guitar god possibilities!)
I Wanted You To Feel The Same - The Radio Dept.
The Greatest - Cat Power
Let's Dance - M. Ward (yes, the Bowie 'Let's Dance'...slowed down to a funereal pace)
Never Let Go - Tom Waits
Bluer Than Blue - Michael Johnson
Neighborhood #4 (Kettles) - Arcade Fire
Ruby's Arms - Nanci Griffith
Bleed To Love Her - Fleetwood Mac
Honey Child, What Can I Do? - Isobel Campbell w/ Mark Lanegan
You've Changed - Joy Zipper (blame your loveless life on the other guy...works for me!)
I'm Losing More Than I've Ever Had - Primal Scream
We Are Mice - Azure Ray (because we are, after all)
Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
All Mixed Up - Red House Painters (The Cars' 'All Mixed Up'...slowed down to a funereal pace)
Vol. 2
Secret Heart - Feist
Johnny's Garden - Stephen Stills & Manassas
Fidelity - Regina Spektor
Louisiana - The Walkmen (no particular reason...just a really nice track)
Take Me - Karen Dalton
Heartbeats - The Knife
Can't Find My Way Home - Bonnie Raitt w/ Little Feat (live track...Bonnie's fit shaced/stoned to the bejeesus on this one)
Ballad Of A Bitter End - The Poems
Love My Way - Grant Lee Phillips
Forever My Friend - Ray LaMontagne
Thinking About You - Norah Jones
Knife - Grizzly Bear
I Talk To The Wind - King Crimson
All Those Expectations - Peter Bjorn and John
Multiply - Jamie Lidell (always conclude on a positive & funky note)
Enjoy your VD, people.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Reason To Live #3: Collaborating On Shit Via Email.
Try this:
Find yourself a home-schooled, GarageBand-savvy, musical prodigy who lives way far away from you, take a stab at writing some somewhat RichardMarx-by-way-of-FrankZappa lyrics and then shyly email them to him/her with the intention of having this lil' Syd Barrett/Prince/Joni Mitchell/Joanna Newsom-type person set your rhymes to music.
Have Syd Barrett/Prince/Joni Mitchell/Joanna Newsom-type prodigy email his/her results back to you (preferably in mp3 format), listen to the results three times over and then swiftly type your response without any consideration paid to whether your directives are do-able, or even sane & send your thoughts back to your prodigious friend.
You'll be all giddy, I guarantee it.
Here's a copy-n-paste of an email I just now fired off to My GarageBand Buddy:
Here are my thoughts:
I actually like The Crowd Of YMCA Joeys...and in fact, it's quite
brilliant because it's so...um...*military*... for lack of a better
word...and we could push it even further with a crisper, more
aggressive, almost-yelling-but-still-singing...it's hilarious.
"YES we CAN"
"ARE YOU READY?" (maybe a sampled army drill feel to it?..."I don't
wanna be an airforce ranger..." etc. etc.)
Lovelovelove the orchestra thingy!!!!
Love the funeral organ and alien synthy thing...bring the funeral
organ forward maybe?
Also, do you know what would be cool? If you whistled the melody
(maybe slightly off-key) in the outro..to give it a lonely
feel...the whole thing is pretty dire for a dance track...in a fun
kinda way. Can you play the congas? Can you whistle the melody
over a conga jam in the outro? There's plenty of stuff we can do
with that fablus outro...army military drill samples, you
whistling, percussive freakout...I love that you give the outro
room for stuff like that...and I REALLY love the kooky synth bleats
at the end! Lololol! It's perfect! I predict remix after remix
after remix of 'Bring It, Give It'
Brazilian Girls 4ever!,
--SP
Find yourself a home-schooled, GarageBand-savvy, musical prodigy who lives way far away from you, take a stab at writing some somewhat RichardMarx-by-way-of-FrankZappa lyrics and then shyly email them to him/her with the intention of having this lil' Syd Barrett/Prince/Joni Mitchell/Joanna Newsom-type person set your rhymes to music.
Have Syd Barrett/Prince/Joni Mitchell/Joanna Newsom-type prodigy email his/her results back to you (preferably in mp3 format), listen to the results three times over and then swiftly type your response without any consideration paid to whether your directives are do-able, or even sane & send your thoughts back to your prodigious friend.
You'll be all giddy, I guarantee it.
Here's a copy-n-paste of an email I just now fired off to My GarageBand Buddy:
Here are my thoughts:
I actually like The Crowd Of YMCA Joeys...and in fact, it's quite
brilliant because it's so...um...*military*... for lack of a better
word...and we could push it even further with a crisper, more
aggressive, almost-yelling-but-still-singing...it's hilarious.
"YES we CAN"
"ARE YOU READY?" (maybe a sampled army drill feel to it?..."I don't
wanna be an airforce ranger..." etc. etc.)
Lovelovelove the orchestra thingy!!!!
Love the funeral organ and alien synthy thing...bring the funeral
organ forward maybe?
Also, do you know what would be cool? If you whistled the melody
(maybe slightly off-key) in the outro..to give it a lonely
feel...the whole thing is pretty dire for a dance track...in a fun
kinda way. Can you play the congas? Can you whistle the melody
over a conga jam in the outro? There's plenty of stuff we can do
with that fablus outro...army military drill samples, you
whistling, percussive freakout...I love that you give the outro
room for stuff like that...and I REALLY love the kooky synth bleats
at the end! Lololol! It's perfect! I predict remix after remix
after remix of 'Bring It, Give It'
Brazilian Girls 4ever!,
--SP
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Reason To Live #2: Rethinking My Bloody Valentine.
I've been resisting grunge-era shoegazers My Bloody Valentine since 1992, the year I first heard of them. Here's why: I was bussing tables at an Italian restaurant in Seattle's touristy Pioneer Square. During my short tenure there, I nurtured a gayboy crush on a prim and fussy but kind and sweet waitress who's name was Claudia. She hailed from Palmer, Alaska. Turns out, she was way funkier than I could have ever guessed. Turns out she played guitar for noise-pop band 'My Diva' and then later for 'Juned', an all-girl combo who toured in support of Dinosaur Jr.
You could've knocked me over with a freaking feather.
This woman was My Mennonite. Little Waitress On The Prairie. She looked like she just stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, like she just climbed out of a nineteenth century tintype. She never cursed but she scolded me when I absent-mindedly stuck a greenback in my mouth to free up my hands for some other task.
"Money's dirty!", she huffed as her face soured.
At one of her gigs, she confessed that she worshipped My Bloody Valentine. And Ride. And a whole bunch of other bands that bored me to tears (at the time). But I fancied myself open-minded so I bought a tape (remember those?) of one of her picks: Chapterhouse. Hated it. Sold it for 50 cents within the week.
Then I learned that somebody found her shooting up in a basement toilet stall before a My Diva show. I felt so let down, so sad. I never spoke to her again.
So here I am, fifteen years later, and My Bloody Valentine is making my day, day after day after day. I love their masterwork 'Loveless' so much so that I wrote a song and pitched it as a kind of tribute to my waitress and to the band. 'Loveless', for me, is the soundtrack for all the regret, the disappointment and all the hope I keep buried behind a wall of noisy cynicism. My song is titled 'Lights Out, Juneau'. It all runs together in one unreadable block because I'm too lazy to tweak the HTML...I feel good posting it, however, and that's all that matters really.
You could've knocked me over with a freaking feather.
This woman was My Mennonite. Little Waitress On The Prairie. She looked like she just stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, like she just climbed out of a nineteenth century tintype. She never cursed but she scolded me when I absent-mindedly stuck a greenback in my mouth to free up my hands for some other task.
"Money's dirty!", she huffed as her face soured.
At one of her gigs, she confessed that she worshipped My Bloody Valentine. And Ride. And a whole bunch of other bands that bored me to tears (at the time). But I fancied myself open-minded so I bought a tape (remember those?) of one of her picks: Chapterhouse. Hated it. Sold it for 50 cents within the week.
Then I learned that somebody found her shooting up in a basement toilet stall before a My Diva show. I felt so let down, so sad. I never spoke to her again.
So here I am, fifteen years later, and My Bloody Valentine is making my day, day after day after day. I love their masterwork 'Loveless' so much so that I wrote a song and pitched it as a kind of tribute to my waitress and to the band. 'Loveless', for me, is the soundtrack for all the regret, the disappointment and all the hope I keep buried behind a wall of noisy cynicism. My song is titled 'Lights Out, Juneau'. It all runs together in one unreadable block because I'm too lazy to tweak the HTML...I feel good posting it, however, and that's all that matters really.
LIGHTS OUT,
Don’t let your guard dog down
A starving python’s hanging ‘round
Freshwater fish breathes its very last breath
Lights out
Stingray send my bloody valentine
Soon ‘cuz my fingers gotta rash
Ain’t got no money and I ain’t got no hash
Just a busted transistor
Nobody’s talking, everything’s fine
By the side of the road around some tires
Picks it up and it don’t clear some wires
Lights out
Let’s drink to this and the poor getting rich
Repair crew finds it, puts it in a bag
How’d a deer head get there and was it stag?
Folks without power, I got my radio
Let’s drink to this, the loveless, only shallow
I miss you my brother
Lights out,
Marmots survey the tundra and wonder
Let’s drink to this, several girls galore and more…
I’m so tired, I dream of release
I’m so alive, a caribou well outside the shade of trees
My Bloody Valentine thanks for everything
Let’s drink to this, to eagles and to everyone else you know.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Reason To Take Morphine And Die #2: Rolling Stone Magazine's Three And A Half Star Review Of Fall Out Boy's 'Infinity On High'.
Remember when Rolling Stone was relevant? No? Well why not? You mean you don't remember back in the day when RS broke news of Iggy and Bowie, Verlaine and Thunders to a blithely dithering music-buying public?
You mean you don't look back, all misty-eyed, upon an era when Rolling Stone's staff was lousy with iconic journalists like Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O' Rourke, the odd sociology scholar-slash-music critic (Greil Marcus) or bad-ass revolutionary-slash-music critic (Lester Bangs) and future legend-photographer (Annie Liebowitz)? You can't recall marveling with secret glee at an early 80's review of punk-rock visionaries The Cramps when RS blessed 'Bad Music For Bad People' with three stars and crowed: "'TV Set' boasts the shittiest guitar solo committed to wax!", a declaration that tweaked your worldview irrevocably (holy shit! bad is good!)?
Brace yourself and get with the Rolling Stone program because...
As of February 6th, 2007, when Fall Out Boy's 'Infinity On High' drops, bad is gonna get even better!
Founding publisher Jann Wenner once wrote that Rolling Stone is "not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces".
So Fall Out Boy's three and a half stars is not just about Babyface-produced quasi-punque emo-schlock but it's also about Fall Out Boy's clothing line and the band's desire to bang debutards in high end hotels.
...Fall Out Boy: bringin' it all back home!
The first paragraph of RS company man-slash-hack Rob Sheffield's review of 'Infinity On High' discusses the band's vast base of non-fans and then goes on to unpack FOB's love of lengthy, super-punctuated song titles ("I'm Like A Lawyer The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You Hum Hallelujah)".
...LOL! (Ow! My head hurts!)
Shockingly, Sheffield mentions Fall Out's songwriting superBoys Stump & Wentz in the same breath as Pete Townshend (and Roger Daltrey but p.s. Roger Daltrey just sang Townshend's lyrics, didn't write them, don'tchaknow) while discussing Wentz' outsized ego and how FOB moves a lot of units. No evidence of Who-ish greatness is posited, just the fact that a lot of people buy their product so that must mean something...eh? Also did you know that Wentz "does the words" (doesn't write the lyrics) and lets Stump "handle the music"? World class scribe, this Rob Sheffield.
