Natalia Kills, the British recording lady whom US audiences may know from her recent gig opening for EFFING ROBYN, has a new song out.
It's ok.
Like, it's not terrible by any means. But it's also not particularly great. We went on a whole tangent a couple weeks back about how Jessie J's single sounds like the tuneless R&B garbage that littered the pop landscape a few years ago, when being "authentic" and "street" was more important than a hook, and while 'Activate My Heart' doesn't quite scrape that soul-destroying barrel, it's not a long way off either.
It's kind of like if Rihanna's 'Rated R' album was a little more boring and had a little less budget.
That's right ScopiSubjects, we're bringing back the feature where it all started (the feature that, coincidentally, gave us our name) with one of our favorite Scopitones.
Yes. Yes we're excited too.
Scopitones were the first real music videos, back in the 60's, but were produced on special film that could only be played in jukebox-like video machines that were set up in bars and bowling alleys and the like all over the world. Because that made them super practical.
Anyhoodle, the boxes were generally located in drinking establishments, so the videos were allowed to be racier than just about any other media at the time. Scopitones were wildly popular for a brief time (we think it was a week in January of '67) and almost all the biggest artists of the day recorded at least one. Eventually the format died out, but not before we were left with a treasure trove of ACTUAL MUSICAL GEMS, like this subtle and understated classic - maybe our favorite Scopitone of all time.
It has all the things you'd expect from a mid-century adult-themed pop video - sex, overt racism, overtly racist sex, and a giant spiderweb made of boating rope because, why not?
This particular Scopitone holds a special place in our heart, because it foretold nearly every music video device we take for granted, like the liberal use of boobs, the co-opting of religious imagery, and singing in a birdcage with some wings and shit stuck to you. So basically everything Miley has ever done.
Feast your eyes on Joi Lansing, as she gets caught in a 'Web Of Love'
Leighton Meester, who musically fornicated with Robin Thicke, slummed it with Cobra Starship, and chucked out some BONA FIDE CORKERS from her still-unreleased electropop debut album and then inexplicably forgot all about the fact that she could sing, is FINALLY back on the pop radar. It's just a bit....different than what we expected her next move to be.
Not so long ago, Miss Meester was poised to become the American Sophie Ellis-Bextor, with some top shelf jams and her already cemented fashion icon status. But alas, somehow the project got shelved, and she's been all quiet on the music front for quite some time.
From her new movie "Country Strong," 'Summer Girl' is a sort of post-Taylor Swift pop-country effort with those kind of lyrics that are so insipid that they almost become clever and the hooks that you just can't deny. It's certainly not bad, and oddly Leighton makes quite the convincing country chick.
We still love our Leighton electro, but in the meantime we'll take what we can get.
"Country Strong" gets its nationwide release January 8
It's that time of year again, ScopiSubjects: The season for stress-eating, winter-weight, family lunacy, and some of the most ridiculous moments of recorded sound ever flung into a microphone.
But luckily these few days in December are also the time for giving crap gifts, receiving crap gifts, fashionably layering, and, most importantly, loving the hell out of some songs that at any other time of the year would be laughed off the airwaves.
So in honor of our second Christmas on the interwebs, we bring you the ScopiSat Top Ten Holiday Songs of All Time, based on a series of arbitrary criteria including how "Holiday Spirit-inducing the track is" and always remembering this is a blog that celebrates POP.
We warn you, there's a lot of cheer up in this bitch.
10. Run DMC - 'Christmas in Hollis'
In a world overrun with "traditional" holiday tunes, Run DMC shoved a little Queens in our stocking back in 1987, and it's been a classic ever since. It's such a jam, in fact, that they played it at the beginning of GODDAMNED "DIE HARD." Enough said.
09. The Carpenters - 'Merry Christmas Darling'
This is one of the few understated tunes you'll find on this list - if you haven't noticed, we have a fondness for the slightly ostentatious - but its subtlety and barely-contained emotion are what turned this 1970 track into a perennial favorite. Such a favorite, in fact, that just this year it was covered by Lea Michele on 'Glee.' With...uh...less subtlety. The video features a creepily-thin Karen Carpenter with a winter monster on her noggin. So....just putting that out there as a heads up.
08. Bill Nighy as Billy Mack - 'Christmas Is All Around Me'
Billy Mack Christmas Is All Around Me Uploaded by Bitoulamarmaille. - News videos from around the world.
