Eternal Moonwalk

Yes, everyone's sick of the MJ coverage...but this is too fun not to share. I'd describe the site...but just watch. The best dancers are the kids and random people in costume, but the terrible dancers are probably more entertaining than the good ones. I also saw a cat, a puppet, an office chair, and a car do the moonwalk--impressive! Lesson learned: (unsurprisingly) Germans, Beligians, and assorted Eastern Europeans are not good dancers at all.

You can even add your own fancy pants moves!

Thanks to Steak for the link.

Musings on Lady Gaga

I'm not quite as up on pop music as I used to be in my younger years, but I kept hearing Lady Gaga's music on the radio and reading her name bandied about in celebrity magazines--so I got curious. Her songs at first grated on me, but the more I heard them (especially Poker Face and Love Game) I started to love them. I saw her nutty performace on American Idol and was not sure if I thought she was a train wreck or brilliant. Either way, I was intrigued. I picked up an issue of Rolling Stone at the gym and read the cover feature on her, which was pretty fascinating (not an adjective I'd have expected to use). This link is just a slice of the article--the whole piece is worth a read, though, if you see the issue laying around.

Her entire persona, from her music to her fashion choices to the way she markets herself, is one massive piece of performance art. She compares her work to Andy Warhol's, which seems pretty on target (especially if you've read his book Popism). She's calculating, scarily self-aware, and highly ambitious about her career and the specific legacy she wants to leave on the music world. Watching her videos, they look like parodies of other pop starlets' videos but that's not how she intends them to be. You find yourself thinking, she can't be serious with this...but she is dead serious about perfecting the Pop Music Video. They aren't parodies--they are her own style, which has taken the genre to an absurd extreme that comes off as parody but is actually something new. Postmodernism at its best.

I also like this Slate article on her, especially this exerpt:

Gaga's highbrow bibliography and performance-art theatricality are key to this aura-building, but it's to her credit that she doesn't attempt a regal remove from the debased celebrity culture that trampled all over her favorite Mouseketeer. Instead, Gaga dives into the mud and wrestles with it. We see this in the canny way she plays off of the troubled legacy of her '90s teen-pop heroes. Whereas Britney debuted as a towheaded virgin whose career went on to encompass her public deflowering, Gaga debuted already-defiled: "Just Dance" is about stumbling drunkenly around a nightclub and turning your shirt inside out without knowing it. In this way, Gaga wrote her public meltdown into her very first single while remaining a deft guardian of her actual private life—a teasing pre-emptive strike. In "Poker Face," a celebration of mind games and bedroom power plays, and "Paparazzi," which compares love to stalkerish picture-hunting, Gaga plays a girl completely in control and completely comfortable among the dizzying, superficial signifiers of tabloid-era femininity.

Oak Ridge Boys do...The White Stripes??

Ok, this is bizzare, but I kind of don't hate it! The Oak Ridge Boys have a new album coming out on which they cover The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army." This clip has only the audio, but give it a listen. I'll definitely give them credit for creativity and guts. I don't think this is something I'd actually download, but I'll admit, it's attention-getting. Also, I mean, they are geriatric. GOOD for THEM even to still be making music and singing live. I love how they sing the main guitar riff on the song!

I have a special place in my heart for the ancient ORBs because they are one of my dad's favorite bands, and I was able to see them play in Athens last year with my dad and Mark. It was AWESOME. So on that same note, just for fun, here's my favorite ORBs song (gotta love those outfits, and the 'staches! Oh, the 'staches!) ELLLLLVIRA!

Wolfgang's Vault

Mark alerted me to a site called Wolfgang's Vault. It's a repository of hundereds of concert recordings that you can listen to free. You can search their always-expanding database and create playlists. The playlists consist of the actual songs you choose, not similar-sounding songs like on Pandora. You can save the playlists and easily share with others (like Pandora). You can also listen to concerts in their entirety. The majority of the music is classic rock, but there is also indie/alternative, country, 80s pop, R&B, and so on. Some of the recordings I recommend checking out: Journey, Randy Newman, The Doobie Brothers, REO Speedwagon, Aerosmith, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Be prepared to lose (enjoy) a good hour or two playing around on this site once you sign up!

I'm Finally on the Adam Lambert Bandwagon

I have been very slack about positing lately---packing, preparing for the move, and wrapping up things at work have been consuming me! I'll try to do better this week and the next.