Fall Out Boy reminds Rob of John Waite and Night Ranger! You'd have to be deaf or some kinda nerd not to be down with Fall Out Boy!
The first single is "bold" because it rocks a nineties R&B hook that "sounds like Montell Jordan's 'This Is How We Do It'".
Got that, Grampa?
Whoa, dude. Are these guys Beastie Boys, Dead Boys, Fall Out Boy or Backstreet Boys? Hell, their first single boldly debuts on the Billboard chart this week at number two while quoting a groove so tired it makes The Chicago Bears' 'Super Bowl Shuffle' sound like Sly & The Family Stone's 'Family Affair'.
They're Crazy Like A Fox Boys!
In conclusion, Sheffield asserts that Fall Out Boy is really famous and some people like them while others don't. In case you're a member of the latter group, Sheffield reassures us that Stump has sex pics online and then goes out on a limb to conjecture that Stump would maybe like to tap some of that Lindsay Lohan ass. Now that you know they're not Gay Boy and so obvs. you're a card-carrying member of the Fall Out Fanclub, you'll agree that Fall Out Boy "deserves every bit of their success" because "they expose the secret life of boys in hilariously bloodcurdling detail".
As for the music itself? Um...ah...Fall Out Boy is...erm...famous.
Rolling Stone: The thinking man's Maxim.
You mean you don't look back, all misty-eyed, upon an era when Rolling Stone's staff was lousy with iconic journalists like Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O' Rourke, the odd sociology scholar-slash-music critic (Greil Marcus) or bad-ass revolutionary-slash-music critic (Lester Bangs) and future legend-photographer (Annie Liebowitz)? You can't recall marveling with secret glee at an early 80's review of punk-rock visionaries The Cramps when RS blessed 'Bad Music For Bad People' with three stars and crowed: "'TV Set' boasts the shittiest guitar solo committed to wax!", a declaration that tweaked your worldview irrevocably (holy shit! bad is good!)?
Brace yourself and get with the Rolling Stone program because...
As of February 6th, 2007, when Fall Out Boy's 'Infinity On High' drops, bad is gonna get even better!
Founding publisher Jann Wenner once wrote that Rolling Stone is "not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces".
So Fall Out Boy's three and a half stars is not just about Babyface-produced quasi-punque emo-schlock but it's also about Fall Out Boy's clothing line and the band's desire to bang debutards in high end hotels.
...Fall Out Boy: bringin' it all back home!
The first paragraph of RS company man-slash-hack Rob Sheffield's review of 'Infinity On High' discusses the band's vast base of non-fans and then goes on to unpack FOB's love of lengthy, super-punctuated song titles ("I'm Like A Lawyer The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You Hum Hallelujah)".
...LOL! (Ow! My head hurts!)
Shockingly, Sheffield mentions Fall Out's songwriting superBoys Stump & Wentz in the same breath as Pete Townshend (and Roger Daltrey but p.s. Roger Daltrey just sang Townshend's lyrics, didn't write them, don'tchaknow) while discussing Wentz' outsized ego and how FOB moves a lot of units. No evidence of Who-ish greatness is posited, just the fact that a lot of people buy their product so that must mean something...eh? Also did you know that Wentz "does the words" (doesn't write the lyrics) and lets Stump "handle the music"? World class scribe, this Rob Sheffield.
Fall Out Boy reminds Rob of John Waite and Night Ranger! You'd have to be deaf or some kinda nerd not to be down with Fall Out Boy!
The first single is "bold" because it rocks a nineties R&B hook that "sounds like Montell Jordan's 'This Is How We Do It'".
Got that, Grampa?
Whoa, dude. Are these guys Beastie Boys, Dead Boys, Fall Out Boy or Backstreet Boys? Hell, their first single boldly debuts on the Billboard chart this week at number two while quoting a groove so tired it makes The Chicago Bears' 'Super Bowl Shuffle' sound like Sly & The Family Stone's 'Family Affair'.
They're Crazy Like A Fox Boys!
In conclusion, Sheffield asserts that Fall Out Boy is really famous and some people like them while others don't. In case you're a member of the latter group, Sheffield reassures us that Stump has sex pics online and then goes out on a limb to conjecture that Stump would maybe like to tap some of that Lindsay Lohan ass. Now that you know they're not Gay Boy and so obvs. you're a card-carrying member of the Fall Out Fanclub, you'll agree that Fall Out Boy "deserves every bit of their success" because "they expose the secret life of boys in hilariously bloodcurdling detail".
As for the music itself? Um...ah...Fall Out Boy is...erm...famous.
Rolling Stone: The thinking man's Maxim.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Winter '07: Kinda Like '68, The Summer Of Love, But Colder
The war in Iraq carries the torch of the collage-vision that is Picasso's Spanish Civil War mural Guernica, except that as of '07, the ghostly newsprint bleeding through the washed out corpses, horse & bullhead has become samples, loops, and markered scribbles on palms and cocktail napkins yawped through GarageBand audio files in somebody's warehouse or basement compulab...
Danger Mouse, not Rabelais, not Hendrix, and not el Greco, is broadcasting the dismal state of global affairs in what is certainly the infancy of Earth's latest Blue Period...
I'm ignorant. I can't even begin to guess why we're still over there, nor can I wrap my tiny little mortified brain around the numbers of the dead reported daily over Yahoo! News (in blue hypertexted blurbs)...Saddam's been hung (alongside his pooch 'Blondie') after all...what's left? Why are we sending 21,000 more troops over there to dust up a civil war that's going to spill over borders and send the entire area into a chaotic tailspin..meanwhile, here at home New Orleans is commiting suicide and I still don't have health insurance.
The Good, The Bad and The Queen is only the latest Hotshot Debut in a long 2006-vintage playlist of a supremely bummed-out homefront Hit Parade. The GB&Q is an unlikely supergroup consisting of The Clash's Paul Simonon, Afro-funk drummer Tony Allen, The Verve guitarist Simon Tong and The Good Sir Dapper Downer Himself: Damon Albarn (Blur, The Gorillaz). I wish I could sport a a houndstooth lid as effortlessly as Droopy Dog: DA, can.
The aggregate isn't quite as quackers as it would seem at first...it all coagulates like an especially salty egg-drop soup...Paul Simonon's bass echoes The Clash's glory days, particularly in the narcotic, string-laden 'A Soldier's Tale' which has 'Sandinista!' writ all over it (I love the film-noir whistling and the country-fuck finger-picking especially).
'Nature Springs' could be its best stab at a Stateside single. It swings gently in a quasi-dub sort of way (more spaghetti western whistling which I have to confess I'm a total bottom for), but the bass booms, the soaring strings coax tears, and Damon sings sweet as pie. The lyrics are not without hope: Even though Mother Nature is dressed down as a sinister Croc-Hunter hating whore to be feared, we're all a submarine, looking for a dream faraway...or something like that.
'Heruclean' may just be straw that broke the camel's back enough to provoke Ennio Morricone to file a frivolous lawsuit against The Good, The Bad & The Queen: Much more hating on The Western World against a soundscape of much more spaghetti western whistling, a Mormon Tabernacle Man Choir, Danger Mouse beeps & whistles, otherworldly hag-mewling, sinister chord changes...it's all in there.
In short: This piece of work is No Fucking Fun but it's lovely and desperate and if you're a suicidal junkie, you'll most definitely identify and you'll most certainly want to gift your junkie-bitch girlfriend with it when Valentine's Day rolls around. It's the soundtrack to your final nod-off on some stoop somewhere around 2nd Avenue and 4th Street.
Other War-In-Iraq haters in the queue:
Norah Jones' new 'Not Too Late': Basically a concept album about how the war in Iraq makes her want to curl up and take a nap.
Bloc Party's 'The Price Of Gas': They've done the math and they still rock. A lesbian bar all-request night favorite. No surprise there.
John Mayer's 'Waiting For The World To Change': John's just gonna wait around for them venal, old-ass Republicans to die for shit to get better. Not exactly Johnny Rotten is he?
...hmmm....who else hates Bush and everything he stands for...
Pink does: 'Dear Mr. President'...Fuck ya, dubya! *splayed finger vag lick*
Neil Young: 'Let's Impeach The President'. Word.
Black Eyed Peas: 'Where's The Love'...this track makes me cry everytime I play it, which is embarrassing because The Peas kind of suck alot of the time and I hate to cry in public.
TV On The Radio: 'I Was A Lover'. Simple. Powerful. "I Was A Lover/Before The War...'
Danger Mouse, not Rabelais, not Hendrix, and not el Greco, is broadcasting the dismal state of global affairs in what is certainly the infancy of Earth's latest Blue Period...
I'm ignorant. I can't even begin to guess why we're still over there, nor can I wrap my tiny little mortified brain around the numbers of the dead reported daily over Yahoo! News (in blue hypertexted blurbs)...Saddam's been hung (alongside his pooch 'Blondie') after all...what's left? Why are we sending 21,000 more troops over there to dust up a civil war that's going to spill over borders and send the entire area into a chaotic tailspin..meanwhile, here at home New Orleans is commiting suicide and I still don't have health insurance.
The Good, The Bad and The Queen is only the latest Hotshot Debut in a long 2006-vintage playlist of a supremely bummed-out homefront Hit Parade. The GB&Q is an unlikely supergroup consisting of The Clash's Paul Simonon, Afro-funk drummer Tony Allen, The Verve guitarist Simon Tong and The Good Sir Dapper Downer Himself: Damon Albarn (Blur, The Gorillaz). I wish I could sport a a houndstooth lid as effortlessly as Droopy Dog: DA, can.
The aggregate isn't quite as quackers as it would seem at first...it all coagulates like an especially salty egg-drop soup...Paul Simonon's bass echoes The Clash's glory days, particularly in the narcotic, string-laden 'A Soldier's Tale' which has 'Sandinista!' writ all over it (I love the film-noir whistling and the country-fuck finger-picking especially).
'Nature Springs' could be its best stab at a Stateside single. It swings gently in a quasi-dub sort of way (more spaghetti western whistling which I have to confess I'm a total bottom for), but the bass booms, the soaring strings coax tears, and Damon sings sweet as pie. The lyrics are not without hope: Even though Mother Nature is dressed down as a sinister Croc-Hunter hating whore to be feared, we're all a submarine, looking for a dream faraway...or something like that.
'Heruclean' may just be straw that broke the camel's back enough to provoke Ennio Morricone to file a frivolous lawsuit against The Good, The Bad & The Queen: Much more hating on The Western World against a soundscape of much more spaghetti western whistling, a Mormon Tabernacle Man Choir, Danger Mouse beeps & whistles, otherworldly hag-mewling, sinister chord changes...it's all in there.
In short: This piece of work is No Fucking Fun but it's lovely and desperate and if you're a suicidal junkie, you'll most definitely identify and you'll most certainly want to gift your junkie-bitch girlfriend with it when Valentine's Day rolls around. It's the soundtrack to your final nod-off on some stoop somewhere around 2nd Avenue and 4th Street.
Other War-In-Iraq haters in the queue:
Norah Jones' new 'Not Too Late': Basically a concept album about how the war in Iraq makes her want to curl up and take a nap.
Bloc Party's 'The Price Of Gas': They've done the math and they still rock. A lesbian bar all-request night favorite. No surprise there.
