Distracted by Movement

No really, here's why Twitter is great.

2009-05-28T00:20:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking and I already get the sense that you will feel like that me talking about the goodness of Twitter is old hat. And it is, quite honestly. The journalistic reasons of breaking news isn't really valid when most of the breaking news is too apathetic-sounding anyway, and I didn't get on Twitter with the intent of knowing what Demi Moore ate this morning. That said, there are moments that do make me smile and do give the feeling of community in Twitter and warm, fuzzy, cold, internet-based feelings of happiness for my fellow man:

- Amanda Palmer's Twitter account (twitter.com/amandapalmer)

Ms. Palmer is the engenue behind the wildly fascinating punk cabaret group The Dresden Dolls and released a fine solo album last year. And in the past three months, she has taken to Twitter as something of a respite. Currently, she is in a fight with Roadrunner Records due to their poor efforts at promoting her work as well as an incident where Palmer's weight was questioned on the set of a music video. And yet because of her Twitter, you don't get the vibe that she's consistently angry about this, in fact, she's used it to better her career. She currently has around 25,000 followers, uses the account to inform about secret concerts, a high school play she is doing based around The Diary of Anne Frank and Neutral Milk Hotel (seriously), or to even bring up that she's drinking wine.

- Awesome Kong's Twitter account (twitter.com/awesomekong)

Might as well geekily explain, Awesome Kong is a female professional wrestler whose gimmick on TV is that of a pure monster. She never speaks and simply beats people up with no guilt about what she does. Which even in the world where she is obviously playing a character on TV is more strange when perusing her Twitter. She obviously speaks, and more than that, she's ACTUALLY FUNNY. A lot of it will be greek to non-wrestling fans, but eh, it's my blog and she's still funny to me, dammit!

- Eddie Argos (twitter.com/eddieargos)

A great man with a great semblance to myself. Only I haven't been involved in three great albums of music and might not entirely be excited about everything like Mr. Argos is. I'm also not 28 yet. I don't know where this is leading to, other than the fact that Argos once admitted that he shaved his mustache because it made him look like he was 40. Oh, and a friend tells me that he is great live. Take that for what you will.

Enough of this. Look up Twitter. Yes, even I'm on it.

Narcissism!

2009-05-18T22:52:00.003-05:00

Again in lieu of meaningful content, I will give you links to all of the music review work I've done for the CW in the year so far, just in case you missed it or you wanted to have intense disagreements about the quality of music. Anyways, here we go! (And this is in chronological order, even.) Also, remember the star ratings are out of four.

(January 21st, 2009) Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (***1/2)

(January 29th, 2009) Andrew Bird - Noble Beast - (***)

(February 6th, 2009) The Fray - Self-Titled - (*1/2, which is the actual grade)

(February 12th, 2009) Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You - (***1/2)

(February 19th, 2009) Special Feature on Winter's Hidden Treasure

(February 26th, 2009) Neko Case - Middle Cyclone (***1/2)

(March 12th, 2009) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz (**1/2)

(March 26th, 2009) Chris Cornell - Scream (*)

(April 24th, 2009) Silversun Pickups - Swoon (**1/2)

(April 30th, 2009) Bob Dylan - Together Through Life (**)

And obviously, on to the summer and next semester, there will be more reviews being done. Hope you enjoy what has come before, though.

A start to a lament on the film industry.

2009-05-10T01:27:00.000-05:00

When I was in my early teens, you do not know the obsession that I had with movies. I watched dozens and dozens of movies in those days with an intent of having an opinion on them, and dammit, if anybody was going to ask me about the quality of Swimfan, then I would have a great answer for them. This I knew for certain.

Then I guess I grew up. My habit was plagued by poor economic circumstances mixed in with frankly having no desire to watch crappy movies. I once had a free ticket to Doom which I used. Also, I forgot how much I hated that movie until I reminded myself of that just now. But either way, I just lost it.

Worse yet, this year was the true moment of uncare. I finally realized at the ripe old age of 19 something that's been obvious for years, that films have simply lost their cahones. None of the major releases seem to take chances that lead to successful results. Tropes like the ridiculous action movie or even the film that takes a chance are the last bastions of true artistic expression we have as a society. Everyone's favorite movie when they were a kid was the Schwarzenegger/Stallone action films. Were any of these features smart? No. But they showed one guy killing a bunch of guys and things that only exist in the tropes of action movies. These things made two funny Hot Shots movies possible and made millions smile.

However, we're dawning into scary times. The Rambos of the world are dying off, and action movies that embrace pure ridiculousness are being seen by lesser and lesser people. And yet, PG-13 horror films, PG-13 comic adaptations that forget that the basic essence of the character is R-rated (Wolverine), and PG-13 genre flicks have ruled the roost, trying to pass themselves off as serious entertainment and taking no risks. Where is the cahones, guys?

Crank 2: High Voltage came out a month back to zero fanfare whatsoever. This movie is exactly the perfect hate it or love it film, however, because it is non-stop violence, non-stop depravity, and a complete embrace that everything that has happened in the film is completely ridiculous. It is disturbing at times and wonderful at barraging the senses with pictures that are hard to turn away from, all the while Jason Statham continues to add to a reputation as secretly one of the funniest guys in film. Crank 2 has made all of $14 million at the U.S. box office.

Watchmen would be another example of putting true cahones to an idea of making the exact film that you want. And yet, Warner Brothers has lost money on the project and even the same critics that would normally be impressed by a literal adaptation felt that the film was just not good enough.

A laundry list of these films could be placed: Next Day Air, which actually has the wherewithall to make its stoner leads unlikable, is currently getting beaten by the stunningly casual Star Trek. Observe and Report failed because Hannah Montana is more popular (and okay, a dark R-rated comedy doesn't beat a G-rated family pic). I'd even go so far as to say that Battle for Terra was a risky picture that just unfortunately failed (and was oddly message-filled for a kids film, similar to another risky failure in 2008's City of Ember).

Either way, I'm a little disappointed for the future. I won't suddenly hate movies or anything, but please, someone, I'm begging you, take that risk and just go out there. I don't know if I'm fully ready to swallow another Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

Things that are good right now:

2009-05-03T18:40:00.000-05:00

- Bat for Lashes

The latest album from the British chanteuse is entitled Two Suns, and my god, it is wondrous music. There is not enough music these days that mixes a sensual atmosphere with heartbreaking lyrics and makes everything work. It isn't even too woe-is-me in comparison to Portishead (and I love Portishead). All the raves Two Suns has earned in the American and British press are pretty well justified, it's a solid contender for record of the year.

Video for "Daniel," the first single from Two Suns.

- St. Vincent

Since I got a listen to St. Vincent's second full-length record Actor, I found myself falling in love with this delicate woman named Annie Clark. Annie Clark is the curator of St. Vincent, a project that managed to come out of the ground after Clark toiled in obscurity with indie rock titans Sufjan Stevens and The Polyphonic Spree. Before, I mentioned that her first album was a great buried find in the recurring feature (recurring as in once) The Hidden Stuff on this very blog. However, Actor is a natural evolution in a good way. Clark's quirky instincts make her experimental instincts make sense. And Actor is just awesome.

And now, other things that I'm too lazy to write about, but that if you look up, you'll love:

- Stereolab

- Deerhoof

- Joakim Noah's perplexing behavior

- NewsRadio on Hulu

- the WHO's idiocy causing 300,000 pigs to die because the thing is called SWINE flu

- women, if they criticize guys for going to movies fully intent to see attractive women in it, when the only reason any of them enjoyed Wolverine was for eight-pack Hugh Jackman

- The Bulls/Celtics series, except for the last game

- Crank 2

- I'm out of things to write.

John Madden retires.

2009-04-16T12:54:00.000-05:00

Breaking story for the two of you who don't look at Yahoo every day. The guy responsible for the Madden in that football game you play every year is calling it quits! John freakin' Madden leaves the booth after three decades of service and he has been an entertaining man at the very least and the most distinctive voice of football at the most. In tribute, here is a fine speech he did when he was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2006.

We'll miss your commentary, John, because I wouldn't want anyone else to tell me that 90% of football is half mental.

Ok, let's face it.

2009-04-08T18:30:00.001-05:00

Music currently sucks. Badly.

Let me explain: I looked at the release charts mere moments ago, noted that Metric, k-os, Neil Young, Mastodon, The Decemberists, Kelly Clarkson, and Handsome Furs have all released albums in the last month, and I have cared nothing to listen to them in their entirety. And I like most of these artists (Mastodon not so much, but they're hipster-friendly metal so they get mentioned). And I wonder to myself why I am not excited to hear any of their new material and I suspect there's a major chance that I might be so uncaring that I don't really want new stuff from groups I know.

However, I think that it is a failure on the label system's part.

Almost all of these acts have a major label tie-in, and none of them have been given enough of an opportunity to really promote the quality of their new material. Only Clarkson had a heavily talked about release, and in truth, Nostradamus doesn't have to tell you that after My December didn't destroy sales records despite being pretty good that Clarkson's next record would be more bland pop jams about life sucking without a guy and about the power of men helping women versus the empowerment and emotion of a woman being a woman.

I'm also "friends" with k-os on MySpace and didn't know he had an album out until this moment, which might be a failure on one Kevin Brereton's part but is more likely a failure of the label's part. (Which as I write this, Wiki is wrong again as the record is set for April 14th in Canada with no U.S. date announced.) But nonetheless, there is a clear problem here that I'm noticing. The blogosphere isn't nearly as concise as of late in terms of introducing "hot new music" to people's ears, and I'm certain of this because Wavves is okay, but not that great and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are a fine band that has been the only thing new that this year has also been great.

Maybe my lament is that these albums are probably good and probably not great. Ah well.

I admit the greatness of Mötley Crüe.

2009-04-01T23:31:00.000-05:00

Yes, I realize that this is a little bit of a massive left field in comparison to my uber-indie elitist whiny music tastes. But the Crüe is plain awesome. And not in that guilty pleasure way, really, because I'm admitting it and I don't feel guilty about it in any way. I'm only guilty of gaining enjoyment out of a band that once wrote "When we started this band/All we needed, needed was a laugh/Years gone by...i'd say we've kicked some ass". Yes, yes you have.

The greatest video of all time, the one for "Home Sweet Home", in which beaches, bikini clad women and multiple uses of the phrase "I'm on my way" are used.
Video for "Kickstart My Heart," which appears to be about cars. Now who would've thought that?
Video for "Live Wire". What was the point? I don't know.

This was clearly my high point in music criticism.

The Greatness of Bully Beatdown.

2009-03-29T16:23:00.000-05:00

Last week, some channel called Music Television produced and released a show that almost made up for the fact that this channel brought us The Hills, The Bay, Laguna Beach, The Seafoam Lodge, and whatever other shows have spawned from vapid people talking about vapid things. This show is simply called Bully Beatdown.

Bully Beatdown's an easy concept to grasp. You get a bully, in the case of episode one, this guy who just knocks out his older brother constantly and looks like a coyote with human features. He proclaims himself THE REAL BULLY at least once and brags about his ability to knock anyone out. So naturally, host Jason "Mayhem" Miller must put this man in his place.

The show's also got a simple idea. You put the bully in the ring for two rounds with a mixed martial arts-trained fighter and if he can survive without tapping out or without getting knocked out, he earns money. Each round has $5,000 on the line which when he taps out (worth $1,000 a tap) or gets knocked out (worth all $5,000), the person bullied gets the money.

Enough of pure explanation, here is why this show is great. First off, the two brothers here are amazingly goofy. The bullied older brother has the strangest and most amazingly stupid haircut in history. And the younger brother is described by Mayhem as "having the body of a meathead and the personality of a douchebag." The younger brother brags constantly, in more entertaining fashion, about how he will take down anything in his path, including the MMA fighter that he must fight at the show's end.

Another positive for this show is that they never spend too much on the small things and get right down to the fighting. They simply show why the bully is a bully and why the brother wants him to get beat down. And then they simply show the fight, complete in all of its MMA glory. And it totally works because it does both of these amazingly simple ideas in a way that's greatly entertaining.

The show is great because it is amazingly simple. It reminds me a lot of what made Pimp My Ride such an awesome show, because, you get what you want out of it. You want to stare at a car's interior with random TVs thrown in the trunk for whatever reason? Then, there you go. The same formula worked with Cribs and it's working in spades here. Mayhem Miller is a goofy guy much like Xzibit was a goofy guy on Pimp My Ride.

Simply put, you want simple greatness on television, you flip it to MTV for some Bully Beatdown. Nuff said.

A great find.

2009-03-24T23:09:00.002-05:00

Former NBA player Paul Shirley reviews Animal Collective for ESPN.com - This really happened.

And this was very very very awesome. That is all the verbage that is necessary for such a piece.

Overhyped.

2009-03-22T00:05:00.000-05:00

(Part of this was written three months ago. Part of this is awesome.)

You think I'm going to mention Chinese Democracy in this blog entry, don't you? Well...no, not really. I'm sort of in the middle about Chinese Democracy as an album, but an album like that would never match the hype of people thinking it would be the best record ever. (For the record, it's got all the good and bad parts about the Use Your Illusions with less Slash. You decide if that's a good thing.) And plus, this is a record that's not tailor-made for this topic at all, as its hype has been built since long before the internet.

No, this references the internet's effect on building an artist or band's profile in the world of popular music. And while more mainstream examples like Katy Perry were destined to be famous without the internet (and calling random guys gay for some whiny reason), this year produced a fair amount of new names that were solely built on good word of mouth and in turn, solely built to disappoint.

- Vampire Weekend

Early in 2008, the blogosphere gave a bunch of preppy kids from New York a bunch of insane hyperbolic praise about their band's self-titled record. Vampire Weekend went from guys who made reasonably catchy music to the apparent saviors of returning African sound into music, the same sort of thing done by groups like Talking Heads back in the late 1970s and 1980s. Their self-titled album was an album with a few good songs ("Oxford Comma", "Cap Cod Kwassa Kwassa", "A-Punk") and a bunch of meandering and mediocre songs squeezed into a brief piece of recording. The Talking Heads comparison is borderline ridiculous, as vocalist Ezra Koenig has none of the neurotic flair of a David Byrne, nor do their painfully clever lyrics match the nicely pinpoint ones from the Heads. That and preppy white kids apparently are so insanely crazy for African tribal rhythms, or they could have just listened to a post-punk record or two maybe for that musical inspiration? Again, they're not bad, but they're not anything special by any means.

- Girl Talk

Hipsters love liking music because it's "different" or a "new style" of music. Girl Talk's entire reliance is on generic rap lyrics mixed to a variety of sounds, mostly bands like Yo La Tengo and Radiohead for indie kids to go "Hey, I know that song." It's funny, indie kids will take the piss out of the jukebox culture of your regular bar where every other song is a familiar track from a bygone era. Whether it's Quiet Riot or Eagle Eye Cherry, it's perceived as crap. And yet, Girl Talk's entire appeal comes from indie kids who hate rap music and yet loooooooooove when rapping is set to "15 Step" for some crazed reason.

- Dan Deacon

No square reason, really. His brand of electronic music's just kind of annoying, though. And really? Two 8-level records in a row, Pitchfork? Crazy men.

- all of those British bands that got a modicum of attention over here in between the breakout of Coldplay and the breakout of Arctic Monkeys

Franz Ferdinand has all but proven that they won't ever have a good album ever again, quite honestly, with how weak Tonight was and the fact that I can roughly remember two good songs on the first record. Keane went from sucky dreary rock to sucky dreary U2 clone to sucky crappy disco band...which, yeah, bad progression. Kaiser Chiefs only made awesome on "Ruby." The Futureheads are a good singles band, but that's not really a valid substantiation for hype. And easily the most interesting is The Bravery...which I'm told isn't from England at all, but rather New York City. Bleh. Britrock in the 2000s has had a horrible go.

Chris Cornell makes me not want to listen to music ever again.

2009-03-16T17:12:00.008-05:00

Trent Reznor's Twitter:

"You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus."

For over twenty years, Chris Cornell has been a part of music in one way or another. His band, Soundgarden, was one of the penultimate Seattle grunge bands that gained massive mainstream acceptance and their albums weren't half bad, either. Cornell then joined with three former members of Rage Against The Machine to form Audioslave, which had nothing of the quality of Rage, but wasn't a bad band, either. Their music was fine diversions that worked on rock radio, and their first album was even pretty great, as mentioned before in this blog.

Squashed in between that time was two solo records that showed Cornell's evolution (or devolution) as a creative artist. He did a record that became an underground classic in 1999's Euphoria Morning and then did a mostly mediocre record in 2007 with Carry On.

Now this all brings us to this point, to 2009's Scream and to where everything has went wrong at a quick rate. Stifled by creativity, Cornell's best move is to apparently do the same songwriting style, only replacing his rock roots with the sounds...of Timbaland.

I will say this, I have liked a lot of Timbaland's past stuff. Timbaland's evolution of Justin Timberlake from boy band bopper to the modern-day Michael Jackson was amazing and he produced two fine albums out of a guy that seemed doomed to go the Nick Carter route. Timbaland's production on Nelly Furtado's record didn't create an amazing record by any means, but Loose was decent for what it was. Of course, Timbaland lost his way with critics on Shock Value, a disastrous solo record that, among other things, forced the horror of OneRepublic on the world.

So, Timbo's been licking his wounds and Cornell's been directionless since the aforementioned “other three from Rage” left him to his devices. So what do both men do? Cornell lets himself be the backdrop to another Timbaland record where nothing changes. Of course, the project is referred to as a Chris Cornell solo album, despite the fact that this could be any person letting the hitmaker producing his samey beats over the music. Here's a sample of the...failure in store.

Now, I feel going on about the music or its sheer terribility is a little bit redundant. So, I will pose a question...would Kurt Cobain have ever done this? Has Eddie Vedder thought that the last thing his songs needed was a punch of electro? I haven't heard Scott Weiland's last solo record – laughably entitled Happy in Galoshes – but did Weiland think that the big thing missing from his songs was Just Blaze or Scott Storch? Did the lady from Veruca Salt want Lady GaGa's production team? I suspect the answer to all of these questions is no.

Again, I don't hate Timbaland, I just hate Cornell forgetting that being a patriarch of grunge should avert him from embarrassing himself for top 40 play, and especially in such a horrid fashion that completely doesn't fit his voice or style in any way shape or form. I also hope that a bunch of 90s acts aren't up next. I don't need to hear the vocalist from New Radicals being a backup vocalist for Christina Aguilera.

Hulu Watching Experience: Species III

2009-03-13T23:44:00.000-05:00

There are obviously a lot of awesome franchises in history. None of those revolve around a third installment that goes directly to video. However, the Species franchise is a perplexing series of films that start from mediocre to bad to worse, as is the case with Species III. Species III is in itself almost symbolic of the franchise in its three acts.

Act One is an installment with a decent bit of gore and a lot of random sci-fi mumbo jumbo that's ultimately insignificant, but there's nothing especially bad in these scenes. Plus, there's nudity.

Act Two is stiflingly boring, with a ridiculous amount of half-breed suited strangeness and ridiculous amounts of gore for the sake of itself.

Act Three is hilarious and then crappy and then a hilariously stupid cop-out makes it hilariously crappy.

Might as well earn my nonexistent keep and explain further. Species III opens with a lovely sequence involving the military and Natasha Henstridge's (apparent) dead body. Henstridge is still portraying Eve from Species II, and that creature comes back to life, has a weird baby and then some fat kid is involved. This all would've been so awesome if an arty guy took hold of this and just added more random abstract screwed up things, but instead, we're left to our own devices as far as good filmmaking goes. Anyways, a scientist takes the baby home, and that baby quickly grows up to be a girl and then through some more weird circumstances, a naked woman appears. A couple of deaths happen, but only because, as we all know, men are pigs.

