The Teen Cultural Revolution

End of Decade Blowout pt 7: Leftovers

2009-11-19T21:59:00.004-05:00

I decided that doing a movies post is pointless, because any cute/family movie that I would want to post about would be something I've posted about many times before. For posterity, the top 10 are as follows:

1. Enchanted
2. Down With Love
3. Spy Kids
4. Bridget Jones' Diary
5. Sky High
6. Just Like Heaven
7. Spy Kids 2
8. Keeping the Faith
9. Love Actually
10. Music & Lyrics

That's a great list, it's 10 movies I unreservedly love. Anyways, with any list comes regrets, and the Top 60 singles list has already generated several. Here's some that I regret leaving off. Of course, there's 6 songs on this list and I'm not sure which 6 I'd cut to make room, but that doesn't mean I can't have regret anyways!

Life Without Buildings - "The Leanover" (2000)
Youtube: "The Leanover"
Commentary: It never even occurred to me to check if this had been released as an official single, but it turns out it had, and thus would have been eligible for my list. Whoops. Because it definitely deserves a slot in the top 60, thanks to it's totally original structure and melody, plus great vocals. In its own weird way it's one of the catchiest singles of the year and, as a total original, it does deserve some sort of recognition.

Everclear - "Wonderful" (2000)
Youtube: "Wonderful"
Commentary: No real excuse here, I just forgot how much I love this song, and it probably does deserve inclusion somewhere towards the bottom of the top 60. Compared to a song like "The Best of Jill Hives", it has better singing, better lyrics, and a catchier melody, so there's no real reason to leave it out. It's the best Everclear song, in my opinion, thanks to the incredibly catchy melody and surprisingly affecting lyrics. My parents are happily married, but this song still gets me choked up for some reason.

Taylor Swift - "You Belong With Me" (2009)
Youtube: "You Belong With Me"
Commentary: For a variety of reasons, I decided not to include any 2009 songs on the list (I haven't listened to much music this year, it's been a pretty weak year from what I've heard, not enough time to process, etc.). I decided pretty early on that there wouldn't be any from this year on there, and I wish I had re-evaluated that later on, because "You Belong With Me" is probably going to be my single of the year at this point, and there's no reason at all it shouldn't be in the top 25 or so. Taylor is a good singer, and the lyrics and melody to this song are so sweet. This is like the sweetest song of the year, it's like the song version of Enchanted.

Sean Paul - "Get Busy" (2003)
Youtube: "Get Busy"
Commentary: For some boring reasons I won't get in to, this song was in my top 60 the whole time and I just accidentally screwed up and forgot to include it in the list when I actually posted it. That's a shame, because it has just about the catchiest R&B melody of the decade and is extremely danceable. Not to mention that Sean Paul is one of the very best singles artists of the decade and he surely deserves an entry.

Kelly Clarkson - "Because Of You" (2005)
Youtube: "Because of You"
Commentary: The only reason I didn't include this song was because I wanted to spread the love and have only one Breakaway song on the list. For personal and historical reasons that ended up being "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and not "Because of You" which, on a purely musical level, I may actually prefer thanks to its amazing lyrics and vocals and gorgeous mid tempo ballad melody. I guess I don't regret spreading the love because I've talked about how much I love Breakaway so many times before, but to be perfectly accurate, this one probably would be top 30

Outkast - "Hey Ya" (2003)
Youtube: "Hey Ya"
Commentary: The reason I didn't include this song was because I, like everybody else, got sick of it and never listen to it anymore. But all that considered, I think there's actually a better argument for this song to be in the top 10 than for it to be left off entirely. Logically, it's probably the most widely beloved song of the decade, and that alone probably makes it deserve top 60, especially when you consider the hundreds of times I enjoyably listened to it in 2003/2004. Yes it got massively overplayed, but that's not the song's fault. And, honestly, while writing this post I listened to this song again for the first time in years and it sounded much fresher and better than I remembered. When I compare to "The Real Slim Shady" at number 10, the songs have much the same strengths and weaknesses: catchy beats, funny and ridiculously quotable, charismatic lead vocalist, innovative and incredibly widely beloved, but massively overplayed and tough to listen to today. OK, this one was a bad goof.

End of Decade Blowout pt 6: Top 20 TV Shows, 10-1

2009-10-30T19:27:00.002-05:00

10. Justice League/Justice League Unlimited
Network: Cartoon Network
Commentary: This show got off to a bit of a slow start, as they were trying to figure out who the characters were and what type of plots they wanted. Season 2 of Justice League was where the show started to heat up. However, Season 1 of Justice League Unlimited is really where it's at here, with tons of awesome characters and an ongoing plot that I think qualifies as really insightful. It's definitely one of the best seasons of all time, and while the rest of the series was good, it never did quite manage to live up to that one. Still, good enough to jump this into the top 10.

9. Home Movies
Network: Cartoon Network
Commentary: This was far from the most hyped show from the Adult Swim block, but in my opinion it stands out as the best. The voice work is hilarious, as is the touching relationship between Coach and Brendan. Basically, all the characters are funny, and the plots are consistently fun and inventive. One of the funniest shows of the decade, maybe the number one funniest.

8. Futurama
Network: Fox
Commentary: The show never did reach the heights of The Simpsons at its best, but it still manages to consistently bring laughs, and the characters are interesting and likable enough that the show is still interesting even when the jokes don't work. Lots of great episodes here and, honestly, I've found that they haven't held up great upon multiple re-viewings, but I'll still rep for them.

7. Phil of the Future
Network: Disney Channel
Commentary: Yet another show I've written much about on this blog. All in all, I still think it has an outstanding young cast and that the Phil/Keely relationship was well done and genuinely touching. Aly Michalka is great, Kay Panabaker is hilarious, and the show's jokes genuinely work on their own merits, very rare for a show of this type.

6. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Network: FX
Commentary: This show has no depth or characters, so it relies 100% on the merits of its own jokes to succeed. Fortunately, the joke writing is spectacular, definitely the best of any show this decade, so the show consistently manages to generate laughs and entertainment. But don't take my word for it, www.itsalwayssunnyepisodes.com has all the episodes online for free!

5. How I Met Your Mother
Network: CBS
Commentary: Every time I do one of these lists, I always go in thinking It's Always Sunny is going to rank as the highest sitcom, because it's the funniest show of the decade, but I always end up coming back to this one. The reason is, it's legitimately very funny on its own merits, but it also has great plots and characters, which makes it much more consistently watchable than Sunny. Ultimately, they're both great shows, but I give the slight edge to HIMYM's depth versus Sunny's better jokes.

4. The 4400
Network: USA
Commentary: It still surprises me how much I love/loved this show, but I think it managed to be the most consistently well plotted drama of the decade. My theory is that the shorter seasons of this show versus, say Lost or Heroes force it to make stuff happen in every episode. And the show did have a breakneck pace, so even when one particular plot thread didn't work out, it was constantly moving on to another more interesting one. But all the plot threads always came together in interesting ways, and they very impressively managed to blow up the show and start all over again in each season. This is a show that just got better and better as time went on.

3. Friday Night Lights
Network: NBC
Commentary: It's hard for me to say much about this show, since it's one of the only critical consensus shows on my top 20 and I therefore don't feel a need to speak out in its defense. Much like everybody else who has seen the show, I love the characters, I find the acting amazing (particularly from Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton), and the plots are compelling. Actually, I think too much was made of the season 2 swoon, it still managed to be quality TV. Season 1 of this is probably the second best season of any TV show this decade though, and that alone makes it deserve this slot.

2. Freaks and Geeks
Network: NBC
Commentary: Yeah, yeah, it's funny and incredibly well-realized, and painfully realistic, and all those other critical cliches people love to lob at it. The geeks are great comic relief, but the freaks are really where the show is at, since their drama was usually more interesting. All in all a well-balanced show. Let's just say that I agree with everybody else and move on.

1. Joan of Arcadia
Network: CBS
Commentary: Well, if you know me at all, or if you've read this blog a bit, this will come as no surprise to you. I dedicated an entire rambling, lunatic post to this show four and a half years ago (it can be read here), and as embarrassing as it reads today, I still mean every word. There's absolutely no doubt to me that it's the best show of all time.

End of Decade Blowout pt 5: Top 20 TV Shows, 20-11

2009-10-28T07:32:00.000-05:00

Here's the list of my 20 favorite TV shows of the decade. Some preliminary notes:

1) Shows are rated entirely based on how much pleasure they gave me to watch.
2) For the few shows on here that span the 90's and 00's, they are rated on the entirety of their body of work. I only included shows whose 2000s output alone was enough to get them on the list though (e.g. No Simpsons)
3) There are a lot of top critically acclaimed shows this decade I have never seen. A LOT. Like, all of them. So, for example why aren't Mad Men or The Sopranos or The Wire or Battlestar Galactica or pretty much any other show that would make any respectable critic's top 10 on my list? Maybe I would like them maybe I wouldn't. I often disagree with critical consensus. But it's a moot point, because I've never seen them.

Enough caveats, let's see the list.

20. Eli Stone
Network: ABC
Commentary: This is one of the few hour long dramas to make an appearance on the list, but it's an outstanding, very uplifting show that always makes me happy to watch. The characters and were generally well done, and I liked all of the actors, especially Johnny Lee Miller as Eli Stone himself. Overall a fun happy show, in a mold that's right up my alley. The plots, however, were not consistently good enough for me to be able to rate the show higher.

19. Scrubs
Network: NBC, then ABC
Commentary: For a few year stretch, this was the most consistently funny sitcom on TV. Now, it significantly fell off after that, and constant repeats have worn even those episodes a little thin, but it still made me laugh a lot and deserves a placement. This is a tough one because it has less rewatchability than most of the other shows, but it has memorable characters and good joke writing and overall executes well, even if it did all wear thin after a while.

18. Strange Days at Blake Holsey High
Network: Discovery Kids
Commentary: Interested readers are directed to an entire very long post I dedicated to this show all the way back in 2006: "Fave TV Shows of All Time, Vol 2.: Strange Days at Blake Holsey High"

17. American Idol
Network: Fox
Commentary: A lot of people seem to not like this show, but it's a classic. Its pop culture impact this decade is unrivaled by any other show, and it still remains consistently entertaining. Yes, the quality of the show fluctuates up and down depending on the quality of the contestants, but I've generally found the show does a great job of playing up the drama in an enjoyable way. Plus, the show produced Katharine McPhee and Brooke White, so there's something right there.

16. House
Network: USA
Commentary: This one is kind of hard to rank because it is very formulaic, and has had about as many bad and boring episodes as great episodes. Overall, the formula has gotten very stale, and I've mostly lost interest in watching the show, but it was/is a genuinely great formula and Hugh Laurie is, of course, brilliant and quite possibly the TV actor of the decade. This is a very boom and bust show; it's given me some of the most entertainment of any show this decade, but also probably more idle boredom than any other show on the list.

15. Unfabulous
Network: Nickelodeon
Commentary: I hate to keep doing this, but when I've already dedicated multiple posts to a show, it seems pointless to make any additional commentary.

14. Monk
Network: USA
Commentary: Tony Shalhoub does a great job with a very original and fun character. OK, the plots and mysteries are generally pretty lame, but overall the characters and the comedy still make this a great show. I was originally sad when Bitty Schram left, but Traylor Howard has been great, even though the show itself has significantly declined. But the show had about 3 legitimately great and funny seasons, and that's enough to get it here.

13. True Life
Network: MTV
Commentary: The episodes in this show have a pretty wide range in quality, but no show this decade has more effectively run the gamut between hilarious, interesting, dramatic, and informational like this one has. It generally finds the right tone for each story it tells and finds interesting characters to talk about. Some are a little boring, but rarely do they seem like a pointless waste of time.

12. Six Feet Under
Network: HBO
Commentary: Some of the most interesting characters and best acting of the decade, even if it does get a bit dreary at times (and by at times, I mean constantly). Sure, sometimes you wish they would just throw the Fishers a bone here and there, but the plots and characters manage to almost always be executed well so it's hard to complain too much.

11. The Mole
Network: ABC
Commentary: In my opinion, the best reality show of the decade. The concept of the show was killer, Anderson Cooper was a great host, and the challenges were well designed and fun to watch. Even the celebrity episodes were good, because of the inherent entertainment of the concept and the great execution. Of course, the guessing game of who is the mole is the most entertaining part, and they always managed to give just enough information for it to be fun.

But with all these great shows gone already, what makes the top 10? Wait and see!

End of Decade Blowout pt 4: Top 60 Singles, 15-1

2009-10-11T18:34:00.002-05:00

Here's the top 15 singles. Oh, the excitement.

15. Alcazar - "This Is the World We Live In"
Year: 2004
Chart Peak: n/a (#15 UK)
Youtube: "This Is the World We Live In"
Commentary: For pure silly fun, I think this may be the best of the decade (behind just one other song, coming up in two spots). Really silly lyrics, and music/melody that's just a mashup of "Upside Down" and "Land of Confusion" but it all works so well. The "Inside Out" beat is amazing, especially translated to a Europop context, the chorus works better than any Genesis chorus should, and "When you're moving up with Alcazar" is so catchy. About 100x better than it has any right to be.

14. Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown - "No Air"
Year: 2008
Chart Peak: #3
Youtube: "No Air"
Commentary: The air of aching depression on this song gives it a great emotional weight, and then when you add on a gorgeous midtempo ballad melody and give it to just about the two best pop singers right now you end up with a really great ballad. There's nothing particularly to this song, it just all adds up so well to create as thick a set of emotions as any song this decade is capable of producing.

13. 'N Sync - "Bye Bye Bye"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: #4 (#1 Pop)
Youtube: "Bye Bye Bye"
Commentary: Totally iconic, and deservedly so. Really silly that this just hit #4, but here it is. I'm not going to pretend there's some kind of incredible depth to this one, but the melody, the video, and the chorus are all-time classics. OK, maybe the boy band movement hasn't aged to well and isn't remembered too fondly today, but this is an all-time pop classic! Plus it was used hilariously in possibly my all time favorite Scrubs scene.

12. Amy Diamond - "Don't Cry Your Heart Out"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Don't Cry Your Heart Out"
Commentary: Even in the pop community, there doesn't seem to be any huge groundswell of support for this song. I may actually be the biggest fan of this song in the whole world. Well I say screw everybody else this song is straight out amazing. Amy's singing has never been better, and the melody and lyrics are both really great! The "then you SEE then you KNOW that you REAP what you SOW" part is my favorite part of this song, and maybe my favorite part of any song this decade. Also don't miss the live acoustic version found here. (talk about awkward dancing)

11. Kylie Minogue - "Love at First Sight"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: #22
Youtube: "Love at First Sight"
Commentary: Kylie Minogue was just about as massive, in terms of widespread love and critical acclaim, as any pop act this decade for a while. It seems most of the Kylie love these days goes to "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which, to be sure, is an outstanding pop song. I prefer, though, the pure overloaded pop bliss of "Love at First Sight", a true banger which demands attention.

(At this point, the reader may wish to pause to guess the top 10. I bet you can't.)

10. Eminem - "The Real Slim Shady"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: #4
Youtube: "The Real Slim Shady"
Commentary: Like "Bye Bye Bye", this gets a little extra credit for being a genuine cultural milestone, while still being an amazing song. The lyrics are clever and funny, though a bit dated, Eminem's rapping and beats are great as usual. This is a song that made Eminem a huge superstar, and all it takes is one listen to tell that it was inevitable all along.

9. Sara Evans - "Suds in the Bucket"
Year: 2004
Chart Peak: #33 (#1 Country)
Youtube: "Suds in the Bucket"
Commentary: Other than No Place That Far (which was 1998 anyways), Sara has yet to release a truly great album start to finish. But, she has been one of the best, maybe the very best overall, country singles artists of the decade. And this ode to eloping is probably her best song, thanks to a very nice melody and just a generally extremely fun atmosphere.

8. Lillix - "Sweet Temptation (Hollow)"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Sweet Temptation (Hollow)"
Commentary: It's got the catchiest melody+music of the decade, and it has the best hooks of the decade. The singing isn't anything super special, and the lyrics are nonsense, so it doesn't rank any higher than this, but this could well be the song I most enjoy to listen to, out of all the songs listed.

7. Hilary Duff - "Come Clean"
Year: 2004
Chart Peak: #35
Youtube: "Come Clean"
Commentary: I think that if this song wasn't by Hilary Duff, and therefore didn't have all of the attendant baggage, it would be today generally recognized as a pop classic. Because Hilary's ultra-thin voice and the ultra-thin melody are both absolutely perfect for the fragility of the lyrics, and all in all, it's a very impressively put together song. Plus a kicking chorus.

6. Rachel Stevens - "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: n/a (#12 UK)
Youtube: "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)"
Commentary: I love the lyrics to this song, as kind of a flipside to the lyrics for "I May Hate Myself in the Morning", and there's no doubt that the melody is massive. It's the best song on my #2 album of the decade, an album filled to the brim with classic pop singles, and this one manages to outshine them all.

5. Daft Punk - "Digital Love"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: n/a (#9 US Dance Play)
Youtube: "Digital Love"
Commentary: This is the very best sample of the whole decade, I could listen to it loop on and on forever. The robotic melody is also really great, and that's combined with very sweet love song lyrics. This song is a stunning triumph on all levels.

4. The White Stripes - "Fell in Love with a Girl"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: n/a (#12 Modern Rock)
Youtube: "Fell in Love with a Girl"
Commentary: I find it hard to say much about this song, given that it's on everybody's decade best list, and probably for the same reasons. The incredibly powerful and driving rock melody and guitars, the excellent lyrics, the all-time classic video, etc. I have nothing to add

3. Miley Cyrus - "See You Again"
Year: 2007
Chart Peak: #10
Youtube: "See You Again"
Commentary: The best pure melody of the decade (well, maybe "Moi...Lolita). And NOT ONLY that, but it features Miley's best ever vocal performance, by far. The whole chorus is just pure musical genius. Best part is still "My best friend Leslie says 'Oh she's just being Miley'."

2. Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
Year: 2004
Chart Peak: #66 (#3 Modern Rock)
Youtube: "Take Me Out"
Commentary: Clearly, the reason this is up here is that I am a SHAMELESS INDIE. My relationship to this song has been complicated over the years, but I have finally just given in to the power. Yes, yes yes, best guitar riff of the decade, good chorus, amazing intro, etc. This seems to have fallen somewhat out of favor lately, but it still sounds great to me.

1. Michelle Branch - "Everywhere"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: #12
Youtube: "Everywhere"
Commentary: Yes, this is really my favorite single of the decade and no I'm not even going to try to justify it. Sure, I could talk about the amazing chorus, the great lyrics, the huge influence, etc. but ultimately it's just my favorite. I could just listen to this song over and over and over again, and it just never gets old. A fact which, by the way, I know from personal experience.