John Mayer's 'Waiting For The World To Change': John's just gonna wait around for them venal, old-ass Republicans to die for shit to get better. Not exactly Johnny Rotten is he?
...hmmm....who else hates Bush and everything he stands for...
Pink does: 'Dear Mr. President'...Fuck ya, dubya! *splayed finger vag lick*
Neil Young: 'Let's Impeach The President'. Word.
Black Eyed Peas: 'Where's The Love'...this track makes me cry everytime I play it, which is embarrassing because The Peas kind of suck alot of the time and I hate to cry in public.
TV On The Radio: 'I Was A Lover'. Simple. Powerful. "I Was A Lover/Before The War...'
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
I Know It's Late And I Should Probably Be In Bed Or Married With Kids Or Revising My Resume...
...but Grizzly Bear's 'Yellow House' is FUCKING BREAKING MY HEART RIGHT NOW!
Get. Up.
Get up outta that chair and trot yourself down to Earwax or Douchehole or wherever you buy your music at and BUY THIS CD!
If Rolling Stone were AT ALL the tastemaker it thinks it is, it would have rated this piece of work five stars and whoever writes for them anymore would have gone on and on about Van Morrison and how maybe prog-rock wasn't so bad after all...
shit.
This is gorgeous stuff.
They're Fleetwood Mac meets King Crimson meets a garbage truck meets a Salvation Army Band meets The Turtles meets Electric Light Orchestra unplugged...
The stand-out track is a ghostly, slow-burning Beached Boy bolero: 'The Knife'...pure sexy necrophilia. Hear it once, light a candle for The Shangri-La's or Siouxsie Sioux or Mama Cass Elliott or Sharon Tate and ball your eyes out, or don't, but do put it on a mix cd for one of the undead you're currently retro-crushing on. If that's what you're in to.
..also they're from Brooklyn and they're all no doubt shorter than you. To hear them is to love them.
Get. Up.
Get up outta that chair and trot yourself down to Earwax or Douchehole or wherever you buy your music at and BUY THIS CD!
If Rolling Stone were AT ALL the tastemaker it thinks it is, it would have rated this piece of work five stars and whoever writes for them anymore would have gone on and on about Van Morrison and how maybe prog-rock wasn't so bad after all...
shit.
This is gorgeous stuff.
They're Fleetwood Mac meets King Crimson meets a garbage truck meets a Salvation Army Band meets The Turtles meets Electric Light Orchestra unplugged...
The stand-out track is a ghostly, slow-burning Beached Boy bolero: 'The Knife'...pure sexy necrophilia. Hear it once, light a candle for The Shangri-La's or Siouxsie Sioux or Mama Cass Elliott or Sharon Tate and ball your eyes out, or don't, but do put it on a mix cd for one of the undead you're currently retro-crushing on. If that's what you're in to.
..also they're from Brooklyn and they're all no doubt shorter than you. To hear them is to love them.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Dispatch From The Dance Floor: Nobody Doesn't Like Prince, Although Some Of The Gays File Him Under Easy Listening.
What is it about Anthony Kiedis that makes me shit blood?
You know what it is? He's like that one stoner frat guy who transcends cool to such a degree that he doesn't have to move his mouth when he talks (with a slight lisp), doesn't have to wear a shirt (ever, because he has negative body fat), can wear a kilt to class, can smell like ass (and that's somehow deemed 'sexy' by girls who will never fuck you, not in a million years), thinks he can rap and so every other suburban dickweed mistakes him for someone who can rap, can fuck dudes but not be labelled 'fag' because he's just, you know, he's koo-koo krazy (!) and he listens to P-Funk and those guys smoke a bunch of weed and so, like, they're open-minded and shit! (reference 'Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On' or 'Pot Sharing Tots' or 'Maggot Brain'), can shoot smack and still look like he just pranced up to the tiptop of Mt. Ranier without breaking a sweat, can have a hippie/degenerate-dad named Blackie Dammit who made indie movies in the sixties...it's just not fucking fair.
The whole California punk-hippie thing gives me hives, it's true, but, on second thought, could it be that The Red Hot Chili Peppers simply stink to high heaven?
Nope, no they don't. Not at all. Despite Kiedis' public persona (I'm not acquainted with the guy, after all...he could be one helluva straight-up fella for all I know), he's in fine voice anymore and I can't say enough about John Frusciante (genius), drummer Chad Smith (perpetually hot), and, of course, Flea carrying a significant amount of melodic burden on bass. Their harmonizing on 'Stadium Arcadium' is all Smiley-Smile Beach Boys and weirdly beautiful behind all the angsty-funkmatizing.
My favorite track is 'Strip My Mind' , which is goose-flesh raising 70's AM radio psychedelia-lite. Not quite sure what it's about necessarily, but the man-chorus and the Frusciante-solo makes me wanna go smoke a bowl and reflect. Not that I do much of either of those things.
The track that reminds me that socks-on-cocks was edgey-cute for a nan0-second but is a concept that hasn't aged very well is 'Warlocks', which manages to showcase all of the Kiedis quasi-funky vocal quirks that made you hate him in the first place. But again, nice work Frusciante...
Club Report:
I 'spun' myself to the bone this last week: Back-to-back gigs, standing for hours and hours drinking Miller Lite after Miller Lite, fielding requests for reggae and dancehall which are genres I know next to nothing about, trying to scrape together a set consisting of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks, old Blondie and Toots & The Maytals...
So far this week I've learned that a truly successful 80's set consists of six songs:
'Mickey', Toni Basil
'Take On Me', A-Ha (NOTE: why?)
Madonna (anything but especially 'Dress You Up'...again...why?)
'99 Luftballoons' (the German version really sets it off. Why?)
'Come On Eileen' (ohmifuckinggod...WHY?)
Lisa Lisa And The Cult Jam (but then again I mostly 'spin' in Brooklyn...that's why)
'Freedom', George Michael (some sort of mass pagan ecstatic release takes place whenever I pick this)
Hasn't aged very well:
Peter Gabriel/Genesis (anything)
Yes (their 'Owner/Lonely Heart' new wave moment was a lot of clatter but to what end?)
'Electric Boogie', Marcia Griffiths (clears the floor immediately)
Patti LaBelle (oy.)
'Puttin' On The Ritz', Taco (could've predicted that)
Red Hot Chili Peppers (apparently undanceable)
Jody Watley (clubgoers wish they liked her more than they actually do)
Rick Astley (pure camp)
Boys II Men (not so hype)
...but nobody doesn't like Prince. If I play 'Kiss', I'm guaranteed a cattle drive to the dance floor. But a d.j. who leans too hard on Prince is one lazy d.j. as far as I'm concerned. However...
I was rocking the 12" version of 'Erotic City' at a breast cancer benefit yesterday in Park Slope and the pushy little she/he in charge of the operation gripped my forearm and huskily whispered to me, all on the down-low:
"You need to play some dance music or some reggae, 'cuz we need to pack the dancefloor, 'mkay sweetie?"
...and then she trucked off like a the husky little Prince-oblivious Italian-American manchild she prides herself to be.
If you can't swivel your ass-shanks to 'Erotic City' (especially the 12"), then you may want to consult your neurologist or pop a fistful of Paxil...do something...because that's just wrong.
You know what it is? He's like that one stoner frat guy who transcends cool to such a degree that he doesn't have to move his mouth when he talks (with a slight lisp), doesn't have to wear a shirt (ever, because he has negative body fat), can wear a kilt to class, can smell like ass (and that's somehow deemed 'sexy' by girls who will never fuck you, not in a million years), thinks he can rap and so every other suburban dickweed mistakes him for someone who can rap, can fuck dudes but not be labelled 'fag' because he's just, you know, he's koo-koo krazy (!) and he listens to P-Funk and those guys smoke a bunch of weed and so, like, they're open-minded and shit! (reference 'Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On' or 'Pot Sharing Tots' or 'Maggot Brain'), can shoot smack and still look like he just pranced up to the tiptop of Mt. Ranier without breaking a sweat, can have a hippie/degenerate-dad named Blackie Dammit who made indie movies in the sixties...it's just not fucking fair.
The whole California punk-hippie thing gives me hives, it's true, but, on second thought, could it be that The Red Hot Chili Peppers simply stink to high heaven?
Nope, no they don't. Not at all. Despite Kiedis' public persona (I'm not acquainted with the guy, after all...he could be one helluva straight-up fella for all I know), he's in fine voice anymore and I can't say enough about John Frusciante (genius), drummer Chad Smith (perpetually hot), and, of course, Flea carrying a significant amount of melodic burden on bass. Their harmonizing on 'Stadium Arcadium' is all Smiley-Smile Beach Boys and weirdly beautiful behind all the angsty-funkmatizing.
My favorite track is 'Strip My Mind' , which is goose-flesh raising 70's AM radio psychedelia-lite. Not quite sure what it's about necessarily, but the man-chorus and the Frusciante-solo makes me wanna go smoke a bowl and reflect. Not that I do much of either of those things.
The track that reminds me that socks-on-cocks was edgey-cute for a nan0-second but is a concept that hasn't aged very well is 'Warlocks', which manages to showcase all of the Kiedis quasi-funky vocal quirks that made you hate him in the first place. But again, nice work Frusciante...
Club Report:
I 'spun' myself to the bone this last week: Back-to-back gigs, standing for hours and hours drinking Miller Lite after Miller Lite, fielding requests for reggae and dancehall which are genres I know next to nothing about, trying to scrape together a set consisting of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks, old Blondie and Toots & The Maytals...
So far this week I've learned that a truly successful 80's set consists of six songs:
'Mickey', Toni Basil
'Take On Me', A-Ha (NOTE: why?)
Madonna (anything but especially 'Dress You Up'...again...why?)
'99 Luftballoons' (the German version really sets it off. Why?)
'Come On Eileen' (ohmifuckinggod...WHY?)
Lisa Lisa And The Cult Jam (but then again I mostly 'spin' in Brooklyn...that's why)
'Freedom', George Michael (some sort of mass pagan ecstatic release takes place whenever I pick this)
Hasn't aged very well:
Peter Gabriel/Genesis (anything)
Yes (their 'Owner/Lonely Heart' new wave moment was a lot of clatter but to what end?)
'Electric Boogie', Marcia Griffiths (clears the floor immediately)
Patti LaBelle (oy.)
'Puttin' On The Ritz', Taco (could've predicted that)
Red Hot Chili Peppers (apparently undanceable)
Jody Watley (clubgoers wish they liked her more than they actually do)
Rick Astley (pure camp)
Boys II Men (not so hype)
...but nobody doesn't like Prince. If I play 'Kiss', I'm guaranteed a cattle drive to the dance floor. But a d.j. who leans too hard on Prince is one lazy d.j. as far as I'm concerned. However...
I was rocking the 12" version of 'Erotic City' at a breast cancer benefit yesterday in Park Slope and the pushy little she/he in charge of the operation gripped my forearm and huskily whispered to me, all on the down-low:
"You need to play some dance music or some reggae, 'cuz we need to pack the dancefloor, 'mkay sweetie?"
...and then she trucked off like a the husky little Prince-oblivious Italian-American manchild she prides herself to be.
If you can't swivel your ass-shanks to 'Erotic City' (especially the 12"), then you may want to consult your neurologist or pop a fistful of Paxil...do something...because that's just wrong.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Reason To Take Morphine And Die #1: People's Choice Awards
Everyone knows "we" "The People" are dumber than shit. So why would Procter & Gamble and CBS entrust "us" (buffaloed fuckwits) with the ungainly responsibility of conceding the trophy for People's Choice Favorite Hair of 2004 to Jennifer Garner?