That particular message is one thing the Species franchise has attempted to do from the beginning in that they establish that man's desire for sex is so so irrational that nearly all of them would violate such a right when graced by the beauty of some odd half breed alien who looks like your average GAP model. In a way, it's objectifying to both males and females. The females' only purpose in this film is to have sex and create life, and even when Sunny Mabrey's blonde Sara learns about chess apparently from just touching a book, this information is irrelevant to her. Her whole "purpose" is sex. But she also has the excuse of being a half-breed, where apparently, reproduction is the only thing that matters. The males in this movie not only don't have that excuse, but barring three characters, the male race is treated as if sex is their only goal. Rape is pretty much an action on everyone's mind. Even the half breed attempts to rape her in a sequence where both I and the goofy Dean (played by Robin Dunne) both yelled that he was trying to rape her.

This isn't even bringing up the fact that the blonde Sara is viewed as perfection whereas the suddenly introduced brunette Amelia is the film's villain for whatever reason. That might be a bit of a poor comment on America's love for blondes.

And now I realize I'm overthinking one of the more dumb but entertaining movies I've seen in a while. Though, it's just dumb. You can't describe it any other way.

Rating: REALLY BAD

Next time, I'll cleanse the palette of horrible direct to video movies and review one of the most beloved sequels of all time...ROCKY III!

The Fork Looks Different.

2009-03-11T11:51:00.003-05:00

For indie music geeks everywhere, Pitchfork.com has become the main source for opinions and being introduced to obscure names that are suddenly thrusted into the spotlight by how good they are, at least according to the site's writers. The ratings are debated all the time, acts like Arcade Fire, Spoon, Battles, and Vampire Weekend have all benefited from the site christening them with the tag of "Best New Music." And this week, the site finally overhauled its traditional interface for a more modern, crisp look. And it looks amazing, though, all of the kinks aren't sorted out by any means. There's a great deal of problems with links and the sort, but overall, Pitchfork continues to be a great resource for music lovers, especially the Forkcast feature with a ton of free songs. Check. It. Out.

(My Note: The Hulu Watching Experience will continue at some point. Maybe. Not right now, though.)

(Something About) Watching The Watchmen.

2009-03-07T01:27:00.001-06:00

Around 25 hours ago as I write this, I went to go see Watchmen in the theaters. And while I had a big long spiel about the idea of this world being parallel to our own, similarities to the age of terror, the cute jokes about Nixon's fifth term and Ronny Reagan being taken not seriously as a presidential candidate and such, but it would be rather fruitless.

I will say this, though. You have to really be into the material from the start to truly enjoy it at its finest level. This doesn't mean that you have to read the novels or anything to get it, but if you think this will be a typical action movie, then you're going to be shaken. This isn't even anything like director Zack Snyder's last comic adaptation 300, whose entire purpose was to be a generic action movie with fun video game-like Spartan violence. This, however, hits more than a basic good vs. evil dynamic and does it in pretty stunning fashion. Everyone here is given something that they are truly responsible for as far as a bad decision or a decision that puts their human value to the test. And yet, everyone is given a steady reason to do what they do (barring Ozymandius, but his storyline's chopping probably helped destroy the more nuanced elements of his character).

I will cut it here because I'm certain this would quickly dip into spoiler territory, but overall, barring a few decisions that could've been more chaste and my personal feeling that length does hurt a movie from time to time, this was a fine fine film. This is all I will dip into about watching the Watchmen at this time.

Hulu Watching Experience: St. Elmo's Fire

2009-03-05T02:03:00.000-06:00

In around 1985, a cultural moment happened in modern American history. As Reagan ruled his second term and the youth of America was busy brooding and taking copious amounts of drugs, something represented those young men and women's idealism. That was the top 40 hit "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" by John Parr, in which Parr quips that he's gonna be your man in motion and all he need is a pair of wheels. He tells them to take him where his future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire. And apparently, a film was made out of this popular song, in which almost none of these upbeat traits were really brought up.

Instead, the 1985 film St. Elmo's Fire is a melodrama of the highest degree, pounding depression upon depression, never letting anyone figure out why this gang was so united in the first place and thus why we should care that their rash decisions are destroying each other's lives. Also, Demi Moore seems like a crappy person, so why is everyone suddenly concerned to help her? I guess there is a bit of truth to the one person who is friends with everyone but is grating, but then, well...they help her too much.

That said, one positive is that Ally Sheedy is gorgeous. I mean, for about five years between 1983 (with WarGames) and 1988 (with Short Circuit 2), she had to be the most demurely attractive woman on the big screen. And at 46, she hasn't aged terribly. But nonetheless, one positive is that Ally's just in it. Just that she's in it in general is awesome.

But there's too much unexplained. Judd Nelson works for a Republican despite being the Pres of the College Democrats Association, which is poorly explained, really. Emilio Estevez borders on pure obsession with his ninth-grade fantasy girl, to the point of throwing a party with entirely the purpose of her coming, and throwing it in the house that the man who gave him money (since the girl wanted a financially secure man) to keep it safe. Ally's uncertain, and nearly married to Judd. Andy McCartney is brooding and writerly, and not anything like say...me for instance. Not at all, in fact... Demi Moore's crazy, sounds about 40, and is by all means, sleeping with most everybody. And I forgot the others.

St. Elmo's in a modern context is probably poor, but films usually attempt to place a specific feeling of a time and a place. However, we merely get the idea that some of the guys from The Breakfast Club came together to make a movie that also tries to speak to a set of people, but really only spoke about how friendships are fleeting when people really fall in love, and I guess that love is a dangerous thing that fails. Oh, and that we make really big deals out of things that are nothing, as Rob Lowe must tell Demi and the audience in the last five minutes.

Sorry guy, not interesting enough.

Rating: MEDIOCRE

The next entry will be on a fine cinematic experience known as SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL. This will be very very interesting, followers.

Hulu Watching Experience: American Psycho 2

2009-03-03T22:01:00.001-06:00

(This review contains a good bit of spoilers...but the title is kind of a spoiler anyway and let's be honest, I doubt you're going to watch this crap.)

I have never tried to make a film before nor have I ever been to Hollywood, but I'd imagine it's hard to get funding for a major feature film. You have to convince people that their idea is so worthwhile that they can throw away millions upon millions of dollars just to see whatever you wrote be put on celluloid. In fact, most of the films people bemoan as crappy Hollywood studio flicks are made to appeal to all demographics, so thus, they're naturally pretty impersonal.

I bring this up because American Psycho 2: All-American Girl was originally known as The Girl Who Wouldn't Die, and had nothing to do with the 2000 satire at all. Mind you, even as a "sequel" in its final form, it still has nothing to do with the original, and seems almost angry that you would ever compare such a film to it. And much like the great schoolwide tradition of Opposite Day, this "sequel" accomplishes the exact opposite of its original.

AP2 opens with a woman, a 12-year-old girl, and a man, introduced as Psycho's Patrick Bateman. After calling him creepy and such, the little girl kills Bateman easily. So basically, the awesome villain of the first film is buried in the first five minutes because a psycho broad just stabs him. This is only the beginning...

This 12-year-old girl grows up to be Mila Kunis, who all of six years later is a girl in college that is whip smart and as hot as Mila Kunis should be. She also says "That's what your mama said" to people. I guess this is what smart people do. Four minutes in, another man named WILLIAM SHATNER shows up. The Shat provides some wonderful merryment and has a creepy romance with one of his students, because obviously, professors sleep with their students, y'see. Kunis then says that she wants to be his teacher's assistant, because somehow, all of Shat's teacher's assistants make it to FBI training. We are introduced to the three hapless teens that aren't Mila Kunis including the weird awkward rich guy, the weird hot blonde, and the weird black guy with dreads. They all die, don't worry. But not before a whiny assistant dies (after making a Ricky Martin and Ricky Ricardo joke about a cat), and before a whacky date between Mila and awkward rich guy, who clearly notes "You have to eat. I have to eat. Let's eat together." I'm using that one next time. This leads to him being so concerned about the T.A. job that encycles the whole movie that he's willing to pay Mila SEVEN FIGURES to drop it. This job is clearly serious. So Mila takes him back to his room, and kills him and such.

These first 30 minutes begin a curious question of what this film's intent truly was. The violence is too implied for an R-rated horror flick. The script is too poorly written to be perceived as intentionally funny, and the acting is too straight-faced to be considered campy. The film is also not a satire in any sort of way, unless its attempts to mock the collegiate system of thinking, and obsessing over insignificant jobs is perceived to be clever. Which while, those elements are involved, they take a backseat to building up Jackie from That 70s Show as a killer mastermind. The music selections are poor, even when such acts as Rilo Kiley and Imogen Heap are among the soundtrack's offerings. They don't really fit the tone in any sort of way...that is, unless we were not supposed to gauge a tone from this movie.

Which, I guess is as good as anything. I'm too lazy to really write up everything that happens, but we essentially build up to Ms. Kunis being ONE IN A BILLION. Her cleverness is so much so that she kills 10 people, and only three of them have a missing persons report out for them, and the cops only come into play over an hour into the feature. Which again, is probably satire, which again, the film fails miserably at doing correctly. By the end of the feature, Kunis is revealed to be so clever that NO ONE BUT ONE PERSON notices that she has changed her identity twice, and that the second identity has taken her to a top FBI position. At least one of the guys is killed in the wide open in a library. Another of the dead bodies is seen by a janitor and a security guard, both later killed, and both never found out about again. By this film's conclusion, I had cackled at the logic mistakes, the poor writing, and the completely horrid attempts at actual humor.

What American Psycho succeeded in making an iconic character who in turn was a great satirizing of yuppie culture and the idea of certain "stereotypes" being safer than others, AP2 all but destroys at the seams. It does not help that Mila Kunis is not Christian Bale, and that American Psycho 2 is not American Psycho.

Rating: REALLY BAD (out of a scale of REALLY BAD, SLIGHTLY BAD, MEDIOCRE, PRETTY GOOD, and AWESOME)

(Writer's Note: Tomorrow might have a selection, and if it does, it'll be ST. ELMO'S FIRE. This will be better than American Psycho 2, I promise, but will it be as fun to write? Find out tomorrow/soon.)

The Hulu Watching Experience, Or Movie Sequels I Watch on Hulu and Will Review

2009-03-03T18:25:00.000-06:00

If you are much like me these days, you are probably broke, out of money, and yet feel a need to watch a movie. Now, well, you're broke, so you're not going to suddenly rent a movie...but you don't prefer breaking the law. This means Hulu.com is the only option. And this left me with a wonderful idea. Over the next couple of weeks, I shall review any movie that I've haven't seen before. I will also add the caveat that they HAVE to be sequels. So any of these movies might be on the list to come:

American Psycho 2
Speed 2: Cruise Control
The Karate Kid III
Beethoven's 2nd
FX II
Revenge of the Pink Panther
St. Elmo's Fire (which isn't a sequel, but it has an awesome title song and is basically the sequel to Breakfast Club)
Amityville II: The Possession

Still, this will be exciting, rant-filled, and enjoyable for everyone. I will have something on American Psycho 2 tonight. I suspect this will not be boring.

This is GOOP.

2009-02-28T16:57:00.001-06:00

This week, for some reason, (relatively) popular actress Gwyneth Paltrow launched a website. And it is called Goop.com. Why Goop? ...I don't know. And neither does anyone else. It appears to be a store-based site, which would be awesome if the store wasn't already broken. So we're left with a perplexing page with the simple message: "nourish the inner aspect." Okay, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I like it when websites don't dumb down material for their audience, but this is the latest stroke of pretentiousness by that woman married to that singer of that second-rate British rock group that sold millions last year.

Or, it could be the funniest site ever. I'm not quite sure.

In lieu of meaningful content...

2009-02-26T21:33:00.001-06:00

I present to you what will undoubtedly be the finest experience of 2009. This is the story of The Uncler.

The Uncler w/ Uncle Sam and Alyssa Milano from Alyssa Milano

Witness the resurrection of Uncle Sam, indeed. God bless ya.

The Politically Incorrect Oscar Report.

2009-02-23T00:50:00.001-06:00

I give you the warning in the title.

Anyways, Oscar is all about awesome, totally non superficial things. I don't remember anything that's of note here other than that this year's ceremony went for two demographics that have seemingly NEVER EVER been targeted before at these ceremonies: young females (specifically teens who will probably sit through crappy technical awards to see Ed Cullen) and gay men. After all, Tonys host Hugh Jackman hosted the thing and...sung and danced a lot like he was at the Tonys. I guess this is supposed to be high energy, but it only proved that the era of the musical has been dead for a long time (which will be mentioned shortly).

So, let's get to some thoughts.

- Wow, too much makeup and not enough good expensive clothes.

I mean, everyone looked...pretty bad, actually. Even the secret loves of my life, Tina Fey and Anne Hathaway had pretty unflattering dresses, though, I felt they looked great in spite of this. (Amy Adams didn't, which depressed me a lot.) This also began a trend of evil. Also Miley Cyrus had more cleavge than 85% of the red carpet. This was disturbing on many many levels.

- Penelope won for Woody Allen's deal, and I realized Oscar has no love for the pole, and yes love for a random lesbian makeout.

No opinion really, just adds to the trend of this year's show being...pretty gay in the actual non-pejorative sense of the term.

- Hugh Jackman sang and did musical numbers.

He was a good singer, but...I still can't say I liked it. That is all.

- Milk won one too many awards.

I am not going to lie, I can't judge performances that I haven't seen. Now, Sean Penn is an actor's actor, so he's probably awesome in Milk and maybe more awesome than Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. But wow, the Academy opened themselves a dumb can of worms by picking Penn over Rourke. Both of them are polar opposites. Rourke is a "tell it like it is" man that doesn't care who respects him and was actually probably the least hurt by him not winning, but that's exactly what makes him an interesting and great person. Not to mention, this was kind of the performance of his life and all. So instead of an impassioned speech with conviction, we instead got Sean Penn informing the viewer what they frankly should have the common sense to know, such as PROP 8 IS BAD. At the end of the day, it felt like the Academy was trying to make up for the fact that they voted Crash over Brokeback a few years back and never heard the end of it from critics. Too bad it came at Mickey's expense.

That said, Ben Kingsley had speech of the night for his awesome speech to Mickey. That was a moment where the award almost didn't matter in comparison to the people loving his comeback.

- Rogen and Franco revisiting Pineapple Express = fried gold.

Funniest thing of the night. One of those moments in a three hour telecast where I kind of felt I didn't waste my life away watching something. Although, in fairness, I can't act like my time is super precious anyway. I would've spent it typing on a computer probably instead. Still, it was worth it for such things as James Franco admiring James Franco's performance in Milk and for confusing The Love Guru with Slumdog Millionaire.

Beyonce and Hugh Jackman sung songs from Singin' in the Rain.

Not only did this actually happen, which made me weep for poor departed Gene Kelly, but this led to a medley in which songs from High School Musical and Mamma Mia were used. These films are not Singin' in the Rain or even Chicago for that matter. (And I can't stand Chicago.) And I knew then why men hate musicals (because say what you want, but Gene Kelly was a man's musical guy), because most of the ones that have came down the pike in the current century have all ultimately sucked beyond comprehension. These songs were not made any better by say Amanda Seyfried, whose entire claim to fame is being the chick from Mean Girls who said her boobs had a sense of whether or not it was going to rain. I wept for humanity.

- Random moments of laughter:
The Asian director with the comically bucktoothed look.
Mel Gibson's awesome new moustache (which you should search out).
Seth Rogen laughing at James Franco's inability to properly pronounce a foreign filmmaker's name.
Alan Arkin honoring "Seymour Phillip Hoffman."
Whatever committee that had serious thought that Jessica Biel, Zac Efron, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Miley Cyrus, and Robert Pattinson should actually be in the building.
AR Rahman being awesomely nervous to accept two awards, and not nervous singing "Jai Ho."
Seeing the Millionaire Host from Slumdog and wishing that someone led to him yelling "You're absolutely RIGHT."
Will Smith.
Revolutionary Road being in the romance montage.

Oh, wow, this has gone far too long. I wasted my life once again, but eh, it was fun while it lasted.

Oh, and screw you Sean Penn. I still don't like you.

A Brief Intermission.

2009-02-17T19:05:00.001-06:00

Due to the LONG ROAD TO MIDTERMS, I will briefly tap out of posting new blog entries for a little while. I might put up an Oscars blog, but I'm mostly going to try to study and focus on other duties at the moment. Look back at the past blogs, if you're a new reader. There's some decent analysis in those previous pieces, and eh, you'll hopefully enjoy the reading.

Thanks for your reading, and I'll be back fresh at some point, I'm sure.

The "Screw Love" Playlist

2009-02-14T17:44:00.000-06:00

Yes, today's THAT day. The day where relationships that are based around possibly true love or probably not true love culminate to celebrate while the millions of singles cry into their Cheerios. I did not cry into my Cheerios this morning. I woke up at 12:30 PM. Aha! So yes, today probably sucks for most of you. (I assume about 65% of you, but probably more.) So here it is, the "Screw Love" Playlist!

The "Guy Who Got Dumped By His Girlfriend on Friday Even Though We've Lived Together for Three Months" Song
Ben Folds Five - "Song for the Dumped"
Why?: Because Ben makes an awesome song that's really funny, really honest, and I'm sure that you thought about 95% of what Folds is saying after the dumping.

The "Yeah, It's a Messy Breakup. Fiona Apple is Necessary" Song
Fiona Apple - "Oh Well"
Why?: Because there will be a moment where you have to handle it. And you'll cry, it's human. So Fiona Apple knows your pain.

The "Yeah, I Don't Have a Date or Do Anything, Really" Song
Grinderman - "No P---- Blues"
Why?: Because a lot of people probably relate to this more than they'd want to think.

The "I Think This Has to Do With A Breakup" Song
The Hives - "No Pun Intended"
Why?: It's fast paced, not moody, really. I don't know if it has anything to do with actually breakups or not being in love, but it does have the line "I never wanted this to end". So take that for what you will.

That's enough. Any good person will tell ya that you can't dwell on crappy circumstances too long. Happy Singles Awareness Day, kids!

I listened to Chuck D speak and it was awesome.

2009-02-10T23:31:00.001-06:00

I was less than a year old when the rap group Public Enemy released its seminal 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet to the masses. I was not even born when they released, It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Back. And yet I felt connected to the psyche of a man who is 31 years my senior and who talked about situations that I never dealt with. I never lived in an America where segregation was rampant, or as a white man, would've never dealt with the consequences of such a thing.

And yet this man is truly a man of warmth.

About 200 people I'd imagine showed up to hear the man speak, and he seemed to care about every single one. He was more honest than expected (although, I can't imagine a person as frank as he's been in his recordings being dishonest, I guess) and made his simple point for us to accept responsibility, not get trapped in materialism, and to save up and try our best to change our surroundings. History was brought up as a means to self-actualization. Whether it was music history, hip-hop history, or just history of culture regardless, ignoring the past only means that there's going to be a dearth of creativity later. (This example also led to a cute story where he brought up that the Rolling Stones took their name from a Muddy Waters song. This was just cool info to know.)

He also laughed at the Soulja Boy/Ice-T feud.

Then he said that people should take their place in society and do what we can to avoid the world being torn apart, either literally or figuratively. And it was a unifying thought. A unifying thought from a man that once told us to fight the power and that Elvis never meant crap to him, two things that I'm sure he still believes to this day.

Thank you, Chuck.

RIP Lux Interior

2009-02-04T21:20:00.000-06:00

As a fan of a random sampling of punk, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the unfortunate death of Cramps vocalist Lux Interior. The Cramps were a fine, fine punk band that happened to love 50s rock a lot. And they were pretty awesome if you liked that sort of thing. And they have impacted my life directly more than say...the Stooges, who had the loss of guitarist Ron Asheton earlier this year. (Though, the Stooges are probably the better band and certainly more influential.)

Anyways, enough bull. Time to honor the crazy, wacky, and fun man that was Lux Interior.

Whoo Hee Ha Ha.
Bikini Girls with Machine Guns.

Wow. Suddenly the world is far too bland. RIP Lux.

The Hidden Stuff: Part 1.