The Full List:
60. Wu Tang Clan - "Gravel Pit"
59. Guided by Voices - "The Best of Jill Hives"
58. Kanye West - "Through the Wire"
57. Fall Out Boy - "The Takeover, the Break's Over"
56. Nelly Furtado - "Say It Right"
55. Junior Senior - "Move Your Feet"
54. Alicia Keys - "Fallin'"
53. The Bloodhound Gang - "The Bad Touch"
52. Ashlee Simpson - "La La"
51. Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats"
50. Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
49. Wheatus - "Teenage Dirtbag"
48. The Sugababes - "About You Now"
47. Backstreet Boys - "The Call"
46. David Banner - "Cadillac on 22s"
45. Electric Six - "Danger! High Voltage"
44. Martina McBride - "This One's for the Girls"
43. Jennifer Lopez ft. Ja Rule - "I'm Real (Murder Remix)"
42. Ashlee Simpson - "Little Miss Obsessive"
41. Girls Aloud - "Love Machine"
40. System of the Down - "Chop Suey!"
39. Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland - "Dilemma"
38. Phoenix - "If I Ever Feel Better"
37. Cam'ron - "Hey Ma"
36. Mint Royale ft. Pos - "Show Me"
35. Natasha Bedingfield - "I Wanna Have Your Babies"
34. Destiny's Child - "Survivor"
33. Beyonce - "Irreplaceable"
32. Charlotte Church - "Moodswings (to Come at Me Like That)"
31. Spoon - "The Underdog"
30. Marit Larsen - "Only a Fool"
29. Kelly Clarkson - "Behind These Hazel Eyes"
28. Eminem - "Stan"
27. Aly & AJ - "Rush"
26. Anna Nalick - "Breathe (2AM)"
25. A*Teens - "Floorfiller"
24. Keith Urban - "Stupid Boy"
23. The New Pornographers - "Letter from an Occupant"
22. Rachel Stevens - "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex"
21. Shooter Jennings - "4th of July"
20. Alizee - "Moi...Lolita"
19. Lee Ann Womack - "I May Hate Myself in the Morning"
18. Annie - "Heartbeat"
17. Twista ft. Jamie Foxx and Kanye West - "Slow Jamz"
16. t.A.T.u. - "All the Things She Said"
15. Alcazar - "This is the World We Live In"
14. Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown - "No Air"
13. 'N Sync - "Bye Bye Bye"
12. Amy Diamond - "Don't Cry Your Heart Out"
11. Kylie Minogue - "Love at First Sight"
10. Eminem - "The Real Slim Shady
9. Sara Evans - "Suds in the Bucket"
8. Lillix - "Sweet Temptation (Hollow)"
7. Hilary Duff - "Come Clean"
6. Rachel Stevens - "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)"
5. Daft Punk - "Digital Love"
4. The White Stripes - "Fell in Love with a Girl"
3. Miley Cyrus - "See You Again"
2. Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
1. Michele Branch - "Everywhere"

End of Decade Blowout pt 3: Top 60 Singles, 30-16

2009-10-11T14:02:00.003-05:00

Into the top 30 now. What joys await?

30. Marit Larsen - "Only a Fool"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Only a Fool"
Commentary: Very fun and original country sounding song out of Norway, featuring a catchy melody and amazing, unique instrumentation. Truly, one of the most re-playable songs of the decade. Marit's got a great voice too, which just adds to everything.

29. Kelly Clarkson - "Behind These Hazel Eyes"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: #6
Youtube: "Behind These Hazel Eyes"
Commentary: This is the song that made me love pop again, so it's indirectly responsible for about 90% of the other entries on the list. I still love the dark instrumentation and melody combined with the incredible power of Kelly's voice and the lyrics. It makes for a truly emotional, original, and ultimately wonderful experience. For personal influence, it probably deserves top 10, but I've decided to slot it here.

28. Eminem - "Stan"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: #51 (#22 Rap, #1 UK)
Youtube: "Stan"
Commentary: Speaking of totally original songs, this is possibly the most original on the whole list. Note that the youtube linked above is the single version, which is edited for language and significantly worse. The thing is, I don't really like "Thank You" that much ("White Flag" and "Hunter" are so much better), but it just sounds so perfect here. A really weird choice for an extended sample, but so perfect. Not much to say about this song; Eminem is a great rapper and this song has really great dark lyrics.
.
27. Aly & AJ - "Rush"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: #59
Youtube: "Rush"
Commentary: Aly & AJ (oh sorry, 78violet) have come a long way since their debut album, as their album Insomniatic is a much better overall work than Into the Rush. But I still think that "Rush" is their best individual single ("Not This Year" is better, but never a single). It has a wonderful driving rhythm, great harmonies, and good inspirational lyrics about drug use (just kidding! But they really do sound like they are about drugs). A catchy, rocking song that holds up very well.

26. Anna Nalick - "Breathe (2AM)"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: #45 (#4 AC)
Youtube: "Breathe (2AM)"
Commentary: I feel like I've already said my piece on this song: "Thhis song is perfect. It find a genre and sticks to it to the letter and just perfects it, just like that. The lyrics provide insight without being big or cliched or uplifting. Anna's voice is nice and kinda generic and forgettable, but she's a good singer and she's got great phrasing. The verse rolls along with a nice little groove to it, into the pre-chorus, which feels like it's leading to something BIG and TRIUMPHANT. Something like "White Flag", some declaration of freedom or some kind of big catchy melody. It leads instead, in a nice bit of misdirection, to a flowing, fading harmony. Friend calls her having troubles. She details all the crap she's going through. Anna tells her, well you've gotta live life, there's nothing you can do about it. So cradle your head in your hands, and...do what, go out? Solve your problems and be proactive and have fun and make the best of it? No, just BREATHE. Just sit down and take stock of the situation. And there's a light at the end of the tunnel and you'll keep making mistakes so what's the point in getting so upset. And it flows through and fades away from the building melody, dropping into a beautiful breathy harmony. A relaxing, soothing harmony. Something that just makes me smile. It doesn't have to be so bad."

25. A*Teens - "Floorfiller"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Floorfiller"
Commentary: Besides the Bloodhound Gang, this is probably the silliest song on the entire list. It's just really silly catchy melody with truly awful lyrics and a generic dance beat. So why do I love it so much? I don't really know, but it just makes me happy to listen to and it's been known to get stuck in my head for days. Definitely a personal pick here.

24. Keith Urban - "Stupid Boy"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: #43 (#3 Country)
Youtube: "Stupid Boy"
Commentary: It seems odd to follow up arguably the most silly song on this list with arguably the most serious song on the list, but that's how it goes. I love this song to pieces, with it's long epic melody, great guitar sound, and amazing lyrics, with a nice heartbreaking twist at the end. Probably the most genuinely affecting song on the list, and even if the pure melody isn't as catchy as a lot of the other songs on the list, it's still works fine in the context of the song. The song doesn't really get kicking until a few minutes in, with a scorching guitar solo and heart rending finale. Incredible.

23. New Pornographers - "Letter from an Occupant"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Letter from an Occupant"
Commentary: While the song does initially sound grating, I found that the melody and guitar sound, which sound so at odds at first, really come together on multiple listens. Neko is a great singer, and what she's given here is one of the hookiest songs of all time. And as a lover of a good hook, that's really saying something. The fact that the lyrics are 100% nonsensical doesn't even really matter when the sound of the song is so good otherwise.

22. Rachel Stevens - "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: n/a (#2 UK)
Youtube: "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex"
Commentary: Rachel Stevens (spoiler alert!) has two songs on this list, despite the fact that as a singer and a pop star she's pretty bland. BUT, she's been given some pretty amazing songs to work with, and this is definitely one of them. The guitar riff is one of the catchiest, the melody in the chorus is amazing, and I love love love the bridge. Truly a triumph of pop music.

21. Shooter Jennings - "4th of July"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: n/a (#26 Country)
Youtube: "4th of July"
Commentary: Almost certainly the best country rock song of the decade, as well as one of the rockinest, this has a really fun tempo and rhythm. Combined with a simple but great melody and some great rock singing by Shooter. Definitely one of the most fun songs I've heard.

But what's in the top 20??? Let's see.

20. Alizee - "Moi...Lolita"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: n/a (#2 UK)
Youtube: "Moi...Lolita"
Commentary: Fun fact: This is the only foreign language song on the list. Funner fact: I think the melody in the chorus of this song is the very best melody of the entire decade. The verses are good too, the beat is serviceable, and Alizee has a good pop voice. But man, the melody in the chorus.

19. Lee Ann Womack - "I May Hate Myself in the Morning"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: n/a (#10 Country)
Commentary: Deservedly extremely acclaimed at the time, for it's wonderful understated melody, sweet sounding country guitar, incredible vocals, and interesting, original lyrics. All of those factors still hold up today and this deserves recognition as one of the very best country songs of the decade.

18. Annie - "Heartbeat"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Heartbeat"
Commentary: It feels like such a cop out here to have THE indie approved pop song charting so high on my list, but it's a genuinely great song. I don't know why indies love this song and not a similarly amazing song like "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex", but like that song this one has a great melody and beat combined with fairly bland singing. Enough to land it here though.

17. Twista ft. Jamie Foxx & Kanye West - "Slow Jamz"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: #1
Youtube: "Slow Jamz"
Commentary: Here it is, my very favorite #1 hit of the decade. There are many huge US hits to come, but none with hit the top of the charts. I don't even really like Kanye that much, but he slots 2 songs on this countdown. This song has funny lyrics though, the chorus is catchy and the sample is amazing. Plus Twista's super fast rapping! Awesome.

16. t.A.T.u. - "All the Things She Said"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: n/a (#1 UK)
Youtube: "All the Things She Said"
Commentary: The lesbianism gimmick was clearly genius from a marketing standpoint, but I think it actually does t.A.T.u. a disservice from a critical standpoint. I think more critics would realize the brilliance of this song and "Cosmos (Outer Space)" (just as good, but never a single) if they were just put out there as straight pop songs. Because they are good singers and this one has amazing instrumentation and melody. Another one known to get in my head for weeks straight.

Tune in for the top 15.

End of Decade Blowout pt 2: Top 60 Singles, 45-31

2009-10-05T18:48:00.003-05:00

Numbers 60-46 on this list are in my previous post. Let's continue.

45. Electric Six - "Danger! High Voltage"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: n/a (UK #2)
Youtube: "Danger! High Voltage"
Commentary: This song has been linked together to "House of Jealous Lovers" and is usually considered inferior, but due to overall bonkers-ness I definitely prefer it. It's got a really nice guitar line and a nice shouty chorus. Overall, it's unlike anything else from this decade, but still oddly appealing.

44. Martina McBride - "This One's For the Girls"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: #39 (Country #3)
Youtube: "This One's for the Girls"
Commentary: No doubt I will receive crap for charting this in my top 50 singles of the decade, being a single male and all, but I will fully support it. The lyrics are nicely uplifting, the rhythm is driving, Martina McBride is one of the greatest all-time singers, and it's got a perfect sunny summery melody. This is the one song from the decade that it makes me happiest to listen to, I don't care if it's intended for girls or not. (For the record, it definitely is.)

43. Jennifer Lopez ft. Ja Rule - "I'm Real (Murder Remix)"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: #1
Youtube: "I'm Real"
Commentary: I guess I'm not doing myself any favors here by charting J.Lo. right after Martina McBride, but this is another one I'll defend tooth and nail. It's got one of the absolutely best beats of the decade and I do like her as a singer even if she's not technically the best. I'm not a Ja Rule fan but his lazy flow is perfect for this song along with the lazy beat. Just an outstanding flowing tempo overall.

42. Ashlee Simpson - "Little Miss Obsessive"
Year: 2008
Chart Peak: #96
Youtube: "Little Miss Obsessive"
Commentary: Whereas "La La" is silly fun, this one is more typical of Ashlee's best output this decade. Great breakup lyrics with some amazing lines combined with really smart melodies and musical accompaniment. Basically, Ashlee's songs take very basic rock structures and songs and make them into something amazing. That's what she's been great at and this is her best work at it to date.

41. Girls Aloud - "Love Machine"
Year: 2004
Chart Peak: n/a (#2 UK)
Youtube: "Love Machine"
Commentary: OK, it's hard to argue that this is some kind of deep, meaningful musical accomplishment, but it could well be the catchiest melody of the entire decade. Sure, the lyrics are silly, but there are some genuinely great lines in here ("gift wrapped kitty cats"!, lyrical reference to "Two Tribes"!). It's pure shallow fun, which as you can tell tends to place quite well on my lists.

40. System of a Down - "Chop Suey!"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: #76 (#7 Modern Rock)
Youtube: "Chop Suey!"
Commentary: This song is so ridiculous it's almost like a parody of an over the top rock song. What with its nonsensical but meaningful sounding lyrics ("when angels deserve to die" wtf) and the crazy "You wanted to!" chant. But, it's one of the most original rock songs of the decade and I'll be damned if it hasn't been stuck in my head for 8 years running now. No matter how ridiculous a song is, that's certainly worth something. The thought that they actually take this stuff seriously is kind of funny to me though.

39. Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland - "Dilemma"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: #1
Youtube: "Dilemma"
Commentary: Surely we can get some agreement here that this is one of the catchiest pop rap songs of the decade. Clearly, it's the "awww"'s that push it over the top. The beat surely isn't anything too great, but the melody and the catchy flow make this one of the most deserving smash hits of the decade.

38. Phoenix - "If I Ever Feel Better"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "If I Ever Feel Better"
Commentary: Hey look, it's not all crappy mainstream pop! This is another song from my indie days that I still love today. Actually, I'm pretty sure this song easily could have been a huge hit in the USA. Now obviously it didn't work out that way, but this has just the right driving tempo and smooth rhythm. It manages to be hooky despite a very simple structure and melody and it just consistently drives.

37. Cam'ron - "Hey Ma"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: #3
Youtube: "Hey Ma"
Commentary: This is probably the silliest song on my entire list, which is surely saying something, but it is (intentionally!) very funny and filled with amazing hooks.

36. Mint Royale ft. Pos - "Show Me"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Show Me"
Commentary: Mint Royale is a weird band. We had their album On the Ropes at our radio station and I think I was the only person who played it. Thing is, it was two amazing songs (this, and "Don't Falter"), then a bunch of really generic and terrible big beat songs. I'm not sure how a band of such little apparent talent managed to shoot out two such amazing songs, but there they are. This one has always been my favorite, it has what probably gets my vote for the best sample of the decade and Pos is always a great rapper.

35. Natasha Bedingfield - "I Want to Have Your Babies"
Year: 2007
Chart Peak: n/a (UK #7)
Youtube: "I Wanna Have Your Babies"
Commentary: I've written about this song before: "This is completely bonkers in both the music and the lyrics, and I admire its sheer dedication to bonkers-ness. Tash's performance really sells here that she's holding in, about to explode, ready to burst. The whole song is just bursting just below the seams with warmth and energy and love. It makes this the most true to new crush/first love song I've heard in a long, long time." It also has a great music video.

34. Destiny's Child - "Survivor"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: #2
Youtube: "Survivor"
Commentary: Destiny's Child has released a lot of classic singles over their lifetime, but this is I think the best. Nice empowering lyrics and a big pounding chorus make this a joy to listen to. This one has gotten a bit old from overplaying over the years, but I still really love it.

33. Beyonce - "Irreplaceable"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: #1
Youtube: "Irreplaceable"
Commentary: Hey, speaking of Beyonce songs that have become old a bit from overplaying, but which I still love...I've always loved R&B ballads and I think this features possibly the best midtempo ballad melody of the decade. And on top of that, great lyrics and singing too! Right up there with any of the great R&B ballads from history.

32. Charlotte Church - "Moodswings (to Come at Me Like That)"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Moodswings"
Commentary: Funny thing is, I only ranked this song #21 on my list of top singles of 2006 but it has really proven to be a grower. I dedicated an entire post to this song. It is here. (the post contains a comment from one of the song's writers!)

31. Spoon - "The Underdog"
Year: 2007
Chart Peak: n/a (#26 Modern Rock)
Youtube: "The Underdog"
Commentary: This song was released after I had basically given up on indie rock as a genre, but it managed to pull me back in! I still think this song is really underrated and consider it to be one of the very peaks of indie rock as a genre.

End of Decade Blowout pt 1: Top 60 Singles, 60-46

2009-10-03T18:11:00.004-05:00

This blog has been dead for a while, but the end of decade listamania blowout seems like a good reason to bring it back. This listamania will consist of the following:

Top 60 singles of the decade (4 installments)
Top 20 TV Shows of the Decade (you'll never guess what's #1!)
Top 15 "cute" movies of the decade (romcoms, family movies, etc)
Whatever else I think of or feel like doing.

Let's start out with singles 60-46 of the top 60 singles of the decade:

60. Wu Tang Clan - "Gravel Pit"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: #89 (#20 Rap)
Youtube: "Gravel Pit"
Commentary: o, The W was not as consistently classic as 36 Chambers (surely one of the most ambitious and finest rap albums ever), but "Gravel Pit" is, I think, as good as any of their other singles. I think that this is probably the catchiest rap song of the whole decade, and it features some great rapping and amazing samples.

59. Guided by Voices - "The Best of Jill Hives"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "The Best of Jill Hives"
Commentary: I may not be indie any more, but I still love this one as much as ever, with it's really pretty understated melody. Sure, the lyrics are nonsense and Bob Pollard has never been much as a singer, but he has always had a flair for a great melody, and this is one of his best, plus with a nice guitar sound as well.

58. Kanye West - "Through the Wire"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: #15 (#4 Rap)
Youtube: "Through the Wire"
Commentary: Great lyrics, great samples, great production, and good rapping with an interesting gimmick. This was Kanye's breakout single as a performer and it pretty much demanded being a hit, being so catchy and so unique that nobody could resist it. I still think it's the best work he's done as a solo artist.

57. Fall Out Boy - "The Takeover, The Break's Over"
Year: 2007
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "The Takeover, the Break's Over"
Commentary: This is the best song on Infinity on High, and it's plenty commercial, so it's kind of confusing that the other singles became huge hits while this one never did anything. It's got really great guitar and an outstanding chorus, combined with Patrick Stump's always good vocals.

56. Nelly Furtado - "Say It Right"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: #1
Youtube: "Say It Right"
Commentary: Nobody saw this coming out of old Nelly, but she really is a great singer, and she got some great songwriters and producers for her album. The Loose album produced a lot of great singles, but this one was the best, a very deserving #1 hit (in fact, by this list, the fifth best #1 hit of the decade). So pretty.

55. Junior Senior - "Move Your Feet"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "Move Your Feet"
Commentary: I don't care how silly it is, this is one of the best written and catchiest pop songs of the decade. It features several interlacing and distinct really catchy melodies and it's actually structured in a pretty original way. Plus, it has a great music video!

