Burlesque, Pt. 2

The CherOver (it's a voiceover of Cher's thoughts...and an unbearably clever inversion of the title of this blog!!!) of this clip is obvious:

"Bitch, I get it. A voice like yours negates all need for fabulous costumes and set design. Bitches with voices like yours get to dance on dirty wood floors after shedding their white Payless sandals from the clearance bin. On the other hand, bitches with voices like mine have never entered a room on this earth without a shower of glitter from the ceiling! Sprinkled by gay men! In thongs! So which fate would you prefer?

"And one more thing. We didn't have the luxury of a fucking voiceover in my day. So what if during my live performance with Tina Turner I ran out of breath and didn't have the leg muscles to achieve shimmy? Do you have an Academy Award, bitch? Have you worn a fucking mermaid costume? Are you a fucking LEGEND!"

Supreme Badness: A Primer

As many of you know, I believe that the worst song on earth has already been created and lives quietly among us on Youtube and twelve-year-old girls' iPods, going by the alias of "Sneakernight."


This song (and accompanying music video) has so long been the standard of supreme badness to me ("Basically what we're gonna do is dance! Basically what we're gonna do is dance!") that other bad music videos seem masterful by comparison. In fact, I can really get into an overdone music video. However my tolerance for this was pushed to its limit by Ciara's new video*:



The entire video is premised on the irony that Ciara is singing "ride the beat" when she is clearly pantomiming the riding of something else. The makers of this video worried that this dramaturgical technique might be lost on some viewers. Ultimately Ciara has to ride a mechanical bull in a soaking white shirt, while the video director stands behind her screaming, "IT MEANS RIDE IN A SEXUAL WAY!"

It reminded me of the great cinematic tradition of overdone videos, and I began to wonder: if Sneakernight is undisputably the worst video of all time, what's the most overdone? I know one that might give "Ride" some competition...



The best comment underneath this video reads: "cher is an amazing singer. We need more singers like her and not songs that we have right now like rap." Ummmmmmmmm.

*In the interest of maintaining blogger integrity, I hereby confess that I am a Ciara fan.

My Boyfriend's a Lot Like This Man

When we saw Stevie in concert, he played two different pianos at the same time. But even that was not more badass than this Sesame Street performance.

Turn Up Your Radio

Perusing through journals tonight I found a list called "My Favorite Songs...In my 21st Year." Thank you, 21-year-old self.

Slow Dance - John Legend
Valerie - Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse
Rock n Roll - The Velvet Underground
Nothing Can Change This Love - Sam Cooke
Call Me - Aretha Franklin
The Big Payback - James Brown
Caravan - Van Morrison
Stop Breaking Down - White Stripes

Watching that performance of Caravan confirmed for me once and for all that whatever the writer equivalent of Van Morrison is, that's the writer I want to be. If it requires a stretchy purple-sparkle suit and vigorous leg kicks, this is no obstacle for me. If it requires reading poetry and humorous memoir in dive bars whilst the haters hate, so be it. I believe I will skip over the drunken slurring, however. Sorry, Van the Man.

Some More of My Feelings

It's that time of year, when the summer rainstorms rumble and people take the Blue Line out to Revere Beach and women waiting to get BerryLine go absolutely apeshit if they run out of strawberries...but most of all it is the time of year when Rolling Stone tells us what they think are the 500 best songs...of all time.

I know...why should I even enter into this fray? Why should I stand in front of the newstand, reading this Rolling Stone issue without paying, audibly cheering and jumping around when true greats appear on the list, then grunting and muttering when they PUT THE BEATLES ON THE LIST THREE HUNDRED FRIGGIN' TIMES? I'm gonna go ahead and say this, Beatles, and you know I'm not the first...you're fucking overrated.


(Except you, Ringo. We're cool.)

So I will go straight to the heart of the problem here: in their self-obsession, Rolling Stone chose "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan and "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones as the two greatest songs...ever. I have no problem with being into yourself, Rolling Stone, but the atrocity of giving the Rolling Stones' version of Satisfaction this much credit cannot go unpunished.* Case in point:



Suck it, Mick Jagger.


But two of my dearest favorites are in the top 25, so I won't hate too hard:

at 12: A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
at 24: People Get Ready - The Impressions

Though we could go deep about the history this list reveals especially around white musicians "borrowing"/co-opting black musical styles or songs...but that's another (long-ass) post for another day.

*The 500 Greatest list considers covers as their own songs -- i.e., Aretha's version of "Respect" is listed even though Otis wrote it.

How I Feel About Astral Weeks

I do not love many things more than Cher. Astral Weeks is one of those things. It is one of Van the Man’s first albums, back in the days when he was drunkenly rampaging through dive bars and gargling Irish music to people who did not appreciate him. To this, I can only say: Van,



It’s got that special something. Lines about driving chariots? Check. Harps? Check. White man with soul? Check.

But THEN, as though the creation of this album wasn’t enough, Van goes ahead and does a complete live recreation of it at Hollywood Bowl in 2008. When I heard about this I actually might have peed a little. The live album is exactly what you would expect from an aged veteran of Irish soul music, i.e. you cannot make out a single thing he is saying. I love you, Van.




(Is it just me or does he kind of look like my dad?)