2009-02-03T00:45:00.003-06:00

As I continue to neglect my fine studies here at this university, I feel a need to make up for slow news days. Mind you, when I say "slow news", I mean that I don't really have anything to say about the Super Bowl since I literally did not watch a single frame of the actual game as it took place live. And I did make up a cockamamie theory about how this game has to be rigged because the fourth quarter looked impossibly unrealistic in it suddenly turning a game from sort of boring to (apparently) one of the greatest games ever, which means it'll be remembered like the Giants/Bills Super Bowl back in 1990 (or '91) was remembered: only sparingly and for one menial thing.

Anyways, this is not what this post discusses. This is my excuse to add more actual music discussion to the mix, and talk about some of the stuff that I can't really send to the paper on the issue of it being way untimely. Also, this list is just ongoing, because obviously, there's a billion albums in the world, and I've heard maybe a couple thousand or more of these. But there's always something that deserves even the slightest modicum of new attention. So here goes entry number one:

1. St. Vincent - Marry Me
Original Release: July 2007

In the indie songstress spectrum, people would bring up the coolness of Jenny Lewis, the soft voice of Leslie Feist, and the bravado of Neko Case. But not many really give points for being cute without being grating, which might actually be the most difficult part of indie music since at the end of the day, the music will always fit in with the right style.

However, Annie Clark's debut solo record under the name of St. Vincent is entirely charming. Clark's lyrics are more revealing of her own personal quirks, and her penchant for indie pop culture. (For example, the record's title comes from a reference to beloved cult television show Arrested Development.) She likes spinning the traditional pop song on its head, as there are definite hooks throughout, but that the guitar might be a bit noisy or that more atmosphere will be added to the proceedings. The minutia throughout Marry Me spread around the exact touches that make this record spectacular. (Such as the "bah bah bum bum" that's in the background on the video below, for "Jesus Saves, I Spend.")

I won't lie, you might not like it nearly as much. Half of the album is poppy, but in a noisy way and the other half is entirely comprised of vintage-styled -- as in 1940s, not 1980s -- ballads that are entrancing, but kind of hard to get into on first listen. Still, it's the wintertime and the industry's probably going to be in a drought of truly interesting material for the next couple of months at least. You can't hurt anything by at least attempting to give in to the catchy wiles of a striking woman from New York.

http://www.myspace.com/stvincent

Yay, Hollywood is political. (The shock of the century, no doubt.)

2009-01-28T01:27:00.001-06:00

In an article that was written the day after the SAG Awards were given out and on the heels of the announcement that Golden Globe winner Mickey Rourke has decided to participate in Vince McMahon's sports entertainment spectacle Wrestlemania, pundits and the like think that Mickey Rourke's effort to be a case of life imitating art will cost him an Oscar. Now, there isn't much of an opinion on this to say that this is a legitimate issue. While the NY Mag article says that there's an implicit anti-Wrestlemania bias, they also have not had a major pro wrestling movie that has been solid enough to warrant even caring about such a thing. So basically, no one truly knows the truth in this situation.

However, if the issue of Sean Penn's performance and Mickey Rourke's performance is being decided because the latter actually wants to embrace the thing he portrayed, I see that as a non-issue. Of course, I'm viewing things through the scope of a perfect world where scripted sport is somehow shunned when scripted entertainment is seen as okay. But then again, that's another point for another time.

What is the point is the ridiculous possibility of something that's seen as "lower entertainment" being the cause of another's downfall and not say THE PERFORMANCE. Again, of course, politics is nothing new in Hollywood. Still, you kind of want some release from that perspective and that feeling that hey, maybe the BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR can win for such an achievement. Will that future subjectively ever happen? Well, no. But maybe I'm a dreamer. Maybe I'm just idealizing things. Who knows? Maybe Rourke wins an Oscar, goes to the main event of Wrestlemania, beats that Chris Jericho in a match with the Ram Jam, and grins the biggest grin he can. See kids? Idealized futures are pretty cool.

Random subjects of fun interest.

2009-01-27T00:08:00.000-06:00

When you have a boring Monday, you tend to pay attention to the ridiculous things going on around you in the world. And they make you laugh, a lot. Here is a mere sampling of these things.

VH1 reality shows are highly implausible, ridiculous, stupid, kind of funny and hard to not watch.

There was yet another sighting of Real Chance of Love today. For those who don't know, Real Chance of Love is a reality show based around the premise that two guys can give random nicknames to semi-attractive, semi-clothed women and choose who really loves them out of this. Mind you that proving their love involves wrestling, which I guess makes it as improbable as Randy Savage fighting in a match for the honor of the late Miss Elizabeth. And so reality television and fake sport meet in some comparison that isn't bringing up Celebrity Championship Wrestling.

More obscure music mentions!

This week, I'm reviewing Andrew Bird's new record Noble Beast. Since you'll get the idea of that record when you read the piece, I think I'll talk a little about Fever Ray. She is one part of the electronic group The Knife, which I realize that it's kind of hard to get name recognition out of that. Still, she has a pretty decent solo record out that's been released digitally, which is very strange but cool territory. This isn't going to be a favorite for album of the year at year's end or anything, but eh, "If I Had A Heart" is a nice January diversion.

Video for "If I Had A Heart"

Also, not as obscure, but I shall pimp the greatness of the Gaslight Anthem once again with some nice awesome videos.

Videos for "The '59 Sound" and "Old White Lincoln"

These guys have already had a big past two years of going from an unknown band from New Jersey to a band with a serious devoted cult following. It helps that The '59 Sound is a record that's really a great grass roots record. It's just an album that more and more people are finally getting their hands on and enjoying very much and passing on to their friends, which kind of fits the old school aesthetic of the band.

The Collective.

2009-01-21T23:36:00.002-06:00

I had more elaborate thoughts on my review of Animal Collective's new record, but eh, I think the review itself pretty well covered it.

So I shall fill some space with this fine link: http://www.myanimalhome.net/

There is the fine, weird, and wonderful video for "My Girls." And it sums up the sound of the album pretty solidly, I'd say.

I shall elaborate on some Super Bowl-based things in the next week, so keep a definite look out for that. Other than that, I'm pretty well spent.

When A Bird Invades the Super Bowl.

2009-01-15T23:18:00.002-06:00

I'm relaxing from the music discussion for a bit since the music industry itself is having its "relaxing period" through January. Next week, Animal Collective's new record Merriweather Post Pavilion is coming out in stores, and I plan to go in-depth on that. But for now, I shall be fixated on sports, since my favorite sport, uhm...football, is winding down its season.

I have to admit, the way the season has fallen has left me feeling a bit apathetic. None of the four teams seem worthy as a Super Bowl team to me, which has made me cheer the most for the one team who had the least chance of surviving. That team is the Arizona Cardinals, who have magically wandered into a major chance to make their first Super Bowl in history. Mind you, they have to beat the team that sportswriters have already crowned the NFC Champs, the Philadelphia Eagles. But what's the interest of the Eagles here? Most common fans would say Donovan McNabb, but I don't see why I should be so vested in McNabb. I don't know, being benched for a half doesn't seem like it suddenly turns the path of a quarterback around to him being amazing. Plus, it's a poorly built angle based on one mediocre game that led to a surprise hot streak to end the season. I don't get it.

Meanwhile, Arizona's more fascinating to me. They are statistically and logistically the weakest team out of the twelve teams that made the postseason, as even the San Diego Chargers weren't a totally weak team at 8-8. While they have a solid offense, they have roughly one defensive player that I remember by name -- this being Cardinals cornerback Adrian Wilson. They got beat by 40 points by a team not even in the playoffs (the 11-5 New England Patriots) and sucked for a majority of the season, only getting into the playoffs by virtue of being in the worst division in a major pro sports conference in the NFC West. So by all definitions, they should not be here at all and should get shellacked by the Eagles on Sunday.

Well, let's hope to god they don't. And here's why.

The Cardinals have the real comeback story of the year in Kurt Warner at quarterback. Kurt Warner is currently 37 years old. After becoming an NFL MVP twice, he got cast aside. He was considered too old to be a genuine starter, and was only hired in Arizona in the first place as a lead-in to big deal youngster Matt Leinart. It's weird how things work, because Warner has been the man who has almost exclusively taken the snaps over his run in Arizona, and it's his solid performance that has gotten Arizona to this point. And considering that quarterbacks in their late-30s are becoming more known for torpedoing their franchises, (*cough* the man who wears #4 for the Jets *cough*) Warner's all the more impressive. And he's not even doing anything that radically different than his quarterbacking style from the past few seasons, his team just happens to win slightly more than 50% of their games now, rather than slightly less than 50%.

I have no comment on the AFC title game, because I frankly don't care. Joe Flacco is a horrible name for a quarterback, and he seems like a pedestrian who does okay at quarterback and does his job while putting up mediocre pedestrian numbers. Did I say pedestrian enough? Pedestrian. Anyways, I don't really want to see him quarterbacking a Super Bowl, and I don't want to see the 2005 Joe Flacco -- or Big Ben or whatever -- do it, either. I guess I hate young kids at quarterback. Those ungrateful kids, thinking they can start with great defenses and ride by on that success. Why in my day, we had Troy Aikman...who did the same thing, but he was interesting. I just don't see why them kids would cheer that Flacco kid. Them Cowboys in the Super Bowl was so much simpler...

Thoughts I Thought During the Golden Globes.

2009-01-12T13:48:00.000-06:00

- Kate Winslet deserved about two Golden Globes and six Oscars for that one scene they showed from The Reader.
Because wow. I didn't think I'd be amazed by a scene that roughly constitutes to a man getting out of a bath and a woman hugging him. That's good filmmaking. No wait, brilliant filmmaking. Stephen Daldry is my hero.

- Ricky Gervais: one of the few men to ever make the Holocaust funny.
And that's only because he mocked the fact that every other movie this year had to have a friggin' Nazi in it.

- Tracy Morgan makes something with Cate Blanchett funny.
"Deal with it, Cate Blanchett!"

- Tina Fey makes something with DianeFan funny.
"Suck it, DianeFan." Basically 30 Rock made the show amazing. Go Sarah Palin!

- Colin Farrell made me forget in roughly two minutes that this man was in Miami Vice, Alexander, Hart's War, The Recruit, Phone Booth, Daredevil, and American Outlaws. (The last two I had to look up.)
Plus he won for In Bruges. Which I hear is mindblowingly awesome, and probably made up for S.W.A.T. and Pride and Glory at least.

- What group of people thought that basically showing the ending to Slumdog Millionaire was a brilliant idea?
Really, what group? Especially when it winning Best Drama Picture or whatever, more people are by default interested. So you basically give them most of the final frames, and tell them to act surprised. Good work, Golden Globes.

- The last two awards. What greatness.
Mickey Rourke takes home Best Actor, and it's well deserved. Even if Penn's performance is more actorly, Rourke's is pure awesome. And then we got a great Globes moment when Darren Aronofsky gives the finger on live TV. And Mickey Rourke made looking really rubbery look cool (and tragic) in The Wrestler, followed now by looking like Johnny Depp circa 2003. Good man. Bring on Iron Man 2!

Slumdog Millionaire takes home Best Drama Picture and it's well deserved. Although, The Reader is probably more jarring, and Benjamin Button probably deserves its praise, Slumdog is the one that at least gives the most joy with its conclusion. (Which you can sum up by the fact that The Reader is about a Nazi war crime trial and Ben Button is about death or Brad Pitt or both.) Come on, it could be worse. Revolutionary Road could've won. Plus, the producer said the "f" word (even if it was blanked) on live TV. Which was pretty funny.

- Most of the funny people gave no crap, and most of the not funny people were friggin' hilarious.
Seth Rogen wasn't funny, which was stunning. Sacha Baron Cohen was painfully unfunny. And then Mickey Rourke thought that Downey should speak for him, and it was hilarious. Same with Colin Farrell talking about cocaine and getting into an almost literary tirade during his acceptance speech. Same with stoned Renee Zellweger. Okay, that was only funny because, wow, she fell off fast.

So yes, fun show that was cool to watch. The three hours went by pretty quickly, and there was a lot of entertainment to be had. The Oscars could learn to just remove that host formality and just get to the awards for once this year.

The One About Number 15.

2009-01-08T23:55:00.001-06:00

Okay, let's get this out of the way. Tim Tebow won a national title. I can't stand Tebow as a person and I don't like the Florida Gators. Let's make this perfectly clear before I piss anyone off.

Now, I see a lot of response saying that the media loves Tim Tebow to death, especially FOX. Let's also remember that FOX televised the BCS title game. Ratings for the games of the Bowl Championship Series have encountered a steep drop this season, likely when people realized that one of them is actually the only one that matters to anyone other than university presidents and people way too fixated with win-loss records. Also, the "fifth" BCS bowl was between Cincinnati and Virginia Tech, one of them (the one not named Cincinnati) going into the game with an 8-4 record.

So, they needed somebody. And again, even though I don't like him, pushing Tebow as the star of the title game was exactly what was necessary for FOX. The hardcore fan probably hates this, but Fox doesn't want to draw in hardcore fans. Drawing in just the hardcore fans always never quite works. So you have to create a hype machine around him, which I find hilarious that people always allow themselves to get mad at rather than realize its intent. This is the same hype machine that made Vampire Weekend successful on the heels of an album with three good songs and made Juno a $150 million grossing movie in 2007 despite it being nowhere near the country's best movie. And Tebow's hype is exactly the element that will make this game huge in the ratings. (And since last year's "exciting" LSU title win drew 14.4 percent of households, this has to be a raise.)

Tebow is cocky, showy, and completely unnecessarily arrogant. (I.E. he was running on plays when the game was in the bag with two minutes to go.) But that's why he's a media darling. He knows the game of football is by nature, entertainment. So he'll go out and make his most ridiculous show of theater on a national stage. Is he as good as Bronko Nagurski? He's not even the best quarterback in the NCAA right now, but he's the most media friendly. He tells his team and himself to shape up after a loss to Ole Miss, even when in hindsight, almost all of their opponents from that point on were mostly mediocre. But this is seen as an act like something you'd see in a movie. Thus, it's entertainment. The hype is not meant to be taken seriously at all, because honestly, Mark May can't tell me anything about college football that I can't figure out with an ESPN Gameplan package.

Sometimes, you have to look at college football with a realization of what it is. If you put too much emotion into any one thing, you almost ignore its point entirely. College football is, for lack of a better term, entertainment. And though the story is unscripted and the scenarios are played out by unscripted actions. College football always has a story and always goes by a media process that is supposed to set up later developments. (I.E. Tebow's famed hooplah when recruited three years ago set the stage for his hype and then over hype tonight.) Because otherwise, we would be watching two teams pushing a ball 100 yards with no care of what goes on, and well, people wouldn't know who a Brett Favre even is. I wouldn't have cared about the Dallas Cowboys in the mid-90s (which their fame inherently was caused by their rags-to-riches success from crap team to amazing team, and their inevitable hype led me to figure out who they were when I was around six).

So yes, Fox is simply doing their job (which is to sell the game to the viewer by showing a "legendary player" do his job), and when hasn't ESPN piled on the hyperbole? These are the same guys that still think that a team losing one regular season football game (or a baseball or basketball game, for that matter) totally matters in the scope of a full season. Sure, a team can struggle, but if they get into the playoffs (like the "struggling" Indianapolis Colts this season), what's the problem? Because they're selling things as important to their viewer, or else they have no audience. It is the same reason that good but overrated movies and music get praised like crazy in the media. Because if they didn't, they'd be out of a job.

The "Greatest" Month in Film.

2009-01-07T07:10:00.000-06:00

There's something about the month of January that is eerily fascinating to me. By all means, it's the most boring month of the year, even with the conclusion of college football's bowl season and the NFL playoffs. Nothing really happens in January except returning to school and usually frigid weather. Which is why it still staggers me that movies actually get released in January. I mean, yeah, awards season fare is going to go wide in January, typically, but for the most part, the movies in January are downright terrible. They're the type of fare that's only notable because it will be on TNT at noon on Saturdays in about three years.

And at the same time, January films fascinate me immensely.

Because if a movie comes out in January, it undoubtedly is because it's following some crappy trend that was a few years old, and surprise surprise, the movies end up being pretty horrible. Here is some nice examples:

The Unborn: This is another likely forgettable movie from director David Goyer. David Goyer is famous for basically being really good at writing with famous directors on famous comic book franchises (he co-wrote Batman Begins and has story credit for The Dark Knight). But as a director, he has incredibly poor taste in bad horror. His directing slate has been Blade: Trinity, the forgettable The Invisible, and now another crappy looking movie with a creepy kid. (And one that randomly has Dexter's dad and Vince Masuka in it. Yes, you kind of have to watch Dexter to understand.) And worse yet, the J-horror looking "creepy PG-13" horror film craze is really dead.

Not Easily Broken: This is the second writing effort from the surprisingly entertaining (for an agnostic who dislikes) preacher T.D. Jakes, as in 2004, he wrote the off-color but better than expected Woman Thou Art Loosed. But this is totally sold as Tyler Perry-lite, even down to the slick RnB soundtrack of the ads, so expectations are low.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop: Or, Kevin James is Fat and Wacky: The Movie.

To show how amazingly dull January really is, there are FOUR major horror releases out this month, two "The" generic horror romps (The other is The Uninvited, starring Elizabeth Banks as some weird mix of Rebecca DeMornay in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and Miri from Zack and Miri.), and two generic resuscitation attempts of properties that weren't very good to begin with (Underworld 3 and My Bloody Valentine 3D).

That said, hope is not lost. Not when Liam Neeson is forced to kill a lot of people to get back his family. Even if Neeson's Taken is basically Death Wish VI (since Death Sentence was basically Death Wish V), Neeson's just too awesome to ignore. People forget until they see the commercial for Taken just how good Liam Neeson is at his job. And Taken could be the most preposterous movie in history, but Neeson will sell the movie like it is cold, hard reality.

So what I'm ultimately saying is that for a film geek that normally laughs at January, Hollywood might surprise me. They might make ONE January release that I remember for once. And that gives me a very warm feeling in a frigid month.

(And no, I didn't bring up Bride Wars because I love Anne Hathaway too much to get my Rachel Getting Married memories soiled by a forgettable rom-com that serves its purpose of giving her a paycheck that's nice.)

I copy good ideas.

2009-01-03T20:52:00.001-06:00

So, the Something to Talk About blog on this very site (look to your right), posted their 25 most listened to songs of the year. So I got lazy, and decided to do the exact same thing. Only my iTunes got leveled around June, so I decided to go with the just as great Last.fm, which reminds me that the best song of all time is Kool and the Gang's "Summer Madness". Which they are still right.

Anyways, here's the list, complete with nice explanations as to why I loved such music in 2008. I'd also like to note that I'm not huge on repetition, I tend to get bored with most anything after a few listens. Also, this is overall, not taking into account the year of the music itself, which already explains #1. So that might explain a few of these.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts - 26
I find that around one month a year, for the past five years or so, I think Karen O is the best rock vocalist of her time. She tends to bring a lot of elements into one package: unabashed sex appeal (in that odd "she looks strange" sort of way), bravado, and a sense of her being in pure control. Though, I think I end up not knowing what I'm talking about, as the best songs from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are when they're their most vulnerable, like "Maps" and "Cheated Hearts".

2. Panda Bear - Take Pills - 23
This is the best anti-drug song Brian Wilson never recorded. Panda Bear IS 60s Brian Wilson, and he more or less said what Wilson probably should have done in his life, which is to not take pills because he didn't need them.

3. White Williams - New Violence - 22
This is really dancey. I don't think White Williams had any gargantuan ideas with "New Violence", except that he wanted to make a truly modern retro dance song. And it worked!

4. Metallica - All Nightmare Long - 21
I think I'm one of exactly sixteen metalheads who didn't get bored with Death Magnetic after early November, but this is probably the most well-built up of the album's monster tracks, and the one that is easily the most interesting, I find.

5. Radiohead - Bodysnatchers - 19
I'm not going to be one of those people who continues to extol the good virtues of In Rainbows, but it's a good record that really helps if you're in the "Radiohead mood." (I.E. If you feel in the mood for slightly dreary, slightly incomprehensible music.)