...or why even stop there?
Let's Us Unwashed Masses go positively nutty and voice our choice for each and every celeb thought or summation, yay or nay, that crosses our silly little minds?
People's Choice For Best Glimpse Of Celebrity Naughty Bit: Kid Rock and That Christian Guy From Creed In That Streaming Sex Video Where The Christian Guy Got Head And Kid Rock Got His Bunghole Fingered.
People's Choice For Woefully Busted And Now Ostensibly Humbled "Please Still Love Me" Drunken Celebrity Mugshot: Melvin Gibson.
People's Choice For Most Asstarded Sample Ever: "Lonely Goatherd" (Gwen Stefani's 'Wind It Up')
People's Choice For Most Useless Celebrity The World Has Ever Suffered: Andy Dick (Obvious victor Paris Hilton disqualified due to complicated unilateral corporate sponsorship bylaws etc. etc.)
People's Choice For Comedian Who Sucks So Much Ass The Only Sincere Laugh This Guy Has Ever Heard Was Scratched From The Nicotine Ravaged Throat Of A New Jersey She-Male After He/She Spooged In Unfunny Dude's Eyeball: Jay Leno
People's Choice For Most Egregious Lack Of Max Factor: Judi Dench as That Fucking Lesbian Bitch in 'Notes On A Scandal'.
There doesn't seem to be a Darwinian logic to Award Shows. None of them mutate or fall off, they just multiply. I remember discovering the Oscars back in 1973 and I thought to myself 'well holy fuck, they give little gold naked guys with nice butts to little 10 year old girls in tuxedos' (Tatum O' Neal, Best Supporting Actress, 'Paper Moon')...but then the next year The Academy decided 70-something Art Carney's about-face performance playing a stoic old dude in 'Harry And Tonto' was far more compelling than Al Pacino phoning it in in 'Godfather Part II' or Jack Nicholson's pedestrian turn in 'Chinatown' and I thought to myself 'well fuck it. I'll spare myself the heartache and take it all with a grain of salt." And so it came to pass. Every year an A-Ha wins a Grammy for Best New Artist, or a Pia Zadora wins a Golden Globe, or a 'Crash' wins an Oscar, or a Nickelback wins a People's Choice Award for Lifetime Acheivement or who can keep track anymore.
My own personal Pony's Choice Award goes to Clem Snide for having the wit and the courage to record Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful' utterly straight-faced.
Good for you, Eef and Company!
...or why even stop there?
Let's Us Unwashed Masses go positively nutty and voice our choice for each and every celeb thought or summation, yay or nay, that crosses our silly little minds?
People's Choice For Best Glimpse Of Celebrity Naughty Bit: Kid Rock and That Christian Guy From Creed In That Streaming Sex Video Where The Christian Guy Got Head And Kid Rock Got His Bunghole Fingered.
People's Choice For Woefully Busted And Now Ostensibly Humbled "Please Still Love Me" Drunken Celebrity Mugshot: Melvin Gibson.
People's Choice For Most Asstarded Sample Ever: "Lonely Goatherd" (Gwen Stefani's 'Wind It Up')
People's Choice For Most Useless Celebrity The World Has Ever Suffered: Andy Dick (Obvious victor Paris Hilton disqualified due to complicated unilateral corporate sponsorship bylaws etc. etc.)
People's Choice For Comedian Who Sucks So Much Ass The Only Sincere Laugh This Guy Has Ever Heard Was Scratched From The Nicotine Ravaged Throat Of A New Jersey She-Male After He/She Spooged In Unfunny Dude's Eyeball: Jay Leno
People's Choice For Most Egregious Lack Of Max Factor: Judi Dench as That Fucking Lesbian Bitch in 'Notes On A Scandal'.
There doesn't seem to be a Darwinian logic to Award Shows. None of them mutate or fall off, they just multiply. I remember discovering the Oscars back in 1973 and I thought to myself 'well holy fuck, they give little gold naked guys with nice butts to little 10 year old girls in tuxedos' (Tatum O' Neal, Best Supporting Actress, 'Paper Moon')...but then the next year The Academy decided 70-something Art Carney's about-face performance playing a stoic old dude in 'Harry And Tonto' was far more compelling than Al Pacino phoning it in in 'Godfather Part II' or Jack Nicholson's pedestrian turn in 'Chinatown' and I thought to myself 'well fuck it. I'll spare myself the heartache and take it all with a grain of salt." And so it came to pass. Every year an A-Ha wins a Grammy for Best New Artist, or a Pia Zadora wins a Golden Globe, or a 'Crash' wins an Oscar, or a Nickelback wins a People's Choice Award for Lifetime Acheivement or who can keep track anymore.
My own personal Pony's Choice Award goes to Clem Snide for having the wit and the courage to record Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful' utterly straight-faced.
Good for you, Eef and Company!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
iTunes Celebrity Playlists Validate My Existance (Sort Of)
So I was gonna blog about how the music biz is giving ladies the short-shrift but then I got drunk and forgot what my argument was supposed to be about in the first place: Something about Bob Dylan forgetting he ever had anything to do with Karen Dalton, an obscurified genius/Dylan enabler who succumbed to booze and smack in 1993...Karen Dalton is the most glorious folk artist you've never heard by the way. She's been compared to Billie Holliday in the same breath as having been described as 'an acquired taste'.
Acquired taste?! For real?!
It really didn't take too much in the way of a narcotic sedative for me to appreciate Lady Day the first time I heard her. Do we really need a Timbaland at the knobs to twiddle us male-dominated music-consuming public to feel a female songstress? If that's the case, then god help the Joanna Newsomes and the Joan As Police Womanses and the El Perro Del Marses because their hysterical Wiccan rants are gonna leave them crack-addled and starving if they don't flash their respective vaginas for US Weekly. (NOTE: Anne Coulter, you're no better than a vag-flashing Britney, you haggard, cocktail-swilling shill).
I really feel like ladies in the music biz are being shafted but I'm unclear as to why and how right now...I'm a little tipsy...why is Martha Wainwright unheard of in the shadow of her bro Rufus, why doesn't Cibo Matto's lovely foodie chanteuse Miho Hatori have a slew of never-ending solo gigs stretching from Coachella to Billboard Music Awards...can you name one single female artist who isn't under the thumb of some Svengali/Impresario?...Pink, I guess...still feels manufactured. Maybe Norah Jones...but she's no Joni Mitchell, a tad formulaic...Madonna, yes...but William Orbit really is her Svengali/Impresario/Phantom Of The Opera...if we're gonna call a spade a spade here.
My point here is that lately I've been listening to a lot of chick music (Tegan & Sara, Azure Ray, Goldfrapp) and I'm confused as to why none of their music impacts the Billboard charts. Tegan & Sara's 'Where Does The Good Go' would have have been a smash in the mid-70's. KT Tunstall charted briefly, and that gave me some hope, but 'Black Horse And The Cherry Tree' was almost a novelty single...something to be featured on K-Tel's 'Dr. Demento's Best Of Whacktacular Koo-Koo Shit You're Embarrassed To Admit You Like To Friends And Relatives', it's so anomalous, even though in it's pristine incarnation, it's breathtaking .
Maybe we don't give a shit about Billboard charts anymore, thanks to the iTunes revolution, but I'd really like to see a chick-artist(s) hunker down and build a body of work and prosper without Alpha-Male Hip-Hop Nation calling the shots. Nelly Furtado surrendered. Good for her.
Liz Phair's playlist on iTunes (as posted on October 31st, 2006) restored my faith in her 'Guyville' vision. Her playlist reads like a short story and it makes me pine for her crabby, failed-romantic voice. Also she has stellar taste in music (that strangely chimes with my own...call me, Liz!).
Her voice is necessary. This bitch needs to write tablets worth of prose because there's a world of pie-faced boys & girls who ache to read her shit.
Word to Patricia Arquette and her crazy-quilt playlist. I only wish she would have expanded upon her picks. I have a feeling that I'd like to sit and nurse a cocktail or two with her and pick her brain but I'd like a trailer or something...I'd like to know what I'm in for.
More iTunes Playlists!
Acquired taste?! For real?!
It really didn't take too much in the way of a narcotic sedative for me to appreciate Lady Day the first time I heard her. Do we really need a Timbaland at the knobs to twiddle us male-dominated music-consuming public to feel a female songstress? If that's the case, then god help the Joanna Newsomes and the Joan As Police Womanses and the El Perro Del Marses because their hysterical Wiccan rants are gonna leave them crack-addled and starving if they don't flash their respective vaginas for US Weekly. (NOTE: Anne Coulter, you're no better than a vag-flashing Britney, you haggard, cocktail-swilling shill).
I really feel like ladies in the music biz are being shafted but I'm unclear as to why and how right now...I'm a little tipsy...why is Martha Wainwright unheard of in the shadow of her bro Rufus, why doesn't Cibo Matto's lovely foodie chanteuse Miho Hatori have a slew of never-ending solo gigs stretching from Coachella to Billboard Music Awards...can you name one single female artist who isn't under the thumb of some Svengali/Impresario?...Pink, I guess...still feels manufactured. Maybe Norah Jones...but she's no Joni Mitchell, a tad formulaic...Madonna, yes...but William Orbit really is her Svengali/Impresario/Phantom Of The Opera...if we're gonna call a spade a spade here.
My point here is that lately I've been listening to a lot of chick music (Tegan & Sara, Azure Ray, Goldfrapp) and I'm confused as to why none of their music impacts the Billboard charts. Tegan & Sara's 'Where Does The Good Go' would have have been a smash in the mid-70's. KT Tunstall charted briefly, and that gave me some hope, but 'Black Horse And The Cherry Tree' was almost a novelty single...something to be featured on K-Tel's 'Dr. Demento's Best Of Whacktacular Koo-Koo Shit You're Embarrassed To Admit You Like To Friends And Relatives', it's so anomalous, even though in it's pristine incarnation, it's breathtaking .
Maybe we don't give a shit about Billboard charts anymore, thanks to the iTunes revolution, but I'd really like to see a chick-artist(s) hunker down and build a body of work and prosper without Alpha-Male Hip-Hop Nation calling the shots. Nelly Furtado surrendered. Good for her.
Liz Phair's playlist on iTunes (as posted on October 31st, 2006) restored my faith in her 'Guyville' vision. Her playlist reads like a short story and it makes me pine for her crabby, failed-romantic voice. Also she has stellar taste in music (that strangely chimes with my own...call me, Liz!).
Her voice is necessary. This bitch needs to write tablets worth of prose because there's a world of pie-faced boys & girls who ache to read her shit.
Word to Patricia Arquette and her crazy-quilt playlist. I only wish she would have expanded upon her picks. I have a feeling that I'd like to sit and nurse a cocktail or two with her and pick her brain but I'd like a trailer or something...I'd like to know what I'm in for.
More iTunes Playlists!
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Reason To Live #1: Clint, Michigan.
The Ponyster is not normally one to pimp bands but recently I've sampled a shitload of new ones (a lot of them local...B.K. Brooklyn in tha house, etc. etc.): Brazilian Girls (fun as fuck but too-cool-for-school and so I'm a little intimidated by them...I hope I never have to wait on Sabina Brazilian Girl...I can't tell my NuBlu from my NoBu and I'd probably have to apologize to her for being fat...), The Knife (not from Brooklyn but probably the most significant dance band to come down the pike since New Order)...and...