54. Alicia Keys - "Fallin"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: #1
Youtube: "Fallin"
Commentary: OK, OK, i know it's generic sounding, and Alicia Keys isn't even really that good of a singer compared to other R&B divas like Aaliyah or Mariah or Whitney. This one sticks to the cookie cutter R&B ballad formula, but it's a great formula and this is just about the best possible execution of it, which I think is admirable and makes it worthy of a slot.

53. Bloodhound Gang - "The Bad Touch"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: #52 (#6 Modern Rock)
Youtube: "The Bad Touch"
Commentary: Nobody seems to like this song, but the only bad things I really hear people say about it are that it's silly or that it's gimmicky. I guess some people consider those things insults, but I actually like them in pop songs. Especially when they are as ridiculously catchy as this, and, sure, it's silly, but it's actually got some pretty funny lines. (Fairly questionable inclusion but my memory is this song didn't really break out until 2000).

52. Ashlee Simpson - "La La"
Year: 2005
Chart Peak: #86
Youtube: "La La"
Commentary: Ashlee Simpson continues to get just about the worst press of any pop star and I continue to not care at all. I think that if most people forgot the baggage and just gave the music an honest shot they would see it for the superior intelligent pop music that it really is. OK, this one is just silly fun but it's AMAZING silly fun.

51. Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats"
Year: 2006
Chart Peak: #8 (#1 Country)
Youtube: "Before He Cheats"
Commentary: I've written about this very song on this very site many times before. Every time I talk about the great funny lyrics, how much it rocks, and how great of a vocalist Carrie Underwood is. This was a deserved crossover smash, rare for a country song, and that still makes me happy.

50. Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
Year: 2002
Chart Peak: #2
Youtube: "Complicated"
Commentary: I always loved this song, even when I was indie, because the melody is just that massive and the bratty high school lyrics are absolutely perfect. This was one of the songs that helped to spawn the confessional teen pop movement and it's been often imitated and only very rarely exceeded. I've heard the chorus a thousand times probably and it's still not old.

49. Wheatus - "Teenage Dirtbag"
Year: 2000
Chart Peak: n/a (#7 Modern Rock)
Youtube: "Teenage Dirtbag"
Commentary: It's a ripoff of Weezer except that, actually, it's better than any real Weezer songs. The thing is, it's got some of the best high school love lyrics of all time and great vocals, and an all-time classic melody. The lyrics, though, are not only funny but they are genuinely emotionally affecting, if you really think about them.

48. Sugababes - "About You Now"
Year: 2007
Chart Peak: n/a
Youtube: "About You Now"
Commentary: The common denominator between almost every song on this list is a massive melody. That's what I like in songs and so that's what's going to dominate the list. And this one is really, really outstanding, particularly the "I know everything changes" part. The actual recording isn't a performance that I particularly care for, and I think a really good cover could be done of it. But the melody is so kicking, one of the very best of the decade, that it demands to be listed anyways.

47. Backstreet Boys - "The Call"
Year: 2001
Chart Peak: #52
Youtube: "The Call"
Commentary: This appears to be one of the Backstreet Boys' least remembered singles, which is a real shame because it's probably their very best work. Max Martin has always had an ability to crank out perfect dance-able pop songs and this is one of his very best. I think people were already sick of the Boys by the time this hit, which probably is what hurt its commercial success and current stature. But come one, this one is like 100x better than stuff like "Larger that Life". Go back and give it a re-listen.

46. David Banner - "Cadillac on 22s"
Year: 2003
Chart Peak: n/a (#86 rap)
Youtube: "Cadillac on 22s"
Commentary: David Banner is one of those rappers in the mid 2000s who never broke out like he really deserved. This song deserved to be a massive smash and I'm actually not really sure why it wasn't. David is a great rapper, and this has some of the best production of any rap song of the whole decade. So much better than Bubba Sparxxx but much less popular too. Too bad.

20 Random Songs

2009-01-27T19:26:00.003-05:00

Even though it is probably the most popular meme in the history of blogging, I have never done a post wherein I post 20 random songs from my iPod. I am here to remedy that situation now. As an added bonus I will post mini-reviews of each song. Here we go.

1. Cher - "Half-Breed": This is an interesting song. The tune is pretty catchy and it's a good story song! I wish story songs like this could be hits today. This is probably my favorite Cher hit (maybe "Believe"), but it is rather repetitive and it's not like it's really anything that great. An above average number one hit, 7/10.

2. B2k - "Santa Hooked Me Up": As luck would have it, one of the songs I have already posted about on this journal. It's from B2k's truly awful Christmas album and it's probably the most half-assed song on it. I'm already regretting doing this exercise because now I feel compelled to listen to it all the way through again. Really awful. 2/10.

3. Eric Church - "The Hard Way": This is from the Eric Church album from 2006 that I downloaded, listened to once or twice, then forgot about. I did enjoy the album when I listened to it, but for whatever reason I've not felt compelled to revisit it. A shame, because this is a pretty great tune and good lyrics too, and as memory serves it's one of the highlights of the album. 8/10.

4. Martina McBride - "A Broken Wing": Martina McBride has a really great voice and she can let the ballads fly. This song isn't up there with her best ballads like "Independence Day" and "Love's the Only House" but it's a good enough jam for what it is. I can't say I'd ever intentionally listen to this, but it's probably about on par with "Half-Breed" so give it a 7/10. And, oh yeah, this too, which is now my immediate first thought upon hearing the song. Not too many people can go up against Martina on a big ballad and stay standing.

5. Amy Grant - "Shadows": I have posted before about how much I love Amy Grant's mid-late 80's Christian albums (see here) in a post that, incidentally, was much hated by all Amy Grant fans despite its positive comments towards the singer. I didn't specifically call out this song in the post, but it's as good as any other song on Lead Me On, which is seriously one of my favorite ever albums (OK, "Saved By Love" is better, but this is right up there with the rest). As a bonus, it has pretty good (and weird) lyrics about giving into temptations. 9/10.

6. Shapeshifters - "Lola's Theme": I know that at one point this song was very popular among the pop loving crowd, but it has never done anything for me. It's big and catchy enough I suppose, but there's so many other similar songs I'd rather listen to. It just kind of goes nowhere. It's not bad, really, just pointless. 5/10.

7. Weird Al - "Angry White Boy Polka": This one actually vaguely embarrasses me, but it's pretty funny. I mean the "Polka" shtick had gotten pretty stale by this point, and Weird Al apparently classifies the Strokes in as angry white boy music along with SOAD and Papa Roach for some reason. But, damn, it still makes me chuckle, which is good enough for a 6/10.

8. Jill Sobule - "I Kissed a Girl": This is all that most people know Jill Sobule for these days, but I still mostly associate her with her work on Unfabulous, including doing the amazing theme song. This song isn't as good as that but it's one of the sunniest and most pleasant songs of all time. That's got to count for something. And, sure, it's better than the Katy Perry song. So 8/10.

9. Chicago - "If You Leave Me Now": Among the soft rock bands of its era, Chicago is probably the best, as it's songs all hold up pretty well today. This is a reasonably typical example of their songs, not as good as like "Saturday In The Park", but still the kind of thing I'd be reasonably happy to see turn up on an oldies station. On the other hand, it has a killer hook, but attention does tend to drift during the rest of the song. 6/10 is a reasonable score I think.

10. Destroyer - "New Ways of Living": This Destroyer album was released right at the end of my college era fascination with indie rock. Like a lot of indie rock of its era (particularly Dan Bejar indie rock of its era), this is a killer shell of a song that is way too cute for its own good. However, Dan Bejar is the all-time master of great repetitive outros, and this is probably his best (maybe "Execution Day") PLUS I still love his vocals (I've long contended that Neko Case is only the 3rd best vocalist in New Pornographers). So how tough can I be. 8/10.

11. Joe Jackson - "Steppin' Out": Joe Jackson is well known as the poor man's Elvis Costello. He's got a few truly great songs though, and while this isn't nearly as good as "It's Different for Girls", it's got one of my favorite bass hooks of all time. The song itself I can take or leave, but man that bass hook. 7/10.

12. Mariah Carey - "Love Takes Time": Probably my least favorite of Mariah's early ballad hits, not nearly as tuneful as songs like "Can't Let Go" or "Vision of Love". It just kind of floats around and winds up being rather forgettable, as I think this is today probably her least well known #1 hit. Mariah had some all-time classic ballads in the early to mid 90's, but this is most definitely not one of them. Really boring. 4/10.

13. 1910 Fruitgum Company - "Simon Says": There was a brief and weird period a few years ago where I was listening to a lot of 60's bubblegum music. I now find this song extremely irritating. Badly beaten at it's own game by "Yummy Yummy Yummy". Oh my god the repetitive melody and the instrumentation and the voice. It's all way, way too much. 4/10.

14. Blake Shelton - "Nobody But Me": I really liked Blake Shelton's Pure B.S., naming it the #6 album of 2007. This song predates that album but pretty much sounds exactly the same, and nicely mixes his rock tendencies with his sensitive ballad tendencies. Blake's actual singles tend to be pretty underwhelming to me, but this is probably his best. 8/10.

15. U2 - "Discotheque": I have absolutely no idea why this song is on my iPod because I've always hated it. It's bad even compared to other U2 songs because it still has their annoying pretentious lyrics, and Bono's super annoying voice, and ON TOP OF THAT it's tuneless garbage. I dislike this song and have not the slightest idea how it became such a massive hit. 2/10.

16. Alcazar - "Start the Fire": A shamefully transparent attempt to recreate "This Is the World We Live In", but this one is a lot worse. The lesson I think is that "This Is The World We Live In" was a random, one time fluke. Because this song is really, really lazy and it doesn't even appropriate a good chorus! Ridiculous. 5/10.

17. Elvis Presley - "That's Alright Mama": Elvis' first song, I think, so that makes it a landmark. Elvis is a really good singer, but this is a really slight song. There's a reason this song never gets played on oldies stations, and that's because it's repetitive and lacks a real hook. Even giving it some bonus points for importance it can't get any higher than like a 6/10, and I feel like that's pretty generous.

18. Ashlee Simpson - "Never Dream Alone": The tender ballad off of Bittersweet World and for some reason I find this song very emotionally affecting. This song was a grower, it didn't really hit me until the 5th or 6th time I listened to it, and when it did I was so struck by how beautiful it was I almost had to pull my car over. The melody is just so beautiful and the lyrics are so evocative. Compare this to "Love Takes Time" and I think you may see why I think it's so great. It's simple, but like Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2AM)" I connect to it for reasons I cannot fully explain, and I guess that's the most important thing. 9/10.

19. Everly Brother's - "Cathy's Clown": A pretty mediocre oldies song, a lot worse than "All I Have to Do Is Dream". Maybe if I lived through this era I could appreciate a song like this but it does absolutely zero for me. I don't even really have anything to say about it. It's a little catchy I guess but it's not catchy enough to make up for how repetitive it is. It's not bad, it just strikes me as a nothing song. Therefore it deserves a totally middling rating: 5/10.

20. Jars of Clay - "Love Song for a Savior": I'm not even sure how to judge songs like this. I downloaded this during my kick of re-evaluating Christian rock songs that I used to listen to in high school. At a very specific time of my life, the lyrics of this song would really have spoken to me. As of right now, I think they're pretty silly, especially compared to the more mature Christian lyrics on display in Amy Grant's finest work. What can I say though, the song works, it made all of us high school Christians cry when we played it during emotional youth meetings. On top of that, the tune is good! It's a rather pleasant song, and I could easily envision it having been a hit if it didn't have God lyrics. And that wouldn't have been so bad. It's an unqualified success at what it's going for, and I'm gonna give it an 8/10, it's one of the best Christian rock songs of its era, if not the best.

Top 10 TV Shows of 2008

2009-01-08T22:18:00.000-05:00

It is time for annual listing here at the TCR. As currently stands, I will do a top 10 TV shows and tracks list. The albums list and movies lists are not feasible because I have been so out of touch with those this year. My favorite album of the year is Bittersweet World and my favorite movie is American Teen, with Bigger, Faster, Stronger and Iron Man and Dark Knight close. Here's TV.

My annual caveat still applies. I do not watch any HBO or Showtime shows or most of the other critically acclaimed dramas. Would I like The Wire or Mad Men or Dexter or Damages if I gave them a chance? Probably. But I've never seen them and I probably never will and that's just not the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. Probably that invalidates my list, but I still do it anyways cause it's fun. Here's the list:

10. Wizards of Waverly Place - I like to leave one slot on my list for whatever is my favorite teen show du jour. In prior years this slot has been taken by Unfabulous and Phil of the Future. For now, this is the best show of its type, and while it isn't nearly up to the level of those shows it's still a very cute and entertaining show and some of its jokes do make you laugh. So the cuteness alone gets it this far.

9. Burn Notice - This is one of the most fun shows on TV, with its easy mix of action and drama and comedy. The plots are light and breezy but they are always paced well and they always set up good action. All in all it's a really fun entry to the landscape of TV.

8. American Idol - This show brought us Brooke White this season, definitely my favorite ever reality show contestant. It was a lackluster season otherwise, Chizekie's "She's a Woman" notwithstanding, but Brooke alone drives it this high.

7. House - I had a really hard time rating this show, just like last year, and for the exact same reason as last year. Season 4 was some kind of freaky creative renaissance for this show. The last half of season 4 was awesome, featuring great episodes like the one with Mira Sorvino, but the first half of season 5 has been extremely subpar. The process of getting the new team was a ton of fun, but the new team themselves is nothing too great, and it means less time for Dr. Cameron hotness. I've grown very bored of this show.

6. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - I think this show is still really funny. The last season was a little spotty, but there were definitely some classic episodes and moments. The episode where Mac and Charlie fake their deaths and the episode in the 18th century were particular highlights. The spark may be ever so slightly gone here compared to early seasons, but I still love the show.

5. Greek - In all honesty, probably the drama show of the year where I was most invested in the characters. All of the characters and storylines are a ton of fun. The show moves at a really brisk pace and it never gets bogged down in boring details but generally gives the storylines some space to breathe. I dunno, it could rank higher, but the show is so incredibly lightweight and I do love the 4 shows above it. I'm very eagerly awaiting the next season, regardless.

4. Eli Stone - Such an uplifting show! This is the heir apparent to Joan of Arcadia in my mind, and while it never reaches the heights of that show, the relentless enthusiasm and optimism makes this show really enjoyable. It just makes me really happy to watch the show, and the cancellation was really sad to me.

3. How I Met Your Mother - The basic feel and quality of this show has remained totally unchanged over the last few years. It's still consistently funny and it still nails the emotional character drama moments. The mixture of emotion and comedy make this a consistently interesting show, even during the poorer episodes.

2. True Life - I watched every new episode of this show in 2008, and pretty much all of the episodes were worth watching. The shows tend to range from really funny to genuinely interesting to really sad, and they always seem to hit the right tone for whatever topic they've picked. I think this show is by far the best reality show on TV, and the way it can consistently hit all the right notes is very impressive, landing it all the way this high.

1. Friday Night Lights - The third season on DirecTV was really good, and the second season improved towards the end. This is still the best show on TV, thanks to its realistic drama, great tension, and ability to hit emotional buttons.

New to the top 10: Wizards of Waverly Place, Burn Notice, American Idol, Eli Stone, True Life- Two brand new shows that didn't exist in 2007, one show that hit a new level in its second season, one show I had been unjustly ignoring over the last couple years (True Life), and Brooke White.

Falling Out: Pushing Daisies, The 4400, Unfabulous, 30 Rock, World Series of Pop Culture- 3 of these shows aired no episodes in 2008 due to cancellation. Of the other two, 30 Rock is a show that has never really grabbed me. I watched it enough in 2007 that it snuck its way to the bottom of my top 10, but I've never been too crazy about it. Pushing Daisies, I just lost interest in for no real reason. It was off the air for a long while due to the strike, and when it came back in I just realized I had no real desire to watch it any more. Sorry.

Classic Works in Various Genres: A Project

2008-10-23T18:57:00.002-05:00

My reading goal this year was to read "classic" works in a variety of genres. The goal is twofold: To get exposed to a bunch of genres I don't normally read and to read some books that I felt like I "should" read. The number one criteria in this is, which book in this genre do I most wish that i had read. This post will document where I've gotten so far and where I plan on going. Progress has been pretty slow since I have been sidetracked numerous times, but I'm enjoying it so much that it will spill right on over to 2009, or even 2010 with the pace I've been keeping up. These books are very angl0-centric because I dislike reading translated works. Perhaps once this is over I will move on to a series of reading international literature though.

Finished

Genre: Comic Book
Selection: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby - The Essential Fantastic Four: Volume 3
Reasoning: The most obvious classic comic book work to read here would be Watchmen but unfortunately for this project I've already read it. Similarly, I've read several of the other more obvious choices such as Sandman, Killing Joke, Dark Knight Returns, and Born Again during a brief comics phase I had in college. So I decided to dip into the well of classic comics here, of which I've read none. My first inclination was towards a collection of old Spiderman or X-Men or Superman comics, but a Martin Skidmore post on FreakyTrigger pointed in the direction of this book and I decided to take his word for it.
Brief Review: While I failed to grasp the significance of things such as the introduction of the Inhumans and the Negative Zone because I know little about the Marvel Universe, I still enjoyed a majority of the books. The books were plotted pretty well and paced much more quickly than the comics I was reading in college. The characters are completely one-dimensional and Reed is sooo unlikeable, but this was still a really enjoyable read.
Going Forward: I enjoyed the work OK like I said, but it wasn't too great or anything. Not the kind of thing that makes me want to run out and buy more old comics. I think my comics phase is still behind me.

Genre: True Crime
Selection: Vincent Bugliosi - Helter Skelter
Reasoning: This was the easiest selection I have yet had because as far as I can tell there's nothing even remotely on the same level as classic as this book in the True Crime genre. Widely read and loved and just the kind of book I feel like I should have read.
Brief Review: An extremely engaging and interesting account of the Charles Manson case. As far as I can tell a fairly definitive account of the event. One of the best nonfiction books I've ever read.
Going Forward: I had never read a true crime book before, but after this book it is likely I will read another Bugliosi book. I've been eying his OJ book Outrage lately.

Genre: Pop Fiction
Selection: Steven King - The Stand
Reasoning: I've long been fascinated by the works of authors like John Grisham or Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton who are very popular but also very much hated by the "intelligent" crowd. The anti-hipster in me wants to read and love them, though I have never read a single work by any of the three. However I did ultimately decide to go with a work that does have some cachet, just because The Stand is such a cultural touchstone.
Brief Review: I had previously only read The Dark Tower series by Steven King. After reading those and this book I am convinced that Steven King has no clue how to effectively end his books. Despite the ending, and a long sequence towards the middle which dragged horribly, this book managed to be an entertaining read with compelling characters. And the ending did indeed get to me emotionally, big surprise.
Going Forward: I've liked Dark Tower and The Stand but I really think that's enough King for a lifetime. Both books had the same problem, namely way too long and terrible ending. I have zero desire to continue reading his body of work. I probably will read a Clancy or Grisham work some day.