6. Metallica - The Unforgiven III - 17
This is the second best of the three "Unforgiven" tracks, and the third different definition Metallica gives of what makes someone "unforgiven", which is guess here means that you're going around in circles on a boat.

7. Beck - Chemtrails - 17
I think everyone slept on Modern Guilt, and there was a decent reason for it, as it was a bit too short and a good record that never touched great. Still "Chemtrails" is one of the more intriguing songs Beck's done in the last five years, probably matching up -- but not eclipsing -- "E-Pro" in its awesome simplicity.

8. Panda Bear - Bros - 17
This is 1960s Brian Wilson on an acid trip...well, more of an acid trip, which is funny because Panda Bear seems to really not like drugs.

9. Panda Bear - Comfy In Nautica - 16
This is the opener to Person Pitch, and it really gives you what you're in for on the onset. A lot of noise repeated over and over into something that manages to turn into a well-structured song, and proves that all of these electronic acts trying to pass on just doing sloppy noise and saying it's music should maybe look at Panda Bear's records.

10. Ladytron - I'm Not Scared - 16
I didn't realize the shift into dark gothic electronica until right now. Ladytron's got a little bit of a noise mix with NIN, oddly, and I think anyone that appreciates "Discipline" will notice the massive similarities between NIN and Ladytron's work, especially the one this track comes off of, the album Velocifero.

11. Nine Inch Nails - Discipline - 16
This year, Nine Inch Nails gave away a whole album for free, a 10-track record called The Slip. It subsequently was pretty throwaway for the most part, but "Discipline" was a pretty killer song, and the fact that this song is currently available for free means that you'd be silly to at least not take advantage of it.

12. Caribou - Sandy - 16
Caribou is one of the few acts in music that I perceive as making beautiful music, because they pretty well do. But this doesn't really explain why they're great, or why a Canadian electronic artist is a fine musician. Ah well. You'll just have to figure that out for yourself.

13. Beck - Profanity Prayers - 15
This was also a simple song on Modern Guilt that worked in spades. And any chorus that asks who will answer profanity prayers, which I guess is making fun of religion or Beck being goofy, is a thumbs up for me.

14. !!! - Sweet Life - 15
I listened to this song constantly last year. For some reason, I thought Nic Offer was on to some brilliance when he did a chorus that consists of exactly four letters. Which in fairness, it's still a brilliant idea. And this song totally talks about the vapidity of institutions like high school. Or something. I think I just like that the chorus feels like an explosion of sound.

15. Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things - 15
I couldn't tell you much about why I enjoy this band, either. After all, their best two songs ("Ankle Injuries", "Collarbone") have almost nursery rhyme levels of rhyming. So it must be the guitars. Yeah, that will work as a reason for now.

16. The Bronx - False Alarm - 15
This year was the year that I realized that I secretly love punk rock. After being buried by crappy efforts from Green Day and a lot of other pop-punk acts that take their cues from Green Day (All-American Rejects, Taking Back Sunday, etc.), I managed to get a hold of Against Me's 2007 release New Wave. Despite the fact that it's their "sellout" record, it's exact what a "smart" punk record should be. And then there's The Bronx who, along with Tennessee's Jay Reatard, knows how to make a song that rocks but has pop sensibilities.

17. My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow - 15
You wanna know why this is one of the greatest rock songs of all time? Pipe organ. And plus, they have cred. They made the label spend nearly a million dollars to record the album this track came from, the early 90s classic Loveless. And then I mention for kicks and jollies that this label, Britain's Creation Records, neared on bankruptcy when this album sold poorly, but were bailed out by this new group called Oasis.

18. Caribou - Desiree - 14
As with the previous Caribou song, this is so well composed, but here there's a wonderful buildup that sort of...well...it explodes midway through the song. And it's gorgeous.

19. TV on the Radio - Crying - 14
TV on the Radio managed to make a happier album with the same bleak subject matter. Or I guess it's bleak subject matter since everyone seems to think that Return to Cookie Mountain was the fear of the "Bush Years" in record form. Anyways, this song adds a lot of funk, as Dear Science as a whole adds a lot more nuances that really make songs better, like the 60s surfer pop chant that surrounds "Halfway Home".

20. White Williams - Violator - 14
Also really dancey. But in a more laid back and cool way. White Williams and his randomness and love of the 1980s is just lovely.

21. Caribou - Sundialing - 13
This runs at a nice click. It's one of the few six-minute songs I heard this year that didn't bore me to tears.

22. TV on the Radio - Dancing Choose - 13
This is again one of the inspired choices of TVOTR. They are amazingly successful at their experiments to the point that I almost forget how much I didn't really care for the second half of Return to Cookie Mountain and most of Desperate Youth... Here, Tunde's acting like Michael Stipe in 1987...which is that he's sort of rapping, but he's really just quickly talking. And it works to a tee.

23. Islands - Creeper - 13
While I think I grew cold on Arm's Way late in the year, this is still easily the best indie pop song related to a murderer in quite some time. (The last one was Sufjan Stevens' mega depressing "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.")

24. The New Pornographers - Use It - 12
Okay, this is my chance. The New Pornographers are the best of the two Canadian indie supergroups. (For those lost, it is them and Broken Social Scene. For those still lost, BSS spawned Feist and Kevin Drew. For those who are still lost, you probably didn't read most of this anyway.) "Use It" is the songwriting creation of Carl Newman, who writes amazing old school pop songs that just happen to be filtered out through about ten different people. Even weirder, I'm not partial to his stuff as A.C. Newman, as it's not like his stuff in New Pornographers.

25. Liars - Plaster Casts of Everything - 12
"Plaster" is easily the best metal song that no one will ever classify as metal, probably because 98% of Liars' fanbase hates metal.

Yes, this wasted way too much of my life.

Podcasts and Culture, Or Why I Find Myself Drawn to Internet-based Programming

2008-12-28T02:30:00.000-06:00

It's been nearly a decade since the advent of the first iPods and culture has never truly been the same since. Apple Computers was quickly revitalized by the success of this mp3 player that notably stored more than the average CD and had less bulk than say a Walkman CD player. And naturally, it changed the culture of radio broadcasting. Podcasts went from small endeavors to shows that got picked up by public radio stations and all kinds of hooplah came out of that. People wondered if the iPod destroyed radio for good, which yeah, it probably did.

However, it created a sort of new age of wanting to hear about other people's opinions, views, or ideas in such a personal way. I mean, even blogs don't entirely have the personal nature of conversation, as much as I love to think that I've personally endeared myself to the populace who reads these entries. Plus, you can fall asleep listening to podcasts. If you fall asleep reading a blog or a book, you're probably way too tired to have any focus whatsoever.

So it was very easy to see how I could fall into addiction with podcasts, and I have around 40 currently on my lovely computer. 40 podcasts are actually probably way too many to have saved on my computer. It's not like the ones that I have (and that I shall showcase to you shortly) are short deals. For every five minute alert of the week's events in whatever, there are podcasts -- and in turn, conversations -- that go on for hours. And yet I find a way to listen to every single one of them on a weekly basis. So now that I revealed myself to be the exact stereotype of every blogger on earth, let me reveal favorites and reasons why.

ESPN Around The Horn Podcast: This one is completely easy to justify. I love talking about sports. I love mindless arguments about whether or not the New York Yankees are going to suck next season. I love Woody Paige managing one moment of amazing silliness an episode. Thus, this is completely perfect for me.

Scene Unseen: This is probably the most conversational of all of the lovely podcasts I enjoy. It's a simple premise: one guy sees a movie, the other doesn't. Then, they simply talk out what they enjoy about the movie. I have followed this one long enough, though, to see a nice evolution in their sound. They often veer away from the topic of the film, which when they are reviewing such films as Madagascar 2 and Eagle Eye, it's a welcome change.

SModCast: It's Kevin Smith. It's Scott Mosier. It's funny. The end.

Sound Opinions: A podcast is doing something right whenever I can be completely agreeing with its hosts' opinions one week, and then completely disagree with them the next. Sound Opinions has that fun little thing of making me consider my own opinions versus its two hosts, and even though I don't always agree, when I do dislike their views, it's a pretty healthy dislike. It's not vitriolic or the type of hatred I elicit for say, Blender Magazine.

Broken Pixels: While a lot of 1UP's long material tends to bore me, as I remember that I am so impoverished by still playing my year old Playstation 2 and my two-year-old sports games, I love this particular podcast because it's really easy to mock bad video games. Actually, I had never heard of 90% of these games before they were on Broken Pixels, but watching them get torn to shreds by three men who probably are drinking as this mockery occurs is a complete joy to watch. Oh, and don't do it yourself. They are grown-up magazine writers.

Musings of a Middling Christmas.

2008-12-25T19:43:00.003-06:00

Okay, let's get things out of the way first. I send my holiday greetings, a nice Happy Holidays so as not to offend anyone. And so with formalities out of the way, let's get to the truth. It doesn't feel quite like Christmas this year. Mind you, I have made no formal studies in the differences in Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or even Festivus, so I don't know if it feels incredibly different by comparison, but Christmas itself feels kind of like another day. I mean, other than the presents, and me being happy that I got a few things I didn't need to save up to buy, it's a very conventional day.

Even Mother Nature last night didn't really care what day it was. In Tuscaloosa, there were high gusts of wind and lots of rain. Also, the temperature was 60 degrees at the lowest. This is not even typical December weather, much less Christmas Eve weather.

And of course, many elements play a part in the mediocrity Christmas has sort of become to me.

The first thing is obvious, I'm not exactly a kid anymore. When I ask for Christmas presents now, I basically just go online, order it, they send it in a week or so and I get it. And it's not even like toys or games or anything. My big present this year was that I got three Chuck Klosterman books and a few T-shirts I had wanted for quite a while. And these things are awesome, but they don't have the instant gratification factor, really. The benefit of shirts is to wear in public, and no sane person is out in public on Christmas Day. And book reading is always great, but most great books are a sort of marathon where you read a good little bit at a time and enjoy the book's structure, words, and whatnot. I never thought I would focus on the future and nice things to wear around from January to May, but that's basically what's happened.

The second thing, though, I can blame on television. With so many television channels running round-the-clock programming, there is no way that everyone wants to cover something about Christmas. While there are the traditional holiday standards like the classic It's A Wonderful Life, television still more or less moves on. Repeats rarely seem to cover the subject, and don't get me started on how little of a damn I care about Nancy Grace and her spending five days a week on a missing toddler when hundreds go missing without a trace of press. Of course, I don't think she spent her Eve show talking about said toddler, instead it's to the just as soul-crushing subject of kids with cancer.

On the television point, it doesn't help that there's crap all for specials these days. I mean, Rudolph, Frosty, and Charlie Brown don't stop being great. But Jeff Dunham? Are you seriously going to tell me that a guy with a mildly offensive Arabic stereotype puppet and who is at most mildly hilarious is supposed to send me some real Christmas funny? Thank God that A Colbert Christmas was on this year, at least.

And finally, I think I see the season through rose colored glasses. There has never been snow on Christmas Eve in the many years I've had Christmas in Tuscaloosa. At least, I don't think there has. But anyways, there never was that much to remember about the season. I think I got a Sega Genesis video game system one year, and that made my life for like five years or so. There was one year where the electricity was out, but that wasn't even here in Tuscaloosa. That was in my former home of Louisiana, and nothing about that year was particularly memorable except for the lack of electricity caused by a nice ice storm.

So I guess I'm the Scrooge of this season. Which is kind of not true in the sense that I still enjoy Christmas and getting free gifts, but I'm on that sort of downslide. There's not much time left to enjoy the getting, so I sort of shrug my way through those years. Or maybe my views on Christmas would've been changed if they just shown It's A Wonderful Life without commercials this year. Get on that next year, NBC.

What I Learned From Saturday Night.

2008-12-22T16:11:00.004-06:00

So, it's late December. Late December means watching mediocre college football teams battling it out for who truly deserves a bowl of poinsettias, or a bowl representing the website of a pizza joint. I mean, sure, there's Christmas, but everyone knows about that. There is a pure adoration for Christmas already. Everyone loves Christmas, even if they don't love Christ or Santa or any other figure that impedes into this ritualistic gift-giving time of year.

That said, the best thing I possibly did this weekend, other than watching a few movies I wanted to see, was to immerse myself into the positive effects that professional wrestling can have on soldiers. And how simplistic men (and women) in tights doing fake fighting make a good impact on the armed forces of America.

Yes, I watched WWE's Tribute to the Troops in lieu of the hardcore war between South Florida and...that team South Florida beat in football.

Now mind you, I have an odd fascination with WWE's product. I am talking about a company whose last major storyline involved a seven-foot-tall, 300 pound monster whining about what he and a blonde chick with the same first and last name had together as a couple. The answer, of course, is nothing, but over two hours, we were led to essentially who the blonde was having sex with. This is a product that I cannot justify in the fact that it is pure campiness and upright stupidity. This same company has a Playboy model finding feelings for a man that is functionally retarded excluding when a ring bell is rung. This is hardly the nexus of anything thought-provoking on television.

And yet, that loon Vince McMahon does something that no one else probably will. He's made a tradition ever since the war in Iraq broke out to send his group of superstars to Iraq to entertain the soldiers. Even now, when the celebritocracy avoids Iraq like the plague on the basis of the war being unjustified, WWE spends a random time in December actually giving their moral support to the soldiers. It's not a pro-war sentiment, either. It's merely a pro-soldier sentiment.

I didn't even think I could stand a show in which an address by George W. Bush opened the telecast, but the show is impartial. It merely states the situation, and that WWE helps the soldiers' morale. And then there are good guys versus bad guys and the good guys always have to win. It's a feel good special, except replacing the overbearing Christmas sentiment with American sentiment. And it's a time where something ironic and great happens, in that the "fake sport" brings a sentiment that's very much genuine and stunningly respectful. Maybe something even more genuine than a football team fighting for the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Tired Debates, Phrases, and Whatever I've Thought Of.

2008-12-18T01:22:00.000-06:00

As you've noticed, there's sadly not as much writing in the past few days from myself because, well, it's the holidays and everything seems to completely shut down as far as news goes. My favorite sport of football (college and pro) is busy dashing my dreams and running itself out of town after a few more weeks, all of the fascinating music from 2008 has already been released, and all of the great awards-season fare is either getting released in limited release or on Christmas Day, so it's not like I can find a way to watch said movies without using the ole' hitchhiker's thumb.

So instead, I'll find another way to bring those three great things into something else, and that's to bring up what I'm tired of hearing from the media (and I guess people, too, but mostly the media).

- Stop hating the idea of "playoffs system" people hating the idea of the BCS in college football.

Over the past few years, everyone and their mother has preached about the good of a playoff system in college football. It would make controversy mostly impossible, because at least unbeaten mid-majors would prove if they're actually good or not, and all that jazz. So it's an awesome system that totally makes sense. It makes so much sense that every year when a team is left out in the cold, all college pundits talk about is the playoff system. Which naturally annoys people tired of hearing about playoffs as much as they tire of hearing the name Tim Tebow during every ESPN college football show ever. Which gets the topic off of the table, and leaves out the point that the BCS isn't working and that my favorite sport of college football has a worse system than my not so favorite sport of college basketball, which still sways me to watch during Final Four time because they have an awesome playoff system that's easy to fill out in a bracket.

- When a famous person goes crazy or fails once, don't immediately herald their next project as their mega comeback.

Obviously, we saw this in 2008 with Britney Spears' Circus, which came out like a year after her last record and yet everyone heralded Circus as the comeback record. And guess what? Both records are about the same in quality. (As in, it's well-made dispensable pop.) And guess what? Both sold close to a half a million in one week, which is about the same. Mmmm, isn't media hype crazy?

- Is "crunk" really a relevant phrase to anyone, regardless of what they like?

I mean, come on. It really bottomed up in terms of any sort of ironic luster it had probably right after Dave Chappelle portrayed Lil' Jon, and then right after the man purposefully tried to market another "genre" called "hyphy" that sounded about the same, but didn't have a word that was oversaturated by being used by a bunch of kids thinking it's super ironic. When the man himself is tired of the phrase, you know it's pretty played out.

And then there's some other tired things that I'd save for a nice rainy day, but I felt a need to quench any drought of fine material here in this fine blog. I'll probably only be posting if I see one of those awesome awards season-bait movies in the near future, but other than that, you'll just have to miss me.

The Amazement of Auburn.

2008-12-13T17:25:00.003-06:00

When Auburn fired head coach Tommy Tuberville roughly two weeks ago, everyone thought it was a misguided decision, but in the topsy-turvy world of NCAA coaching, putting out the old and bringing in the new is the new thing. When any coach, especially one helming a Southeastern Conference team, messes up badly, the impulse decision is to change things. But presumably, you have to have a clear plan of what you want to head a team. Right?

Now let me put myself into the perspective of an Auburn athletic director or Bobby Jindal or whatever, which you'll notice in that handy quotes box below.

I have many, many options for a replacement...

Turner Gill's done amazing work in Buffalo and made the team go from a laughing stock of Division 1-A football to a conference champion. And on the way to that conference title, they beat a top 25-ranked undefeated team in the process. He seems perfect for the project of rebuilding the Tigers. But eh, he's probably wanting to be stuck in the Northwest or Northeast or wherever Buffalo is. And clearly the MAC's not a legitimate conference. It's not even a big six conference! So, no to him.

Brian Kelly has made Cincinnati into a Big East powerhouse. He is in a big six conference, even if this conference happens to have the least prestige out of all of them. And his team is playing in a Big Four bowl this year (the Orange Bowl), unlike us. He's also had a long trend of turning teams good or keeping the teams on track. Thus, he's an amazing choice. But he doesn't see a problem at being paid $825,000 a year to live in a cold city in Ohio, which is strange but I guess it take him out of the picture.

Boise State's Chris Peterson's much the same. He loves the blue turf a lot. Oh, and 12-0 records. So he's also out.

And I'm too lazy to wait for a pro coach to get fired, like Rod Marinelli of the Detroit Lions or Romeo Crennel of the Browns, despite the fact that lame duck pro football coaches with a clear head have a great history of winning in college. See: Nick Saban, Pete Carroll.

And I don't want a guy who would be brand new to coaching. So even though a guy with a solid pedigree in coaching (Mississippi State's Sly Croom) just got let go, I don't want him. He clearly can't play in our conference, so why on earth would I need a guy who led a mediocre team to a bowl game last season and only lost to my team by one point this year?

So that leaves only one choice left. We need someone from a big conference, but not a big school. This guy should come from the Big 12 North, not the Big 12 South where that Texas Tech guy Mike Leach is. He'll probably just stay in Lubbock and be third in his conference (with a 7-1 conference record) forever. And I don't think Mack Brown of Texas or Bob Stoops will jump out of their posts. And...I guess there's other teams in the South, but why would I care? I want the North.

Missouri's head signed a mega extension, so he's out, despite his winning record. Uhm...Kansas head coach Mark Mangino looks too much like Andy Reid. This clearly is important to my decision, so he's also out. Nebraska's got a fresh coach with an 8-4 record, but he clearly won't leave for a nice plum SEC job. Plus, Nebraska's got some legacy to it.

So that leaves Colorado's head and Iowa State's head. (Kansas State's coach signed a ridiculous $1.8 million per season deal to continue to be 5-7. They'd kill for an Auburn-esque season.) Colorado finished 5-7 this season, too, but we don't want to be reminded of the past. Now what we need is a defensive genius! But I've got Iowa State left, so I guess I'll hire that guy. Oh! Gene Chizik! The man who coached Auburn's amazing 2004 defense! This was a good choice after all. Wait, what's that? His head coaching record is 5-19? Oh, what does it matter?

So, let's recap. I shunned the mid-major guys, despite the fact that the head coach of this year's SEC champion cut his teeth in mid-major jobs. I shunned any recently fired guys like Sly Croom, despite the fact that a team coached by a guy fired last year by an SEC team was the only team this season to beat the SEC champion. I totally forgot about the pros, despite the fact that pro experience and great defensive strategy from a Romeo Crennel is exactly what Auburn needs. I totally forgot that a horrible team like Kansas State even has a coach that's more winning than the coach from the very specific conference I hired from.