Clint, Michigan.
I love this band. They're as if The Carter Family with Very Special Guest Andy Bell from Erasure opened for Iris DeMent at The Cock. Clint "Michigan" Asay's voice is dove-bar sweet; he could work it hard for his teen fanbase but he gives plenty of playtime to his bandmates Pinky (ubiquitous viola-player here in NYC...love her) and Mason (mandolin). Great, bittersweet, snarky, just-short-of-arch songwriting and soaring harmonies...lovely. I'd produce them if I knew how to produce (I'm learning) but I'm sure LD Beghtol or Stephin Merritt will step in and do the job for me.
Look out for them. I'm sure they're a gas live on stage. Clint's a trip...it's worth the price of admission just to hear his stage patter.
Clint, Michigan.
I love this band. They're as if The Carter Family with Very Special Guest Andy Bell from Erasure opened for Iris DeMent at The Cock. Clint "Michigan" Asay's voice is dove-bar sweet; he could work it hard for his teen fanbase but he gives plenty of playtime to his bandmates Pinky (ubiquitous viola-player here in NYC...love her) and Mason (mandolin). Great, bittersweet, snarky, just-short-of-arch songwriting and soaring harmonies...lovely. I'd produce them if I knew how to produce (I'm learning) but I'm sure LD Beghtol or Stephin Merritt will step in and do the job for me.
Look out for them. I'm sure they're a gas live on stage. Clint's a trip...it's worth the price of admission just to hear his stage patter.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Ghetto Love: From Ben E. King To Willy Deville To John Legend
We've established that I'm a hopeless, bleary-eyed sap...but there's no shame in my game so why not wear my heart on my sleeve (again)?
So I'm gonna put together a mix and dedicate it to The Man That Got Away (he knows who he is). I'm in a Drifters loping-along-the-boardwalk kind of mood so I'm going to go with that flavor. Ghetto Love Songs are irresistable. Two people coming together with every odd stacked against them...well...it's the crux, the nitty-gritty of every make-out worthy, sweaty slow-dance ever fumbled on a gymnasium floor. So here goes:
'A Lover's Question', Clyde McPhatter: From the accapella basso profundo 'bum-bum-bum-BUM-bum-be-bum', finger-snapping intro to the Tex-Mex rhythmic acoustic guitar thrumming along behind Clyde's soaring tenor, the universal question 'do you love me?' is posed as he unpacks all that he'd care to know and then melismas all over the place in the fade out, no answer in sight. Sorry Clyde, but love is a dog from hell. Didn't you know?
'This Magic Moment', The Drifters: Let's just assume, Clyde, that the lover in question wants your ass and all your dreams are realized. Sure, there'll be gales of strings to launch you two lovebirds off on the wings of a dove and yes, everything you want, you'll have. But only for a moment. Nothing lasts, Clyde, and while her lips are close to yours, most likely sweeter than wine, Ben E. King is in the queue, waiting to hop to it when you get bumped to the curb. Sorry, Clyde, but nobody ever promised you a Rose that grows in Spanish Harlem.
'Spanish Harlem', Ben E. King: 'Spanish' and 'Harlem' are two very succulent words that, when juxtaposed with 'rose' well...hell...who wouldn't want to rent a sixth-floor walk-up uptown for too much money and just live there? Bad news for you Ben E., Latinas would rather not be planted in your garden, they'd rather take the A train or cab it down to bottle-service clubs in the meatpacking district. But there's a certain gay guy in Clinton Hill who wouldn't mind a repotting. What would that make me, a cob that grows somewhere north and east of Park Slope?
'Drip Drop', Dion: Piss-poor plumbing as a metaphor for a shitty relationship wouldn't seem that revelutionary or even remotely that original, but Dion wails on this track like a guy who is truly fucked. The girl ('got no brain') packed up her bags and moved out on the midnight train ('the girl's insane'). His buddy comes to see him to give Dion's hapless ass a tip-tip-tip but Dion ain't having it: 'mind your own business/shut your lip-lip-lip/I know when my girl's given me the slip-slip-slip'. Tears fall in sheets of rain, street-corner dudes clap in time to infrastructural devastation, and Dion whines with a sob that makes Bright Eyes look like an alpha-male daytrader. 'on the floor, the rug, on the wall'....shit is bad, people. Call the Tenant Advocacy folks, Dion. You have more rights than you think you do.
'Are You There With Another Girl', Dionne Warwick: Goddamnit John, not only are you not into me but you had to move to Alaska, marry your best friend's sister, and spawn a trifecta of perfect toddlers. I guess you are there with another girl. I suppose I won't 'surely die' but...I'm disappointed, dammit. At least 60's era Dionne had Clinique, inflatable furniture, Bacharach on at the baby grand and Pop Art to console herself with. All I've got is Coors Light.
'Stay With Me', Lorraine Ellison: Bette Midler did a pretty good job with this forgotten gem in 'The Rose', what with her alcohol-ravaged, Courtney Love, throat-scarring rasp and all but Lorraine Ellison trilled the original like a dutiful housewife wronged, ovenmits and all, who just goes ahead and has a nervous breakdown on the linoleum floor of her Union City kitchen. Other nervous breakdowns on record include a couple of Jennifers telling you they're not going and I suppose every Janis Joplin and Alanis Morrisette track ever commited to tape. Personally, I prefer a nice, polite Connie Francis implosion but that's because I numb myself with aspirin, dope and alcohol, just like Connie Francis did (does).
To be continued...
So I'm gonna put together a mix and dedicate it to The Man That Got Away (he knows who he is). I'm in a Drifters loping-along-the-boardwalk kind of mood so I'm going to go with that flavor. Ghetto Love Songs are irresistable. Two people coming together with every odd stacked against them...well...it's the crux, the nitty-gritty of every make-out worthy, sweaty slow-dance ever fumbled on a gymnasium floor. So here goes:
'A Lover's Question', Clyde McPhatter: From the accapella basso profundo 'bum-bum-bum-BUM-bum-be-bum', finger-snapping intro to the Tex-Mex rhythmic acoustic guitar thrumming along behind Clyde's soaring tenor, the universal question 'do you love me?' is posed as he unpacks all that he'd care to know and then melismas all over the place in the fade out, no answer in sight. Sorry Clyde, but love is a dog from hell. Didn't you know?
'This Magic Moment', The Drifters: Let's just assume, Clyde, that the lover in question wants your ass and all your dreams are realized. Sure, there'll be gales of strings to launch you two lovebirds off on the wings of a dove and yes, everything you want, you'll have. But only for a moment. Nothing lasts, Clyde, and while her lips are close to yours, most likely sweeter than wine, Ben E. King is in the queue, waiting to hop to it when you get bumped to the curb. Sorry, Clyde, but nobody ever promised you a Rose that grows in Spanish Harlem.
'Spanish Harlem', Ben E. King: 'Spanish' and 'Harlem' are two very succulent words that, when juxtaposed with 'rose' well...hell...who wouldn't want to rent a sixth-floor walk-up uptown for too much money and just live there? Bad news for you Ben E., Latinas would rather not be planted in your garden, they'd rather take the A train or cab it down to bottle-service clubs in the meatpacking district. But there's a certain gay guy in Clinton Hill who wouldn't mind a repotting. What would that make me, a cob that grows somewhere north and east of Park Slope?
'Drip Drop', Dion: Piss-poor plumbing as a metaphor for a shitty relationship wouldn't seem that revelutionary or even remotely that original, but Dion wails on this track like a guy who is truly fucked. The girl ('got no brain') packed up her bags and moved out on the midnight train ('the girl's insane'). His buddy comes to see him to give Dion's hapless ass a tip-tip-tip but Dion ain't having it: 'mind your own business/shut your lip-lip-lip/I know when my girl's given me the slip-slip-slip'. Tears fall in sheets of rain, street-corner dudes clap in time to infrastructural devastation, and Dion whines with a sob that makes Bright Eyes look like an alpha-male daytrader. 'on the floor, the rug, on the wall'....shit is bad, people. Call the Tenant Advocacy folks, Dion. You have more rights than you think you do.
'Are You There With Another Girl', Dionne Warwick: Goddamnit John, not only are you not into me but you had to move to Alaska, marry your best friend's sister, and spawn a trifecta of perfect toddlers. I guess you are there with another girl. I suppose I won't 'surely die' but...I'm disappointed, dammit. At least 60's era Dionne had Clinique, inflatable furniture, Bacharach on at the baby grand and Pop Art to console herself with. All I've got is Coors Light.
'Stay With Me', Lorraine Ellison: Bette Midler did a pretty good job with this forgotten gem in 'The Rose', what with her alcohol-ravaged, Courtney Love, throat-scarring rasp and all but Lorraine Ellison trilled the original like a dutiful housewife wronged, ovenmits and all, who just goes ahead and has a nervous breakdown on the linoleum floor of her Union City kitchen. Other nervous breakdowns on record include a couple of Jennifers telling you they're not going and I suppose every Janis Joplin and Alanis Morrisette track ever commited to tape. Personally, I prefer a nice, polite Connie Francis implosion but that's because I numb myself with aspirin, dope and alcohol, just like Connie Francis did (does).
To be continued...
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
It's A Thin Line Between ThrowDown And ShowTune
I'll admit it, some artists I just do not get. Nellie McKay is one of them. I want to like her because she's a freak-flag waving anti-folk dork (I need to know a little something about this 'anti-folk' movement the kids tend to hate on. I'm fifteen years after the fact, I know, but I worked at Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A where this whole anti-folk scene was bred but I still don't know what the hell it is). My personal truth is that her music bugs the snot right out of me.
See the problem is this: I'm a pop sucker-chump. I'm into great big echoe-y, reverb heavy production, batshit arrangement choices but most of all...I loves me some keyboard. Even if the song is an Emerson, Lake, & Palmer homage featuring lyrics rhyming 'Rock Me Guiliani' with 'Lockheed Spooge Upon Me' ...if it features overproduced layers upon overdubs upon samples of pianos and strings I probably shamelessly adore it.
Some examples of this:
All of Arcade Fire's 'Funeral'
Magnetic Fields
H.P. Lovecraft (the psychedelic band, not the author)
Anything Phil Spector has ever had a hand in
Electric Light Orchestra's 'Out Of The Blue'
David Bowie's 'Hunky Dory'
Rolling Stones' 'Their Satanic Majesties Request'
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention
Bread
Black Keys (so reverb heavy I can't actually play them out in bars because it's just shrill and trebly. Drinkers leave in droves.)
...and Nellie McKay produces her own stuff which is pretty amazing because her newest release 'Pretty Little Head' features some truly stellar production. But...'Pretty Little Head' is the original cast soundtrack to what I imagine to be my worst nightmare of an Off-Broadway musical. I never wanted to see 'Urinetown' because I guessed that the music was atrocious and I was right because I bought the cast album/cd used and it was unlistenable. 'Spring Awakenings' is said to be the 'Rent' of 2006. Is that supposed to be high praise?! 'Rent' is 'AIDS For Dummies' as sung through by the cast of 'Zoom'. I realize that the score for 'Spring Awakenings' was written by Duncan Sheik which lends the endeavor a certain amount of mid-90's hipster credibility but why isn't Elvis Costello writing Broadway musicals? Or Tom Waits? Or Goldfrapp? Ying Yang Twins?