Genre: Chick Lit
Selection: Jane Austen - Emma
Reasoning: Much like Helter Skelter above, not much of a choice here. Jane Austen is an all time classic and considering how much I love romantic comedies it's amazing how I've never read any Jane at all. Except that I did read Pride and Prejudice for a class in high school.
Brief Review: Even though this book was not nearly as emotional or romantic as I thought, and the main character was 10x more unlikeable than Cher from Clueless, I still loved this book. The romance was great, but just the dialogue and characters were incredibly sharp. This is one of my favorite novels I've read.
Going Forward: I liked it enough that I bought the Complete Novels of Jane Austen and already read Persuasion, also excellent. Eventually I will get through all the novels.

Genre: Mystery
Selection: Agatha Christie - Murder on the Orient Express
Reasoning: I did debate whether to go classic British, or more modern, or hardboiled American on this. But really do I need to explain the reasoning on Agatha Christie here? I did debate which specific Christie book to get, but based on the descriptions on the back this seemed more interesting than And Then There Were None and, at least in America, those are her two classic famous works.
Brief Review: Very fun, and kept me guessing up to the end, which I did not know ahead of time. Extremely well put together though, with lots of twists and turns and never gets boring. Her social/class commentary is also really great.
Going Forward: Again, I enjoyed it enough that I've already purchased and read a few other Agatha works, including And Then There Were None. Also One Two, Buckle My Shoe which had probably the least plausible ending of any book I've ever read, and I've read Goosebumps books.

Genre: Science
Selection: Oliver Sacks - An Anthropologist on Mars
Reasoning: I was a Math major in college, but my interest in pop science works is very low, if not zero. I've always wanted to read a Sacks work and once I saw that this was located in the Science section of Borders I jumped on it immediately. I may still go for a "hard" science work like the Feynman lectures of A Brief History of Time.
Brief Review: Oliver Sacks is a really good writer and the bizarre mental conditions he writes about are surely extremely interesting. On the balance though this is a work I was never too excited about. I kind of wish I had gone with Awakenings instead since that is the most popular Sacks work. Ah well.
Going Forward: I may still read Awakenings one day but its fair to say this wasn't some kind of massive revelation about pop science works for me.

Made the Selection but Haven't Read
Genre: Short Story
Selection: Flannery O'Connor - Everything That Rises Must Converge
Reasoning: I'm a huge Flannery fan, and a huge fan of Southern literature in general, so it's somewhat ridiculous that I haven't read this yet. As far as level of classicness, well something like O Henry - The Four Million is probably THE classic of the short story genre, but I am biased towards Flannery so I'll stick with that. I may be convinced to switch the genre of this one to Southern Lit so I can fit in O Henry anyways, I haven't decided.

Genre: Biography
Selection: Henry Adams - The Education of Henry Adams
Reasoning: I picked this work because it was #1 on the Modern Library top works of the 20th century. Ben Franklin's autobiography is the only other one I can think of that's up there with this one, but I'm comfortable with this choice.

Genre: Self Help
Selection: Steven Covey - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Reasoning: This is actually one of the genres I had the toughest time with, oddly enough. My strongest considerations were this book, Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, and I'm OK, You're OK. I didn't want to do Covey cause he's by far the most recent. Bur I've always considered Peale and I'm OK to be some kind of hippie crap that holds no interest to me. The title of How to Win Friends and Influence People kind of icks me out. Objectively, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living should have been my pick but, quite simply, worrying is not a serious problem of mine. I'd rather go with the work that is more likely to genuinely help me.

Genre: General Fiction, British
Selection: Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
Reasoning: I've never read a single Dickens work, which is rather ridiculous, and this is probably his #1 most classic work.

Genre: General Fiction, Not British or American
Selection: James Joyce - Ulysses
Reasoning: I really do not want to read this book, but when it comes to classics they don't come much more classic.

Genre: Drama
Selection: Shakespeare - King Lear
Reasoning: I've never read it or seen a performance and know nothing of its plot or characters and that makes me feel uncultured.

Genre: Dystopian
Selection: George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty Four
Reasoning: It's so completely absurd that I've never read this book that I had to make up a genre to fit it in.

Possible Other Genres
Genre: General Fiction, American
Thoughts: No clue yet. My general idea would be to go old, like Washington Irving, but I could be persuaded to pick Updike or something like that. Too many choices and none stand out.

Genre: Hipster fiction
Thoughts: Carver and Palahniuk jump out but this is one I'm not in a rush to get to and this is a questionable genre so it may just get left out entirely.

Genre: Postmodern
Thoughts: The most obvious choice I can think of is White Noise and most likely that's what I'll go with, but I could be persuaded over to Pynchon as well, I need to do more research.

Genre: Science Fiction
Thoughts: The immediate thought that came to mind was Stranger in a Strange Land but I know almost nothing about this genre and definitely need to do some research.

Genre: History
Thoughts: Halberstam or Studs Terkel both seem good. My friend who reads a lot of history recommends Halberstam so I guess I'll go with him.

Genre: 21st Century Fiction
Thoughts: Obvious choices here are The Corrections or Empire Falls. I'll probably just go with The Corrections but part of me just wants to read whatever wins the Pulitzer this year.

Genre: Politics
Thoughts: The Republic is my first choice, but I could easily go with Hobbes or a more modern work as well

Genre: Poetry
Thoughts: Too many choices and I haven't any idea what to use to narrow it down. Most likely here I'll just go to Borders and pick something at random. Don Juan is the only thing that leaps immediately to mind.

Genre: Sports
Thoughts: Since I've read almost every classic baseball work, my initial instinct is to go for Friday Night Lights but then again I never have read The Boys of Summer so I dunno.

Most likely other genres too (economics? military history? music/movies? criticism?), depending on how bored I get of the project eventually. And like I said I'm trying to keep it anglo for now, though I am open to branching out to international works too eventually.

Favorite Album of the 2000s

2008-10-15T17:48:00.004-05:00

I was thinking the other day about what is my favorite album of the 2000s decade. Some quick thought led me to five reasonable options: The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem, Come and Get It by Rachel Stevens, Still Me, Still Now by Amy Diamond, Mass Romantic by The New Pornographers, and Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson. Let's go through the tale of the tape then:

Those five albums listed above were the five main contenders that came into my head immediately. Some distinguishing factors came out about all 5. The Marshall Mathers LP has really good lyrics, probably the best of the decade, and really catchy songs. But it's way too freakin' long! Plus the skits are annoying. Come and Get It is really fun pop, but there's no depths to enjoy or anything. The lyrics are never anything special, compared to say Ashlee Simpson, but I love all the songs. Still Me, Still Now is more of the same, glossy fun pop with not too much else to offer. Mass Romantic is the best indie album of the decade, which is why it leaped to mind, but I simply fear that it is just plain not as good as indie classics from the 90s like Alien Lanes or Holiday. Breakaway has really good lyrics and good songs, but I just fear that on a raw level I just do not love the songs on that album as much as I love the songs on the others.

There aren't any country albums this decade I've really loved. Neko Case's Furnace Room Lullaby is probably top 10 or top 20 of the decade for me but just not number one, and I've never gotten into any of her other albums. The other so-called alt country albums of the decade are almost entirely just mediocre indie rock albums with a very slight country twinge, at least in my opinion. Sara Evans' Born to Fly has really, really good singles but also a lot of filler. Montgomery Gentry's albums are all really good but none are too exciting. Big & Rich's debut clearly a classic but again just not a serious contender for #1.

I think of the five serious options, Mass Romantic drops out pretty early. It came to mind immediately because I love "Letter from an Occupant" and "Execution Day" and "The Body Says No", which is probably the best stretch of three consecutive songs on any album this decade. The problem is none of the other songs really jump up to the same level (some moments do like the outro to "Jackie") and there's other songs on the album like "To Wild Homes" and "Breakin' the Law" that I just really am not a huge fan of at all. Normally not a problem but when you get up to this level it should be all high. So Mass Romantic would come in at #5.

I think Still Me, Still Now and The Marshall Mathers LP drop out next. I actually genuinely love every single song on Still Me Still Now, but when it comes to mindless pop I just prefer Come and Get It for a couple reasons. Most importantly, the two best songs on Come and Get It are "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)" and "Nothing Good about This Goodbye" compared to Still Me Still Now's offering of "Don't Cry Your Heart Out" and "All The Money in the World". Now I love "Don't Cry Your Heart Out" - I had it as the number two single of 2006 and if anything I like it even more today - and "All The Money in the World" is almost as good, but this is still a clear win for Come and Get It. Plus, and it's subtle, the worst tracks on Come and Get It are slightly better than the worst tracks on Still Me Still Now ("Diamonds" and "Big Guns"). All in all it's enough to knock Still Me Still Now to #4.

Marshall Mathers LP I actually have very little to expand on what I wrote above. It's got great lyrics that rotate between insightful and hilarious, and sometimes both at the same time. I just can't listen to the whole thing at once because it's so long and because the skits get old really fast. I like all of the songs on the album and can't really think of any blatant filler that just plainly needs to be cut, but they still should have cut about 3 or 4 songs off the album. Still, I like the collection of songs enough to get it all the way up to #3, which is impressive for an album that I almost never listen to all the way across.

Which brings us to the top two, and at this point it's just going to come down to some hand waving. Come and Get It is clearly a better collection of songs whereas Breakway has much better vocals, better lyrics, and is much more cohesive as an album. And that's the thing about Come and Get It - it has like 5 incredibly amazing songs, and all of the other songs are pretty good. I'm pretty much up to listening to it at any time, and even if I don't have time for a full album songs like "So Good" and "Negotiate With Love" and the two I listed above just haven't gotten old after many, many listens. Whereas Breakaway's songs have faded a bit more with repeat plays for me. But all in all there's no mood to it, no drama, no depth. It's just hitting the pleasure center directly to bring me the most enjoyment possible. I'm trying to think of something bad about the album to say, some reason why it's not #1, but it doesn't really exist. Maybe objectively I like it more than Breakaway, but it's just that I've put so much thought and so much emotion into Breakaway that I just can't put anything else at #1. That's why Rachel has to settle for #2, but it's a (very) strong #2!

So Breakaway. The thing about Breakaway is that it's the album that got me back into pop music in the first place. Prior to 2005 I was basically still an indie snob, and Kelly Clarkson showed me the joys of teen pop and, indeed, pop in general. So I have a deep personal connection to the album. And the devastating darkness, and the incredibly intricate drama, and the interesting stories and all of that just flows all throughout the album. It's an album that demands to be listened to with full attention. I have an old post where I explore Breakaway as a hidden concept album, which was written mostly in jest but the general point that the song lyrics are all great and related stands. So it's a pop album that inspires genuine thought from me. Which isn't to say I don't love the songs! None of the individual songs are up to the level of the other albums, but the worst songs are things like "You Found Me" and "Breakaway" and those are still pretty damn good songs. And, oh yeah, KC is a pretty good singer too. Anyways, even though it's probably the lesser collection of songs among all the top 5, its general importance in my history of music listening, cohesive mood, and good lyrics drive it all the way up to #1. No album has ever inspired as much emotion in me and most likely none ever will.

And yes I've heard indie like Wilco and crap like that which causes some hipsters to have emotional moments despite their cold, black hearts. Suffice to say I just don't care for it.

Best Songs of 2008?

2008-09-16T18:25:00.002-05:00

Last year by this time I had already posted 2 lists of my favorite singles of the year. I just haven't been too up on music this year and seem to have little desire to catch up. Thus there are many good albums and songs I haven't heard. So before I post this list let me clarify that I have not heard any 2008 output from Danity Kane, Jordan Pruitt, Vanessa Hudgens, any rock music, and most other non-hit music. I am not worrying about single eligibility or year of release too much here, either. Nevertheless, these are my favorite songs this year of what I've heard:

1. Cassie - "Thirsty": OK let's assume this counts. My guess is that it will never be released. At least 3 or 4 of the leaked Cassie songs would be on this list if I counted them all, but I'll need to see the album released before I pull that trigger. Nevertheless this is my favorite of the songs and I will be shocked if it does not end up being my song of the year.

2. Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown - "No Air": A really, really pretty ballad filled with tons of drama and great singing. And it's also really catchy! This is a top 10 of the year worthy song, for sure.

3. Ashlee Simpson - "Little Miss Obsessive": I really love the lyrics to this song and it also has an excellent melody. Maybe should be rated higher due to awesomeness of lyrics? But, I dunno, I love the two songs above so much. The top three are really close and may well end up being my top 3 of the year.

4. Sara Bareilles - "Love Song": The latest in the line of very soft female fronted coffee shop style songs that I adopt and love ("White Flag", "Hunter", "Unwritten", "Breathe (2AM)", "I Wanna Have Your Babies"). For whatever reason I really love this style of song and this is a great example of it.

5. Brooke White - "Let It Be": Brooke White took one of my least favorite Beatles songs and made me really care about it. She has a beautiful voice and you can tell she's really earnest. This is truly remarkable and my favorite ever American Idol performance.

6. Miley Cyrus - "Goodbye": The latest Armato/James masterpiece is this closing ballad from Miley's new album, and by far the best song on it.

That's it, only 6 songs, but all 6 will seriously compete for top 10 of the year. If I had to round it out to 10, I'd throw in "Bleeding Love", and a few more Ashlee/Cassie songs. I couldn't help but notice that all 6 are female fronted ballads. That's just the way it's gone so far this year. Once I catch up on the other music of the year (if I in fact ever do), the list will probably round out with a little more variety. I mean I love female ballads, but normally only 1 or 2 will make my year end list. Then again, I really love all 6 songs, so it could just be a banner year, I dunno.

Any songs you think I should check out? Let me know in the comments.

Wizards of Waverly Place

2008-09-08T20:30:00.006-05:00

Reviving the dead blog, to speak of Wizards of Waverly Place. Well, that's as good a reason as any. There's actually a few things I want to talk of them, we'll see how many of them actually make it to posts.

There is a new live action Disney show that I haven't really discussed on this blog, and that show is Wizards of Waverly Place (notwithstanding shows such as Cory in the House or iCarly which I also haven't talked about but which I also have nothing to say about). I have to say that I think it is now the best live action tween/teen/whatever show on TV. Which is not to say that it's on the level of Phil of the Future or Unfabulous but it is a solid second tier Disney/Nick show, much better than Naked Brothers Band and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and other such detritus.

Absolutely, Selena Gomez is the breakout star of this show, but I was and continue to be surprised that the show is as focused on the David Henrie character as it is. Justin plays just as strong a role in most episodes as Alex does, and in many episodes a stronger role. On the whole, they are probably about equal characters. That places the show in the same vein as an Even Stevens or even a Phil of the Future featuring two siblings who are roughly equal characters with separate plots in most episodes. The difference is that Alex and Justin interact a lot more in the episodes than do Ren and Louis or Pim and Phil, which makes their relationship more important and real. That's good to see because I don't think there have ever been any other Disney shows which featured a meaningful sibling relationship. This is not mentioning the Max character, who is indeed completely pointless on the show. But the Alex and Justin characters are two of the strongest and most likable characters I've ever seen on a Disney show.

Then there are the parent characters. There's a spectrum of parent characters on Disney shows and it goes as follows. The parents on Phil of the Future were funny and prominent characters who often featured in plots and jokes. The parents on Even Stevens were 100% pointless except as advice outlets and occasional plot devices. The parents on Lizzie McGuire were somewhere in between. Wizards falls close to Lizzie on this scale, though it does veer close to Even Stevens on occasion. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though I do feel that at times the characters do get excessive face time given their general pointlessness 90% of the time.

But I'm not criticizing the actors, because they do a pretty good job with what they have! In fact, all of the actors are pretty good. I particularly like Selena Gomez, who is far better than Miley Cyrus, though well below the Emma Roberts/Aly Michalka level. But she's cute and she handles the drama OK and usually delivers the jokes pretty good. David Henrie also does a very good job as the older brother character. Further, the show is packed with great and usually really cute plots and situations, and it has a good cast of suitably wacky supporting characters (though the Harper character has to be the most pointless main credits character in Diz history, even more pointless than Oliver, and that's saying something. I would be so mad if I was Jennifer Stone.). In fact I would say the cuteness of plots and amusing side characters are right up there with any other show of its type.

So if the plots and side characters are as good as Phil and Unfabulous why does it still rank well below those two? First, while Selena is v. good, she is just not up to the level of the outstanding work by Aly Michalka and Emma Roberts. Second, and there's no beating around the bush with this, the joke writing is almost undeniably terrible. Whereas those two shows, plus Even Stevens, would not uncommonly make me laugh on their own merits, I've found that the jokes on this show are at best ignorable and sometimes not even to that level. In fact, this show is even less funny than Hannah Montana, though the superior acting and supporting characters still rise it above that show in my opinion.

All in all, it can be tough sometimes to watch a show which is constantly hurling unfunny jokes at your head, but if you like cute shows I think it's well worth it anyways. I love the Alex and Justin characters, and the show is really cute, so that's enough to make me keep watching. Eventually Hannah Montana stopped improving, and the characters became annoying and the cuteness became old. I don't foresee that happening to this show because the characters are more dynamic and the actors are better than the ones on HM. But I've been wrong before so who knows.

Also, as I believe I've mentioned on this blog several times before, the show has an amazing theme song. Right up there with Hannah Montana even!

Four Points on New Music

2008-05-14T20:31:00.003-05:00

Four thoughts on new music, none of which deserve their own post.

1. Lucas Grabeel - "You Got It"
Comments: WHAT THE HOLY HELL???? This was on the Radio Disney Top 30 countdown. But they didn't seriously play it on the radio did they? This song is so insane, and it's not at all what I would have expected as the debut single of a High School Musical artist. It's 20 seconds of music stretched over 4:30! It's definitely not good, but it's just as definitely really interesting. I just can't get over how insane this song is. No rating.

2. Vanessa Hudgens - "Sneakernight"
Comments: Her debut single from her second album, as recently released to Radio Disney. And I have to say it's really generic. It's like a bad version of Kat McPhee's "Open Toes". I guess generic isn't too bad if it's catchy enough or if the vocals are good enough, but it sounds to me like she's phoning it in and there's no hook to speak of. This song is just kind of boring, and actually I think it's kind of bad. There's still hope though. I didn't really like "Come Back to Me", but I ended up liking her first album just OK, and I absolutely loved/love "Say OK" (it ended up being my #16 single of 2007, but easily could have been top 10). Still, this is extremely disappointing, and she's capable of a lot better.

3. Cassie - "Official Girl"; "Thirsty"; "In Love with the DJ"; "Turn the Lights Off"
Comments: OMG, 4 of the 6 or 7 songs that have leaked from the Cassie album are completely amazing, and the others are pretty darn good too. But seriously, whichever of these four songs that are released as singles will contend for top 10 singles of the year. "Turn The Lights Off" and "In Love with the DJ" we all knew from last year. "Thirsty" and "Official Girl" both were released/leaked this year as far as I know and I'm amazed to say they are just as good! In fact, "Thirsty" is probably my favorite song of the year to this point. There's a decent chance this album will rank as my album of the year if it is in fact ever released and assuming all 4 of these songs are all on it.