Wow, I should be fired.

Hey Dad, what do you think about your son now?

2008-12-13T01:17:00.001-06:00

Awake on my airplane. Awake on my airplane. My skin is bare, my skin is theirs.

The following was the first four lines from Filter's "Take A Picture", another one of those "classic" 90s rock radio songs that everyone remembers and no one likes now. Right?

Well, I like it because it's one of the finest songs from the 1990s era of rock music. In fact, it's a lot better than a ton of the traditionally great songs, quite simply. Furthermore, Filter is an amazing rock band that gets saddled with the image of post-grunge rock radio. Basically, they're something solid in an era of crap, and when anything solid is purely surrounded by crap and doesn't have the ironic distance of a Radiohead or Yo La Tengo or Spoon, they "become" the crap they're around.

But this band is amazingly sensible and hilarious despite being ridiculously accessible. The aforementioned "Take a Picture" is a sprawling six-minute epic that is basically vocalist Richard Patrick getting drunk on an airplane, stripping down to his boxers, and fighting with someone. Oh, and asking someone to take a picture because he won't remember what happens during his alcohol-infused blackout. Which given the song's reputation of being a sprawling epic about something not that drunken, it kind of shatters the song's illusion of being beautiful. However, it makes the song inherently beautiful by proxy of being realistic. Richard Patrick basically is telling the world that he's flawed and that when he drinks, he really does stupid things. Which, in fairness, isn't a bold statement by any means.

And yet the true humanity sort of seeps out four and a half minutes into the song with Patrick's sing-shout of "Hey Dad, what do you think about your son now?" Patrick reveals a whole another side of himself: the one with daddy issues. It doesn't seem like he hates his dad, but every man deals with the shadow of his father. It doesn't matter whether it's subtle or plainly obvious, every man has had to look up to his old man and may not have always liked the result. And Patrick probably didn't always have the approval of dad, especially when his older brother was the frickin' T-1000.

And the decision to make the song a peaceful ballad out of the situation is inspired. It's exactly the opposite of what is expected. You expect Filter's most kicking and dark song to be about the drunken incident, not their most peaceful effort. Not to mention that despite their accessibility (hipster translation: their success), this is the same band that didn't agree with but sympathized with people who commit suicide on the single "Hey Man Nice Shot". They aren't Yo La Tengo, but they are unorthodox. Hell, they named an album Title of Record, which is actually kind of funny, sort of in the same way that REM naming an album Eponymous was.

I was going to mention "Take a Picture" in the same breath as great 1990s songs like Radiohead's "Airbag", Neutral Milk Hotel's "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea", or Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger", and I truly believe this song stands the test of time. Because "Take a Picture" had something that even those great songs might not have had, and that's pure honesty.

The Ten Best CDs of 2008.

2008-12-12T15:20:00.006-06:00

Yes, this is the time of year where everyone gives you a list, and you usually disagree with it because none of your favorite bands (or movies or TV shows or whatever) are on it. This is my version of that list.

10. Beck - Modern Guilt

Can an album be considered a disappointment, the most lackadaisical record in an artist's catalogue, and still worthy of being heard? I don't entirely believe everything I just said about Beck's downright amazing Modern Guilt, though, Beck did seem bored with this record extremely quickly, as instead of the hour-long length of The Information, he barely gets to 33 minutes on Modern Guilt. On one hand, it feels like Beck wanted to be freed from a major label contract, which in comparison to final major-label swansongs like Mos Def's Geffen Records departure record True Magic, this seems like an insult. On the other, it's Beck and Beck always is intriguing just by the nature of being himself.

Video for "Modern Guilt".

9. Little Joy - Self-Titled

I guess the words "out of nowhere surprise" apply to this record, because the third most interesting member of the Strokes -- drummer Fab Moretti -- has made easily the most interesting side project out of the bunch. There wasn't much hype for the record, to the point that I remember fellow Strokes member Albert Hammond's two solo records earning more hype. And yet, it is a perfect mix of chilled out Strokes sound, and nice tropical elements. The only qualm here is that this is a perfect summer record, which of course means that it has to be released in November.

Video for "Next Time Around":

8. Portishead - Third

I feel really bad that it took me until this year to properly discover the pioneering trip-hop (read: electronic music) group Portishead, but they kind of made it hard for me not to. Third is the British collective's first release in 11 years of time, and yet there's nothing here that shows any rust between releases. Third opens with an amazing, haunting, and even depressing opening track called "Silence". Merging Beth Gibbons' beautiful voice with the sexy but scary background is exactly the perfect tone for Third. Third's not an easy listen. Those who want happy electronica with noises, beeps, and bloops should look elsewhere, but Third's an amazing music record, as in you'll be amazed by its quality and craftsmanship.

Video for "Machine Gun":

7. Sons and Daughters - This Gift

Sons and Daughters is probably the exact opposite of Portishead, in that instead of Portishead's slow, creepy rhythms, Sons and Daughters is insanely fast, rather peppy, and very catchy. And on This Gift, they create a collection of fine songs, all that accomplish the achievement of being catchy and damn near unskippable. I have ranted on the joys of this CD before, so look back through the blogs for why this record is so joyous. Just a needed catchy blast of indie rock.

Video for "Darling":

6. Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward

This is my honorary "it sucks that this band is broken up now" album pick, though Get Awkward is a great album in its own right. Something clicks about three semi-long haired guys and a cute blonde recording songs about dull life, murder, and zombie movie references. And doing this all in a quickie punk style totally works. Admittedly, vocalist Jemina Abegg happens to sound a lot like Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams, but Abegg's so much more ironic with her vocal style and subject matter. Both bands go through "high school stories", but Be Your Own Pet does it with the right amount of truthful snark about it. These guys didn't care about high school, either, nor did they care about popularity or anything of the sort. Hell, they talk about killing a student in a song, and yet it's done in a tone that says "just kidding, guys". (That being the song "Becky", which actually didn't make the US version of the album but probably can still be found on BYOP's MySpace page or something.)

So yes, maybe I'm ultimately saying that it sucks that Be Your Own Pet is broken up, while Paramore is still together.

Video for "Becky":

5. The Bronx - The Bronx (III)

For the longest time, punk rock's simply tried too hard to be punk. While I've been wowed by efforts from bands like The Gaslight Anthem -- who would so be 11th on this list -- I feel like that punk has something missing. While groups like Andrew Jackson Jihad earn their punk following by stripping down the music into a hard acoustic rhythm, there's not enough of the rock in punk rock. The Bronx totally has that covered.

This record sounds exactly like the first two eponymous records from The Bronx, and that is exactly why it is good. While change is great for most bands, change is exactly what would ruin The Bronx's sound. They have such an ability to write concise three-minute or so punk songs that are pure blasts of sound that I cannot imagine them doing anything else, even though their next record is a mariachi-based record. And on The Bronx (III), they simply create eleven kicking songs that are a perfect companion to the first Bronx record (the second's not as kicking). And thus, by simplicity and keeping with the formula, they create another fine release.

(By the way, the video is for a song from The Bronx's first record, but it's far too awesome to pass up putting in a blog, and plus it has the same sort of sound that everything on the third record does.)

Video for "False Alarm":

4. Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak

While change isn't always good, I'm not against change. Though, in fairness, Kanye West has always leaned towards change in every single album he's created. He created a nice, slice-of-life hip-hop record with College Dropout, and then he found the musical charms of Shirley Bassey to be the perfect pick for a sample on Late Registration. Graduation saw him evolve into taking samples from Steely Dan, Can, and Daft Punk among others, but 808s and Heartbreak might just be his most evolved release.

A lot of criticism was layered immediately on Kanye for his use of auto-tune throughout the whole entirety of the record, and he got compared strangely to Britney Spears as far as having a lack of "musical integrity", despite that integrity means nothing in the era of Amy Winehouse. However, this record's a dissection of a man that's an egotist, that's selfish, and that's cocky. This man is also human, flawed, and lonely all the same. Just by the nature of 808s and Heartbreak being as revealing as it is, it is Kanye's most human release, ultimately proving that a man that once said he wanted to be put in the Bible might be as oddly human as the rest of us after all.

Video for "Heartless".

3. Nas - Untitled

Nas is a true elder statesman of hip-hop. This you already know.

He's also a man with a lot of controversial viewpoints. This you would know if you realized the original title for this record was going to be the N-word.

On Untitled, Nas dissects the unjust justification of racism, his own role in trying to unify the people, and in analyzing the meaning of one word. And he also tells white people that even if they like him, they wouldn't "ride" with him. And he's totally right. As much as white suburbia loves hip-hop, they wouldn't dare actually hang out with the people who write these songs. I mean, they would if it's a nice club. But in their day-to-day life, they'd be scared half to death.

Which is why I am a white suburban kid who likes Nas. Because I know what he's saying is right, and I know that he's willing to challenge his listeners, which is exactly what a good statesman does.

Video for "Make The World Go Round".
(I'd love to link to the video for "Sly Fox", but I'll just tell you to look it up on YouTube. It's a great video, but a bit too controversial for ye olde blog.)

2. Metallica - Death Magnetic

Seventeen years ago, Metallica released The Black Album on the heels of an amazing song called "Enter Sandman". You might have heard of it. This album wasn't the best album in the group's catalogue (Master of Puppets or And Justice For All are the proper answers.), but this record was easily the catchiest metal album that I had ever listened to. Mind you, when I finally heard this record in its entirety, I still thought Creed and Limp Bizkit were awesome, so to hear a band with a slight bit of craftsmanship was a shocking change.

Since that album's release, Metallica has tried and failed to capture the spirit that made them such an intriguing band. While millions bought Load, Reload, and St. Anger, all three were met with a wave of disappointment from fans. And it's pretty understandable why a band famous for its hard luck metal would get shunned for going in a country-sounding direction (or whatever they were trying on St. Anger, I don't think anyone figured that out yet).

So seventeen years later, the band releases Death Magnetic, over an hour of pure thrash. And it's really awesome. It has been brought up before that the main criticism this record gets is that James Hetfield is not an angry young man any more. Which seems silly because Death still rolls with the stories. There's no political criticism or criticism of war akin to the amazing "Disposable Heroes", though, the video for "The Day That Never Comes" leans in this direction. However, this is an hour of rock that brings back everything that fans didn't hate about Metallica. And if I hear one more person say that Rob Trujillo is not Cliff Burton, I'll slap them in the face. Because that's totally obvious, and because Trujillo doesn't actually suck here.

And after seventeen long years, I can say that once again Metallica made an album that didn't suck.

Video for "All Nightmare Long":

1. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

When I originally listened to this record back in late September, I thought it was a pretty solid record. Obviously nothing compared to Return to Cookie Mountain is what I thought to myself while glancing through the tracks. I mean, I really liked "Dancing Choose" and "Halfway Home", but I didn't see much hope in the rest of the CD. So for a couple of months, I kind of slept on it. I liked it, but I didn't like it like I had the others.

But then one day, I turned on my iPod and listened to the song after "Halfway Home" called "Crying". And effectively, my mind was blown. "Crying" is such an infectious song that it got played a million times on my iPod shortly after that day. This same process happened with "Stork and Owl", "Family Tree", "Love Dog", "Golden Age", and the album's best track, "DLZ". And this is how purely amazing Dear Science is as an album. All of the album's songs may not be tracks that stick with you on first listen, but oh my, they are amazing by the 40th listen, and this amazing record easily takes the cake as best of the year.

Video for "Golden Age".

And to close this out, here's some honorable mentions!

Deerhunter - Microcastle
The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
Islands - Arm's Way
Ladytron - Velocifero
Pendulum - In Silico
Q-Tip - The Renaissance
Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman - The Fabled City

Top Ten Lists Upcoming.

2008-12-09T22:55:00.001-06:00

I'm not going to get into some elaborate thoughts on anything as I'm winding towards finals week, but I will go into listing my ten favorite CDs of the year some time in the next week. I might make more than one list (i.e. I might do it by genre), but there will definitely be a ten best overall list done. I might throw in movies, but my list is boring and way too mainstream for its own good. And I'm not doing TV, since the best thing I've watched this year was technically from last year. (That being season two of Dexter.)

Anyways, keep a look for that, my clearly loyal following. Happy finals week, and hope you don't fail.

Wait, I Have to Hate Cinderella Now?

2008-12-07T20:15:00.002-06:00

So in "this just in" news, Alabama has been chosen (as expected) to play in the Sugar Bowl on January 2nd.

And their opponents are the Utah Utes.

Let that sink in for a second.

Now that it has, let me reveal a few things about myself. In my egotistical quest for life to be fair, grass to be green, and the world to be fair and just, my favorite conferences in college football to follow are the mid-majors. I have a cousin who goes to Louisiana-Monroe, who play in the Sunbelt Conference and who we had a little bit of an unfortunate encounter with during Homecoming last season. Now, the Sunbelt statistically is the worst conference of the nation, no doubt. After all, the Idaho Vandals infamously had a streak of horrible football seasons in the Sunbelt and actually upgraded to the Western American Conference (the WAC) a few years back. And sadly, yes, they have the only team from Alabama holding a conference title in 1-A college ball this season. (Troy won the title on the heels of a strong 6-1 conference run and an 8-4 overall record. Plus, they almost beat LSU, which would've been the greatest laugh ever had they held on in the fourth quarter.)

Now in the past few years, the mid-major conferences have finally come out with guns blazing in terms of their athletic ability being competitive versus...well, everyone else. Teams like Utah, Boise State, and East Carolina have started to have a history of being very dominating in their own conference, and then putting up a fight versus their BCS-approved opponents. Boise State has a famous bowl win versus Oklahoma back in 2006, and the last time Utah finished 12-0 back in the 2004-2005 season, they beat their bowl opponent. (Mind you, said opponent was then 8-4 Pittsburgh, who lucked in based on winning a shambled Big East.)

Simply put, they've been exciting to watch. Seeing a team that has been mostly unproven versus bigger competition is extremely fascinating because no one ever truly knows how good the squad is. In fact, because they've barely been under the microscope, no one knows much about the team at all. In reference to the Utes, the only thing I could tell you about them is that their coaches appear to simply head to better shores and win national titles in one of the big six conferences. (As in, Urban Meyer was the coach of the 2004 team...and...and I don't need to tell you any more about him.)

Utah and Boise State have almost become my second teams (i.e. the team you cheer for when your favorite team is not playing). Utah's ability to keep producing great football teams because they have a great team spirit about them is an inspiring story. I couldn't tell you a single athlete currently on the Utes football team, and I doubt a cocky ESPN analyst probably could not do it off of the top of his head, either. However, they play consistent football and build and re-build and have gotten back to peaks under coach Kyle Whittingham that they haven't reached since that one guy who coached before Whittingham's appointment during the 2005-2006 season.

As for Boise, they continue to be consistent and shadowy. They usually have to take a Humanitarian Bowl bid, which kind of works since the Humanitarian Bowl is home to their awesome blue turf. In fact, the turf's more recognizable to me than any player in recent Boise State football history. (Yes, even the one who made the cover of NCAA Football 08.) And yet, under coach Chris Peterson, they're always likely the WAC conference champs, always finish with a near-unbeaten (if not unbeaten) record, and always bring on a high-powered offense. I mean, any team that puts 61 points on Fresno State (who doesn't actually suck) is an awe-inspiring mid-major powerhouse. That said, they played no one major and will settle for a home game for their bowl. Kind of disappointing, but they'll probably put up 60 against the unfortunate soul that dares to play on the blue.

So I'm left with a little disappointment. This isn't sadness by any means. I'm not going to kill myself over having to see the young unknown battle the big powerhouse, with the case being that we're the big bad BCS-approved guys. I'm not hurt by cheering the more established program versus the scrappy young guys. Still, I do have a tinge of regret. Honestly BCS, couldn't you let Texas and Utah scrap it out? I'd pay to see some red jersey hit Colt McCoy a few times.

Roll Tide, and sorry Utes. I'm sure you'll be 12-0 next year and I'll just have to cheer for you then.

Joy Ride, Or How to Create The Worst Song Ever

2008-12-05T09:27:00.003-06:00

About a few weeks back, I had a lot of venom about this band from Las Vegas called The Killers who have just so happened to sell a few million records. And for reasons notwithstanding (i.e. the single "Human"), I cared nothing about listening to Day and Age, the third record from this band that went from new wave imitators to poor arena rock imitators to now even poorer dance rock creators. And they have in vocalist in Brandon Flowers who is just a much a poor lyricist. Other than composing "Human", Flowers composed perhaps the single worst song in the history of my existence on earth.

This song is track four on the Day and Age CD and it is called "Joy Ride". Now for the first thirty-eight seconds or so, the song is fine and tolerable. The lyrics are horrible, as Flowers strains to make a cliche story about a stuffy man letting his hair down in Vegas seem original and fails massively, but this doesn't affect the riff of the song. At least not yet.

Because right at second 39, there is a sudden move to change this song into a direction that makes no sense and fails horribly. The song adds a saxophone to the mix. And it's sad, because groups like TV on the Radio and any ska band in history have made succinct and successful use of the sax, but here, it is ghastly beyond belief because it's incredibly cheesy. And worse yet, it doesn't seem to hold a legitimate reason for being in the song other than Flowers thinking, "Let's just throw in a sax. We'll be edgy and experimental like that." Except nothing about this band has any hint of experimentation other than mining material that was at least intriguing and creating overwrought lyrics and dull songs out of the fold.

So the first question I'm sure you're going to ask is "How did I hear this song?" (Though, I doubt you've read that far before deciding that I'm incorrect in my assumption that this song is the worst thing in our lifetime and that you actually want to read more of this diatribe.) But anyways, to answer the question, I was listening to one of my personal favorite music podcasts, the Sound Opinions podcast. And it came to an immediate shock to me when I found out they were reviewing Day and Age on the show. And they played a snippet of the aforementioned "Joy Ride", purposefully remembering to keep the taut part with the sax line and the brilliant chorus of "When your chips are down/When your highs are low/Joy ride (JOY RIDE)". And I realized how bad the sax playing was. And then the reviewers said that they thought the sax playing was bad. And then they went on some spiel about how "Human" was based around a book from a famous author (I kind of tune out on what "inspires" Mr. Flowers' works).

But nonetheless, they were right. They were totally right about how insanely bad the saxophone line was, but it's not the only bad thing about this song. A dull bit of guitar work, crappy sax playing, worse lyrics. Wow, Brandon Flowers suddenly made "Are we human or are we dancer" seem like a brilliant observation by comparison.

Kevin Smith and Zack and Miri.

2008-12-03T09:00:00.001-06:00

Warning: Entry contains a lot of Kevin Smith movie spoilers. Be warned.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a Kevin Smith obsessive. I've seen every one of the flicks, watched 2 1/2 of the Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs, and listened to nearly all of his podcast with producer Scott Mosier entitled SModCast. I love this man, in a totally hetero way. Thus, I immediately had to see his latest, Zack and Miri Make A Porno, and it didn't disappoint, though, there were a couple of dangerous trends that seem consistent with Smith.

The first is that his films never ever gross more than $30 million domestically at the box office. This isn't bad if it's a movie like 2006's Clerks II where the project revels in being awesomely low-budget, despite its more mainstream approach. However, on a project like Zack and Miri or Jersey Girl, there is decidedly more being banked on because of the star power of Ben Affleck or Seth Rogen. Admittedly, this is very unfair to point out as a problem on Smith, because he makes the content he wants to and almost all of the features have earned their money back in then some on DVD. Not to mention, Zack and Miri was released on Halloween, one week before another R-rated comedy in Role Models as well as the same night that young adults really don't want to see movies. This would undoubtedly lead to a rant about the idiocy of the Weinstein Company, but I'll avoid that rant for now.