So anyway, I can't get behind Nellie. No hooks. 'Cupcake' is a well-intentioned tribute to gay marriage but it's about as fun as actually attending a commitment ceremony upstate somewhere around Syracuse or something. Regina Spektor is flat-out quackers in the Nellie McKay vein but she manages to at least reference a radio friendly single (specifically 'November Rain') once in a while. And 'On The Radio' should be on the radio because it's what 'Hollaback Girl' would be if it only had a brain. She's got some funk and I'm looking forward to more of her shit.
That's all. Nothing more to write.
See the problem is this: I'm a pop sucker-chump. I'm into great big echoe-y, reverb heavy production, batshit arrangement choices but most of all...I loves me some keyboard. Even if the song is an Emerson, Lake, & Palmer homage featuring lyrics rhyming 'Rock Me Guiliani' with 'Lockheed Spooge Upon Me' ...if it features overproduced layers upon overdubs upon samples of pianos and strings I probably shamelessly adore it.
Some examples of this:
All of Arcade Fire's 'Funeral'
Magnetic Fields
H.P. Lovecraft (the psychedelic band, not the author)
Anything Phil Spector has ever had a hand in
Electric Light Orchestra's 'Out Of The Blue'
David Bowie's 'Hunky Dory'
Rolling Stones' 'Their Satanic Majesties Request'
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention
Bread
Black Keys (so reverb heavy I can't actually play them out in bars because it's just shrill and trebly. Drinkers leave in droves.)
...and Nellie McKay produces her own stuff which is pretty amazing because her newest release 'Pretty Little Head' features some truly stellar production. But...'Pretty Little Head' is the original cast soundtrack to what I imagine to be my worst nightmare of an Off-Broadway musical. I never wanted to see 'Urinetown' because I guessed that the music was atrocious and I was right because I bought the cast album/cd used and it was unlistenable. 'Spring Awakenings' is said to be the 'Rent' of 2006. Is that supposed to be high praise?! 'Rent' is 'AIDS For Dummies' as sung through by the cast of 'Zoom'. I realize that the score for 'Spring Awakenings' was written by Duncan Sheik which lends the endeavor a certain amount of mid-90's hipster credibility but why isn't Elvis Costello writing Broadway musicals? Or Tom Waits? Or Goldfrapp? Ying Yang Twins?
So anyway, I can't get behind Nellie. No hooks. 'Cupcake' is a well-intentioned tribute to gay marriage but it's about as fun as actually attending a commitment ceremony upstate somewhere around Syracuse or something. Regina Spektor is flat-out quackers in the Nellie McKay vein but she manages to at least reference a radio friendly single (specifically 'November Rain') once in a while. And 'On The Radio' should be on the radio because it's what 'Hollaback Girl' would be if it only had a brain. She's got some funk and I'm looking forward to more of her shit.
That's all. Nothing more to write.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Worst, Most Offensive Movie Of An Already Shitty Year For 'Les Cinema'
Jesus Christ but who in fuck gave the green light for 'Notes On A Scandal' starring Oscarbait Bitches Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett?
I borrowed a 'For Your Consideration' screener of the hoary piece of garbage and what did I learn?
I learned that we homosexuals are utterly unfuckable, fusty, fastidious neurotics- doomed-to-die-alone-and-who-actually-deserve-to-die-alone, dead-cat grieving hobbits who undermine the utterly pure unbridled life-affirming heterosexual lust of right-thinking breeders who just want to fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck but goddamnit us jealous-ass undersexed faggotdykes just keep FUCKING it up for you blessed fuckhappy Children Of Jesus.
On the other hand, 'Babel' wasn't half bad.
I borrowed a 'For Your Consideration' screener of the hoary piece of garbage and what did I learn?
I learned that we homosexuals are utterly unfuckable, fusty, fastidious neurotics- doomed-to-die-alone-and-who-actually-deserve-to-die-alone, dead-cat grieving hobbits who undermine the utterly pure unbridled life-affirming heterosexual lust of right-thinking breeders who just want to fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck but goddamnit us jealous-ass undersexed faggotdykes just keep FUCKING it up for you blessed fuckhappy Children Of Jesus.
On the other hand, 'Babel' wasn't half bad.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
More Year End Schwag.
2006 will not go down in history as a banner year. Period.
If you had a good year please feel free to comment because I'd sincerely love to read about it. Take a moment, share your joy. The best I can say about 2006 is that some unlikely individuals squeezed out babies and December's weather here in NYC has been downright pretty. Broadway had a good year apparently but who honestly gives a rat's ass other than a few of my homosexual brethren. I did see my first Broadway play this year: George Bernard Shaw's 'Heartbreak House' which had something to do with dithering Capitalists welcoming war with wide-open arms. I don't know what that has to do with Britney's vagina but my date seemed to think it was all somehow relevant.
Here are my picks for 'albums' of the year (for real now, no fudging for hipster-cred):
10. Teddybears 'Soft Machine': Remember ABBA? The nostalgia machine won't let us forget. Thankfully 'Chiquitita' doesn't suck half as bad as I had thought at the time, back in the late 70's, when their synthetic harmonies were all over the radio. Sweden is once again Bubblehead Pop Ground Zero (other Swedes hogging Pitchfork hype: The Knife (technically techno), El Perro Del Mar, The Concretes, The Hives etc. etc.) but for me Teddybears' 'Soft Machine' is the motherlode. Every track would be ubiquitous radio smashes in a perfect world. The States should be suffering Teddybears fatigue right now but because Hip-Hop Nation has radio under lockdown, the only exposure they'll get is via car commercials and MySpace. Tracks of note: 'Yours To Keep' featuring Neneh Cherry's honey-sweet vocals and somewhere deep in the mix, Norway's Annie. Also 'Punkrocker', featuring Iggy Pop phoning it in. It's about as 'punk' as the theme from 'The Rockford Files' but you'll have to undergo laser brain-erasure after hearing it but one time. Both tracks are on Satisfaction Pony setlist heavy rotation.
9. Beth Orton 'Comfort Of Strangers': A lot of my friends must think she's dull as paste because they can never remember who she is but I think her voice is irresistable comfort food. It's like that slant of light that bathes the house you grew up in, just before the sun sinks in the west on a Sunday evening. Or fuck Dickinson, she's more like a slightly remorseful shiraz buzz. Plus she hangs out with very cool producers like Ben Watt and Four Tet. Starbucks never got around to co-opting her so you can still forge your own relationship with her, sans corporate endorsement. Standout tracks: 'Worms' and the title track which trips along gently like your babysitter on a couple caps of 'shrooms.
Um, some guy just knocked on my window and asked for five bucks. I know, I know...it's Christmas Eve and I should have forked it over but: Five bucks?! WTF?!
8. Justin Timberlake 'Futurelove/Sexsounds': Okay, okay...'Dick In A Box' was pretty fucking funny and 'What Goes Around...' is an amazing track, worthy of Al Green. I give up already. Jesus. It still feels like a Pat Boone whitewash. It's a Timbaland record for God's sake!
7. Black Lips 'Let It Bloom': I confess, I've never actually heard this album (mostly because I can't find it anywhere) but if it's half as good as their Springtime set @ Madison, Wisconsin's High Noon Saloon then it's a freaking classic. Look, I never said I was a critic...I'm a d.j. and a fan. Look out for their upcoming release. The buzz is strong. Jack White watch yourself.
6. 'Marie Antoinette' Original Soundtrack: I'll say this much, that Sofia Coppola sure can throw together a pretty soundtrack. Her 'Virgin Suicides' playlist made me weep like a wee little girl. And now she's introduced me to The Radio Dept. and reacquainted me with Gang Of Four in one fell swoop. Hatch some more Coppolas, Sofia...somebody needs to fill the Robert Altman void (r.i.p.).
In putting together this list I'm realizing that I don't actually listen to 'albums' anymore like I once did. iTunes has changed everything. Have I lost something here?
5. Louis XIV 'The Best Little Secrets Are Kept': I'm not actually certain when this was released but I've been discovering it and re-discovering it throughout the year. I'll put on iTunes Party Shuffle, walk away to shoo away this chip-hungry rat or that window-knocking vagrant and I'll hear something naughty that sort of sounds like Bon Scott's AC/DC and lo and behold it's always Louis XIV! Dirty dirty boys these Louis XIV. 'The Grand Apartment' is laugh out loud retarded and it's as fresh today as when I first heard it way back in February. Rock n' roll showmanship isn't dead, it's just a crime punishable by incarceration.
4. Vince Guaraldi Trio, 'A Charlie Brown Christmas': Why are you looking at me like that? Is there anything more perfect than the brush-snare wisp of 'Christmastime Is Here'? No. There isn't.
3. Spank Rock, 'Yoyoyoyoyo': Okay, this is what I'm talking about. This is what hip-hop once was and will be again: Total DIY, homebaked goodness. If you don't have a good time shaking your ass-hams to 'Sweet Talk' ('tap that ass/tap that ass/tap that ass') then you're without hope or purpose. Funny, beatcentric, melodic good-timing. And that's what it's all about.
2. Cat Power 'The Greatest': All of a sudden I love this bitch. I've hated her, almost irrationally, for so long and now I've been set free. Her mopey voice makes so much sense in the context of tune-impaired honky-tonk pianos recorded in somebody's gay uncle's rim-chair/sling hung from the ceiling room. She sounds as old as methuselah and as drunk as I tend to be and goshdarnit she's a looker on top of it all.
'Once I wanted to be the greatest/
No wind or waterfall could stop me/
Then came the rush of flood/
The stars at night turned you to dust.'
I'm sorry but that shit is wrenching. That's heartbreak etched into the walls of your cardiomyopic heart (or mine, rather).
Man.
1. Goldfrapp 'Supernatural'/Tom Waits 'Orphans' (tie):
As far as I'm concerned, Madonna can just retire because Goldfrapp is here to liberate dancefloors and groove-hungry aesthetes from their respective lock-step, drug-dependant stupors. Here's a diva who has taken classical romanticism absolutely seriously and then spins it to suit her own decadent, Weimar Germany needs. She is exactly what Bush-era America in decline requires. Her voice lacks American Idolatry because she's an iron goddess for the blitzkrieg but she's winking too. She's a populist, one of us...unlike Madonna, who makes it clear to us again and again that she's over us and that her producers will deal with her fanbase by proxy. Ultimately, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about here, it's just that I'm feeling Goldfrapp whereas I can appreciate Madonna, much like I can blandly enjoy a waxwork.
Goldfrapp is the distaff version of Tom Waits. The Real Tomkat has been deep into fat beats for fifteen years or more and he keeps crowing in interviews about how his Tomkittens (Sullivan and Casey) keep him plugged into banging on shit and beat-boxing and whatnot and I pretty much believe him: He's definitely not faking the funk on 'Orphans', a collection so dense it would take you a month hunkered down in a cabin somewhere in the sticks, just you and your iPod, to sort it all out and absorb it. I certainly haven't managed to take it all in and I've been living with it for several weeks. All I can say so far is that his version of 'Goodnight Irene' is quite possibly the definitive (Leadbelly notwithstanding) and judging from 'Never Let Go', well, if Goldfrapp and Tom Waits ever did collaborate it would be an immaculate conception so delicious flashlights all around the world would spontaneously combust. (NOTE: I've been drinking).
So that's my list. Big whoop, I know...hey...I left out LeeAnn Womack who is responsible for the best country album of the year bar none. She evokes Nashville circa 1972 without getting lost in nostalgia and her restraint alone is worthy of inclusion on the PonyList. Sorry, LeeAnn. But you know that I love you.