4. Ashlee Simpson - Bittersweet World
Comments: As it stands right now this is the best album I've heard this year, and by a pretty fair margin. I'm thinking now it's a lock for top 5 of the year if not higher, but who knows how it will age over time. I haven't put a ton of work into listening to most of the lyrics yet, but the music is so awesome . I love the way the songs bounce effortlessly from bouncy fun ("Outta My Head") to R&B stormer ("Boys") to hilarious send-up ("Rule Breaker") to confessional masterpiece ("Little Miss Obsessive") to beautiful ballad ("Never Dream Alone"). It bounces and it bops and it dances and it makes you dance and it makes you think and it makes you cry. The way it bounces along from song to song in a completely bonkers but also completely real way is just incredibly impressive. Ashlee loves to experiment, apparently, and a vast majority of the experiments work. The only songs I don't love are "Hot Stuff" (very funny, but I don't dig the music) and "What I've Become". "Little Miss Obsessive" is right up there for my favorite single of the year so far (either that or "No Air" or "Official Girl"), and "Never Dream Alone" seriously made me tear up the first time I heard it. I was driving in my car at the time and almost had to pull over. I could and maybe will write a whole post just on that song. Anyways, I love the album and highly urge my readers to check it out.

Favorite Movies of the 90's

2008-05-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

In this post, I will identify my favorite movie of the year, as well as point out one other underrated classic that didn't quite make the cut as my favorite, for every year from 1990 through 1999. Return of the old style, way too long for anybody to read posts! Yay!

1990
Personal Favorite Film: There were several good movies this year, and I did not see the main competitors for the Best Picture Oscar (except Dances with Wolves, which I did not like). Edward Scissorhands is perhaps the best loved movie of the year today. I love Tim Burton and I like the movie but I've always thought it a little overrated. But, I haven't seen it in a while. Gremlins 2 is one of the best sequels of all time, because it completely abandoned the original and went for completely farcical comedy. Teh Brain Gremlin forever. Jacob's Ladder is a cult favorite but I thought it was boring. Home Alone was a smash, and it holds up really well today as a cute and funny movie. Flatliners is star studded and has a good plot, but is way worse than it could/should be. The best film of the year is ultimately Total Recall, which manages to maintain a tension throughout, despite a complicated and ridiculous plot. But the several classic scenes and fun plot and action make this one of the greatest action films of all time.

Underrated: Quick Change is probably my 3rd of 4th favorite movie of the year (behind Total Recall, Gremlins 2, and maybe Edward Scissorhands). It's a really funny comedy about bank robbery starring Bill Murray, Geena Davis, and Randy Quaid. Despite the star-studded cast, it's not well known or remembered today. But nevertheless it's one of my favorite comedies.

1991
Personal Favorite Film: There are a few viable competitors here. Silence of the Lambs won best picture, and it's a really compelling drama. But, I have never been bowled away by it, and have generally found it a bit over the top. Terminator 2 had great special effect, and I loved it at the time. Many people think it is superior to the original, but I still consider the first Terminator to be a far superior movie, due to the extreme cheesiness of the sequel. The scenes where John Connor is teaching him to be human are brutal to watch. For me, there are 2 viable competitors here. JFK is a really good drama and it's in the top 5 of the decade in terms of cultural impact, but it's just way too long, and completely nonfactual. None of this keeps it from being a great movie, but they hold it out of the number one slot this year. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey is clearly superior to the original movie, no matter what anybody else says, and it's one of my favorite comedies of all time, and the best movie released during the year.

Underrated: 2 choices here: He Said, She Said is not remembered fondly today, but I think it's a sharp and funny and romantic movie. Plus, I've always been an Elizabeth Perkins fan. That's good enough to make it one of my favorite romantic comedies of the decade.

1992
Personal Favorite Film: To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen a whole ton of movies this year. I have seen Aladdin, a very good movie from the Disney golden period of the late 80's/early 90's. It's probably not as good as Little Mermaid and Lion King but I loved this movie as a kid and I still really enjoy it today. It's the most silly and comedic of the movies, which does make it hold up a tad less, but I still enjoy it. Wayne's World is one of the funniest comedies of all time. Yeah, I was 10 when I first saw it, which maybe skews it a little, but I still laugh my ass off whenever I see it. But my favorite movie of the year is Glengarry Glen Ross, which features an excellent cast and a really interesting story. It's funny and it's gripping and it's depressing. Excellent drama.

Underrated: Not underrated in the sense that it's one of the best of the year, but underrated in the sense that most people seem to think it's extremely terrible and I kind of like it. I'm speaking of Stay Tuned, the John Ritter movie. Yeah, a lot of the jokes are lame, but it's got a clever conceit and it pulls it off fairly well. As a TV loving youth I really enjoyed it.

1993
Personal Favorite Film: In my opinion, this was a really strong year for movies. The popular blockbuster this year was The Fugitive, which was critically acclaimed at the time and still holds up very well today. The Sandlot is a classic kid's movie and still an all time favorite of mine. Schindler's List won best picture, and I liked it better than I normally like big, meaningful dramas, but it's just not quite my favorite. Groundhog Day is one of everybody's favorite movies, and I am no exception. Extremely funny, and it has a good message that it states well. Ultimately, my favorite film of the year though is Searching for Bobby Fischer, which is a really interesting movie about a young chess prodigy. The characters are very interesting, the story is good, the acting is uniformly excellent, and it all meshes together well. Max Pomeranc gives one of the greatest kid performances in film history. It's one of my 3 or 4 favorite movies of the decade

Underrated: Wayne's World 2 gets a bad rap, as a lot of comedy sequels do, but it's still really funny. OK, the re-tread jokes from the first movie fall flat, but "a great big bloody Bengal tiger" alone makes it worth a watch.

1994
Personal Favorite Film: There was a very famous best picture race this year. In addition, The Lion King the most popular and probably best Disney film of this era was released. OK, maybe Little Mermaid was better. But still, it was really fun! Forrest Gump won best picture, but is not well liked today among the film crowd. I tend to agree. It's a good movie, but not a great movie. Shawshank Redemption is the most well known, but I thought the movie was silly and boring and I thought it was just OK. Pulp Fiction is the best of the three, and it has a cultural cachet like no other movie from the 90's. It's just not quite my favorite of the year. Four Weddings and a Funeral was an original and very good romantic comedy, but there were still some kinks to work out. Andie MacDowell also gives one of the worst performances ever from a female romantic comedy lead. My favorite movie of the year is Quiz Show, which has good acting and a good story and a good theme. It manages to be entertaining and to hold up well throughout multiple viewings. A true success.

Underrated: Not too many really underrated films from this year. I guess D2: The Mighty Ducks, by far the best movie in the Ducks franchise, though still not a great film, it's usually worth catching part of whenever it comes on cable.

1995
Personal Favorite Film: I think this was a weak year for films, though part of that is two of the movies I suspect would be my favorites of the year, Babe and especially Sense and Sensibility I have yet to see. Of what I did see, there are 2 movies released this year, both cult favorites by well loved directors which I associate together this year. I suspect most people's list would be topped by 12 Monkeys or Seven, and I do enjoy both movies, but I find both to be overrated. Best picture winner Braveheart not the type of movie I enjoy, I thought it was boring. Toy Story was the first Pixar film, and a worthy entry into their canon, but not quite the best of the year. My favorite from this year is Empire Records, a funny indie comedy and all around entertaining film much beloved by all music fans.

Underrated: Pocahontas is generally seen as the beginning of the end for the Disney creative rebirth. While not quite as good as their four hugely successful movies preceding this, I think this gives the movie the short shrift. Just cause it's not as good as those doesn't mean it's still not a good movie, which it is.

1996
Personal Favorite Film: An extremely strong year for films. Probably the best loved film of the year today is Fargo a dark Coen Brothers comedy. All I have to say about that is what I've said countless times above: I like the film, but not as much as some others seem to. Same is true of Waiting for Guffman, a very funny comedy but not quite as hilarious as it's often made out to be. Bottle Rocket a very entertaining Wes Anderson film; it's obvious from watching he hadn't quite gotten his footing or formula down but it's still a great one. Scream, one of my favorite teen movies of all time, revitalized the horror genre and paved the way for lots of mediocre and some really good teen horror flicks. The best movie released this year was Jerry Maguire, exactly the kind of crazy, over the top role he was born to play, and with a really good love story. And Renee Zelwegger is really good and cute in it too! One of the most watchable films of the decade.

Underrated: My second favorite movie from this year is the in my opinion painfully underrated That Thing You Do!, which, actually, may well be my favorite Tom Hanks movie. The characters are really believable, the plot is interesting, the acting is good, and the theme song is amazing. I've seen it so many times on TV and I still really enjoy it.

1997
Personal Favorite Film: Grosse Point Blank is an enjoyable John Cusack comedy that I think has become slightly underrated over the years, but it's still a fave of mine. Men In Black is an immensely entertaining blockbuster, featuring excellent performances from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, who have an easy chemistry. Good comedy and good action. Ultimately, my choice here came down to two movies, both nominated for best picture. Titanic gets a horrible rap now, but I still love the movie. It's got a great spectacle to it and a good love story and really good acting from two of the best actors of our generation. Ultimately though I agree with the apparent current critical consensus that LA Confidential was a better film, thanks to its great acting, complex themes, and very interesting plot and characters. This should have spawned a new wave of noir type mysteries, but for some reason it never did. Ah well.

Underrated: Two extremely underrated comedies this year: The Man Who Knew Too Little starring Bill Murray and Nothing To Lose starring Martin Lawrence & Tim Robbins. Nothing to Lose by far the best Martin Lawrence movie with hilarious use of Scatman song. And The Man Who Knew Too Little is seriously one of my favorite comedies of the 90s.

1998
Personal Favorite Film: This was the strongest year for film in the 90's, in my opinion. Dark City was Ebert's favorite movie of the year and probably my favorite at the time. It's a great dark sci-fi film, but I've come to like it slightly less over time. Rushmore is the best Wes Anderson movie and an excellent comedy. The Dinner Game is one of my favorite foreign movies, a hilarious French film with absolutely no substance whatsoever. Honestly, I never have really liked Saving Private Ryan, it's well behind the pack of the other movies mentioned. I may well be alone on this, but I far prefer Shakespeare in Love, and was and am glad that it won best picture. It's seriously one of the best romantic comedies I've seen. Still not good enough though. My favorite movie of the year is Pleasantville, thanks mostly to its commendable theme and outstanding acting all around. And I like the color/black and white gimmick underlying the film.

Underrated: Can't Hardly Wait is a really good teen film that does one of the best jobs of capturing the high school dramatic of any of these types of movies. It's not just a worthwhile cable watch, it's a genuinely really great movie.

1999
Personal Favorite Film: Actually, maybe THIS was the best year for film in the 90's. The top 5 of this year stacks up well against the top five of '98, anyways. The Matrix is, in my opinion, very overrated. I've never really gotten the appeal of it, especially in light of the terrible sequels. American Beauty is a movie that I had a similar reaction to apparently the rest of America: I loved it at the time, but find it has aged remarkably poorly. OK, into that top 5 I referred to above. The Sixth Sense is one of the best blockbuster summer movies ever released and it has a cultural cachet that's top 5 of the decade. American Movie is an amusing and funny and interesting documentary. Notting Hill is one of the top 3 romatic comedies of the decade, and probably the best traditional romcom ever released. It's my second favorite movie of the year. My favorite film of the year, by a fair margin, is Election, which is probably my favorite film of the entire decade. It's really funny and it has great characters & acting. It features what is definitely Reese Witherspoon's best performance, and I'm a big Reese Witherspoon fan so that's definitely saying something.
Underrated: The other top 5 film of the year not referenced above is 10 Things I Hate About You, which manages to be the best teen film of this era thanks to it's sharp and funny dialogue.

Here's the final list, including as a bonus my favorite movies by year for the 2000s
1990: Total Recall
1991: Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
1992: Glengarry Glen Ross
1993: Searching for Bobby Fischer
1994: Quiz Show
1995: Empire Records
1996: Jerry Maguire
1997: LA Confidential
1998: Pleasantville
1999: Election
2000: Keeping the Faith
2001: Amelie
2002: Spy Kids 2/Catch Me If You Can (I can't decide!)
2003: Big Fish
2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2005: Brokeback Mountain (I'll be damned though, if the movies of this year that have provided me the most entertainment and enjoyment aren't Sky High and Just Like Heaven)
2006: High School Musical
2007: Enchanted

Movie Review: Princess

2008-04-21T20:19:00.003-05:00

The Movie: Princess
Channel: ABC Family
Starring: A bunch of people I never heard of, and Eden from Heroes. OK, Kip Pardue and Nora Zehetner

Brief Plot Summary: Princess Ithaca is an eccentric princess who lives on the outskirts of some city or another in America and never leaves her castle. That bugs me. Anyways, she is holding a charity benefit ball, and William, a shiftless Princeton grad whose life has gone nowhere since graduation, attends the ball with his friend, a successful internet businessman who was his classmate at Princeton. He immediately is taken by the princess. So when she auctions off a date and a dance, he outbids everybody with $50,000. During the dance, William says something that catches her, and she is convinced that he is "the searcher". Prodded on by his friend, William plays along with this in order to date the hot princess. But she's really worried, as he only has one week to find whatever it is he's supposed to be looking for. He blows it off and basically takes advantage of her. Eventually, he becomes convinced that there's more to this eccentric princess than meets the eye, and maybe there's something to this "searcher" business after all.

Spoilers, Since Nobody Will Watch This Movie: It turns out Ithaca is "the healer", an important role featured by one person in a generation. Basically her job is to heal mythical creatures that become injured (mermaids, manticore, etc.). Also, at one point a squid, which is not a mythical creature. The problem is she loses her powers when she turns 25, and she needs "the searcher" to help her find the new "healer" and bring her to the castle by sunup on her 25th birthday. But Will, and the audience, don't know this for a while. What happens is Will sees a manticore in her castle. Once Will sees the mythical creatures in her castle he justifiably freaks out and breaks up with her. She explains the above to him in extremely clunky exposition, but he doesn't care. However, eventually he realizes that he is "the searcher" after all and helps Ithaca find the new healer and they end up together and happily ever after.

But wait: Ithaca is an American who lives in America and never leaves her castle. She is definitely not a monarch of any nation. She is a mythical healer. SHE IS NOT A PRINCESS. Yet she is referred to as a princess throughout the movie, she dresses like a princess (in really fancy and expensive clothing that there's no way she could afford since she doesn't have an income producing job), and the movie is called princess. That angers me.

Commentary: Princess is an obvious attempt to cash in on the Enchanted phenomenon, in terms of the way it is presented and marketed, but it is not really all that similar to Enchanted. True, it's about a love story between a mysterious "princess" and a commoner, and it has a complicated mythology, but beyond that there's not much to it.

Here's the thing. I didn't plan on watching this movie, but I tuned in to the first 15 minutes, and the developments therein intrigued me enough to make me want to watch the rest of the movie. I mean, what's "the searcher"? What's the deal with the Princess? Then, for the next hour nothing happens. There's a little bit of development in their relationship but all in all, this is basically a love at first sight thing. So these are two people in young love hanging out with each other and not saying or doing anything interesting. Then, the entire plot of the movie plays out over the last half hour, and a lot of it plays out in a single clunky conversation between Ithaca and Will. It's pretty absurd. The mythology of this movie seems complicated typed out, but there really isn't much to it, and I have to think that they could have pulled this off better.

Then, there's the love story, which is really the point of the movie to start with. The romance is very cute, and the characters are believably in love. I can't point to any specific bad dialogue or anything either. But I found this romance extremely boring. It's kind of a weird experience for me to watch a cute romance play out, while I sit there non heartwarmed and non choked up, even during the big reconciliation. It's good to know that I actually have a filter for this sort of thing; I was really starting to wonder for a while.

What bugs me is that the plot and the idea of this movie are pretty interesting. I'm almost positive that a good movie could be made out of this, if the plot and the romance had been paced better. You wouldn't even need to change the actors! The actress who played Ithaca was cute and did OK for the most part, and the actor who played William was competent. The actors who played William's friends were awful though, they would have to be changed. The point is, there's more than a kernel of a good movie in here.

Final Grade/Comments: I promised myself I would never watch another ABC Family original movie, as I've hated all the ones I've seen. The last one I let myself get hyped up over was Hello Sister, Goodbye Life, which I wrote a review of very early in this blog's life, and it was very disappointing (the movie, not the review). But the way this movie was being marketed in an Enchanted like film had me intrigued. A second rate Enchanted would still be a really good movie. And it could have been one, but this was a real blown opportunity. I can't recommend that anybody watch this movie. Basically, this was a cute movie that I didn't like, and that's saying something. Hmm, let's see, what did I give Hello Sister Goodbye Life? 4/10. That sounds about right for this.

JustMuxtape

2008-04-09T20:02:00.003-05:00

Since the "muxtape" site is popular right now, I decided to make a muxtape for one of my friends who just listens to a lot of indie and alt-country. So basically it's a mix of indie friendly pop. I figured I could post it here, and since this is my blog I'll include commentary. The muxtape is here: http://miserlou22.muxtape.com/. Just click on a song title to listen to the song.

Track List:
1. Amy Diamond - "Domino"
Comment: This my favorite song off of the semi-underrated third Amy Diamond album. And since "Stay My Baby" was just outside my top 10 last year, that means I like it a lot. The album wasn't that good, and it was far inferior to her second album, but it had a few really good tracks, including this driving up-tempo number with a killer chorus. I also like the main instrumental riff a lot.

2. Dido - "Hunter"
Comment: Ah, pleasant, sweet-voiced female music. Will your charms ever cease to grab me? Although I'm not generally a big Dido fan, this is one of my top 5 favorite songs in that "genre" of this decade, and it's definitely my favorite Dido song. It's really pretty and catchy and I like Dido's voice. Basically, it's a better version of "White Flag", which is a pretty good song as is.

3. Natalie Imbruglia - "Intuition"
Comment: I've previously written about this song. It's not my favorite Natalie (it's probably not in my Natalie top 10), but it's really good, and it's the one that fit in best on the mix. The problem is that Natalie's style is so distinctive that she doesn't fit well on a standard mix. It's so sunny! Natalie is usually best in desperate, pretty longing mode, but this is one of her better relentlessly upbeat songs. It's kind of cheesy but I love Natalie and I love this song.

4. Blake Shelton - "She Don't Love Me"
Comment: One of my 10 or 20 favorite songs of last year, but I haven't really talked about it because it was never a single. I really like the central lyrical conceit, and the chorus is very catchy. Plus, Blake gives a great vocal performance.