The second, however, is a more legit criticism. Smith's efforts to hamfist a love story into all of his works is becoming pretty ridiculous. The brilliant thing about the first Clerks movie was the fact that at the end of the day, the lead protagonist Dante still had his troubles and still had to decide between the woman that loves him and the woman he inexplicably loves. However, in Clerks II and Zack and Miri, the lead character is inexplicably in love with a character and their response is to be in love back with him. Both do attempt to handle it in some way that says that great friendship could always lead to great love, but in both films it feels forced and it's often the weakest part of the story. It also wrongly accuses that friends who have random acts of sex at points during their friendship are totally in love and set for perfect matrimony. I'm not a humbug for love or anything of the sort and I enjoy both movies immensely despite my dislike for the ending, but Smith trying to be overly sentimental isn't as cool with me.

Of course, Zack and Miri is a pile of laughs regardless. That aspect of the films hasn't changed, really. Smith writing dirty jokes for funny people to say still works. And Smith is making a capable movie in a different universe than the New Jersey flicks and succeeded for the most part with the content. The acting's all pretty solid, as even real porn stars such as Katie Morgan and Traci Lords are not wooden in the film and that's a perfectly fine achievement for any filmmaker to make. (Well, as fine an achievement as that Boondock Saints guy getting a hilariously odd performance out of Ron Jeremy.)

The characters show enough of Smith's trademark wit without it entirely being a situation where every character is essentially Kevin Smith. This doesn't have problems of a movie like say Mallrats where both leads are thinner, sexier version of Smith's thoughts essentially. Sure, there's a lot of times where the Zack character is Kevin Smith as portrayed by Seth Rogen, but Rogen's comedic sensibilities are already a nice match to Smith's writing. And even in comparison to Rogen's work in Judd Apatow's features, the straight-laced female here is at least given a chance to be reasonably funny here.

Nonetheless, I think I'm just going on and on at this point. I think that since this is about four weeks out from the release of the movie, you're not likely to find it in any theatrical screens anywhere near you, but check it out on DVD. However, if you already can't stand Smith's increasingly mainstream sensibilities (which, in fairness, he's had in basically every feature since Clerks) you probably won't dig this. Oh, and if you don't like the subject matter, you won't like it, either. But if you're a Smith fan, well, you probably already saw it. And you probably loved it.

Me and Urban Meyer

2008-12-01T16:12:00.003-06:00

I'm sure that it's pretty obvious to anyone around the Capstone who hasn't fallen into a vat of acid in the past few weeks that there's this little football game called the SEC Championship game going on this week between our fine Capstone crusaders and the Florida Gators. I'm also sure that the same people who didn't fall in a vat of acid also realize that Florida's really insanely good at football, and at running up scoreboards unnecessarily other than to show that they are insanely good in theory. And then, add to the fact that there's a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback in Tim Tebow and an epic defense like the Tide and it's almost a dream clash.

And of course, everyone will undoubtedly compare the runs of the Tide's stoic leader Nick Saban and the similar journeyman success of Florida's head honcho Urban Meyer. In fact, Meyer is essentially the younger Saban in terms of ability to win. Meyer became famous for turning the Utah Utes into a surprise national powerhouse. Nick Saban turned around the bad fortunes of the Michigan State Spartans and famously upset a #1 Ohio State Buckeyes team in 1998. Both even have a national title to their name.

But Meyer's something a little bit more intriguing and scary. He's brash, a little cocky, and youthful. The guy's not even 45 years old and has a national title on the mantle of Florida, and he's running with an offense that scores a lot of points. So that would make him Bob Stoops, right? Well, Bob Stoops is 48, and even under the context of similar age and national prowess, I say yes and no. Meyer's currently going all out to show that he's impressive. Oklahoma's been so impressive that it's been boring as all mess for the past 5 to 10 years, although they have the tendency to overcompensate for the fact that they suck at the big dance. Florida had one amazing national title year in 2006 followed by an 8-4 dip in 2007 that Gators fans conveniently forgot when that Tebow character became the Heisman winner.

So when Meyer's Florida team happened to stumble upon losing by one point to a surging Ole Miss team that surprisingly didn't suck, he reacted with the smarts of a man who won a national title, but with the anger of a teenage boy whose school crush went to his bitter enemy. He had to go all out to prove his worth, even if it meant jacking up the score so unnecessarily. Cue highlights like the 56-6 domination of South Carolina, and the hilariously silly 70-19 game against the Division 1-AA stalwarts The Citadel. (And yes, Bob Stoops did much the same after being beaten by Texas, but Stoops continues to have the anger of a teenage boy in his system.) One stat that I'm sure the sports media will pick up on relates to the number 50. Alabama has not scored 50 points in one game this season. Florida has reached that mark five times.

But that's where Meyer's angry young man might be the worst approach to the game. Saban's team, even in the midst of near defeat, has stayed calm and collected through all of it. Saban himself might not, if him yelling at punter P.J. Fitzgerald late in the third quarter during the Iron Bowl (when the Tide was up 29-0 no less) was any indication.

But the team themselves never seems to lose focus, as rocky as it gets. John Parker Wilson's become a great team quarterback, which is to say that he makes roughly 50% of his passes and doesn't throw a pick. He's not a Heisman-type guy, but he doesn't need to be. He's a team player and knows when to step into the background. Alabama's filled with players that serve a direct purpose. And while Tim Tebow's become more of a team player this year, he still has the stardom of being Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. He's still famous for being Florida's stats page to the point that even in games like the epic battle with The Citadel, he had to play, even if there's risk involved like getting injured.

Meyer has to make his team impress that mythological girl called the Bowl Championship Series, the same BCS that knows that Alabama made all the right moves and didn't do with flash, just with enough cool confidence to win. Now sure, like all stereotypical macho cliches, a fight decides who wins the girl and a fight with (probably) Oklahoma in Miami. But will Florida beat Alabama by a minimum of four touchdowns, the famous minimum margin of victory they have had since that Ole Miss loss? No, they're not. I know saying something will not happen often means that the event does happen and it's worse (or better) than you could have ever thought, but Bama's too cool for a four touchdown defeat. They're too cool for Meyer's pure desperation to appease this dame.

And plus, do you really want to see a Florida/Oklahoma title game? If I wanted to see two teams battle it out nervously for a trophy they don't really deserve (See: Texas beating Oklahoma 45-35), I'd go to a bar, perhaps the Houndstooth here in beautiful Tuscaloosa, and I'd wait until the very end of the night to watch the last attractive single girl in the club be approached by two separate guys who both want her, and she doesn't really want either one of them. What I'm saying is that Florida's desperation is a pretty valid way to lose, and that frankly, I don't want to be bored by a title game this year. Nuh-uh, I want a Crimson War.

Hating Nickelback, Is It Too Inexplicable?

2008-11-28T22:08:00.001-06:00

In the first nine years of the 21st century, we as humans have been surrounded by many things and mostly responded to what our fellow man has made popular. In around 2001, as America more or less became a nation that needed the solace of someone else, there was one band that so daftly answered all the fears Americans needed to quell. Almost ironically, that band was from Canada. Their lead singer kind of looked like the typical portrait of Jesus Christ, which makes even little sense seeing that this man seemed to have a more schizophrenic songwriting style of writing about sex and then writing about caring. And unless we're going by the Last Temptation of Christ depiction of Jesus, this is nowhere near the beliefs of a savior.

Yet in the sales sense, Nickelback kind of did become a savior to rock radio and its incessant need to play one "hit song" an hour. Since Coldplay wasn't there to annoy the nation quite yet (Parachutes was a minor success, their annoyance didn't crank in until A Rush of Blood to the Head and its double shot of annoyance in "Clocks" and "The Scientist".), it had to be this mediocre post-grunge band from the Great White North instead. It also saved Roadrunner Records, which had roughly one band with any sales before 2000 in some nine-piece group with masks called Slipknot.

Then of course, the backlash came. And there was an understandable reason for this backlash. After all, "Someday" sounds exactly like "How You Remind Me" and "Photograph" is a half written song about memories on an album where the lead singer often raves about silly sex. The band was so intent on sounding macho for the men with songs about mad sex that means nothing and has no consequences other than fun and then doing tender ballads that are to show your average middle aged housewife that these men aren't as perverted as they seem. They were the perfect music mogul's band. And they appealed to people that secretly hate music that speaks to roughly one person.

In seven years, Nickelback has become the one band on earth that being a fan or a hater of was almost a show of what you wanted to represent as a person. If you enjoyed the band, you clearly represented the class of the "unintelligible" people, which apparently represents around however many people bought 16 million albums, piracy not withstanding. And if you hated this band, you represented the cultured people that find enjoyment in things, mostly talking about how much they hate Nickelback.

I'll get this out of the way, I hate Nickelback. I don't find any pleasure in the music at all, though this is more out of personal dislike. Before, I thought it was related to their music sounding the same, until I realized that many amazing rock acts are guilty of sounding the same. Famously in the mid 1980s, John Fogerty of the classic band Creedence Clearwater Revival was sued because his own "The Old Man Down The Road" sounded a lot like "Run Through The Jungle". And you know what? Both songs are still amazingly awesome in their own right. Did Fogerty get criticism for basically doing what he does best? No. Mind you, I'm hardly comparing the talents of Nickelback to CCR or Fogerty because Fogerty was truly biting about his generation, about warfare, and about just writing great American stories through song. Nickelback wrote a number that asked "Why doesn't everyone in the world make peace?" after just saying that they'd punch out any guy who thought their girlfriend was sexy and that they wanted to put a bullet into the guy who killed Dimebag Darrell.

And yet, any tired criticisms have often to do with the fact that their songs sound the same, are about things like sex (which rock music has never ever talked about, not never), and that Chad Kroeger writes like he's working on 7th grade poetry. The third claim is sort of accurate, but the first two are constants in rock music anyway. And as much as fans of any sort hate to admit it, whenever a band sounds different, that's when the fans stray away quickly.

This is even a guilt association in indie music, as I remember Death Cab for Cutie fans hating that "I Will Possess Your Heart" lasted nine minutes, complete with a four and a half-minute bass solo presumably because vocalist Ben Gibbard's supposed to say something profound throughout all of their songs, despite the fact that the music behind Gibbard is oftentimes much better than anything he's actually saying. (Anybody that needs a good example for this should remember that it was The Postal Service's version of "Such Great Heights" that people find incredible, partly for the message but mostly for the fact that the musical accompaniment is awesome.)

But I digress, this is about the silliness of hating Nickelback in the trendy "I hate the mainstream" sense. I'm always curious why there's so much vitriol for this band from Canada. I've even been totally guilty of it a lot of the time, although, I never really figured out why I hated them so much other than maybe hearing my family play their music constantly. But there's no irony to hating Nickelback anymore. Maybe around 2002 after "How You Remind Me" became the most played song of ever, there was some bite to people being like "this music really sucks". But in 2008, when YouTube fans have posted tons of videos on their personal dislike for Nickelback and any person who digs into a little bit of any genre of music hates them, where is the irony in saying that you hate Nickelback? There's more fresh bite in people saying they hate Katy Perry for being a tease, and there's not nearly enough people giving that massive piece of insight to anyone. The point is that saying you hate Nickelback is about like saying you hate Pepsi or Dr. Pepper. It's a common causality of living in America at this point.

To throw in an indie example, if I said I hated the Arcade Fire for being too ridiculously showy in its performance style by throwing tons of instruments that probably show have no place in the songs, openly admitting making mistakes in instrumentation in the performance of their music, and growing in their attempts to "be deep" in terms of a lyrical message. Now I love the Arcade Fire, so this isn't me saying these things to get a "he's trying to be cool by hating everything else that's cool" reaction. This is a mere example that there would be a sense of the "divisive cool" that people think they get by admitting hating Nickelback and a dig on the fact that to be ironic, people will even hate the trendy bands of the indie scene. Case in point, the sudden dislike of Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers, specifically their 2007 album Challengers, and the inexplicable liking of electronic vomit like Flying Lotus. (I'm only using Pitchfork Media-based examples here.)

Two things rule us these days, and that is inexplicable love (like a lot of people tend to get any time Lil' Wayne craps out a mix tape some Sunday afternoon in June) and inexplicable hate (like the fact that people will outright hate The Hills, hate MTV, hate Nickelback, and hate mainstream media, despite how much of it they still consume). I kind of rest on some sort of chain of apathy, honestly, even though I border the line of inexplicable hate. I dislike a lot of things, but unless they're horrible actions that attempt to destroy humanity (i.e. not anything entertainment-related), I don't wish them dead. I don't really have an interest in The Hills or Heidi Montag's singing career or Kristen Cavalleri's attempts to act. But at the same time, the show doesn't affect me for the worse. I wouldn't be affected if the cast suddenly died, but I wouldn't dance on their graves while singing "Glory Glory Hallelujah" either.

Of course, I'm not going to act like I'm not repulsed by the Jonas Brothers, in which that's a perfect example of inexplicable hate. I hate these three brothers because they make music I don't like and in turn are everywhere on my television, despite the fact that I have ownership of a remote control and can tune these three kids out of my life. So I'm not saying that inexplicable hate still won't happen. I'm just noticing it a bit too much. And everyone's guilty of that moment. I hate Brett Favre for the fact that he turned into a diva for the past few seasons. He's a great quarterback, but I don't ever think the Jets or the Raiders or whatever team gets him next season after he fakes another retirement will ever be a solid team solely because I don't like him. This is completely inexplicable, almost as inexplicable as hating Tom Cruise movies because he's kind of freaky, or Michael Jackson's music because...same reason, or Neil Patrick Harris' acting because he's gay. It's all inexplicable, and I think we should stop that sort of silly judgment, even though, we never really quite will because we're moralistic.

To drag this back to Nickelback, we as the "cultured people" hate them because of what they represent. And ostensibly, it's that a severe lack of human accomplishment has bred success. This is why "cultured people", especially people who idealize themselves as music enthusiasts, can't stand Nickelback. They don't accomplish the musical feats of The Arcade Fire or the experimentalism of Radiohead or even the slight bit of irony of Sufjan Stevens. With a straight face, Nickelback plays music they essentially already made, write songs about things they already love, and never talk about anything different unless a famous rock guitarist gets shot during a performance. They are the exact depiction of the conventional rock band. They're always consistent in the fact that they sound the same. And guess what? Their last album sold seven million copies in the United States, even when all three of those groups combined can't do half of those numbers, And that's including Radiohead's whole pay-if-you-want model for In Rainbows, which kind of proves the point that they couldn't sell seven million copies without charging nothing for it.

And yet Nickelback has not only found success, but they're one of the only major musical groups whose sales have actually grown during the file-sharing era. While people would big up groups like The Shins as for groups that have grown in sales during the file-sharing era, The Shins basically only got this success from Natalie Portman claiming their music would change everyone's life. Nickelback got it from doing the same general thing for seven years, and people somehow keep enjoying it.

So ultimately, I still don't like Nickelback. However, like all inexplicable hate (like people hating people who like Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Wild Hogs and Norbit) I'll try to keep that more closed in next time because this ultimately affects nothing in my life. When someone likes Jeff Dunham or North Face jackets or Ace of Base, my real reaction should be "That's cool, want some soda?" or something like that. Taste is supposed to affect the populace's view of themselves, but really, it's a distance creating device. One that I won't stop with, of course, but one that maybe a tad bit more tolerance is something I should operate with next time.

That is, unless you just like crap inexplicably.

(Writer's Note: I'll be back on Tuesday, but I'm probably not doing the Overrated, Correctly Rated thing after all because...come on, it's Dead Week. I gotta study sometime or another.)

Ch-Ch-Changes.

2008-11-25T15:51:00.000-06:00

There is a bit of a format shift that's going to happen with this fine blog space. While music is still playing a big part to this fine blog, I feel like there are some topics that I want to explore that are kind of hard to under the umbrella of a music blog. This will not suddenly become the Trey's Life And Uhh...Oh Yeah, Other Stuff Blog, but it will be more like my diversion not too long ago about True Life where I talk about TV and things of that sort. I'm also a heavy film geek, so that will play a lot into it. Expect a slight name change as well to accompany the "not music" subjects, and more wordiness because it's not like I have enough wordiness already.

So yeah, if you're one of the devout readers (and who isn't, obviously), don't be jarred by a name change and etc. Have a good Thanksgiving, find some good deals on some CDs and movies on Black Friday. Peace.

Kanye West does an album where he doesn't rap?

2008-11-24T19:16:00.005-06:00

If you haven't lived under a rock, or had the power to your computer cut off in the last couple of months, you should already know about Kanye West's latest incredibly awesome single "Love Lockdown" which is leading to a new album called 808's and Heartbreak. You likely appreciated "Love Lockdown" as both a dance song and a song about men hating women that are too clingy or that they just don't love as much for whatever reason. Maybe you enjoyed "Heartless" for its use of the phrase "How could you be so Dr. Evil?" Or maybe you quickly casted it off for those exact reasons. Clearly he's just making a minimalist dance record about his lost love, right? And clearly this auto-tune thing is the most godawful annoying thing to happen to hip-hop since people sued for sampling, correct?

Technically, both of the answers to that are yes. 808s and Heartbreak is easily described by its title, and all of it is based around the problems that ruin relationships. Which immediately makes it a tad bit more thematic than say T.I.'s new album Paper Trail being based around the rapper actually *gasp* writing his songs. What a new concept to hip-hop. And fans of Kanye's production don't really get much to chew on, as Kanye strips down songs to a tribal beat and a few occasional beeps and whistles, only busting out an orchestra for a song like "Robocop" that desperately needs musical direction.

Video for "Love Lockdown".

And one thing is amazingly clear on 808s and Heartbreak as well: Kanye is as flawed of a person as the unnamed female (probably an ex-fiancee, but probably better off as unnamed) he loves, misses, derides for her craziness, and eventually leaves. This is probably the most vulnerable a rapper has exposed himself to be and as experimental as a rapper has been since Common's Electric Circus. But whereas Common incorporates love and romance between adults in his music nearly all the time, Kanye never has been forthcoming on his romantic peril in any of his music before this, excluding maybe "Flashing Lights" from last year's Graduation. And even then, he hasn't revealed to this degree that maybe he doesn't love his dream girl quite the way that he had wanted to. That even with everything that he has and a woman that he adores, he isn't really happy.

The entire album sort of speaks in a timeline. You could get that "Say You Will" is about a breakup, leading to "Welcome to Heartbreak" in which West overthinks about the idealized romance of his friends and their inherent happiness over having children and living "the dream". Which makes total sense, since West is 31. In theory, his biological clock is ticking down and he's left with a brief amount of time to find that romance he wants. He's not saying anything particularly new persay, but for a rap artist to admit that his life basically sucks and he needs a woman probably more badly than they need him is a stunning sentiment.

Video for "Heartless".

Songs like "Heartless" and "Love Lockdown" are less dreary, and they fit the pacing of the album because of it. There's a sense of anger on these tracks, but it's anger under the context of romance, and so the chords are a little happier and Kanye has a little bit of his traditional swagger. They also make the second act of a three part act. Act 1 is the loneliness of "Welcome to Heartbreak". Act 2 is the more divine "relationship" songs of "Heartless" to "Robocop". Act 3 meanwhile, fits the more crushing tragic aspect, from admitting that a traditional relationship with him is designed for failure on "Street Lights", to the breakup of "Bad News" and the even more soul-crushing "Coldest Winter" based around the passing of West's mom Donda.

And Kanye seems to feel like crap because he views all of his achievements under a mere word: amazing. That's it. There's seemingly no more pleasure he gets out of his lifestyle, one that's tearing the relationship apart but one he has to do because he grasps for the scope of achievement. He wants to be seen as even more than what he is, and yet on "Amazing", it's drearier than that. As much as he enjoys success, he feels numb. He's already sold millions of albums and said things that are ridiculous and gotten tons of awards for his work. And yet he's not happy. And even with some perceived love, he isn't happy. This isn't a ballad about all of the riches in world not being enough compared to love. It's about the riches being there, and the perceived love being there, and yet there's no pure happiness about it.