Alright, we know we're going to get some crap from purists on this baby, but it's nothing we haven't heard before from Ke$ha fans (who, incidentally, have SHOCKINGLY FOUL MOUTHS), and no objection will change the fact that few tunes make us feel as much in the Christmas spirit as this one. Recorded by fake washed-up rocker Billy Mack for the 2004 film 'Love, Actually,' this bona-fide jam is a hastily reworked version of The Troggs' 'Love Is All Around Me.' Though it was intentionally bad - Nighy's character refers to the song as a "festering turd of a record" - it's got a certain earnestness about it that just can't be denied.
07. The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl - 'Fairytale of New York'
Pogues Fairytale Of New York Uploaded by stevanhogg. - News videos from around the world.
We heard this story once about how the woman who recorded the voice for the possessed kid in 'The Exorcist' was actually some 80 year old who prepared for the role every day by smoking a ton of reds and chugging whiskey. Well if she ever called in sick, Pogues lead singer Shane MacGowan could easily step right in. He's one of those singers that isn't an actual singer at all, but he and Ms. MacColl give this song a heart and soul that injects it with a life of its own. Maybe it's Shane's connection to Christmas that really shines through - he was born on Dec. 25. Tragically, and eerily, MacColl died in 2001, one week to the day before Christmas. These two artists have some crazy ties to the holidays for sure, and 'Fairytale' ensures this time of year is what we'll always remember them for.
06. Michael Buble - 'I'll Be Home For Christmas'
There may not be anything tougher than to make a truly classic song your own, but that's just what Michael Buble did when he rerecorded this holiday staple for his 2003 'Let It Snow!' (the "!" is because he's REALLY SERIOUS about it snowing, eh?) EP. To be fair, Buble could sing the phone book and we'd still daydream to it over a glass of wine and some Klonopin, but whatever this is a damn good track, and we won't hear another word about it.
05. Amy Grant - 'Grown Up Christmas List'
Ok, let's just get this out of the way - we heart Amy Grant. Hard. Sure, it's not surprising, considering our hyper-Christian upbringing, but it's also well deserved as she is quite an accomplished songwriter and seasoned performer. While most of the other singers on this list just showed up and did their job warbling to someone else's tune, Amy (that's Ms. Vince Gill if you're nasty) had a hand in writing a timeless song that has gone on to be rerecorded, translated and updated as the years pass. (As a side note, one of her entirely self penned tracks from the same parent album nearly made this list instead, but we deemed 'Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)' to be a little too niche.) Back in 1992 Amy chucked out this tune, and it's hard to imagine a world where it isn't a certified Christmas classic. Countless cover versions have come and gone (including one by our number 6 entrant, Michael Buble), but this cheesy electric keyboard schlockfest is still our go-to incarnation.
04. The Waitresses - 'Christmas Wrapping'
In 1981 the Akron, Ohio New-Wave band The Waitresses, who gave us 'I Know What Boys Like' and.....well, nothing else, foisted this tale of ski shops, sunburns, and tragic missed connections, onto an unsuspecting world just settling in for the Christmas holiday. It didn't even chart in their native country, and it hit biggest in the UK with a non-canon #45 placing. Still, nearly 20 years later this track has taken on a life of its own in every mid-tier department store and self-serve-soda-fountain restaurant in the English speaking world this time of year. It's the perfect mix of sass and sentiment, and we'll take a big helping what these Waitresses are serving up.
03. Kylie - 'Santa Baby'
Kylie Minogue - Santa Baby Uploaded by JFr62. - See the latest featured music videos.
Pop princess Kylie Minogue redefined the HO-lidays when she included this slutted up, jazzed down interpretation of the 1953 classic as a B-side to her 2000 UK top 10 hit 'Please Stay.' Since then it's recharted over and over, hopped across the ocean to the States, and, presumably, continued on to the North Pole where it seduced Santa, all of the straight male reindeer (there are 3, FYI) and then made off with the sleigh - presents in tow. A full decade later it's still selling like holiday hotcakes, because - Christmas or not - Santasex sells.