I love you.
I really do.
If you had a good year please feel free to comment because I'd sincerely love to read about it. Take a moment, share your joy. The best I can say about 2006 is that some unlikely individuals squeezed out babies and December's weather here in NYC has been downright pretty. Broadway had a good year apparently but who honestly gives a rat's ass other than a few of my homosexual brethren. I did see my first Broadway play this year: George Bernard Shaw's 'Heartbreak House' which had something to do with dithering Capitalists welcoming war with wide-open arms. I don't know what that has to do with Britney's vagina but my date seemed to think it was all somehow relevant.
Here are my picks for 'albums' of the year (for real now, no fudging for hipster-cred):
10. Teddybears 'Soft Machine': Remember ABBA? The nostalgia machine won't let us forget. Thankfully 'Chiquitita' doesn't suck half as bad as I had thought at the time, back in the late 70's, when their synthetic harmonies were all over the radio. Sweden is once again Bubblehead Pop Ground Zero (other Swedes hogging Pitchfork hype: The Knife (technically techno), El Perro Del Mar, The Concretes, The Hives etc. etc.) but for me Teddybears' 'Soft Machine' is the motherlode. Every track would be ubiquitous radio smashes in a perfect world. The States should be suffering Teddybears fatigue right now but because Hip-Hop Nation has radio under lockdown, the only exposure they'll get is via car commercials and MySpace. Tracks of note: 'Yours To Keep' featuring Neneh Cherry's honey-sweet vocals and somewhere deep in the mix, Norway's Annie. Also 'Punkrocker', featuring Iggy Pop phoning it in. It's about as 'punk' as the theme from 'The Rockford Files' but you'll have to undergo laser brain-erasure after hearing it but one time. Both tracks are on Satisfaction Pony setlist heavy rotation.
9. Beth Orton 'Comfort Of Strangers': A lot of my friends must think she's dull as paste because they can never remember who she is but I think her voice is irresistable comfort food. It's like that slant of light that bathes the house you grew up in, just before the sun sinks in the west on a Sunday evening. Or fuck Dickinson, she's more like a slightly remorseful shiraz buzz. Plus she hangs out with very cool producers like Ben Watt and Four Tet. Starbucks never got around to co-opting her so you can still forge your own relationship with her, sans corporate endorsement. Standout tracks: 'Worms' and the title track which trips along gently like your babysitter on a couple caps of 'shrooms.
Um, some guy just knocked on my window and asked for five bucks. I know, I know...it's Christmas Eve and I should have forked it over but: Five bucks?! WTF?!
8. Justin Timberlake 'Futurelove/Sexsounds': Okay, okay...'Dick In A Box' was pretty fucking funny and 'What Goes Around...' is an amazing track, worthy of Al Green. I give up already. Jesus. It still feels like a Pat Boone whitewash. It's a Timbaland record for God's sake!
7. Black Lips 'Let It Bloom': I confess, I've never actually heard this album (mostly because I can't find it anywhere) but if it's half as good as their Springtime set @ Madison, Wisconsin's High Noon Saloon then it's a freaking classic. Look, I never said I was a critic...I'm a d.j. and a fan. Look out for their upcoming release. The buzz is strong. Jack White watch yourself.
6. 'Marie Antoinette' Original Soundtrack: I'll say this much, that Sofia Coppola sure can throw together a pretty soundtrack. Her 'Virgin Suicides' playlist made me weep like a wee little girl. And now she's introduced me to The Radio Dept. and reacquainted me with Gang Of Four in one fell swoop. Hatch some more Coppolas, Sofia...somebody needs to fill the Robert Altman void (r.i.p.).
In putting together this list I'm realizing that I don't actually listen to 'albums' anymore like I once did. iTunes has changed everything. Have I lost something here?
5. Louis XIV 'The Best Little Secrets Are Kept': I'm not actually certain when this was released but I've been discovering it and re-discovering it throughout the year. I'll put on iTunes Party Shuffle, walk away to shoo away this chip-hungry rat or that window-knocking vagrant and I'll hear something naughty that sort of sounds like Bon Scott's AC/DC and lo and behold it's always Louis XIV! Dirty dirty boys these Louis XIV. 'The Grand Apartment' is laugh out loud retarded and it's as fresh today as when I first heard it way back in February. Rock n' roll showmanship isn't dead, it's just a crime punishable by incarceration.
4. Vince Guaraldi Trio, 'A Charlie Brown Christmas': Why are you looking at me like that? Is there anything more perfect than the brush-snare wisp of 'Christmastime Is Here'? No. There isn't.
3. Spank Rock, 'Yoyoyoyoyo': Okay, this is what I'm talking about. This is what hip-hop once was and will be again: Total DIY, homebaked goodness. If you don't have a good time shaking your ass-hams to 'Sweet Talk' ('tap that ass/tap that ass/tap that ass') then you're without hope or purpose. Funny, beatcentric, melodic good-timing. And that's what it's all about.
2. Cat Power 'The Greatest': All of a sudden I love this bitch. I've hated her, almost irrationally, for so long and now I've been set free. Her mopey voice makes so much sense in the context of tune-impaired honky-tonk pianos recorded in somebody's gay uncle's rim-chair/sling hung from the ceiling room. She sounds as old as methuselah and as drunk as I tend to be and goshdarnit she's a looker on top of it all.
'Once I wanted to be the greatest/
No wind or waterfall could stop me/
Then came the rush of flood/
The stars at night turned you to dust.'
I'm sorry but that shit is wrenching. That's heartbreak etched into the walls of your cardiomyopic heart (or mine, rather).
Man.
1. Goldfrapp 'Supernatural'/Tom Waits 'Orphans' (tie):
As far as I'm concerned, Madonna can just retire because Goldfrapp is here to liberate dancefloors and groove-hungry aesthetes from their respective lock-step, drug-dependant stupors. Here's a diva who has taken classical romanticism absolutely seriously and then spins it to suit her own decadent, Weimar Germany needs. She is exactly what Bush-era America in decline requires. Her voice lacks American Idolatry because she's an iron goddess for the blitzkrieg but she's winking too. She's a populist, one of us...unlike Madonna, who makes it clear to us again and again that she's over us and that her producers will deal with her fanbase by proxy. Ultimately, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about here, it's just that I'm feeling Goldfrapp whereas I can appreciate Madonna, much like I can blandly enjoy a waxwork.
Goldfrapp is the distaff version of Tom Waits. The Real Tomkat has been deep into fat beats for fifteen years or more and he keeps crowing in interviews about how his Tomkittens (Sullivan and Casey) keep him plugged into banging on shit and beat-boxing and whatnot and I pretty much believe him: He's definitely not faking the funk on 'Orphans', a collection so dense it would take you a month hunkered down in a cabin somewhere in the sticks, just you and your iPod, to sort it all out and absorb it. I certainly haven't managed to take it all in and I've been living with it for several weeks. All I can say so far is that his version of 'Goodnight Irene' is quite possibly the definitive (Leadbelly notwithstanding) and judging from 'Never Let Go', well, if Goldfrapp and Tom Waits ever did collaborate it would be an immaculate conception so delicious flashlights all around the world would spontaneously combust. (NOTE: I've been drinking).
So that's my list. Big whoop, I know...hey...I left out LeeAnn Womack who is responsible for the best country album of the year bar none. She evokes Nashville circa 1972 without getting lost in nostalgia and her restraint alone is worthy of inclusion on the PonyList. Sorry, LeeAnn. But you know that I love you.
I love you.
I really do.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Year End Wrap Up
I more or less gave up on this blog because I was fired by SBCGLOBAL.NET and so thus my email account was dinked... so logging on to Blogspot.com has become a Maxwell Smart maze of tricky trap doors and forgotten passwords...and I get so fatigued...
hello?
*taps mic*
Is this thing on?
Anyway...I'm a big fan of ellipses and YouTube links (I've tried to upload an old Soul Train video of Aretha Franklin NAILING 'Oh Me Oh My' to this blog many many times but to no avail)...but I'm an even bigger fan of year-end best-of lists so here's mine:
Best Return To Form:
Jon-Jon Diary: I had a good time hating on his juicy, odious ass courtesy of his brain-bruising, self-aggrandizing blogs on the interwebs but then all-of-a-sudden his vile, yet articulate, spewage took a sharp turn south and I couldn't make heads nor tails of what exactly he was madly raving on about. Alas, he's clawed his way out of his psychic K-hole, he's made it through the rain, and it turns out he's no longer a sickening guilty pleasure: I'm actually proud to say that I now hate him, intellect fully engaged, with no holds barred, now that he's struck a rich vein of shuddersome clarity. Stick with it, Yer Godawful Abhorrence...at last I remember why we loathed each other in the first place. In stark, fastidiously proofed old-school font no less!
Google the disagreeable cur. I'm not linking to him, nohow noway.
Best Cinematic Masterpiece of 2006:
The only movie I saw in 2006: Dave Chappelle's Block Party
I also witnessed 'Strangers With Candy' but that straight-up sucked serious ass so I'm pretending as if I never saw Philip Seymour Hoffman mumble his way through some tragically unfunny bullshit alongside the most overrated entertainer the American media has ever mistaken for a comedic genius: Stephen Colbert (hate him...love his politics, love his writers...his delivery blows).
But DCBP was truly satisfying. It takes a look back to the 'Wattstax' and 'Woodstock' and 'Born To Boogie': all those amazing live-performance, community-affirming movies that I stayed up late to watch on cable way back in the eighties. Those movies gave me hope. Chappelle's concert movie felt so off-the-cuff and so fricking joyful that I just wanted to be there. And be there I am. Turns out I live a few blocks away from where it was filmed in Bed-Stuy and the neighborhood feels pretty turned out, not necessarily because of what Dave Chapelle and his director, Michel Gondry, threw together but because there's a certain community activism in place. It's lovely. I love getting up in the morning to get my coffee at Tillie's and walking around amongst folks who say 'hi'...it's just very nice. And The Fugees, Jill Scott, Mos Def and Common, not to mention Erykah Badu...they all sing/speak their souls to people invested in building community. It's so beautiful. I love this movie. See it with a friend you love.
I keep meaning to see but never do for whatever reason:
'Shortbus'
'Borat'
'Babel'
'Charlotte's Web' (Honestly, I'll never see this unless I'm on a flight to Milwaukee)
'That Clint Eastwood Movie(s) about WWII' (I'll never see these, period)
'Let's Go To Prison'
'Really Long Beyonce Video Featuring American Idols And Eddie Murphy'
YouTube has satisfied all my moviegoing needs, thank you very much.
Best Single:
This is a toughie.
'Hang Me Up To Dry'/Cold War Kids: Dudes, this track fucking ROCKS. All the elements are in place: Reformed Born-Again Christian lead singer working it on OUT. Jesus! This guy is UPSET! Add some wicked black-widow bass, scary-movie soundtrack reverb-happy production, psychotic-devilchild keyboard...'fell asleep with stains/hang me up to dry/I'm pearling like the whites of your eyes'...fucking YIKES!
I'll never stop playing this song out in the clubs. You bitches need a wake-up call as you play grab-ass at the bar, jostleing for bottles of Amstel Light...y'all don't know what you're manhandling there when your happy hands do that dance they do.
'StickwhichU'/Pussycat Dolls. Fuck you. I love this song. I want some pretty bitch to love me up with a harmonica parked in his/her mouth as he/she coos never-ending commitment to me, dammit. If Stevie Wonder were five sluts in dominatrix gear he would have wrote and performed this gorgeous tribute to eternal monogamy. Absolutely heavenly. "Singin' 'cuz your so-so into me..."