West even admits that this is his fault in a way on "Robocop". He admits that he's into "crazy" women. He admits that his life is this way because of his own decisions and thus, even in the context of a song where he's coyly laughing about his girl's precedence to spy into his life, he sees this as all his own fault.

All of this sounds like it is scarily hard to listen to and it arguably is at times, but there's something much more intriguing about West's psychological treatment via music. The auto-tune technique isn't really distracting in any way, and it fits the broken nature of 808s and Heartbreak. The production tends to get more intriguing as the album goes on, so anyone scared off by "Love Lockdown" might find songs like "Paranoid" as up their alley.

If a hip-hop record can get an award for "going out on a limb and doing something no one expects", 808s and Heartbreak would take that award hands down. It is ambitious and mostly accomplished, which means that it's pretty intimate and scary all the same. Still, it's nice to see someone in hip-hop go out on that limb because...wow. There could be some interesting results.

In Defense Of...Beck - The Information

2008-11-22T20:31:00.002-06:00

This isn't really going to be a defense column no more than a "why didn't anyone buy this record" column. Of course, I'm sure that a decent deal of the music I listen to goes through the same quandary of not many people buying the record, but Beck's 2006 album The Information seems like a weird surprise non-success in terms of its commercial aspirations. After earning the third-highest sales of his career with 2005's Guero, Beck was revitalized in the mainstream and also buoyed by the success of the anthemic "E-Pro" and the cute "Girl".

So for a new album, Beck did what he always does best: he made it his own way. After creating probably the most accessible album of his career (excluding Odelay), Beck decided to make an hour-long record that's mostly electronic-based. Using producer Nigel Godrich -- he of producing Radiohead's OK Computer fame -- Beck creates a sound that's completely different than his usual material, and yet is still unmistakably Beck.

And yet, there's a more nervously human side of the man on this record. In amidst songs about dancing alone and elevator music, there's a track called "Think I'm In Love," which is about when an awkward guy falls in love either for the first time or even for the millionth time. Who the person or thing he's in love with is not really the issue. The issue there's so much more meaning in Beck's nervousness. Not that Beck never shifts his personality to his human self, he talked about his summer girl (probably) Marissa Ribisi on Guero and pined away for lost love for the entirety of 2002's Sea Change. But whether it's a true example of the man or not, there's something that Beck never seems to show. Not him as a character or as a guy spouting off about "mouthwash jukebox gasoline." And it goes a long way to leave a lasting impression for this monster of a record.

Video for "Think I'm In Love".

The Information runs sixty-one minutes and twenty-nine seconds, and for the most part, is completely worth the length. The sixty-one minutes is a bit of a misnomer, as ten and a half are thrown onto the intriguing if not necessarily great or even really necessary outro "The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton." Still, there's a spectacular amount of noise on this record. All of the tracks feel like they're spinning on from the rhythms of past Beck songs, but don't feel derivative. "Strange Apparition" kind of sounds like Odelay's "Jack-ss" and "Where's It At," but is good enough in its own right to be awesome. Plus, if there's any artist who's surely running out of material to not rip off, it's a man with twelve full-length albums. Beck can be cut a little slack.

The entire album is just so fluid. No song is particularly unlistenable (even the aforementioned outro), and that's quite an accomplishment for any record to achieve. Interesting diversions like "Dark Star" use its orchestral background to near-perfection, while "1000 bpm" plays with electronic conventions. "Nausea" is the perfectly suitable lead single while "Soldier Jane" is an ethereal experience. All of the songs on the album either have a purpose, or are so interesting to listen to that any sort of purpose doesn't matter.

So in short, Beck's The Information isn't really a record that is being defended because it was considered mediocre, when it should be considered great. No, The Information just deserves to be heard. Period.

Diversion: Yes, I'm blogging about True Life.

2008-11-20T22:45:00.003-06:00

There are a lot of things in this world that shape it. All kinds of music, film, and even television. And what's the most decrepit influence on our society right now? Clearly MTV, right? Actually, not so much. I can't lie, I don't mind being an apologist for MTV's campy programming, because it's all terrible in the cognitive sense. They focus on the vapid. Place people on high pedestals that hardly deserve it. But wait, isn't that life's general path anyway? Look around you at the popular kids, the sorority queens, and the frat guys. What have they all achieved? The success of being attractive to a general audience of people with mostly no other redeeming qualities otherwise. That's exactly MTV for you, and yes, this immediately makes it a repellent. And yes, it's the perfect ideology of why people hate MTV. They hate it because it represents the people they equally can't stand and yet are forced to see on a daily basis. They maybe are even friends with "those people" despite their actual apprehension against them.

Of course, this leads to True Life, which weirdly is not entirely vapid in some instances. The stories tend to be engrossing because there's usually an example of relatibility in at least one of the stories involved. The episode I saw had to do with embarrassing parents with the point being to over-exaggerate the parents, the embarrassment they cause their kids, and the rift between kid and parent that ultimately humanizes the parents at the end.

We are shown a portrait of two girls, one a reserved teen girl who's more or less trying to find normalcy in her life and another who's craving desperately for individualism and to kind of sort of get away from the shadow of her bimbo-esque mother.

The more reserved girl's parents are clowns who work at a circus and have a house with tons of memorabilia. They're also crazy and stunned whenever she decides to go out on a date with a kid nicknamed Squirrel (I kid you not). Of course, they also demand that this date be at the circus and that of course, they watch from a faraway glance. But this brings on a nice bit of idealism. We get the idea that the reserved girl is pretty average, in the good sort of way. She has the friend with the Jack Skellington jacket and the slightly gothy overtones, but they're all normal, and even by the episode's climax of the parents bringing their clown buddies over to "embarrass" the child, you find out that it's all in good fun and that embracing eccentricities over fighting them ultimately is more rewarding.

Yes, such a universal message of unity came from a frickin' MTV show. I'm as amazed as you.

The other story is more vapid, but as similar to a point. It's more of an examination that first digs into the idea of the "cool parent" and why kids are going to be embarrassed regardless by that type of parent, because that's of course the job of a teenager to rebel. But then it digs into something that is more involving and gripping, dealing with the issue of parents who never let their kids truly be themselves by influencing their decisions with an iron fist and taking away their individualism. This reaches its climax over the 14-year-old girl asking her mother for a lip ring. Her mother vehemently rejects the idea at first, but after a series of events including a party in which the mother turns into your typical Los Angeles bimbo in the process of a night, the idea is questioned.

The reason this is gripping to the viewer is not the lip ring at all. For all we know, the war could be over anything such as trying out for the volleyball team or the school production of Hansel and Gretel or whatever. The fact that it's about a lip ring is completely useless to the point. The war itself is just about some sense of individualism. If the mother is allowed to "be herself" by dressing in Pamela Anderson-esque clothes, then why doesn't the kid try to show what she feels she needs to be herself? And yet, she's still a kid who's going to playfully mock her mother after the mother agrees with this decision, because that's normal. That's teenage rebellion.

True Life is not always nearly as engrossing, but there's a lot of intriguing morals to get out of any episode. And for any show on MTV of all things to emphasize the themes of being yourself and having fun with the people you're around and the experiences you get to share, it's an accomplishment.

Not that the other shows on the channel aren't gripping in that "oh, this is ironically awesome" sort of way, of course.

(Writer's Note: I know this has nothing at all to do with music, despite the fact that it involves a show on a channel that has music in the name. I also know that I could make a tired joke about that channel no longer playing music, but that's far too painfully obvious, so I'm not. I also realize that this could read as "In Defense Of...MTV" but it's not really. I don't watch enough of it to defend it successfully, really.

The final edition of In Defense Of shall be up on the weekend. Thank you for reading.)

In Defense Of...Audioslave - Self-Titled

2008-11-19T08:00:00.003-06:00

In the remnants of the much-beloved, if extremely angry, Rage Against The Machine came a lot of hype for three of the band members' new project called Audioslave. This was to be the perfect merger of the 1990s two core rock sounds: the angry sound of Rage Against The Machine's music and the...uhh...angry sound of Chris Cornell's Soundgarden. In 2002, when their self-titled album was released on the hype of an amazing rock song called "Cochise", everyone expected that Cornell's introspective vocals with the Rage sound would lead to such amazing rock. Instead, they got a record that brought a ton of introspective content and only has a slight semblance to Rage.

I'll readily admit first off that I'd rather listen to Cornell's solo material or the Soundgarden material over Audioslave, and the same goes for Rage in comparison to Audioslave as well. Still, I'd argue that the first Audioslave album contains a nice balance of the hard rock material mixed in with the type of songs that Cornell felt represented his songwriting style. "Cochise" opens up the album with the musical equivalent of a sonic boom in that it's blistering and exhilarating. "Show Me How to Live" is more controlled in its noise, but it exposes the positives of Cornell versus former Rage vocalist Zach de la Rocha in that a "chill out" song never has to be uninteresting. Cornell is a more pure talent than de la Rocha, and a song like "Show Me How to Live" proves it.

Video for "Show Me How to Live".

And as misguided as the Cornell/Morello/Commerford/Wilk pairing showed itself to be on the mostly disappointing Out of Exile and Revelations, on the first record, they seemed to click from the onset. The album's first four tracks were the perfect blend of hard rock and tender vocals. The boys seemed made to actually last longer than five years and three albums. And even more "soft" ballads like "I Am The Highway" and "Shadow on the Sun" had their place, and was a better example of where the group truly could have worked than say "Doesn't Remind Me" from Out of Exile, a track where Cornell boasts that he stares at a lot of things because he's not reminded of anything at all. In turn, we're supposed to feel he's happy about not being depressed by his surroundings, but really...you get the point long before the four minutes are up. Whereas, "I Am The Highway" is more motivating about its message of not being used and doesn't march to an obvious point seconds into the song.

Not all of this album is great, of course. No modern rock record should ever go past one hour in length, and Audioslave reaches 65 minutes. Not to mention that I can barely point out anything of worth on the second half of Audioslave. Still, I find that this record doesn't try to bend to either direction of the spectrum. Cornell doesn't act like he's de la Rocha nor does he get into silly didactic politics, and the Rage guys realize that they don't have to go all out for every song. The tricks of Tom Morello had their place, but with no de la Rocha or the aforementioned didactic political content, neither he nor the rest of the band needed to sound exactly like their previous work. (To ramble on Morello, that's one thing that I appreciate about his stuff. Rage doesn't really sound like Audioslave and certainly neither of them sound like The Nightwatchman. But that point on Morello can be saved for another time.)

While yes, Audioslave did hit a brick wall in terms of direction and commercial success, the band at least has the good charm of that first album, a first album that maybe just deserves that second look.

In Defense Of...Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High

2008-11-16T21:00:00.002-06:00

Okay, let's get this out right off the bat. I can't stand Pete Wentz. Wentz is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with celebrity culture today. He's exploitative, overly demanding, and has almost megalomaniacal control over his band despite the fact that he's in the position that (theoretically) holds the least effect on their sound in that he's the band's bassist. Of course, he's also the band's key songwriter but this is besides the point. The point is that I really just don't like Mr. Wentz.

And yet I thoroughly enjoy his band, including the one that's earned them the most heat for its alleged "sellout" nature, 2007's Infinity on High. Infinity on High is essentially FOB's catchy melodies plastered onto a refined soulful sound with more emphasis on producer Babyface's sense of rhythm than the traditional pop-punk sound. But for pop-punk fans, that serves to be a problem. They don't want any remote change to their sound, thus why a band like Paramore, which arguably sounds like a coughed up copy of FOB (who in themselves were a coughed up version of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket-era blink-182 and Lifetime) replaced with an attractive redhead vocalist as opposed to a man with a funny hat, suddenly becomes huge with the same audiences that embraced 2005's From Under The Cork Tree.

Video for "The Take Over, The Break's Over".

Of course, it's not entirely the change in tone and altering of sound that fans hate, but it seems to harbor the most dislike for the record. And ultimately the record is a perfectly fine pop record that hits the right notes on all cylinders. Especially on singles like "The Take Over, The Break's Over" and "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race", there is a nice containment of commentary on the modern music industry and Wentz *gasp* gets in a few clever well-written jabs.

Wentz gets the idea of the pop hook, something that nearly every song on Infinity on High has, and yet finds a way to change Fall Out Boy's trajectory. This isn't a sellout move, in all honesty. Well...technically, it is. But none of the tracks on Infinity are nearly as annoying as most of Cork Tree. And it's not like this band never had ridiculous pop tendencies to begin with. "Grand Theft Autumn" is amazingly poppy, almost moreso than any of their famous tracks like "Sugar, We're Going Down" or "Dance, Dance".

Video for "Grand Theft Autumn".

This isn't to say that Infinity on High is the best record ever, though. Just the best of Fall Out Boy's catalog so far. I still can't really like "Hum Hallelujah" as it's related to that coughing up part I brought up from later. (As in, it's reusing a line from "Hallelujah" due to Pete being inspired by Jeff Buckley who covered Leonard Cohen.) And that it seems kind of silly to write about how depressive and suicidal you are in the confines of a pleasant song, even if it's been brought up before as a cool ironic archetype from the 90s.

Still, I like FOB for their simplicity at the end of the day. People shouldn't apologize for making pop, and at the very least, Wentz and his group aren't full-on teases with zero sense for how to write like most pop artists of their time(that's meant in a musical sense, not in the "showing your privates" sense). They're not anything legendary, but neither is a group like the Foo Fighters, who do the same poppy hook formula and people like them all the same.

In Defense Of...John Mayer

2008-11-13T22:01:00.005-06:00

If you've been remotely alive in the 21st century, you'll know that two modern crests of singer-songwriter pop are two artists simply known as Jack Johnson and John Mayer.

Jack Johnson seems like the type of guy who never had one bad day in his life. His dog, his wife, and his pet guinea pig could all die at the same time, but if there's a beach nearby, his sorrow would just wash away. And then he'd get high and write songs for a movie version of Curious George.

John Mayer seems like the guy that would be more vapid and uncaring about his work. In between making albums, (and clearly having a resemblance to this blog writer) he has had a relationship with pretty much every famous person you've ever wanted to...meet. Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, and etc. prove that the guy's basically proven that his music and personality is so charming that he's everything women love and that men frickin' despise. His songs get passed off as cornball -- which they are if we're referring to songs like the ridiculously idealistic "No Such Thing" -- but he gets shunned for having no musical depth or discernible talent, which isn't really true at all.

Mayer is a pop idealist. He has progressed to writing songs that know fullwell that they are intended for mainstream audiences, but never over-simplifies his lyrics and adds a nice pastiche of influences to his sound. This is probably most evident on his 2006 album Continuum, which actually has some nice strumming and a pretty good cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Bold as Love". And anybody that can do a Hendrix cover that doesn't disgrace Hendrix's music, they deserve to be honored.

I'm not going to act like Mayer's a great artist by any stretch of the imagination. He overemphasizes themes of love in his music, but he has a nice interest in the human condition. On another Continuum track, "Waiting on the World to Change", he dives into why people his age -- i.e. the 20somethings crowd -- are so apathetic about the shape of the world and that maybe a sense of optimism could help rile the people. It's an effortless pop song that is done with a ton of effort. Happy chords drown out any sense of negativity you could find, and while most cynics would hate it for Mayer's idealism, the song works as pop and as a well-written message song. Mayer doesn't beat the audience over the head, despite the simple message. He isn't commanding his audience to blame something on somebody else, but rather BE the change however you see it. It's a cheesy idea, but I'd rather have Mayer's simplicity than a band like Green Day droning on about how much they hate the President without even thinking about the changes they would do to make things better.

His style of playing has evolved. He's dug more into artists such as the legendary Curtis Mayfield to get a sort of old-school R&B sound to mix in with the acoustic nature of his works. He's had less of the cornball lyrics with each successive album that he has made, and even got into a fight with Columbia Records over the release of Continuum. He even made a stirring cover of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" that, as per usual, a lot of girls love and not many guys have even heard it.

So yeah, even if he's basically living a fantasy life, I like the guy. Plus, he's pretty funny from time to time actually. So that clearly has to mean the guy's not as grating as your average singer-songwriter. Right?

In Defense Of...90s Rock

2008-11-11T19:00:00.003-06:00

Prior to the writing of this entry, I listened to a song released in 1998 from Shawn Mullins called "Lullaby." This is a song that no one remembers in the slightest unless you heard the chorus with its comfortable inflection of "rock-a-bye", despite the fact the song's called "Lullaby". "Lullaby" is a wretched horrible song, but it's great at the same time because I remember it from when I was a kid. The same would go for the Verve Pipe's "The Freshman" and New Radicals' "You Only Get What You Give".

Now when I define 90s rock, I don't really mean stuff like Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Rage Against The Machine, etc. that became beloved music that also was popular. No, I mean the era in the late 1990s where Bush's "Glycerine" and "Machinehead" ruled rock radio. And yet no one talks about how great of a band Bush is. Which...they're really not. But they made simply great songs, and "Glycerine" even stands the test of time as a simple, well-composed pop song that I'd gladly play in amongst (PRETENTIOUSNESS WARNING) my playlist of Sonic Youth, Caribou, St. Vincent, and The Shins.

In fairness, these songs are products of their time. There was a small time in the 1990s where pop music could contain depressing content as long as the song had a happy sound at the end of the day. After all one of my favorite songs from the era was Third Eye Blind's "Semi Charmed Life". And about 2% (at most) who listened to that song got that it was talking about continued drug use building up to an overdose. I'm guessing slightly more people figured out their later hit "Jumper" was about talking down a potential suicide case.

Now, I'll gladly reminisce a song like "Semi Charmed Life" but I mostly can't stand popular radio, and the reason is pretty obvious. These songs are comfortable because they were the music you heard as a kid. The great advantage to being a kid is that most kids would listen to anything they had put in front of them. I even *gasp* bought a Backstreet Boys cassette tape when I was around 10. Oh, the things I'll shamefully admit on the internet to an audience of 2.

So, did I like these crappy songs because they had a safe radio sound when I denounce music today for having that same sound? Yeah, pretty much. But there is a perfectly fine place for nostalgia. Just because you hate rock radio's mix of Hinder, Nickelback, and Three Days Grace doesn't mean you have to throw away that long lost Lemonheads record (though, the Lemonheads are legitimately solid all the same), and listen to it. Nostalgia has its place. After all, people still ironically love hair metal.

In Defense Of...Nas

2008-11-09T22:25:00.020-06:00

Welcome to the first edition of In Defense Of, where I more or less get to say why an artist deserves more praise or more attention. (So basically, a formal version of everything else I do now.)

This edition begins with a rapper from New York most famous for his tales of street life who has evolved in the 21st century to become an elder statesman of sorts about hip-hop music in general.

Nasir Jones spent the early 1990s getting out of the troubles of street life to create one of the most universally beloved albums in rap history in 1995's Illmatic. Everyone from those who knew Nas's streets to craggy old white critics loved the true grit that Jones showed in his unflinching portrayal of the very street life he escaped. In fact, they loved it so much that every album since then has more or less been compared -- often unfairly -- to his masterwork. Even records as culturally important as 2006's Hip Hop is Dead or his most recent stand for the issue of racism on 2008's Untitled has gone under fire for Nas not being like Nas.

Ultimately, the argument seems moot. While Nas has his pulse on the streets of Queens, a man earning the money and living the lifestyle that Mr. Jones does can't simply go back again to the stories he made famous in 1995. Unlike many rappers who claim that they lived the harsh lifestyles of America's roughest streets, Jones has the pedigree to back it up. So to suddenly revisit a different time period would be not only pandering to the people who want to hear what their version of Nas is, but that it would be disingenuous considering what we all know about Nas right now.

This is why his "elder statesman" releases, specifically the aforementioned Hip Hop is Dead and Untitled, are evidence of why Nas is one of the best currently active rappers in the genre right now.

Both releases examine topics that Nas faintly covered on Illmatic, but never really gave much thought at the time in using such a massive platform to talk about these topics. Hip Hop is Dead is a lament about the ridiculous commercialization of the genre, to the point that groups like D4L, Dem Franchize Boyz, and Soulja Boy have had steady careers in the genre, while artists "with a legacy" like KRS-One have struggled to keep up in terms of sales.