5. Sheryl Crow - "Can't Cry Anymore"
Comment: This is a standout album track from her first album, Tuesday Night Music Club. The stuttering guitar and rambling, talky melody in the verse makes the song roll along nicely. The song doesn't go anywhere necessarily but it floats into the background, and the lyrics are really weird!

6. Rachel Stevens - "Funky Dory"
7. Darren Hayes - "Crush (1980 Me)"
Comment: I'd imagine that almost anybody reading my blog would already know these two songs. But, I'm sure my friend Rich doesn't know them, and they are two of my favorites of this decade. "Funky Dory" is very sleek and "Crush" is just so unabashedly poppy and catchy. I have found that "Funky Dory" holds up better than any other Rachel Stevens, excepting "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)" and "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex".

8. Miranda Lambert - "Guilty In Here"
Comment: Like the Blake Shelton, this is a superior album track from 2007. Actually, I included it on my top 10 songs of the year list to Poptimists. This was one of the most acclaimed tracks of last year, and I don't have much to add to the acclaim. Miranda is a great singer, and the lyrics to this song are really good. It was the best country song released last year, and one of the top 10 of the decade.

9. Connie Francis - "Stupid Cupid"
Comment: I guess there wasn't really any reason to include this on the mix. But, it's one of my favorite 1950's hits, and I think it sounds really modern compared to most of the stuff that gets played on oldies radio. It has one of the best all time melodies and awesome lyrics! Any pop fan should know this song, it's one of the early songs that set the template for pop music to come.

10. that dog - "Every Time I Try"
Comment: The purpose of this mix was to provide indie friendly pop for my friend to enjoy, but I threw him a bone and included a genuine indie song. That dog were the first band who I ever saw in concert, opening for The Wallflowers, and I loved them when I heard them. This album was one of the very first I ever bought and was one of the first pieces of music I really loved. It's a key part of my musical autobiography. So, obviously I have a very personal connection to it, and I love this driving, pretty ballad. It's probably my third favorite song on the album, behind "Retreat from the Sun" and "Minneapolis" (which is probably my favorite indie rock song of all time). But it's very poppy and has really good piano, even if the indie guitar does get a little tiresome.

11. Jaci Velasquez - "On My Knees"
Comment: I've slowly been reacquainting myself with my past of listening to contemporary Christan music. Most of it wasn't that good, but I've previously repped for a couple ones that hold up (Point of Grace - "Circle of Friends" and Amy Grant). Other than the very best of Amy, this testament to the power of prayer is probably my favorite contemporary Christian song. It's really pretty and Jaci is a really good singer. When she lets her voice loose at the end it's awesome! I love the way the pre-chorus builds up into insanity, and then it flows into the more subdued chorus. But then the chorus gets crazy too! This holds up with the best ballads of Celine and Mariah, and if it wasn't a Christian song I think it would be similarly remembered today.

12. Third Eye Blind - "In The Background"
Comment: I decided to close the mix with my favorite Third Eye Blind song. It's very simple, but, like the title implies, it fades into the background nicely and is pretty and pleasant. I realize that these may sound like insults to some people, but I like those qualities in songs! This is one of the best rock ballads of the 90's.

A Peek through the RD Top 30

2008-04-04T20:18:00.004-05:00

I have not listened to Radio Disney in several months. Checking the top 30 I noticed many songs I haven't heard. Let's see what I'm missing...

1. Jonas Brothers - "When You Look Me In The Eyes"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: Actually, this song has generated some airplay on one of the local top 40 stations, and is slowly climbing up the Billboard Hot 100 (currently #27). And I have absolutely no idea why, cause it sounds pretty damn boring to me. Actually, you know what it sounds like? A teen pop Rascal Flatts. And I don't think anybody needs that. 3/10

2. Miley Cyrus - "See You Again" <--Still no official video! Did I Already Know It: Of course. Review: Yeah, I like the song. 10/10

3. Aly & AJ - "Like Whoa"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This is a superior track from Insomniatic, which was one of my favorite albums of 2007. There's a few other tracks on the album that I like more ("Potential Break Up Song", "Division", "Like It or Leave It"), but this is still a fun and catchy song. Also, I like the video. It's really sassy. This will contend for top 25 of the year. 8/10.

4. Chris Brown - "With You"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This was a Billboard Hot 100 number one hit, and it has crossed over apparently into Radio Disney. This strikes me as a basically mediocre R&B ballad. I dunno why anybody would listen to this over, say, Ne-Yo or "No Air". But it's not bad I suppose. 6/10.

5. Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana - "Rock Star"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: I think this song is pretty good, though not as good as it could be, but the fact that they've gotten this far means that maybe they've dipped a bit too far into the singles well on the Hannah Montana 2 soundtrack. I mean, this is, what, the 8th or 9th single from it? Some songs were just destined to be pretty good album tracks. 7/10.

6. Sara Bareilles - "Love Song"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: People who know my tastes will not be surprised at all to hear that I love this single. It's just that type of sweet piano based female BS that I always seem to go for. And what's more it's one of the best songs of its type in this decade (behind some TashBed and "Breathe (2AM)" and maybe "Whie Flag"). But it's pretty and catchy and has good lyrics and even though it's been ridiculously overplayed it still hasn't really diminished for me. A possible top 10 of the year entrant. Awful video though. 9/10.

7. Taylor Swift - "Teardrops on My Guitar (Pop Remix)"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: I've never been as big a fan of this song as some other people are, and I like the pop remix even less than the original mix. I'm glad it's catching on on pop radio, if that's a sign that it's OK to play country on top 40. But as an actual song it's kinda boring, and the plainly emotional lyrics kinda go nowhere. A little too weepy for me. 6/10.

8. Selena Gomez - "Cruella De Vil"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This is at least the third cover of a "Cruella De Vil" by a Disney actress that I know of (the other two are by Hayden Panettiere and LaLaine). And hey this one's got a little edge to it! I like her singing and the arrangement is pretty catchy. This is a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Still, they should have released a full version of the (totally awesome) theme song to Wizards of Waverly Place first. 7.5/10.

9. Mitchel Musso - "Lean On Me"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: OK, this is the first song on the countdown I have not heard before. And I assume it will be a cover of the classic Bill Withers tune. What I did not expect is that the nerdy kid from Hannah Montana would release a RAP single. And he is a terrible rapper. Holy crap, what a bad idea this was. Not only is this awful, I don't see how anybody could think that it is not awful. This is an embarrassment. 0/10.

10. Miley Cyrus - "Start All Over"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This was my #25 single of 2007, and if anything it was underrated there. Yeah, energetic and catchy and totally shallow. I really like the instrumental riff that plays below the chorus. Really good video too! 8/10.

11. Emily Osment - "I Don't Think About It"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: So this is the fifth single so far out of eleven that is by a star of Hannah Montana. Like the Mitchel I have actually never heard this song. After one listen I'm convinced that it was an outtake from the Hannah Montana 2 recording sessions. It's not bad but it is highly reminiscent of a decent Hannah Montana track, and Emily's voice is not nearly as good as Miley's. Also, the track is incredibly repetitive. Despite all this, it's a decent track thanks to its catchiness. 6/10.

12. Jonas Brothers - "That's Just the Way We Roll"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: This one is certainly upbeat, and I tend to like the uptempo JB songs more than their ballads. And this is supposed to be some kind of band theme song or something? And is that a Hanson bash I hear in the middle? Weird lyrics and pretty lame guitar riff, but the song is catchy and the vocals are decent. I have no desire to ever hear this song again. 5/10

13. Corbin Bleu - "Run It Back Again"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: Generally, I have liked the Corbin Bleu solo career a lot more than I thought I would. And, whoa, this is a dance track! With dance-y vocal effects and everything. This is from that time travel Disney movie starring Jason Dolley that I've already forgotten the name of. But, man, this is not what I expected at all and it's pretty good. Even though I historically have bashed Corbin, his run of pretty good singles continues. Maybe I'll actually listen to his album. 7/10.

14. Raven - "Double Dutch Bus"
Did I Already Know It: No
Review: Ugh, I am not looking forward to this at all. This is a pretty standard R&B/rap song these days, with the exception that it has horrible vocals, apparently no hook. Man, it just noodles on and on with no content for minutes. I admit that I wanted to hate this song going into it, but the song does a pretty good of making me hate it on its own merits. Still it is marginally better than the Mitchel Musso track. 2/10.

15. Jordin Sparks - "Tattoo"
Did I Already Know It: Yes
Review: This was an inescapable radio hit for a few months there, and I've really really grown tired of it. There's not much to the melody or production and, yeah, Jordin's vocals are good but that doesn't go very far any more after 100 listens. It's not the song's fault that it was so overplayed, but I have to call it like I see it. And the way I see it this is a very mediocre track. 4/10.

Part 2 to come later.

29th Annual Young Artist Awards

2008-02-17T14:55:00.003-05:00

American Idol content will start only when the show really starts (i.e. when fan voting kicks in) and no earlier. In the meantime, here's the 29th Annual Young Artist Awards. Full nomination list is available on the YAA wesbsite. I could do actual research here, try to watch all the nominated shows and movies, etc. but I'm going with my extremely ill informed opinions here, lucky you.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Leading Young Actor

Alex Etel
Miles Heizer
Freddie Highmore
Josh Hutcherson
Jacob Kogan
Logan Lerman
Zach Mills
Alex Neuberger
Chris O’Neil
Alejandro Polanco

"The Water Horse"
"Rails & Ties"
"August Rush"
"Bridge to Terabithia"
"Joshua"
"3:10 To Yuma"
"Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium"
"Underdog"
"The Last Mimzy"
"Chop Shop"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Yikes, I was really not up on family films last year. I have never even heard of Joshua, Rails & Ties, or Chop Shop and, of the nominated movies, have only seen 3:10 to Yuma and Bridge to Terabithia. So I guess this is unfair, but my choice is Logan Lerman, who gave the best performance and starred in the best of the nominated films. (Logan is the reigning winner in this category.)

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Leading Young Actress

Gracie Bednarczyk
Abigail Breslin
Isamar Gonzales
Kay Panabaker
Dakota Blue Richards
AnnaSophia Robb
Emma Roberts
Saoirse Ronan

"Grace Is Gone"
"No Reservations"
"Chop Shop"
"Moondance Alexander"
"The Golden Compass"
"Bridge to Terabithia"
"Nancy Drew"
"Atonement"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Egad! This is a really tough category. We can quickly eliminate it down to KPB, AnnaSophia, Emma, and Saiorse, since I have seen none of the other nominated movies. Saiorse is actually nominated for the Academy Award. KPB is the patron saint of this blog (though, due to a lack of wide release I have not actually seen the film in question). AnnaSophia gave a decent performance in a decent film. Emma gave a great performance in a film I loved. Obviously, my choice here is Emma Roberts, though my guess is had I seen Moondance Alexander the choice would be much closer. As much as it hurts me to go against Kay, I can't give an award to somebody in a film I never saw, especially when there's already another great performance in the category.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Supporting Young Actor - Fantasy or Drama

Alex Ferris
Dillon Freasier
Soren Fulton
Jordan Garrett
Devon Gearhart
Bailey Hughes
Leon G. Thomas III

"The Invisible"
"There Will Be Blood"
"South of Pico"
"Death Sentence"
"Canvas"
"Good Time Max"
"August Rush"

TCR Endorsed Selection: They didn't split this category last year, and God only knows why they split it up into "Fantasy or Drama" vs. "Comedy" this year. I'd think Fantasy is a lot closer to Comedy than Drama, but whatever. I have not heard of a single one of these nominated films except There Will Be Blood, which I didn't see. N/A

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Supporting Young Actor - Comedy or Musical

Max Baldry
Jimmy Bennett
Zachary Gordon
Dylan McLaughlin
Graham Phillips
Ed Sanders

"Mr. Bean’s Holiday"
"Evan Almighty"
"Georgia Rule"
"Georgia Rule"
"Evan Almighty"
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Ed Sanders. He gave an excellent performance in one of my favorite films of the year. An easy choice.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Supporting Young Actress

Jasmine Jessica Anthony
Courtney Taylor Burness
Hannah Lochner
Taylor Momsen
Jamia Simone Nash
Keke Palmer
Kristen Stewart

"1408"
"Premonition"
"Firehouse Dog"
"Underdog"
"August Rush"
"Cleaner"
"Into the Wild"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Can I just say that I don't understand these categories at all? Why is supporting young actor the only one that's split up? I don't get it... Anyways, though I once again haven't seen any of the films, in the absence of other indicators I'm going to give this to Keke Palmer, who I've liked a lot in everything I've seen her in. Unfair I suppose but that's how I roll.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Young Actor Aged 10 or Under

Nicholas Art
Micah Berry
Jackson Bond
Bobby Coleman
Nathan Gamble
Samuel Garland
Dakota Goyo
Jeremy Karson
Austin Williams

"The Nanny Diaries"
"Things We Lost in the Fire"
"The Invasion"
"Martian Child"
"The Mist"
"The Reaping"
"Resurrecting the Champ"
"Music & Lyrics"
"Michael Clayton"

TCR Endorsed Selection: In contrast to other categories, this category features three films from last year that I genuinely loved. Two made my top 10 list and the third ("Michael Clayton") would have except I forgot about it. None of the three actors had particularly memorable or important roles in their respective movies, but ultimately, Nathan Gamble gave the best performance, in my opinion.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Young Actress Aged 10 or Under

Rachel Covey
Bailee Madison
Megan McKinnon
Madison Pettis
Willow Smith
Rhiannon Leigh Wryn

"Enchanted"
"Bridge to Terabithia"
"Project Grey"
"The Game Plan"
"I Am Legend"
"The Last Mimzy"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Rachel Covey gives a good performance in my favorite film of the last few years. This is a no brainer.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURE FILM/Young Ensemble Cast
Bridge to Terabithia
Daddy Day Camp
The Last Mimzy
Nancy Drew

TCR Endorsed Selection: HMM, I really wonder. Nancy Drew. Note that Kay Panabaker and Amy Bruckner are included in the young ensemble cast for this, even though they have less than 5 minutes of screen time apiece, which means that I get to support both Emma and Kay here. Yay!

(I am skipping here various awards related to international films, short films, and TV movies/miniseries. Between the 6 categories I haven't heard of a single one of the actors or films nominated, so it's probably better to save space.)

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Leading Young Actor

Keir Gilchrist
Noah Gray-Cabey
Carter Jenkins
Jamie Johnston
Angus T. Jones
Sean Keenan
Kyle Massey
Devon Werkheiser
Tyler James Williams

"The Winner"
"Heroes"
"Viva Laughlin"
"Degrassi: The Next Generation"
"Two And A Half Men"
"Lockie Leonard"
"Corey In The House"
"Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide"
"Everybody Hates Chris"

TCR Endorsed Selection: I watch a lot more TV than movies so I'm more qualified on these categories. I've seen all the nominated shows except Viva Laughlin and Lockie Leonard (what the hell?). While I'm not crazy about any of the nominated performances, my opinion is that the best choice is Jamie Johnston. Heroes is the best nominated show, but Noah is kinda annoying. Kyle Massey is the reigning winner in this category, but his casual smugness has become kind of grating over time. The others are basically forgettable. That makes Jamie a default choice as much as anything, but he does a good job and would be a fine winner.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Leading Young Actress

Rhyon Nicole Brown
Miranda Cosgrove
Miley Cyrus
Chloe Greenfield
Emma Roberts
Jamie Lynn Spears

"Lincoln Heights"
"iCarly"
"Hannah Montana"
"ER"
"Unfabulous"
"Zoey 101"

TCR Endorsed Selection: My opinion is that the best choice would be Emma Roberts and if I really still have to explain that at this point then my blog truly has been a failure. (Miranda Cosgrove is quite good and Miley is improving, Emma is still way better. I would liked to have seen Selena Gomez nominated here.)

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Supporting Young Actor

Dean Collins
Jason Dolley
Alexander Gould
Mitch Holleman
Mark Indelicato
Nathan Kress
Daniel Magder
Vincent Martella
Aidan Mitchell
Slade Pearce

"The War at Home"
"Corey in the House"
"Weeds"
"Reba"
"Ugly Betty"
"iCarly"
"Life With Derek"
"Everybody Hates Chris"
"The Riches"
"October Road"

TCR Endorsed Selection: For a category with such a bloated number of nominees, there's not much to get excited over here. Jason Dolley is a Read It and Weep alum, which normally would get him a ton of bonus points, but he stars on a show that's one of the worst on TV. Daniel Magder is a part of a cast I've previously professed to like a lot, but he's the weak link among the kids. The best choice here is Nathan Kress, who does a fine job on iCarly, a mediocre show.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Supporting Young Actress

Taylor Atelian
Malese Jow
Tinashe Kachingwe
Jennette McCurdy
Mary Matilyn Mouser
Adair Tishler

"According to Jim"
"Unfabulous"
"Out of Jimmy's Head"
"iCarly"
"Life Is Wild"
"Heroes"

TCR Endorsed Selection: This is one of the weakest categories yet. Malese Jow is a weird nomination, her bad performance is one of the few things that I hate about Unfabulous. Jennette McCurdy is, similarly, the weak link in a pretty good cast. Fortunately, Adair Tishler is here and she's a cutie and gives a great performance as Molly Walker. She's the biggest winner yet in any category.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Young Actor Age 10 or Younger

Lorenzo Brino
Nikolas Brino
Joseph Castanon
Field Cate
Khamani Griffin
Trevor Gagnon
Dylan Minnette
Conner Rayburn

"7th Heaven"
"7th Heaven"
"I Hate My 30's"
"Pushing Daisies"
"All of Us"
"New Adventures of Old Christine"
"Saving Grace"
"According to Jim"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Oh my god the Brinos are nominated! I'm reasonably certain that the Brinos are, in fact, the worst young actors age 10 or younger on TV and how the hell would you distinguish between them anyways? Can I go with an N/A here? I hate the young Ned scenes on Pushing Daisies, the Brino twins are horrible and I haven't seen any of the other nominated shows. (I saw one episode of I Hate My 30's, apparently Joseph Castanon did not feature in that episode.)

No award for young actress aged 10 or under! Sexual discrimination alert!

