An open letter to Roisin Murphy (and a new-ish track - listen now!)

That's right boys, ginger all over.

AN OPEN LETTER TO ROISIN MURPHY:

Dearest Roisin,

We know you have like, a baby and stuff, but if you could get your ass moving on that new album that would be super.  We have heard from "the blogs" that you have recorded a number of songs (all of which are obviously brilliant) so it really shouldn't be too much trouble to throw a dart at a list of completed tunes and compile a track listing.  You could even make it a game - some sort of Twister with song titles, or, in a pinch, just have the maid pick some.  We're really not fussed how it gets compiled, just as long as there are a minimum of 11 tracks and no more than 14 because any more than that and it looks like you're taking the project way too seriously.

And none of this "I'm not doing an album as such, I'm just recording tracks and letting them have a life of their own because I'm such an artist and record labels are evil" bullshit either.  We want a FULL ALBUM with a PHYSICAL RELEASE and PROPER PROMOTION on at least one mid-table primetime chat show.  You don't have to talk - in fact, it's probably best that you do not, as the "Irish AND ginger" thing kind of creeps people out - but you do have to sing the album's lead single and wear something batshit insane while doing it.

Additionally, we would like you to drum up interest in the project by starting a feud with a "current" pop strumpet.  Right now we're thinking Avril Lavigne because she's not a real musician and probably doesn't know who you are, and thus wouldn't know what she was getting herself into.  Also we think she's a fake bitch, though her new single is quite alright so she gets a pass for now, but if you could take her down a few pegs we'd really appreciate it and it might sell a few of your records to boot.

Anyway, back to the music - on the album we shall require:

- 1 ballad (not a weird "ambient noise-with-vocal" thing, a PROPER POWER BALLAD that will make us cry when we are drunk).  A duet is unacceptable. 

- 1 sell-out single (Max Martin or equivalent)

- 1 techno song that goes on for at least 7 minutes for no reason

- 2 filler tracks that will someday be lauded as masterpieces

- a hidden track in which you subtly declare your allegiance to a weird religious cult or something, just so you can get on a few morning shows and "defend your position" while shilling the record shamelessly.

We realize a lot of your "crazy" thunder was stolen by one Miss Gaga over the past couple years.  And to be honest we're not real sure what to do about that, but we have complete faith that you will come up with something unique and artsy (like when you shuffled around London dressed as a series of walking, fully-lit set designs) and if worst comes to worst we'd be fine with you doing some sort of nip-slip or pantless drunken rage. 

Having said all that, we do appreciate the constant trickle of VERY GOOD tunes dribbling from your talent-teat, like this new jam, 'Boadicea,' you did with dance producer Mason.  But seriously, Ro.  Let's get this album thing together. 


Yours truly,

ScopiSat


Mason feat. Roisin Murphy - Boadicea by Mason

The NEW LADY GAGA in HQ with an artsy video to boot - watch now!

"...and then she fell over"

Yesterday we chucked up some Cloverfield-style footage from a fashion show, during which a good deal of thumping went on.  This thumping was apparently a new Lady Gaga song, but no one could really tell anything about it for sure except that it was kind of like 'Teeth' but "stompier" and also that it was VERY GOOD.

Well now there's a full-on remix thing on the interwebs, posted by one of the team behind the fashion show.  It features a super art-school-y video that shows a bunch of things that very few people would care anything about if it wasn't paired with a new Gaga track, but all around the whole thing is doing quite an alright job of drumming up interest in the Lady's 'Born This Way' album.

Because it needed so much help.

Anyway here's the video.  We warn you.  It is good.  Well, as good as 4 minutes of one phrase repeating over and over to a beat can be.  Which is still pretty damn good.

A new Lady Gaga song is here and it is good. Watch now!

She let a doctor "Poke-her Face"

We have a whole theory about Miss Gaga that she has achieved a completely unsustainable level of fame and notoriety, and that she will soon end up being the Cyndi Lauper of this generation, eclipsed by a new Madonna.  Part of that is because her music is brilliant but also challenging, but mostly it's because she wears MEAT AS CLOTHING because it is somehow interesting.

