Arrested Development - “Tennessee”
Be there till Sunday. Howdy, Knoxville! Enjoy your holiday, people.
11/24/2009
11/23/2009
5500:
Janet Jackson - Make Me
Right. So the new Janet single is great, and the video is gorgeous. Nice one.
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I agree. One reason it’s great: She doesn’t mention her clitoris even once! It’s been years since we had a Janet single that didn’t literally rub her clit in our faces (or do something similarly raunchy), and I’m pretty happy about it. Frankly I was a little disappointed that there are even any references at all to boning, and I’m a dude who’s all for boning. It’s just that with Janet, that particular dead horse isn’t just beaten, it’s pulverized.
I admit there are a couple of shots where it looks a little bit like Oprah joined in on the group dance. But she does still have the best smile in pop.
11/23/2009
I'm confused.
The Internet is making it sound like the AMAs might have been worth watching this year. But that can’t possibly be true, right?
11/19/2009
I wonder how many people will think that something is "off" when all these new albums show up on store shelves next Monday, instead of next Tuesday.
I wonder how many people will even think anything is different at all?
Or even notice in the first place?
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The thing I find baffling about this: Why are the labels willing to throw these massive albums onto the Billboard chart with only one day of sales data in the week? Or am I wrong about how the chart weeks run?
But, um, yes, nobody in the wider world will notice or care, guaranteed.
11/18/2009
Alicia Keys - “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart”
Best Alicia Keys single in years. Don’t really mean to damn it with faint praise — it’s kind of a stunner.
11/18/2009
“
We’re curious whether you know that we made cover offers for you before American Idol was even halfway through its run. Apparently, Out was too gay, even for you. There was the issue of what it would do to your record sales, we were told. Imagine! A gay musician on the cover of a gay magazine. What might the parents think! It’s only because this cover is a group shot that includes a straight woman that your team would allow you to be photographed at all — albeit with the caveat that we must avoid making you look “too gay.” (Is that a medical term? Just curious). Luckily, you seemed unaware that a similar caution was issued to our interviewer.
Perhaps we should have had you and Cyndi [Lauper] in a tongue lock. That would be radical. It’s odd, because this magazine has done covers with Pete Wentz and Lady Gaga — getting straight men and women to do Out is easy these days. It gives them cred. Getting gay stars like yourself is another matter. Much easier to stick you in Details, where your homosexuality can be neutralized by having you awkwardly grabbing a woman’s breast and saying, “Women are pretty.” So are kittens, Adam, but it doesn’t mean you have to make out with them.
„The editor-in-chief of Out magazine puts Adam Lambert on blast for the strictures his “people” set on his appearance on the latest cover.
11/17/2009
The Songs Of Lady Gaga's THE FAME MONSTER In Order Of Awesomeness, From Least Awesome To Most Awesome
“Speechless” — Overproduced, oversung. Axe the axe, please. Still a good chorus.
“So Happy I Could Die” — Bridge-and-tunnel techno existentialism. I like how Lon Guyland her voice gets on the title line.
“Telephone” — Beyonce sounds appropriately sashafierce, but doesn’t really get a chance to show off. There are hooks, but none of them go too deep. Nothing to be embarassed about. Would’ve sounded great on BLACKOUT or CIRCUS from a production standpoint, yes, but Britney would’ve criminally undersung it.
“Teeth” — Enjoyably stompy, secretly a Christina Aguilera song if Christina had actually committed to the Gaga crazy instead of her own slightly wishy-washier brand of crazy.
“Monster” — Every gay boy in the world will soon be quoting this on his Manhunt profile.
“Dance In The Dark” — The chorus gets slightly more awesome every time I hear it, and that big synth riff reminds me of Depeche Mode’s “Strangelove” which is always welcome.
“Bad Romance” — The best kind of bonkers. RA RA indeed. I think we can all agree that nobody’s written a more LOLy pop verse than “I want your Psycho, your Vertigo stick / Want you in my Rear Window baby you’re sick” this year.
“Alejandro” — She kind of ruined the mix for the album version (the buzzy, less stereotypically RedOne mix that was circulating before the full album leaked is far tighter and more adventurous, in my opinion), but this song is still one of the best she’s ever written. I want her to wear the giant neon sombrero that hangs outside Gonzales Y Gonzales for the video.
Note that you reach surpassing-almost-all-other-modern-popstars levels of awesome right between “Teeth” and “Monster.”
11/17/2009
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Dolly Parton - “The Bargain Store”
Sometimes people who “like music” scoff when you talk about how awesome Dolly Parton is. “Isn’t she trashy?” they say because she sings country music (sometimes about God) and has breast implants and owns her fame and femininity. And then you remind them that she wrote some of the best songs of the past 40 years and they still don’t believe you. Hear this, haters: you’ve gotta love Dolly Parton. You’ve just gotta. Or else you might be a jerk.
This song— especially when followed by “Touch Your Woman”— makes me wish that a Dolly Parton-Leonard Cohen duets album had happened. There’s still time, right?
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FAVORITE DOLLY PARTON SONG RE-BLOG. I’ve always wished Morrissey would cover this.
(Plays: 54)
11/12/2009
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Solange
“Would’ve Been The One”This is here as a reminder that Solange does not need David Longstreth, Grizzly Bear, Kevin Barnes, or her profoundly talented and extraordinarily famous sister to be thoroughly wonderful. I’m all for this woman going wild, diving into the possibilities of music rather than trying to fit into the narrow definitions of what a modern R&B singer ought to be. So much potential, but she’s already put out some brilliant material.
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Co-signed. The first six tracks of SOL-ANGEL & THE HADLEY STREET DREAMS are absolutely some of my favorite R&B of the last few years. (Though I do prefer the big hands in the air gay remix of “I Decided” by the Freemasons.)
(Plays: 398)
11/10/2009
Lady GaGa - “Bad Romance”
This bitch, you guys. She gets me every time.
POLAR BEAR FACE ROBE.
11/09/2009
» It’s Time (For Me) To Say Goodbye « Idolator: Music News, Reviews, And Gossip
Sigh. The good things always end. Thank you for everything, Maura.
11/09/2009
Pretty rad I must say…
“Sonic Fabric is woven from 50% recorded audiocassette tape & 50% polyester thread.”
all I need is a boy worth buying this for…..
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I do admit I kinda want one of these. Even though I never wear ties.
11/05/2009
» Popjustice - There's a Pet Shop Boys Christmas EP on the way...
I HAVE TO HAVE THIS. That “Viva La Vida” cover is exceptional; like all the best PSB covers it makes you wonder how any other band could possibly have written a song that was so obviously meant to be a Pet Shop Boys song.
11/05/2009
I started my Christmas list today!!!
Yes, please!
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Reblogging this one just to add the “If I Won The Lottery…” tag.
11/03/2009
If I won the lottery...
…I’d get on Amazon MP3 and iTunes and purchase every single song that had ever been a Billboard Top 100 #1 hit. Just because. And if it was out of print or unavailable for download, I’d start hitting up EIL.