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Guest Starring Young Actor

Cameron Bright
Chandler Canterbury
Nicholas Elia
Dylan Everett
Colin Ford
Soren Fulton
Dominic Scott Kay
Quinn Lord
Justin Martin
Dylan Patton
Colby Paul
Cole Petersen
Remy Thorne

"The 4400" (ep:'Wrath of Graham')
"Criminal Minds" (ep:'In Birth and Death')
"Supernatural" (ep:'The Kids Are Alright')
"The Dresden Files" (ep:'Birds of a Feather')
"Journeyman" (ep:'Blowback')
"Bones" (ep:'The Priest in the Churchyard')
"Navy NCIS" (ep:'Lost & Found')
"Smallville" (ep:'Bizarro')
"Cold Case" (ep:'It Takes a Village')
"Cold Cas"e (ep:'Blackout')
"Pushing Daisies" (ep:'Corpsicle')
"CSI: Miami" (ep:'Stand Your Ground')
"Criminal Minds" (ep:'Revelations')

TCR Endorsed Selection: Cameron Bright was good in his guest role on The 4400, in one of the best episodes of the season, and he definitely deserves the trophy.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Guest Starring Young Actress

Jasmine Jessica Anthony
Jenna Boyd
Darcy Rose Byrnes
Conchita Campbell
Bailee Madison
Ashlyn Sanchez
Bella Thorne

"Ugly Betty" (ep:'Something Wicked This Way Comes')
"Ghost Whisperer" (ep:'Children of Ghosts')
"Cold Case" (ep:'A Dollar, A Dream')
"Supernatural" (ep:'Playthings')
"House" (ep:'Act Your Age')
"Without a Trace" (ep:'Desert Springs')
"The O.C." (ep:'The Case of the Franks')

TCR Endorsed Selection: The only one of these I specifically recognize is that actress from House, and I see nothing about her performance that is award worthy. I'm giving this to Conchita Campbell in general principle, even though I've never seen and barely even heard of Supernatural.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Recurring Young Actor

Jake Cherry
Marc Donato
Caden Michael Gray
Mick Hazen
Dominic Janes
Ty Panitz
Connor Price
K'Sun Ray
Will Shadley
Cainan Wiebe
Calum Worthy

"Desperate Housewives"
"Degrassi: The Next Generation"
"Out of Jimmy's Head"
"As the World Turns"
"ER"
"Bones"
"The Dead Zone"
"Smith"
"Dirty Sexy Money"
"Sanctuary"
"Psych"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Hard to say. The young Psych scenes are much more entertaining than the young Pushing Daisies scenes, and it only seems fair to give some of that credit to Calum Worthy. Yeah, he's my pick.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES/Recurring Young Actress

Kristen Alderson
Rachel G. Fox
Danielle Hanratty
Sammi Hanratty
Chloe Grace Moretz
Ryan Newman
Christina Robinson
Darcy Rose Byrnes
Erin Sanders
Christian Serratos
Alyson Stoner
Kylie & Keaton Tyndall

"One Life to Live"
"Desperate Housewives"
"The Unit"
"The Suite Life of Zack and Cody"
"Dirty Sexy Money"
"Hannah Montana"
"Dexter"
"The Young and the Restless"
"Zoey 101"
"Neds Declassified School Survival Guide"
"The Suite Life of Zack and Cody"
"Big Love"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Ryan Newman plays young Miley on Hannah Montana, in a few episodes. Her performance is completely forgettable, but she's a real cutie-pie, so I can't really argue with giving her the award here in an apparently really weak category.

BEST YOUNG ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE IN A TV SERIES
Hannah Montana
The Naked Brothers Band
Out of Jimmy's Head
Unfabulous
The Wizards of Waverly Place
Zoey 101

TCR Endorsed Selection: OK, this is a really hard category, and it's complicated by the fact that two of the strongest nominees (NBB and Wizards) received no individual nominations, while all 3 main actors for iCarly were nominated and it was shut out here. Zoey 101 (the two time reigning champ in this category) and Out of Jimmy's Head are instant eliminees, because I really dislike Zoey and have never seen OOJH. After that it's really close. Similar to last year, I'm eliminating Unfabulous because the supporting cast isn't good enough. I'll eliminate NBB because it's just not quite good enough. Hannah just has too many annoying cast members (ugh, Rico and Oliver) to qualify here. My opinion is that the newcomer Wizards of Waverly Place is the best choice here. Bad joke writing brings down the overall quality of the show, but I'm a big fan of the young cast, and the show does have some potential.

(Skipping two categories for voice overs that I have no idea about.)

BEST FAMILY TELEVISION MOVIE or SPECIAL

"High School Musical"
"The Last Day of Summer"
"Naked Brothers Band: The Movie"
"You've Got A Friend"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Um, perhaps they mean High School Musical 2? It deserves to win regardless.

BEST FAMILY TELEVISION SERIES

"Hannah Montana"
"Life Is Wild"
"The Naked Brothers Band"
"Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide"
"Out of Jimmy's Head"
"The Winner"
"Zoey 101"

TCR Endorsed Selection: No surprise here that my choice in this category is Hannah Montana. Unfabulous still shoulda been nominated. (Last year this category was split into comedy and drama, this year all the nominees are comedies.)

BEST FAMILY TELEVISION REALITY SHOW, GAME SHOW or DOCUMENTARY

"Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"
"Endurance"
"Kid Nation"
"My Life as a Child"
"Who Cares About Girls?"

TCR Endorsed Selection: This is a new category this year, and it's a weird one. I've never heard of My Life as a Child or Who Cares About Girls?, but the best choice here among the shows I know is Endurance, and I like it enough that I suspect it would be the choice regardless.

(skip categories on short and international films)

BEST FAMILY FEATURE FILM (Animation)

"Bee Movie"
"Meet the Robinsons"
"Ratatouille"
"Surf's Up"

TCR Endorsed Selection: Ratatouille is the best movie and it will win.

BEST FAMILY FEATURE FILM (Fantasy or Musical)

"Alvin and the Chipmunks"
"Bridge to Terabithia"
"The Golden Compass"
"Underdog"
"The Water Horse"

TCR Endorsed Selection: I saw only one of these films (Bridge to Terabithia), and it wasn't good enough for me to say it deserves an award. So, N/A.

BEST FAMILY FEATURE FILM (Comedy or Drama)

"August Rush"
"Evan Almighty"
"Firehouse Dog"
"Hairspray"
"The Last Mimzy"
"Martian Child"
"Nancy Drew"

TCR Endorsed Selection: It's so obvious that I'm gonna pick Nancy Drew here that I'm going to bitch about the categories instead of justifying it. WHY IS BEST SUPPORING YOUNG ACTOR SPLIT INTO FANTASY OR DRAMA AND COMEDY OR MUSICAL AND BEST PICTURE SPLIT INTO FANTASY OR MUSICAL AND COMEDY OR DRAMA? WHY GOD WHY?

Movie Review: 27 Dresses

2008-02-02T21:48:00.000-05:00

Note: Allow me to recommend this thoughtful general column on romantic comedies, which I strongly agree with. I wrote a very similar article for this blog (here) in which basically I argue that people don't who don't enjoy romantic comedies don't really want to or know how to enjoy them. It's one of the few articles I've written for this blog that I'm actually proud of. But this guy makes several points that I was trying to make in my article and does it more briefly and articulately than I did. (And makes a lot of points that I didn't make at all).

The Movie: 27 Dresses
Starring: Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Judy Greer, Edward Burns, Malin Akerman

This review contains spoilers, but there's not really anything to spoil, so...

Brief Plot Summary: Jane (Katherine Heigl), a woman who has been a bridesmaid in 27 different weddings, is the type of doormat-ish woman who will do anything to please people. She is in love with her boss, George (Edward Burns), who she serves as an assistant to. Unfortunately her sister Tess (Malin Akerman) meets and falls in love with George, and after a brief courtship they are engaged to be married, with Jane of course serving as the maid of honor. In the meantime, Jane has met Kevin Doyle (James Marsden), who writes a wedding column in the newspaper which she adores. Jane is initially put off by his cynical worldview and his creepy, stalkerish behavior. Throughout the course of several wacky happenings, they manage to fall in love. Also, Kevin is writing an article about her for the newspaper, unbeknownst to her. And all the while she is miserable and planning her sister's wedding to the man she secretly loves!

Commentary: 27 Dresses fits in the category of romantic comedies which are attempting to be cute and very romantic (e.g. Music and Lyrics), rather than romantic comedies which are basically comedy movies with a love story (e.g. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days). Since this is one of my favorite types of movies (if not my favorite type of movie outright), I was very much looking forward to it. And you know what, it was extremely cute. And Katherine Heigl was a very good lead and had good chemistry with James Marsden. I also really enjoyed the set-up with Katherine being the perpetual bridesmaid (unrealistic though it may be that she was a bridesmaid 27 times). Further, there were several excellent scenes and lines in the movie (I particularly enjoyed the scene where Jane tried on all her bridesmaid dresses for Kevin). Unfortunately, though, I had several problems with the movie:

The movie takes a very long time to get going. It's almost halfway through the movie before Jane and Kevin start to warm to each other. The rest of the movie is spent on set up that is partially necessary but it also partially overkill. I get that she's a doormat and that she resents her sister and that she loves her boss well before they give up on hammering those points home. Unfortunately, the end result of this is that the ending is very rushed. Her reconciliation with her sister was unbelievably pat and silly ("You ruined my life, but it's OK, for really no reason whatsoever.") As much as I love romcoms, it perpetually annoys me that they fail to acknowledge that bad choices and irrational actions have real and long-lasting consequences. The scene when she quits her job and realizes her boss takes her for granted could have and should have been very satisfying too, but it just goes by too fast and without believable prompting.

One thing that actually isn't a casualty of the rushed nature of the ending is the reconciliation scene between her and Kevin. They spent plenty of time on this, but it still rang hollow to me, and my guess is that it's because they were together onscreen too little throughout the rest of the movie. The pacing of the building romance, perfect in say Notting Hill or Just Like Heaven, was totally off here. It stuttered and jerked around and suddenly they are in love, just like that. They also could have done better than the scene at the boat wedding, which was too unrealistic, even for a movie like this.

I hate to even bring this up, but I did feel the movie was a little too familiar. I can make do with a lot of cliched scenes in a romantic comedy, but the plot to this movie was almost a direct ripoff of You've Got Mail, not to mention the obvious similarity to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Also, Edward Burns was terrible in this movie, and did not make me believe either Jane's crush on him or his romance with Tess.

I think the real problem with this movie is that it's overstuffed. The triple redemption plot with Jane, trying to connect with her sister, realizing that her boss takes her for granted and she needs to move on with her crush, and falling in love with Kevin is too much for the movie to handle. All three are related and have related themes/interconnect in the plot, but if I was controlling the movie I would take out the boss/work element entirely and just focus on the fact that her sister is marrying the guy she loves and that she's falling in love with Kevin at the same time. The boss element distracts and takes time away that I feel would have been better spent elsewhere.

I really don't want to sound too negative here, because I did enjoy the movie and I think it's worth watching. The scenes where Katherine and James are on screen together and tolerating each other sparkle. Judy Greer is very funny as Katherine Heigl's best friend. The costuming on the bridesmaid dresses was often extremely amusing. Ultimately, the movie is very cute and pleasant, and I don't mean that as an insult at all. (In fact, "cute" is one of the highest compliments I give to a movie.)

Final Grade/Comments: The reason that I've reviewed hardly any romantic comedies in this blog is because most of it comes down to: Did the love story grab me or not. It should be clear from the above that the love story never really grabbed me in the way that it does in the best romcoms. Even though this is a very personal thing, and I'm sure the love story really kicked butt to some people, I hope I've done a good job above explaining WHY the love story didn't hit me as much it could have. This movie disappointed me, but only to the extent that I thought it would be an outstanding romantic comedy and it was merely an above average one. It's going for cute and romantic, and it nails the cute but whiffs on the romantic. My brain is saying 6/10, but my heart says it was cute enough to earn an extra point, so 7/10. But be warned, this is one only for real romantic comedy fans and cute movie junkies, like myself.

Presented Without Comment: 5 Star Songs

2008-01-22T18:16:00.001-05:00

This is a list of all songs I have rated five stars out of five on iTunes, corresponding to a 10/10 on a normal scale. Biased towards more recent songs 'cause that's what I have on my iTunes, biased against bands I already own albums of and haven't yet ripped (e.g. I have 0 Magnetic Fields mp3's. If I had ripped all their albums there would be at least 2 or 3 on here), etc.

A*Teens - "Floorfiller"
Adam & The Ants - "Stand and Deliver"
Alcazar - "This Is the World We Live In"
Aly & AJ - "Not This Year"
Aly & AJ - "Potential Break Up Song"
Aly & AJ - "Rush"
Amy Diamond - "Don't Cry Your Heart Out"
Amy Diamond - "All the Money in the World"
Amy Grant - "Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)"
Anna Nalick - "Breathe (2 AM)"
Aqua - "Lollipop (Candyman)"
Ashlee Simpson - "Boyfriend"
Avril Lavigne - "The Best Damn Thing"
The Backstreet Boys - "I Want It That Way"
The Beatles - "Blackbird"
The Beatles - "Hello Goodbye"
Beyonce - "Irreplaceable"
Bicycle - "Female Urologist"
Big & Rich - "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy"
Big Star - "The Ballad of El Goodo"
Bis - "X-Defect"
Blackalicious - "If I May"
Bob Dylan - "Isis"
Bon Jovi - "You Give Love a Bad Name"
Britney Spears - "...Baby, One More Time"
Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats"
Cassie - "Turn the Lights Off"
Celine Dion - "It's All Coming Back to Me Now"
Charlie Rich - "Behind Closed Doors"
Cheap Trick - "Southern Girls"
Christina Aguilera - "Genie in a Bottle"
Daft Punk - "Digital Love"
Deana Carter - "Strawberry Wine"
Depeche Mode - "Just Can't Get Enough"
Destiny's Child - "Survivor"
Duran Duran - "Come Undone"
Dusty Springfield - "I Only Wanna Be With You"
The Eagles - "Take It to the Limit"
Eminem - "The Real Slim Shady"
Eminem - "Stan"
Eric Prydz - "Call On Me"
Fleetwood Mac - "Go Your Own Way"
Frank Sinatra - "Be Careful, It's My Heart"
Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
Fred Astaire - "Cheek to Cheek"
Garth Brooks - "The Thunder Rolls"
George McCrae - "Rock Your Baby"
Guided By Voices - "Echoes Myron"
Hilary Duff - "Come Clean"
The Human League - "Don't You Want Me"
The Human League - "Human"
Ivanushki International - "Gde Ti"
Ivanushki International - "Tucci"
Joe Jackson - "It's Different For Girls"
Jonathan Richman - "When Harpo Played His Harp"
Katrina & The Waves - "Walking on Sunshine"
Kelly Clarkson - "Behind These Hazel Eyes"
King Missile - "Jesus Was Way Cool"
Kylie Minogue - "Love at First Sight"
Led Zeppelin - "Black Dog"
Lee Ann Womack - "I'll Think of a Reason Later"
Lee Ann Womack - "I May Hate Myself in the Morning"
Len - "Steal My Sunshine"
Lillix - "Sweet Temptation (Hollow)"
Madonna - "Live to Tell"
Mariah Carey - "All I Want for Christmas Is You"
Martina McBride - "Independence Day"
Martina McBride - "This One's for the Girls"
Marvin Gaye - "T Plays It Cool"
Michelle Branch - "Everywhere"
Miley Cyrus - "See You Again"
Mint Royale - "Don't Falter"
Mint Royale ft. Pos - "Show Me"
Miranda Lambert - "Kerosene"
Monica - "The First Night"
The Mountain Goats - "Going to Georgia"
Mya - "My Love Is Like...Wo"
Nancy Sinatra - "These Boots Were Made for Walking"
Natalie Imbruglia - "Torn"
Natasha Bedingfield - "I Wanna Have Your Babies"
Natasha Bedingfield - "Unwritten"
The New Pornographers - "Letter from an Occupant"
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
No Doubt - "Don't Speak"
Outkast - "Bombs Over Baghdad"
Paul Simon - "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard"
Pet Shop Boys - "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)"
Pink - "Just Like a Pill"
Prince - "Little Red Corvette"
Rachel Stevens - "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)"
Rachel Stevens - "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex"
Rancid - "Maxwell Murder"
The Rolling Stones - "Jumping Jack Flash"
Roxette - "Listen to Your Heart"
Sara Evans - "Suds in the Bucket"
Sean Paul - "Get Busy"
Sheryl Crow - "My Favorite Mistake"
Sheryl Crow - "If It Makes You Happy"
The Shirelles - "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow"
Shooter Jennings - "4th of July"
Songs: Ohia - "Farewell Transmission"
Spoon - "The Underdog"
T-Rex - "Hot Love"
t.A.t.U. - "Cosmos (Outer Space)"
That Dog - "Minneapolis"
Thelma Houston - "Don't Leave Me This Way"
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "Don't Come Around Here No More"
The Tornadoes - "Telstar"
Wham! ft. George Michael - "Careless Whisper"
The White Stripes - "Fell in Love with a Girl"
The Zombies - "Tell Her No"
50 Cent - "In Da Club"

Guilty Pleasures: Amy Grant

2008-01-07T23:06:00.000-05:00

I almost always rail against the concept of a guilty pleasure. After all, I like what I like, and if I do like it that's cause I think it has merit and is good. If somebody asks me what I like I answer honestly. I'm not ashamed of my tastes. Nevertheless, even I fall prey to the guilty pleasure siren sometimes. There are some things that are just so far that even I feel guilty for liking them. In this new (possibly) ongoing feature, I will explore the things that make even me, an avowed lover of teen pop and romantic comedies guilty for liking. This feature has 2 main purposes:

1) Admitting what I love so that I can get the big secret off my chest.
2) Trying to convince other people to like them, so I don't have to feel guilty about them.

Up first is AMY GRANT.

Amy Grant is one of my favorite singers of all time. I've liked Amy Grant so much and for so long that I've almost forgotten that I'm supposed to feel guilty about it. Nevertheless, I would never admit to somebody in real life that I like her, and I don't really feel comfortable stating it on this blog. But it's all coming out right now.

Back in high school when I used to listen to a lot of Christian music Amy Grant was one of my favorites, and she's one of the only artists who I feel has held up well today. Even though it's her pop music phase that would probably have the most cred among pop fans today, actually it's still her religious music that I like the most. Her first three albums consisted of kind of incredibly cheesy Nashville type production, and overwrought lyrics and vocals. They are truly horrible. A typical example is "My Father's Eyes", which is today known (by me) to be the worst song ever put to record.

Just listen to the incredible cheesiness to this, the horrible pop-country backing, etc. This is the type of song that I believe people think of when they think about Amy Grant and contemporary Christian music in general, and it's so unfair! Even though it's not like the rest of her career is a bastion of non-cheesy music, she has many other better songs than this.
Her career turned around, from a quality standpoint, starting with 1982's Age to Age, her most successful and best album she had released to date (the fact that it was released on the year of my birth is probably a coincidence). For example, listen to this song from the album, "I Have Decided", which manages to incorporate country elements and be explictly religious in a much less cheesy way than "My Father's Eyes". The key is, the lyrics here focus on her religious beliefs themselves, rather than her and others' reactions to those beliefs. By a huge margin, I prefer that variety of Christian song. And vocally, she just cuts loose and does the song well.