To be fair we really have no idea how the whole Gaga thing will turn out, but with the debut of this 'Born This Way' album track yesterday at Thierry Mugler's runway show, her sophomore (sort of) album is shaping up to be nothing less than fantastic.



"Yes."

Jennifer Lopez gets 'On The Floor' - listen to the premiere now!

I call my bike 'Marc Anthony'

Many a pop diva have relied on the svengali-like talents of RedOne to bolster their careers, and J.Lo is the latest to jump on the producer's magical bandwagon.

'On The Floor' samples Kaoma's 1989 track 'Lambada,' which was a number one smash worldwide, but stalled in the States just outside the top 40.  Something tells us that J.Lo's jam may have an oddly similar run at the charts.  It's got the J.Lo name, which still means something to people who buy perfume in supermarkets, and samples a pretty well known song, which means something to older people who remember J.Lo and who also tend to buy perfumes in supermarkets.  It'll probably rocket up the charts real fast (and go back down them just as quickly) in Europe, but in the US....not so much.

It's Scopitone Saturday - watch Jody Miller be the real 'Queen Of The House'

It's Scopitone Saturday!

It's once again that time, ScopiSubjects.  This week's installment of our namesake post is a doozy, too, so get your Dramamine out because it's going to be a Technicolor orgy of PURE CLASS up in here in a second.

First some boring history bullcrap:  Jody Miller was a kind of mid-table country singer back in the 1960's and 1970's, with a few top ten country hits and a couple mainstream top 40 singles.  At the beginning of her mediocre journey through semi-fame, though, things were looking up when she released 'Queen Of The House,' an "answer record" to Roger Miller's smash 'King Of The Road.'  The song made it to number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and remains Miss Miller's signature tune. 

Now the interesting stuff:  Jody's version of 'House' gave us far more than just a track for aging drag queens in the south to mouth along to in between bourbon shots.  The tune also spawned Jody's first Scopitone, an ABSOLUTE GEM of a clip.  It really has just about everything you'd want in a video - dancing milkmen, girls in bikinis frying things, and an AquaNet budget more than the GDP of most developed nations.



"Genius."

Alesha exposes 'Every Little Part of Me' ft Jay Sean - watch the premiere now!

Are you paying too much for YOUR car insurance?

It's no secret we have a little love affair with former Mis-Teeq member/failed solo artist/Strictly Come Dancing champion/successful solo artist Alesha Dixon.  It was super exciting when she finally capitalized on her Dancing win with a Platinum album and mega hits 'The Boy Does Nothing' and 'Breathe Slow,' but since then things have.....not gone terribly well.

Her third album (her second as an ACTUALLY POPULAR PERSON) 'The Entertainer' came out earlier this year, slid off the bruised and broken back off its disastrous lead single 'Drummer Boy,' and collapsed into a heap of sequins and broken dreams with a dainty thud.

At number 84.

At that point any other artist would probably get told off by their record company, spend their liquid assets on drugs, and have their agent start shilling a reality show to one of MTV's satellite stations.  But not our girl Alesha.  No, Miss Dixon stared down "the haters" and hauled out the heavy artillery for a big-ass relaunch in the form of 'Every Little Part of Me.'

The song features no less than Jay Sean, who had some hits once, and it (thankfully) is pretty listenable in a poor-man's-Rihanna kind of way.  All in all, it's probably the song that should have served as the lead single, but that's all in the past and there's no changing it now even though some poor recently-unemployed record exec is probably drinking himself to sleep right now wishing that he could.

For its part, the video is alternatively BRILLIANT and INCOMPREHENSIBLY BAD, and quite often is both all at the same time.  It's not that it's terrible quality or anything, it's just that it commits one of the cardinal sins of music videos by raising far more questions than it answers.  For instance:

1.  Why is Alesha dancing in a parking garage in a ball gown?  Is this some sort of creepy audition for an "independent film" where the director just wants to "see you dance"?  Because we've been on those auditions and let us tell you - those movies NEVER end up getting the financing to actually get started.

