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.
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 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.
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 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:
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.
So it's finally official, K-Mo is going to once again grace the continent of North America with her goddess-like presence. The show will be scaled down from the worldwide version, to fit in the smaller venues at which she's playing, but as her last NA tour showed, smaller isn't necessarily worse.
In any case, if you feel like clawing through some gays to get a glimpse of the PRINCESS OF EVERYTHING, AMEX cardholders can get tickets from 10am Friday on, and general on-sale is Jan 14 at 10am.
Aphrodite ‘Les Folies’ North American tour dates:
Apr 28 Montreal at Bell Centre
Apr 29 Boston, MA at Agganis Arena
Apr 30 Washington, D.C. at GMU Patriot Center
May 02 New York, NY at Hammerstein Ballroom
May 03 New York, NY at Hammerstein Ballroom
May 06 Atlanta, GA at Fox Theatre
May 07 Fort Lauderdale, FL at BankAtlantic Center
May 08 Orlando, FL at Hard Rock Live Orlando
May 10 Houston, TX at Verizon Wireless Theatre
May 18 Dallas, TX at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie
May 20 Los Angeles, CA at Hollywood Bowl
May 21 San Francisco, CA at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
May 22 Las Vegas, NV at Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace
The other day we chucked up a guide vocal demo of Britney's new 'Hold It Against Me.' It was alright. Like, not terrible, and we could certainly see it being played ont he radio and such, but it was nothing that reached out and grabbed us.
Oh how a few days can change things. Brit's version of the song has just shown up on the interwebs, and we're pleased to report it is a billion times better than the one we'd already heard. It's BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER and BRITNIER.
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