Video for "Hip Hop is Dead."

Thus Nas, one of the few veterans of hip-hop suddenly not washed away by the genre's changing tide, feels fit to comment on what made the genre intriguing in the first place and in turn reviving the idea of "intelligent mainstream hip-hop." Keep in mind that less than a year after the album's release that Kanye West's Graduation had the biggest opening week sales of any hip-hop record in nearly five years, though, that later was toppled by Lil' Wayne's The Carter III a mere few months later. And of course, that same year also saw the ridiculous craze of "Crank Dat," so the genre has a ways to go but artists like El-P, Aesop Rock, Sage Francis, Saul Williams, and even the more mainstream Lupe Fiasco have breathed creativity into hip-hop in the 21st century.

Untitled, meanwhile, is an entirely different beast. To know the true essence of the album's message, you must remember the album's original title, which was to be called the N-word. Nas here digs into every element that divides ethnicities in general, from the mostly incorrect stereotypes that divide black people and white people to the fact that his race still holds up the N-word as significant (which it is) when he feels that positive reinforcement means that the word could just as much be like any other word in the English vernacular. But before the listener gets the idea that this is all about attacking racism and dissecting what one word has done to stereotype a race of people, Nas takes another left turn. He talks about the culture of equality for all races, the idea that America is potentially as savage as any other region in the world if the people don't discover a sense of unity, as shown in "America."

Video for "Hero," a single from Untitled.

With this in mind, Untitled is easily the strongest release Nas has made since Illmatic. That's always a bold statement to make, but there's a sense of importance that was made apparent through most of Hip Hop is Dead and nearly all of Untitled. Not to mention that Nas' Achilles heel of less than stellar musical backing is solved by taking in fine producers like Polow Da Don and stic.man and having them simply work their magic.

While there isn't a credible defense to all of his work, which is to say that Street's Disciple, God's Son, Stillmatic, and I Am... all have good tracks but aren't amazing records (and the less brought up about Nastradamus the better), this isn't an excuse to pass off Nasir Jones's hip-hop career. In as much as I love early 1990s hip-hop and Illmatic's amazing stories, there is a lot more to Nasir Jones than a good album of street slang. There is a fully realized dynamo that has delivered a solid body of work, even if the middle albums are the nadir that eventually has risen back up. Not to mention that Nas has even "beaten" his comtemporaries in quality tracks, because let's be honest. Nas's "Ether" is such a better song than Jay-Z's "Takeover."

And even as he grows older and wiser, I don't really think Nas will ever stop being as blunt as he's been since day one. After all, that's unlike the guy who wrote about his own New York state of mind to stop having his own opinion.

(Album art courtesy of Amazon.com and Def Jam Records.)

An Explanation.

2008-11-07T20:26:00.009-06:00

So, over the next six weeks in a series that most likely will go on until the end of the year, I'll go over a few categories of popular artists that might be either crapped on (In Defense Of), overrated (which speaks for itself), or as good as most people would say they are (The Correctly Rated). Ultimately, you might throw in some discussion on why you enjoy these artists. Or maybe it's just a good excuse for you to send hate mail (trirby@bama.ua.edu).

Either way, on Monday the madness begins with the most defensive of the categories, a session of In Defense Of. Next week will cover artists and the week after will cover albums that might either be unheralded or vastly underrated. So otherwise, more fun for everyone.

Fabrizio Moretti's Little Joy

2008-11-06T22:01:00.004-06:00

(Photo by Autumn de Wilde.)

Three days ago, a Little Joy came upon the world. (And the Little Joy puns begin with a knockout.) On November 4th, Fabrizio Moretti, who's most famous for beating the drums for The Strokes and for bagging Drew Barrymore, released a new debut eponymous album for his newest project Little Joy. The band itself started as a venture between Moretti, a vocalist/guitarist named Rodrigo Amarante, and a multi-instrumentalist named Binki Shapiro who all simply recorded demo tracks with each other for fun. However, the more they enjoyed this creation of music, the sooner they decided to work together for a full record and hired producer Noah Georgeson to get everything tight and right.

With the vibe of this record being that it's spontaneous and very short -- running only at 31 minutes in length -- it's hard not to make a comparison to Moretti's more known work with The Strokes and their debut record, Is This It. And even tracks such as "Keep Me in Mind" and "Don't Watch Me Dancing" are extremely reminiscent of songs from Is This It. But thankfully, Moretti and his bandmates all bring something to the table that sort of mixes the good qualities of The Strokes and Amarante's work in a Brazilian indie rock quarter known as Los Hermanos. Little Joy has the quick pacing of a Strokes record thrown together with a more laid back approach. You can't help but feel peaceful and feel that life is such a simpler place as Amarante croons that "There ain't no lover like the one I've got/Ain't no lover like the one I've got/She and I have a brand new start/I gotta give all my love" as on "Brand New Start."

Arguably, "Brand New Start" is as sappy as any pap you would hear on the radio, but it works under the context of the do-it-yourself aesthetic of the band. Amarante might not mean anything about what he says, but he's having an utter blast with the song and he's not being overproduced or prodded into what most listeners would consider as "fun music." And the slight reggae influence mixed in with the smallest hint of garage rock and idealized lyrics is the perfect autumn music.

It helps that Little Joy's music succeeds in never overstaying its welcome. It is amazingly brief at 31 minutes, and seeing that Moretti's The Strokes had their last record (2006's First Impressions of Earth) go on for far too long at 52 minutes, this is a welcome amount of time for an album. And ultimately, a welcome time for an album that's surprisingly and wonderfully the best thing a Strokes member has put out in about five years.

Now let's see if Moretti's other band ever gets back together long enough to top it.

Currently, Little Joy's debut is streamable on their MySpace.

Lazy Wednesday.

2008-11-05T12:25:00.002-06:00

Eh, I don't feel like ranting and raving about who I hate or what I like or what color the sky is today. (By the way, the color is clearly green.) So instead of a dealy, time to dig up some awesome YouTube music videos.

Okay, this is one of the few videos that mega acclaimed indie-folk artist Sufjan Stevens has made. From his 2003 release Greetings from Michigan, The Great Lakes State, here is a literal interpretation -- and I do mean literal -- for his song "Wolverine." And while Sufjan's songs tend to be serious, the guy also has a fun, weird sense of humor that's definitely on display here.

Sufjan Stevens - "Wolverine"

Next up is a name that sounds like a Japanese duo despite the fact that they're a four-piece band from Brighton, England. Fujiya & Miyagi run on calm rhythms and nursery rhyme-like lyrics to make a pretty enjoyable chill-out band. The video that I have is "Ankle Injuries" from their 2006 Transparent Things record and the aesthetic of the video is similar to The White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl" video, only with dominoes instead of Lego blocks.

Fujiya & Miyagi - "Ankle Injuries"

Finally, this last video is from a Canadian electronic artist known as Caribou. The song is a sedated number called "Irene." This effort is more quiet than most of Caribou's other efforts, the video featuring a nice mix of Canadian wildlife kind of fits it. It's not really a video for everyone -- though, it's not like any of these videos really are -- but the video is a nice five-minute distraction.

Caribou - "Irene"

Have a cool post-Election Day Wednesday and stay classy.

I'm sorry, I really don't like The Killers.

2008-11-04T09:01:00.003-06:00

Okay, this post might need a bit of explaining. Around four years ago, I was an unwitting pop music connoisseur. I was exiting my phase of listening to such mind-expanding acts as Limp Bizkit and Nelly, and I latched on to this band from Las Vegas that really really wanted to sound like British New Wave. This band is The Killers, and something attracted me to their heartwarming tales about how someone told the vocalist that his girlfriend had a boyfriend that looked like a girlfriend he had around January. As well as time, truth, and hearts.

Now, I'll gladly admit that I enjoyed this pap in 2004. However, this attempt to remake New Wave's music in a sort of redundant New New Wave has out and out failed. The lyrics of The Killers either make no sense at all or they are horribly overwritten and pretentious. Everything runs as some sort of symbolism that's always overdone. And ultimately, their songs can be split into two categories. They either focus on seducing a girl -- or boy since vocalist Brandon Flowers remembers that new wave groups always hinted at being gay -- or the "glamour" of indie rock, which is something of an oxymoron. The following are actual lines from the group's songs.

They say the devil's water/It ain't so sweet/You don't have to drink right now/But you can dip your feet/Every once in a little while

I pull up to the front of your driveway/With magic soakin' my spine

Racey days/Help me through the hopeless haze/But my oh my/Tragic eyes/I can't even recognize myself behind

And the most inane, from the chorus of their newest single "Human."

Are we human or are we dancer?

Really. I'm being serious, that is an actual line in a song. God, I can't stand this band. And the thing is, I own Hot Fuss. I checked out Sawdust and don't mind "Read My Mind" from Sam's Town only because it is the only tolerable thing on an album that manages to be horrible at not just creating poor lyrics. It manages to fail at any of the things it tries, such as mixing its already silly New New Wave sound with arena rock.

When Duran Duran talked about being "Hungry Like The Wolf," you got that it was the lead singer showing his sexual frustration followed by his desire for some random street walker. Or just being hungry. Either way, it wasn't entirely nonsensical, even if the song was horribly cheesy.

However, Flowers and his constant need for silly symbolism always falls apart at the seams. He puts a ridiculous amount of Christian imagery in "When You Were Young" when the entire point of the song is supposed to be falling in love (or probably just having sex) with a guy. And come on, he actually used the line "Are we human or are we dancer?" in a song. It's not like we're talking about a guy who's had a couple of cases of bad lyrical craftsmanship.

And I don't even hate the new new wave movement, as redundant and silly as it is. I do listen to a group like The Bravery from time to time, and even if The Bravery is as guilty of silly lyrics, they aren't nearly as epically pretentious with their efforts. And they also didn't butcher Joy Division's "Shadowplay" either.

Actually, you know what. Maybe I can sum this post up in one sentence: The fact that Sawdust exists is probably a sign of the apocalypse.

Pitching to a Person, as told by a Bear.

2008-11-03T10:52:00.004-06:00

Imagine, if you will, a sunny day on the shores of your favorite beach. The waves rock back and forth with the same pace. The beach is remarkably empty for such a beautiful summer day. Suddenly, you hear the noise of train tracks fade into what sounds like a marching band that more or less repeats the same two notes. Even stranger, a fully clothed man pops out of the water with a skateboard in his hand. I'm sure this sounds like the oddest dream you've never had, but as it turns out, thankfully this is merely the opening shots of "Comfy in Nautica" by Panda Bear.

Panda Bear's known to his family as Noah Lennox, and might be known to some hazier guys as the vocalist of the collective known as...well, Animal Collective. The aforementioned "Comfy in Nautica," however, comes from a solo effort released in 2007 called Person Pitch. Person Pitch contains seven songs and yet runs at forty-five minutes in length. This is due to the fact that two songs ("Bros" and "Good Girl/Carrots") extend past the ten minute mark. And they might be the most adventurous forty-five minutes you will ever hear in current-era music, bar none.

Person Pitch's charm is in the sample-based style that Lennox uses to construct his songs. When you think "sample-based music," a ton of hip-hop songs comes to mind, but Lennox plays with his artform. He has no problem sticking the rhythm of train tracks or any other noisy rhythm to fade into his 60s style rhythms. Lennox also boasts a voice reminiscent of Beach Boys vocalist and tragic icon Brian Wilson, one that soothingly blends with the mix of noise and music.

Lennox's genius is the mere fact that he's making pop music his own way. If this was any other average musician, the effort would be forced and disastrous. However, an effort like say "Take Pills" succeeds in that Lennox adds a brilliant pop chorus to the mix. This partly proves that while his efforts are experimental, they always have an eye for craftsmanship. He isn't entirely adding a train track or an owl's whoo just for kicks.

Well, he might. But that's the beauty of Person Pitch, even when you suspect Lennox is messing with your head, you're totally sucked in and ready to see where the musical path goes next.

Selling Out and Metallica. (What a new sentiment.)

2008-11-02T00:57:00.009-05:00

About a month and a half ago, there was this little album called Death Magnetic from this band that obviously no one ever heard of called Metallica. While most critics had a nice amount of praise put onto the record, most listeners (read: a couple of friends that I talked about the album with) had a more mixed response. Reasoning for thinking this album is simply just an okay record range from the tired criticism that bassist Rob Trujillo will never be Cliff Burton to the more interesting criticism that a band that's sold out like Metallica cannot suddenly come back to greatness.

Now the first point is both accurate and incorrect at the same time. Of course Trujillo is not or sounds anything like Cliff Burton by any stretch of the imagination, but this is a tired point because Burton never lived long enough for people to judge whether he would be so idolized and great in the 1990s incarnation of Metallica, either. Kind of hard to say that Burton would be such a bass guitar legend to people if he didn't have to record Reload or Load, you know?

But I digress, this post really has nothing at all to do with Cliff Burton. Rather, it's more about the nature of "selling out" and how that changes the perception of the hardcore fans. Not too long ago, a friend of mine noted to me that he loved Hoobastank's Every Man for Himself record released around 2006. This record was much ballyhooed at the time because the band was two years gone from the release of their most successful (and in turn most annoying) single "The Reason." Not to mention, I'm sure anyone who saw Hoobastank in the late 1990s during their alt metal/funk metal phase was long gone and not hearing the record's album-long rant about not making another song like "The Reason."

Perhaps as "hardcore music junkies," we are supposed to slag off bands for when they go for a broader audience because we're a bunch of misfits and the "broader audience" is much like the popular crowd. If you've been around a high school long enough, you've obviously noticed the vocal few people that seem to hate everyone else that's more popular at that school, whether it be for how they dress or what they like to do or whatever. And certainly none of them can stand when a band suddenly becomes huge and everyone, including those kids who could care less about this group a short while earlier, thinks they're the bee's knees.

This isn't to say to lighten up about the issue. I'll definitely make the argument that a ton of albums that have occurred after a band has "broken through" have been downright awful.

Case in point, Metallica's St. Anger.

But it isn't to say that the all hope is lost for the band, either.

Case in point, Metallica's Death Magnetic.

Death Magnetic is an odd case because the band more or less is going back to an older sound despite the fact that the grittiness of that sound and the albums it created surely is lost on these rich old kooks. Right? Not quite. If anything, Death Magnetic re-affirms what is great about the older records and in turn what is great about Metallica when everything is on, and that's the stories of the songs. While Hetfield never matches his songwriting of the late 80s works, a number like "The Unforgiven III" pens a well-written seafaring tale all the same. While they'll never write anything as indicting as "Disposable Heroes" once again, no one person should always compare the past to the present just because perfectly solid material doesn't meet up to classic standards.

In turn, Metallica has done something I never expected to happen again. They have made perfectly solid material that I enjoy and don't shudder at hearing again and again. Once again, I don't think I'm going to suddenly say that "The End of the Line" is as well-written as "Master of Puppets" any time in history, but this does not change the perception of solid music.

And you know what, I can live with solid music. It's much like anything in life. If you turn your back on something only to rediscover that while it is flawed, it is a perfectly good thing, you take that as a minor victory. And life is a lot cooler to live, when you allow yourself some minor victories.

Video for "The Day That Never Comes."

The Black Ice.

2008-10-31T14:39:00.004-05:00

For those unaware, the hard rock giants AC/DC's latest album Black Ice dominated the Billboard album charts this week with an amazing 784,000 sales. It is unprecedented for two reasons. The first being that this is the first AC/DC record since 2000's by-the-numbers Stiff Upper Lip, a break of eight years that usually would destroy the appeal of most rock bands. The second being that Black Ice is only available at fine Wal-Mart stores across the country as well as the band's website.

But of course, this is AC/DC we're talking about. Most of their major releases came out in the late 70s and early 80s, and yet the band's biggest group of fans seems to be young listeners. They've had two vocalists that were just perfect enough to be iconic in Brian Johnson and the deceased Bon Scott. This band was even cool enough to make a movie as campy as Maximum Overdrive work solely because of their music being on the soundtrack.

In short, AC/DC is no mere rock band.

They've earned their stripes with a smattering of amazing rock albums that never really have a change in style but always create an enjoyable experience for the listener. With Black Ice, the band basically creates the 2008 version of Back in Black. Not that this is a bad thing, of course. "Rock 'N Roll Train" opens the album and is arguably comparable to the number of great singles in the band's past. While it's not as iconic an opener as say Back in Black's "Hells Bells," it totally would fit on Back in Black somewhere between say "Shoot to Thrill" and "What Do You Do for Money Honey." Songs like "Big Jack" and "Anything Goes" re-examine AC/DC's penchant for stories about larger-than-life characters and young, sexy women.

And then the album reaches its high point seven songs in, on a song simply called "Spoilin' For A Fight." Suddenly, any current-era attempt to appeal to the macho crowd by talking about the manliness of fights looks amazingly poor by comparison. In a mere three minutes, AC/DC creates yet another anthemic track that's so simple and yet brilliant at the same time. And while nothing reaches this high point of awesomeness throughout the rest of Black Ice, it never really needs to. After all, Back in Black was still a classic album after that title track was done, right?

Video for "Rock 'n Roll Train."

Four Great Records of 2008.

2008-10-30T20:29:00.002-05:00

So, there are two months left in 2008 and you've dug through every record in your collection three times over this year. You're scouring through stuff you forgot you even bought, like Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits. In short, you're desperate for new music. Well, this might provide you with some of the help that you desperately need.

Sons and Daughters - This Gift

Every once in a while, a band figures out how to make an indie-pop record speed into overdrive. Bloc Party's 2005 debut Silent Alarm featured a lot of sped-up riffs that were a nice droning repetition of sound, but it's nothing like the pure fast-paced pleasure of Scotland-based Sons and Daughters's second album This Gift. Much like how Franz Ferdinand brought irony and catchiness to the garage revival of the early 21st century, Sons and Daughters brings the flavor back into indie rock. And after turns like the dark tone of Bloc Party's last album and the diminishing returns of acts like Belle and Sebastian, it's nice to see an album that is just great music backed with a mighty and alluring voice. (That voice being Sons & Daughters' vocalist Adele Bethel.)

Video for "Gilt Complex":

Born Ruffians - Red Yellow and Blue

Another fine example of why 2008 is the year where simplicity is king is on the debut record from Canadian band Born Ruffians. Here is a case where the band comes in with an unpretentious approach to their music and creates perfectly playful jams that just make you feel good. Even their album cover is jokey and playful, and it's cool to see a band that doesn't take itself seriously and yet is still great to listen to. One fantastic example of that is "Badonkadonkey," which is as silly as it sounds.

Video for "I Need A Life":

Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward

The sadly defunct Be Your Own Pet's second full length is a blast of punk, as told by kids who have watched two too many George Romero movies or stayed in high school until they were 24. That sounds like a slam, but everything on this second record is tongue-in-cheek. A track like "Becky," which shows how a high school friendship playfully devolves into a murder, taken seriously is not good, but vocalist Jemina Abegg always comes off like she's laughing five seconds after the song is over. And Abegg actually has decent vocal talents for when her former band doesn't thrash up a storm.

Video for "The Kelly Affair."

TV on the Radio - Dear Science

Of all the wonderful bands that drive the New York City independent music scene, TV on the Radio may just be the best. Running with a need for experimentation and taking cues from every imaginable influence they can find, TV on the Radio is completely unpredictable and awe inspiring in keeping with the "wall of sound" indie that was perfected by acts such as beloved British underground icons My Bloody Valentine. The first track, “Halfway Home,” draws from the computer-based sounds of the new millennium and yet vocalist Tunde Adebimpe throws in a chant to open the song that's more reminiscent of the 60s surfer rock classic “Surfin' Bird.” (As in, the bird is the word.) And yet, it is this wild unpredictability that makes Dear Science an amazing release.

Video for "Dancing Choose":

So, hopefully this list of albums helps you out of that oh so painful funk as the year comes to a close.

Trey Irby