2.  Why are Alesha and Jay wearing scarves over their faces in order to, presumably, commit some crime without exposing their identities?  In case they haven't read the news lately, the authorities can see your ovaries through your clothes if they want to.  And it's not like they are wearing full face masks anyway - their eyes are completely exposed.  And if prime time television has taught us ANYTHING it's that any dumbass with a computer can pull CCTV footage and say the word "enhance" over and over until a crystal clear image shows up and gets run through a database that inexplicably contains the headshots of everyone who has ever lived.  Maybe, you posit, it is chilly where they are?  Yes, this could be it, but none of the principal players' other clothing suggests this, so we're left with our original preposition that Alesha and Jay's characters are well-dressed-but-not-very-good criminals of some sort, stealing something, for some reason that we are supposed to care about but don't.  In scarves.

3.  Why is it 'To Be Continued?'  They were arrested.  Is the next installment going to detail their trip through the penal system?  Or will they somehow escape from TWO DOZEN HEAVILY ARMED POLICEMEN?  It seems highly unlikely, don't you think?  Also, we don't care.  Just end the damn thing. You're not Lady Gaga.

Perhaps the biggest question this whole thing raises, though, is whether this rather obvious attack on our senses will resurrect Alesha's career.  It certainly has the stench of "last chance"-ness about it, so here's hoping it at least improves on her last single's #46 placing.  Otherwise Alesha won't be able to get arrested anymore. :-(

Kid Sister (who is NOT Nikki Minaj) is giving it away for free - get the FREE mixtape download now!

She chose this shot because it is slimming.

Kid Sister chucked out a quite listenable tune called 'Right Hand Hi' a long time ago and then, judging by her public profile over the last few months, went to the spa for about a year or so. 

Luckily they appear to have had a rather advanced recording studio at whatever spa it was, and Miss Sister was able to lay down some tracks in between mud baths or whatever the hell goes on in those places.  She's actually worked with some pretty great people, and her stuff isn't half bad.  But once you've been the "next big thing" and then disappeared, it's hard to get that momentum back.  Especially when that Nikki Minaj thing kinda stole your thunder...

Anyhow, for those of you who don't remember (i.e. ALL OF YOU), this is what 'Right Hand Hi' was like:

Not bad, eh?  Well if you'd like some more things that sound like that but slightly different, here's a link to a whole bunch of Nikki Mina...er, Kid Sister tunes:

 

"Generous"

Everything about the new Ricky Martin is terrible. Watch the premiere now (or don't)

How many pesos to lose the speedo?

Ok we already talked about how absolutely dire the new Ricky Martin single is (think Jack Johnson if his music were written by a committee of old people who "don't get this new fangled jibber jab they play on the radio" and also don't speak English particularly well).  Also Ricky's voice is completely wrong for the style he's attempting. 

We were reserving our judgment for the whole project until we saw the video, but, having watched the premiere, we can now confirm with complete confidence that NOTHING ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IS GOOD.

Some issues:

1.  It's not 2002.  White backgrounds behind beautiful children with "natural makeup" are best left to old-school VH1 and cancer-charity videos. 
2.  We get it.  You're gay.  You don't have to cram it down our throats (heh).  Seriously, this onslought of gayness would be like Ellen saying "I'm Gay" on the cover of People, and then immediately following it up with an hourlong primetime special during which she does nothing but scissor a local women's soccer team.
3.  The video does not distract us enough from how wretched the song is.  It needs flashing lights.  And colors.  And flashing colored lights.  Or puppies.  Flashing puppies, preferably.  Even nudity would be fine.  And yeah, we know, he gets his shirt off in this clip, but we saw more than this when he was doing yoga on the beach with his "companion" back before he liked it up the butt.
4.  Coming out (heh) with a song about how happy you are only makes everyone think you're trying awfully hard to convince everyone you're happy.

He's still pretty though.



:(