Okay, so Idol. I hated Adam Lambert in the early weeks of this competition, especially after his creepy and screechy version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" that made me feel like I needed a shower or six. After he sang "Tracks of My Tears" two weeks back, I begrudingly gave him credit for a stellar performace, but wasn't yet sold. Last night, though, pushed me fully into his camp. "Mad World" is a great song and he absolutely killed it (in a good way...unlike the way Scott and Lil killed their songs) When you get the first and only standing ovation from Simon in the show's history...you're it. Damn. Well done.

Nick/Norman is the Next American Idol

I am reaaaaaally unimpressed with this season on Idol so far. Bad song choices are killing some talented people--haven't they learned yet? It's season EIGHT. You don't know by now not to sing Whitney, Mariah, Michael Jackson, etc.? Don't you know to pick a song that shows off your range and is age-appropriate? Le sigh.

One dazzling beacon of hope, however, is Nick Mitchell (AKA Norman Gentile). He's a comedian of sorts who surely tried out initially as a joke, but he made the judges laugh so much they put him through once, twice, three times. He will almost surely make it through to the top 12 based on last night's dramatic performance of "And I Am Telling You" from Dreamgirls. Most of the contestants last night were boring, pitchy, and overall awful. He was the most entertaining part of the night, which does not say much about the quality of contestants this season.

On a side note, I HAAAAAATED Adam Lambert's performance. I didn't like him in Hollywood week, and I like him even less after last night. I can't find a clip to it, but it's just as well. Self-indulgent, shrieky, melodramatic...go back to musical theater!!!!

Go Your Own Way

The quality of this clip isn't great, but nonetheless...I heart it. Carrie Underwood and David Cook singing "Go Your Own Way," which is quite possibly my favorite song ever (at the very least, it's top three). I think they need to a) date and b) sing more songs together.

Idol's Best

To celebrate the return of American Idol, here's a list of the top 16 best performances of all time according to Entertainment Weekly (including video clips, sweet). As a loyal viewer since the Kelly Clarkson days, I think this is a pretty good list. I'd argue that Carrie Underwood's cover of "Alone" should be higher on the list, and I would have chosen "Eleanor Rigby" for David Cook instead of "Billie Jean." David Archuleta singing "Imagine" still gives me chills. I was hoping to see Tamyra Gray on there, as she is one of my faves, but she was so long ago in Season One that I can't even name one of her great performances (though I do remember clearly that she butchered the already lame "New Attitude" and got the boot for it).

Toad the Wet Sprocket Revisited

Thanks to Pandora internet radio, which gets me through the week at work, I have rediscovered how much I like Toad the Wet Sprocket. They keep coming up on a station I created based around R.E.M.'s music, and I like every song I hear. Lots of flashbacks to listening to 99X (and feeling really cool about it) on the way to school when I was younger. "Good Intentions" is probably my fave, though I also like "All I Want" and "Walk On the Ocean." The video for "Good Intentions" that I linked to is kind of fun...I think I like it so much because it reminds me of Peter Gabriel's video for "Sledgehammer" but is considerably less epileptic. Not nearly as good though, because of course you can't beat the dancing plucked chickens in the latter.

Ahhhh, memories.

Girl Talk

Brigitte sent me the MySpace page of this DJ dude who goes by the name "Girl Talk", which has nothing to do with the style of music he mixes. He puts together upbeat, dancy combinations of hip hop, classic rock, pop, even folk stuff (I think there's some Shawn Colvin in there). I've had it on in the background at work happily tapping my foot under my desk and possibly doing a slight head bob till someone sees me and I turn red. If you have it on though, keep it low because it is hip hop after all so there's some non-PG language. My favorite combination is on track 4 on the MySpace page that's a mix of Jackson Five's "ABC" with the drums from Rihanna's "Umbrella" and some melodramatic guitar from "Bohemian Rhapsody." Musically I think he has some better mixes, but I give him a lot of credit for creativity on that blend.

Decemberists' Return

I'm not a huge music person (meaning I listen in the car and sometimes at home, but I'm not obsessive about it and don't go to shows very often). I do, however, LOVE the Decemberists and am thrilled they have new music out. They are releasing seven new songs in three installments (two of the three are out already, the last to come in December), and they are also working on a new full length album to come out sometime next year. You can listen to some of their new stuff (and great old stuff, especially from "The Crane Wife" cd) in this NPR concert recording.

In other music news, my all-time beloved favorite artist in the universe, Lucinda Williams, also has a new album out...more on that later.