*sigh*
"Irreplaceable"/Beyonce. When this lush-hipped M to F strains for a note and absolutely nails it, I can't help but cry. Sure she's a tranny with a monstrous forehead but who really cares when she sings like a freaking siren sent from some mythical place (Xanadu?)? Actually, she sounds like Jeff Buckley sometimes but that's not always a bad thing. Plus the lyrics are right on point. Buh-bye, cheating dawg, indeed. To the left, to the left.
"Punkrocker"/Teddybears ft. Iggy Pop. Self-loathing Iggy proclaiming that he's sick of being God as he slithers his skank ass along Bleeker Street over a hate-fuck electro-beat: Irresistable, no? The lesbians love it!
Honorable Mention:
'Vans'/The Pack
'Wind It Up'/Gwen Stefani...it's so fucking dumb you have to hear it three or four times to believe it.
'Black Sweat'/Prince
'Comfort Of Strangers'/Beth Orton
'Down With Prince'/Hot Chip
'When You Were Young'/The Killers
'Let's Impeach The President'/Neil Young
'LDN'/Lily Allen
'Deep'/The Redwalls
'Crazy'/Gnarls Barkley (of course)
'New Hampshire'/Matt Pond PA
hello?
*taps mic*
Is this thing on?
Anyway...I'm a big fan of ellipses and YouTube links (I've tried to upload an old Soul Train video of Aretha Franklin NAILING 'Oh Me Oh My' to this blog many many times but to no avail)...but I'm an even bigger fan of year-end best-of lists so here's mine:
Best Return To Form:
Jon-Jon Diary: I had a good time hating on his juicy, odious ass courtesy of his brain-bruising, self-aggrandizing blogs on the interwebs but then all-of-a-sudden his vile, yet articulate, spewage took a sharp turn south and I couldn't make heads nor tails of what exactly he was madly raving on about. Alas, he's clawed his way out of his psychic K-hole, he's made it through the rain, and it turns out he's no longer a sickening guilty pleasure: I'm actually proud to say that I now hate him, intellect fully engaged, with no holds barred, now that he's struck a rich vein of shuddersome clarity. Stick with it, Yer Godawful Abhorrence...at last I remember why we loathed each other in the first place. In stark, fastidiously proofed old-school font no less!
Google the disagreeable cur. I'm not linking to him, nohow noway.
Best Cinematic Masterpiece of 2006:
The only movie I saw in 2006: Dave Chappelle's Block Party
I also witnessed 'Strangers With Candy' but that straight-up sucked serious ass so I'm pretending as if I never saw Philip Seymour Hoffman mumble his way through some tragically unfunny bullshit alongside the most overrated entertainer the American media has ever mistaken for a comedic genius: Stephen Colbert (hate him...love his politics, love his writers...his delivery blows).
But DCBP was truly satisfying. It takes a look back to the 'Wattstax' and 'Woodstock' and 'Born To Boogie': all those amazing live-performance, community-affirming movies that I stayed up late to watch on cable way back in the eighties. Those movies gave me hope. Chappelle's concert movie felt so off-the-cuff and so fricking joyful that I just wanted to be there. And be there I am. Turns out I live a few blocks away from where it was filmed in Bed-Stuy and the neighborhood feels pretty turned out, not necessarily because of what Dave Chapelle and his director, Michel Gondry, threw together but because there's a certain community activism in place. It's lovely. I love getting up in the morning to get my coffee at Tillie's and walking around amongst folks who say 'hi'...it's just very nice. And The Fugees, Jill Scott, Mos Def and Common, not to mention Erykah Badu...they all sing/speak their souls to people invested in building community. It's so beautiful. I love this movie. See it with a friend you love.
I keep meaning to see but never do for whatever reason:
'Shortbus'
'Borat'
'Babel'
'Charlotte's Web' (Honestly, I'll never see this unless I'm on a flight to Milwaukee)
'That Clint Eastwood Movie(s) about WWII' (I'll never see these, period)
'Let's Go To Prison'
'Really Long Beyonce Video Featuring American Idols And Eddie Murphy'
YouTube has satisfied all my moviegoing needs, thank you very much.
Best Single:
This is a toughie.
'Hang Me Up To Dry'/Cold War Kids: Dudes, this track fucking ROCKS. All the elements are in place: Reformed Born-Again Christian lead singer working it on OUT. Jesus! This guy is UPSET! Add some wicked black-widow bass, scary-movie soundtrack reverb-happy production, psychotic-devilchild keyboard...'fell asleep with stains/hang me up to dry/I'm pearling like the whites of your eyes'...fucking YIKES!
I'll never stop playing this song out in the clubs. You bitches need a wake-up call as you play grab-ass at the bar, jostleing for bottles of Amstel Light...y'all don't know what you're manhandling there when your happy hands do that dance they do.
'StickwhichU'/Pussycat Dolls. Fuck you. I love this song. I want some pretty bitch to love me up with a harmonica parked in his/her mouth as he/she coos never-ending commitment to me, dammit. If Stevie Wonder were five sluts in dominatrix gear he would have wrote and performed this gorgeous tribute to eternal monogamy. Absolutely heavenly. "Singin' 'cuz your so-so into me..."
*sigh*
"Irreplaceable"/Beyonce. When this lush-hipped M to F strains for a note and absolutely nails it, I can't help but cry. Sure she's a tranny with a monstrous forehead but who really cares when she sings like a freaking siren sent from some mythical place (Xanadu?)? Actually, she sounds like Jeff Buckley sometimes but that's not always a bad thing. Plus the lyrics are right on point. Buh-bye, cheating dawg, indeed. To the left, to the left.
"Punkrocker"/Teddybears ft. Iggy Pop. Self-loathing Iggy proclaiming that he's sick of being God as he slithers his skank ass along Bleeker Street over a hate-fuck electro-beat: Irresistable, no? The lesbians love it!
Honorable Mention:
'Vans'/The Pack
'Wind It Up'/Gwen Stefani...it's so fucking dumb you have to hear it three or four times to believe it.
'Black Sweat'/Prince
'Comfort Of Strangers'/Beth Orton
'Down With Prince'/Hot Chip
'When You Were Young'/The Killers
'Let's Impeach The President'/Neil Young
'LDN'/Lily Allen
'Deep'/The Redwalls
'Crazy'/Gnarls Barkley (of course)
'New Hampshire'/Matt Pond PA
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Kibble
It's my birthday and I'm celebrating by sitting around a lot, napping, drinking Folger's whole bean 'gourmet' coffee and by feeling my feelings. I feel things sometimes. I felt sick last Monday at 'Sticky Fingers' (Big Lug, 85 Avenue A, New York City, New York 10009) when I witnessed a hopelessly inebriated mother dirty boogie and simulate oral sex with her perky NYU daughter's gay best friend and then sit down on the floor and cry. On this day of days I feel a tad conflicted:
I feel like I could give two shits about O.J.'s pending confession and/or TomKat's Italian sham merging of Scientologist souls.
I feel a little in love with my next door neighbor.
I feel anxious regarding my best buddy, 'Fredo, because he's being harrassed by his brand new frightwig/stalker (guess what: Frightwig/stalker works for Conde Nast...surprise).
We're deploying even more troops to Iraq. wtf. sigh.
Pause a moment and consider Tazers. Civilian control has become a priority in this theocracy we call home sweet home.
Chan Marshall (Cat Power) is jaw-dropping, heart-stoppingly beautiful now that she's pulled the hair out of her face and makes extraordinarily inspiring/wonky/boozy/chanteusey music. 'The Greatest' is the most vital break-up/can't-go-on-but-I-must cd-download since Roxy Music's 'Siren' and that is no shit. What happened? Who intervened? Did she take tea with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello and Stephin Merritt? Did Nina Simone Tazer her from the crypt and give her a make-over? Speaking of boozy chanteuse I can't wait to check out 'Bobby', Emilio Estavez' ambitious take on June, 1968 featuring that M to F tranny Demi Moore as a nicotine-stained hooch whore: Estavez couldn't hammer out a deal with Justin Bond so he nabbed The Next Best Thing. Great casting...although I'm not quite sure I buy Elijah Wood as a Vietnam draftee...he still looks like he's waiting for his nanny to pick him up at Montessori...
I've come to love Jeff Buckley because he's just so damned queer and he hits all those high notes. And he's dead. Figures: Story of my life. Yeah, yeah...I know he was straight and he banged Courtney Fucking Love...wait a minute...he's still just so damned queer...check out 'The Man That Got Away' or 'I Want Someone Badly' (girl group back-up singers). Fine-boned hetero dead dudes who have nailed impossible falsettos. What am I gonna do? Can't help it. I'm weak. The Arcade Fire makes me cry. What can I say?
KT Tunstall's annoying summertime radio headache, 'Black Horse And The Cherry Tree', actually began life as a terrifying, authentic acoustic delta blues tune before it was ass-raped over a sawhorse by radio programmers. Here's hoping KT wins a bunch of Grammys, says 'lick me' to Clive Davis or whoever and goes back to her indie-label bad-ass self.
More to come.
-Satisfaction Pony
I feel like I could give two shits about O.J.'s pending confession and/or TomKat's Italian sham merging of Scientologist souls.
I feel a little in love with my next door neighbor.
I feel anxious regarding my best buddy, 'Fredo, because he's being harrassed by his brand new frightwig/stalker (guess what: Frightwig/stalker works for Conde Nast...surprise).
We're deploying even more troops to Iraq. wtf. sigh.
Pause a moment and consider Tazers. Civilian control has become a priority in this theocracy we call home sweet home.
Chan Marshall (Cat Power) is jaw-dropping, heart-stoppingly beautiful now that she's pulled the hair out of her face and makes extraordinarily inspiring/wonky/boozy/chanteusey music. 'The Greatest' is the most vital break-up/can't-go-on-but-I-must cd-download since Roxy Music's 'Siren' and that is no shit. What happened? Who intervened? Did she take tea with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello and Stephin Merritt? Did Nina Simone Tazer her from the crypt and give her a make-over? Speaking of boozy chanteuse I can't wait to check out 'Bobby', Emilio Estavez' ambitious take on June, 1968 featuring that M to F tranny Demi Moore as a nicotine-stained hooch whore: Estavez couldn't hammer out a deal with Justin Bond so he nabbed The Next Best Thing. Great casting...although I'm not quite sure I buy Elijah Wood as a Vietnam draftee...he still looks like he's waiting for his nanny to pick him up at Montessori...
I've come to love Jeff Buckley because he's just so damned queer and he hits all those high notes. And he's dead. Figures: Story of my life. Yeah, yeah...I know he was straight and he banged Courtney Fucking Love...wait a minute...he's still just so damned queer...check out 'The Man That Got Away' or 'I Want Someone Badly' (girl group back-up singers). Fine-boned hetero dead dudes who have nailed impossible falsettos. What am I gonna do? Can't help it. I'm weak. The Arcade Fire makes me cry. What can I say?
KT Tunstall's annoying summertime radio headache, 'Black Horse And The Cherry Tree', actually began life as a terrifying, authentic acoustic delta blues tune before it was ass-raped over a sawhorse by radio programmers. Here's hoping KT wins a bunch of Grammys, says 'lick me' to Clive Davis or whoever and goes back to her indie-label bad-ass self.
More to come.
-Satisfaction Pony
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