02. Adam Sandler - 'The Chanukah Song'
Surprised? You shouldn't be. This ode to the Jewish Festival Of Lights has become a staple of the holiday season. Despite its jokey inception, 'The Chanukah Song' filled a void in the lives of countless people who, understandably, had tired of the incessant banging-on about Saint Nick and Jesus and all of that junk that clutters the radio waves starting at about midnight on Halloween every f*cking year. But the song is really much more than just a Chanukah carol - it's a sort of anti-establishment holiday rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place during the holidays. Don't feel like you and that fat-uncle-who-makes-you-sit-on-his-lap-even-though-you're-31-now-and-you-KNOW-he's-not-really-your-uncle really "get each other"? Listen to this list of other people who are holiday outcasts - you're not alone! Other people have been cast aside by Christmastime society! FAMOUS people! A lot of which undoubtedly have creepy uncles too. :(
01. Mariah Carey - 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'
Yeah, we know. You could see this coming a mile away. But you also can't deny that it really, truly, deserves to be here. It's the seminal example of pop music grabbing on to a deeply emotional, undeniably spiritual, definitively personal event and completely looting all its viable parts in aid of selling some goddamn records. In short, it is POP. But that shouldn't take away from the fact that for millions of people the world over, and, we're sure, one very fat Mariah, this tune has come to be synonymous with all things tinseled. Consistently the highest charting perennial holiday tune, we're obviously not alone in our assessment of the track's virtues. A true modern classic, there's really not a lot more to say about it, other than that despite the original video's iconography, we actually prefer the above clip with a bunch of gays mouthing the words. Because nothing says "festive" like some homos in scarves.
So there you have it. The definitive (read: not definitive at all) list of the ABSOLUTE BEST holiday tunes ever recorded.
BUT WAIT! It wouldn't be the holidays without presents, now would it? (readers: "no") So as a sort of runner-up/randomly tacked on addition, here is a totally free download of Hurts' new holiday track 'All I Want For Christmas Is New Years Day.'
Mariah at home (in outer space for some reason) with her pet Nick Canon
After her ALL CONQUERING (read: ratings flop) Christmas Special on ABC the other night, which barely edged out bona-fide viewer sinkhole 'Skating With The Stars' in terms of aging gay tv-watchers, Mariah has somehow already moved on to the next major holiday, New Years' Eve.
To celebrate the upcoming calendar change, Team Butterfly has knocked together a sort of "U.S. dance music in the 90's/Russian dance music now" rendition of traditional NYE anthem 'Auld Lang Syne'. Because, why not?
The video would be hilarious if she didn't seem to ACTUALLY BE TAKING HERSELF SERIOUSLY, but with tens of dollars and dozens of cleavage inches behind it, at least it's better than 'I Wanna Know What Love Is.'
Alexander McQueen was a rare, unique and controversial talent in the fashion world. His death was a shock and a loss to the entire fashion community. Somewhat belatedly, celebritographer Nick Knight has produced this rather stunning tribute to the designer, and tapped another rare and unique talent to score it: batshit insane Icelandic paparazzi-hunter and sometimes-songstress Bjork. To be honest we'd prefer something a bit more celebratory, but you can't please everyone all the time and we're not the easiest of critics, admittedly.
Luckily the video is just as impressive when played on mute. RIP, McQueen.
ScopiSat has been under the weather the last week (read: ACTUALLY DYING) so we apologize for the lack of posts. But to make up for it we have a doozy for you.
Scissor Sisters' current album campaign didn't exactly go to plan, with lead single 'Fire With Fire' missing the UK top ten and the follow up single 'Any Which Way' charting outside the Top 75 all together. Since they don't have to (can't really) worry about commercial success at the moment, the Sisters have decided to go super ARTSY and CUTTING EDGE and ALIENATING in a bid to either exorcise some of their inner sex demons, reclaim their status as cultural "outsiders," or both.
'Invisible Light' is a disco-electro (let's face it, it's Scissor Sisters, we all know what we're getting) romp but to be honest it's nothing particularly special. Perhaps that's why they chose to pair it with a video that combines some pretty dark themes with full-on nudity and turkey-eating.
We have to admit we're totally digging the video, and the song is growing on us. Maybe the Sisters haven't shot their wad after all?
There is a thing called a Japayork and though we initially thought it was some fusion of the infamous literary 'Jabbawocky' and a very posh J-pop band it is not. It is something almost as brilliant though, as it is the latest band to debut on the DEEPLY EXCITING Popjustice Hi-Fi label.
It also should be noted that Japayork is not actually a "band" as such, but is rather an ACTUAL PERSON by the name of...something irrelevant...and who does some very decent pop tunes in the vein of Frankmusik and MGMT.
His latest song, 'Teenagers,' is a super "now" track with a video to match, with kids doing all manner of things they are not supposed to but are completely expected as they are KIDS and that's just how they roll.
Unfortunately for U.S. listeners, they will have to acquire a bootleg (Rough Trade stocks the single FYI) or something, since no North American release is currently planned.
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