But not just that song, there are several other all time classics on this album, which remains one of my favorites of the 1980's. "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" incorporates classical and hymn elements to make a raucously catchy praise songs. "Thy Word" has very cheesy production but it has lyrics that are earnest in a good way and Amy knocks the vocals right out of the park. She's one of the all time great pop singers and I think this one demonstrates why. She's got a great tone to her voice and she shows good restraint for somebody with her abilities. I just love the way the song charges along. (Correction: "Thy Word" is on Straight Ahead not Age to Age. I should have broken out the albums before I wrote this!) But the album's real classic, is "El Shaddai". It's just so pretty, with the strings and the melody and what not!

I mean, the fact that the lyrics to all these songs are explictly Christian doesn't even really register with me at all. I just love the fact that they have classically great melodies and that Amy is a great singer who really sells what she's singing because she believes it. Whether I also believe it or not is basically immaterial, as far as I am concerned.

Even though Age to Age is my favorite Amy Grant album, by no means does it represent all of her good work. 1988's Lead Me On is frequently praised as her best album. It's a very good album that features great songs throughout and is great for having in the background while working and whatnot and great for listening to and relaxing. It just doesn't have much to compare to the hits that Age to Age. What it does have is "Saved By Love", arguably her best song, with its very catchy layered melody on the chorus and increasingly more countryish production. The title song also soars, in a way many pop songs attempt but few succeed at, though the electric guitars are so 80's. It's not hard to tell, though, that this is much more of a pop crossover album than Age to Age was. It's more of just a general pop album which happens to have Christian lyrics, and it lacks much of the originality and great variety of Age to Age. I think it sacrifices a lot of what I love about her for a slicker pop sound, and it loses something for that, though it is a great pop album on its own merits.

(Her other very successful song from this era is "Find a Way", which is a very cheesy and big pop song that doesn't hold up very well at all, though it's not a bad song I suppose.)

After Lead Me On, then, came Heart in Motion, which is her successful secular cross-over album that basically changed everything. I mean, it's not that "Baby Baby", "Every Heartbeat", and "Good For Me" are bad songs (I like all three, especially "Every Heartbeat"), it's just that there's nothing "Amy Grant" about them. They just sound like generic late 80's/early 90's pop hits and they could just as easily have been sung by Taylor Dayne. I mean, where's the country edge, the earnest lyrics, the fearless delivery? It's all gone, replaced by sheen and gloss and boringness. It's right back to the cheesy semi-religious dross of "My Father's Eyes", though dressed up by better songs. I don't want to sound too negative here, I mean Heart In Motion is one of the best if not THE actual best albums of its type. "Every Heartbeat" was on the 90's hits mix CD I made a couple months ago. It's just that it's not what I know she's capable of. (But, yes, it's better than Grace).

After all this, years later, she has now returned to both her country and her religious roots, by releasing a couple of albums of country arrangements of classic hymns. They are extremely beautiful and I highly recommend them. I even once won a Poptimists orga-fun contest with one of them ("Come Thou Font Of Every Blessing"), which is probably my best accomplishment on that group.

All of this is not even mentioning 1992's Home for Christmas, which is my favorite Christmas album of all time and which features "Breath of Heaven", possibly my favorite Christmas song of all time. I mean, one amazing original, and Amy's beautiful voice dressing up a surprisingly good selection of Christmas carols? Yes, please. It's also packed with some of the best production and arrangements of her career. It's far better than any of the stuff I reviewed last X-mas. In fact, in many ways this is the best Amy Grant album.

So, why Amy Grant? Why does she hold up so much better than other religious music? It's the earnestness, the smoothness of Amy's voice, the great pop melodies, and the light touches of country. And also, it's that she's singing about her beliefs and God directly rather than cheesy stuff about how happy she is and how much she loves God and etc., etc. It's just somebody stating their beliefs. I find the music relaxing and comforting and beautiful. But yet, I just can't admit that I like a contemporary Christian music artist.

List of Greg's 5 Favorite Amy Grant Songs:

1. "Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)" - This is one of my 100 favorite songs of all time, thanks to a killer piano hook and an extremely pretty melodies and a great vocal performance.
2. "Saved By Love" - One of her best pure melodies, and the arrangement for once isn't too cheesy. And the lyrics are really beautiful. Has been known to make me tear up. Just not as pretty as the above.
3. "El Shaddai" - Her biggest classic and like "Breath of Heaven" it's a really pretty song with a nice piano sound.
4. "I Have Decided" - A real stomper with a great pounding rhythm and tempo in the chorus.
5. "Every Hearbeat" - OK, I have a soft spot for it.
Bonus #6: "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" - Her catchiest song, but not as moving as her best work.

Top 10 TV Shows of 2007

2008-01-03T21:17:00.000-05:00

Based only on their televised output during the calendar year 2007.

Top 10 TV Shows of 2007

1. Friday Night Lights (NBC)
2. Pushing Daisies (ABC)
3. How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
4. The 4400 (USA)
5. House (Fox)
6. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)
7. Unfabulous (Nickelodeon)
8. Greek (ABC Family)
9. 30 Rock (NBC)
10. The World Series of Pop Culture (VH1)

Comments: I do not get Showtime or HBO and have not seen any of their shows except Entourage, which everybody including me agrees has gone way downhill. I don't like Lost, although I've seen every episode of the show. It has some weird grip on me. My relationship to that show is complicated and I'm not getting into it here. Suffice to say it was not close to making the list. Heroes WAS close to making the list, but its fate was sealed by a mediocre first season finale and a mediocre start to season 2. It's been a weak stretch for reality shows. This has been a pretty boring season of The Real World, excepting Isaac, and have Made or True Life even made any new episodes? I don't buy that American Idol is losing its spark, I still like it but it just didn't quite make the cut. How Do I Look, on the other hand, has totally lost its spark. Hannah Montana just not quite good enough to make the cut, I've been a little disappointed by it lately, though it is cute. I enjoy all of the original series on USA. Burn Notice was the closest to making the list, with its slick and easy charm. Call it number 11 or number 12. Psych is a funny show with no substance that has managed to leave absolutely no lasting impact on me. I like the show more than what Monk has become anyways, though I'm still loving Traylor Howard and looking forward to seeing what she does after she leaves the sinking ship.

Now, as to what did make the list: I agree that FNL has gone a slight bit downhill this season, but it had a big perch to fall from, and the amazing second half of season 1 plus a still good first half of season 2 are good enough to push it to the top. Pushing Daisies is my favorite new show in a while and it only isn't #1 because it's had half as many episodes as FNL. If it can hold it up it will climb to the top. As of right now, I'm completely and totally enamored of almost every aspect of the show. A similar reaction as the one I had to Joan of Arcadia, though obviously of a much smaller magnitude. How I Met Your Mother might have topped this list had "Slap Bet" been released during 2007. Alas, it's December 2006. Still, though, the second half of season 2 and first half of season 3 have been amazing, far better than season 1 was.

The 4400 topped this list last year and fell 3 slots. Actually, I thought this was the best season yet, ending on an awesome cliffhanger (if it gets canceled I'll cut somebody), probably the best episode of any show during 2007. Unless the FNL finale was better. Hmm. It was simply passed up by a show I had never seen at year end 2006, a show that didn't exist yet at year end 2006, and a show that has leaped to the next level since year end 2006. No shame in that. House followed up a mediocre/bad third season with a fourth season that has been a huge step up. Probably my favorite show right now, but those terrible third season episodes were during this year too. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia continues to be the funniest show on TV, but this season was spottier than the previous 2 and it's possible the formula is starting to wear a bit thin.

The last season of Unfabulous did the show proud. It went out on a bang and I'm very happy for that. Greek was a really awesome trashy summer show. It's one of the most entertaining shows on TV, with truly likable characters and fun plots. Nothing could make me happier than seeing it gain an audience. 30 Rock is a very funny show that I rarely take the effort to watch for some reason. I always like it when I watch it but it has failed to have a lasting impact. Still, I like what I've seen enough to rank it here. The World Series of Pop Culture is an immensely entertaining game show, even if they did leave team Cheaper By The Cousin in the cold.

Top 10 Movies of 2007

2008-01-03T21:05:00.000-05:00

Here is my completely meaningless top 10 movies of 2007 list.

Top 10 Movies of 2007

1. Enchanted
2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
3. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
4. The Bourne Ultimatum
5. No Country for Old Men
6. Catch and Release
7. Superbad
8. The Mist
9. Nancy Drew
10. Music & Lyrics

Comments: I still have not seen literally any movie that will contend for an Oscar except No Country For Old Men. I usually like a few of the Oscar contenders, so take this with a grain of salt. Basically if you are wondering where almost any movie on this list is, there's a pretty good chance I have not seen it.

Enchanted should be an extremely unsurprising number one. The more I think about it the more the ending bothers me, but it has to be at #1 in deference to my reaction to the film on watching it. This is the film romance that's affected me the most of any film romance in a while. I don't expect other people to have the same reaction to it that I did, but I'm going with my gut here.

Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite musicals and Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors. I think most of his cuts and changes benefited the movie, though it was too gory for me at parts. I just looked away. The King of Kong was the most compelling story of the year, and there are accusations that it has played a little loose with the facts but they don't bother me. An extremely fascinating character story, and whatever changes they made ramped up the drama and entertainment so good for them. The Bourne Ultimatum was a very skillfully made and plotted action movie.

No Country For Old Men is over-rated but still very good. I still think the last half hour or so was boring and silly. Catch and Release was a bit of a missed opportunity, but it was well acted and had a good love story and made me laugh so it ranks high anyways. Superbad was very funny and easily the best of the recent Apatow comedies, even though the humor was frequently a bit too vulgar for my tastes. I never got the feeling that the movie had no point, which was the feeling I couldn't shake all throughout Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin. The Mist was a well made thriller with a fun anti-fundamentalist Christian message. It built suspense very well and paid the suspense off with well-designed demon creatures. Nancy Drew was an Emma Roberts showcase and I loved it for that if nothing else (OK, I definitely loved it for that and nothing else). The mystery part wasn't very interesting. Music and Lyrics was a fun throwaway romantic comedy. I like leaving slots open for all style no substance movies that entertained me and this was the best of those this year (depending on how much substance you attribute to Enchanted).

Top 10 Albums of 2007

2008-01-03T20:45:00.000-05:00

I'm positive that my top 10 albums and movies will change over the next couple months, as I finally get fully caught up with 2007 stuff. But that's life. I was going to do all 3 of these in one post but I'll split them out to pad my post count.

Top 10 Albums of 2007
1. Britney Spears - Blackout
2. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
3. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
4. Aly & AJ - Insomniatic
5. Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High
6. Blake Shelton - Pure B.S.
7. Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Thing
8. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
9. Jordan Pruitt - No Ordinary Girl
10. Kelly Clarkson - My December

Where is?:
Amy Diamond - Haven't absorbed the album enough to place it yet. Possible top 10 material, a step down from Still Me, Still Now.
Little Big Town, They Might Be Giants, Girls Aloud - Haven't heard
Tegan & Sara - 100x better than I expected, still not quite good enough. Late cut.
New Pornographers - I thought this album was extremely disappointing
Hannah/Miley - Just too much filler
Hilary Duff - Never got into it. Aside from "Play With Fire", nothing on here that grabbed me as especially memorable.
Rihanna, Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Great hits, too much filler
All indie albums except Spoon and LCD - I don't like indie music
Any rap or R&B - Just how it turned out this year. I loved Ciara last year and will probably love Cassie next year.

Comments: The Britney album stands up as extremely solid start to finish. Not only is almost every track very good (it tails off in the last few tracks), but it has a real personality as an album and it all adds up well. My favorite album since Come and Get It. I really thought Miranda would be my album of the year as I love every track on it, but it just doesn't have enough personality to push it over the top. I still think it's great.

LCD and Spoon are the indie favorites I really loved this year. Spoon especially is my favorite indie rock album in the last few years, much better than anticipated. Both are packed with great pop melodies. Is it possible to love an album and be really disappointed with it at the same time? That's my reaction to Insomniatic, where I love most of the tracks & the album so much better than I thought I would, but I don't love it in the way I'd hoped from Aly & AJ. Nothing here comes close to packing the emotional punch of "Rush" or "Not This Year", but it's great pop music anyways.

Fall Out Boy is a great pop album overlayed with electric guitar and sung by a great emo singer. Blake Shelton is hit or miss male country, but the hits ("The More I Drink", "She Don't Love Me", "This Can't Be Good") more than make up for the misses. Avril's album is my favorite by her yet, very fun. Jordan Pruitt still has an amazing singing voice and I still like the teen angst lyrics and the music is still blah. Kelly Clarkson was disappointing but very unfairly treated and still a very good album.

TCR Top 30 Singles of 2007

2007-12-20T20:38:00.001-05:00

I going to wait until the new year to post this, but screw it. I'm probably not going to get the chance to post it for another couple weeks, so I'd rather get it out while I've been tinkering with it than leave it alone for a couple weeks.

30. Enrique Iglesias - "Do You Know (The Ping Pong Song)"
This is Enrique's best single in a very long while, very possibly ever. Sure, it follows the normal Enrique formula and there's not a whole ocean of difference between this and "Escape" or "Be With You", but the melody to this is just so sharp and the ping pong percussion is amazing. Just ridiculously catchy. Of course really catchy pop songs are kinda dime a dozen, which is why it doesn't rank higher, but I appreciate it for what it is.

29. Lori McKenna - "Unglamorous"
One of the best country singles of the year barely even qualifies as a country song at all. Nevertheless, it's a great celebration of ordinary life, with a good melody and a great twangy country singer. A great pop song with a slight country twang, I recommend this to anybody, even people who don't normally like country.

28. Colbie Caillat - "Bubbly"
For whatever reason, I feel free to openly proclaim how much I like Hilary Duff or Aly & AJ, but I just feel so embarrassed for liking this. It's "inoffensive" and "vanilla". Somewhere along the line, those became the biggest insults you can give a song. But I don't mind inoffensive and vanilla (both of which this definitely is). It lacks a huge vocal hook. But it's sweet and cute and infectious. I think there's a place for sweet and cute in music. I love the way the over-cuteness and preciousness of the lyrics interact with the over-cuteness of the music to make some kind of pure, uncut cute. It's like the Milo and Otis of pop songs.

27. Finger Eleven - "Paralyzer"
This is a song that I originally was not too big a fan of, but I've come around on it. Yeah, it's a "Take Me Out" ripoff, but "Take Me Out" is one of my very favorite songs of the decade so that doesn't bother me. I like the disco-fied indie rock a lot better than normal indie rock, so I'm glad that a song like this can come around a become a hit. Danceable and catchy, and one of the five or ten best choruses of the year. Not much to like about this song beyond the chorus, I'm not a big fan of the vocals, the instrumentals are boring "Take Me Out"-lite, and the verses go nowhere. This is scientifically exactly how far a great chorus can take a mediocre song.

26. Ciara - "Like a Boy"
Possibly underrated here. I love the minimalist beat and the vocals are great. The lyrics do nothing to grab me, and while I like the melody I don't love it. It's still one of the best R&B songs of the year and it's a real damn shame it wasn't a bigger hit. I just wish it had a bigger hook.

25. Miley Cyrus - "Start All Over"
A great slice of catchy teen pop-rock, manages to keep an extremely high energy throughout without becoming tiresome. Great for dancing around to, and one of my very favorite melodies of the year. A true highlight from Miley's sophomore album, which even though it was exactly as good as her first album was still disappointing.

24. Sara Evans - "As If"
Really weird and unsettling to think about these lyrics in the context of her personal life, so I just ignore that aspect. It does have good lyrics though, about ignoring all the bad crap in a relationship in a desperate grab to hold on to the good stuff. Easily relateable and not too common in song lyrics. What is harder to ignore than the lyrical context is the awesome pop country melody and Sara's knockout vocal performance. Better instrumentation/production could have pushed this a lot higher.

23. Ashley Tisdale - "He Said, She Said"
Ashley Tisdale's vocal performance is very, very bland in this song and the lyrics are very generic and boring. Which means there's nothing to recommend this song beyond the melody and the production. Fortunately, they manage to be strong recommendations. I love the clappy, stuttering percussion on this song, it really lends a sense of urgency to the verses. It's all building up with a stuttering rhythm and swelling music in the pre-chorus, then it all falls out into a gorgeous, spare chorus. Amazing.

22. Tim Armstrong ft. Skye Sweetnam - "Into Action"
A ska song in my top 25! A song off the Tim Armstrong solo album in my top 25! I never would have guessed, even though I do like a lot of the old Rancid ska songs like "Time Bomb" and "Ruby Soho". This is the natural extension of the sound he had there, and it rolls along nicely into the second or third catchiest hook of the year, as sung amazingly by Skye Sweetnam. It's a lumbering rhino of a song, but it's a great one nevertheless.

21. Cupid ft. DJ Unk and Fabo - "Cupid Shuffle (Remix)"
I think it's well established by now that I love novelty songs an unhealthy amount, and this is one of the best in a long time. I've never actually danced this song, nor have I heard it played on a dance floor, I just genuinely like the song on its own merits.

20. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - "Catch You"
The best Blondie song never released by Blondie. A real dizzying delight, and the first song of 2007 that I really loved, even if it is a bit of a pure pop overload.

19. Katharine McPhee - "Over It"
I have long been a fan of Katharine McPhee, ever since I first saw her on Idol. She was my favorite that season, despite a bad tendency to oversing songs and her seeming compulsion to be the big Whitney/X-tina diva that she totally is not. I worried that would spill over to her music, but turns out her album is mostly just a bunch of warmed over R&B stuff. There are some highlights on there, like "Open Toes" and especially this song, a direct "Too Little, Too Late" rip that works because the formula is so awesome and because Kat sings the hell out of the song. In it's own subtle way it manages to be one of the prettiest ballads of the year. (Not that I mind blatantly pretty ballads a la Mariah but they just aren't right for Kat).

18. Ne-Yo - "Because Of You"
Speaking of which, this mid-tempo ballad is one of the prettiest songs of the year in an unsubtle way. The strings and bass in the musical backdrop are awesome, and the melody is just such an awesome gliding, soaring triumph. This is what Ne-Yo excels at, and he sings the hell out of it. It's the male "Irreplaceable", and though I don't like it quite as much as that song, it's still a really great one.

17. My Chemical Romance - "Famous Last Words"
"It starts out fairly standard, but ends up being nothing short of a genuine rock epic, weaving about 3 or 4 different, equally big, parts together with a great deftness, and all 3 or 4 parts are great, especially the main chorus! It sneaks up on you, but once it hits, it hits hard: emo-rock has met its peak with this song." -- That's my singles jukebox review of the song, and I'm a little bit lower on it now than I was then, but it's basically true. (In particular, it is not even the highest rated emo-rock song on this list).

16. Vanessa Anne Hudgens - "Say OK"
I think I've run out of words to say about this song. I still think it's the second-prettiest dang song of the year and that Vanessa's blank, piercing voice is just startlingly perfect for this song. Nobody appears to like this as much as I do, and I've come to terms with that. I'll just keep listening.

15. LeAnn Rimes - "Nothing Better to Do"
The best country song of the year is this barn-burning stomper by LeAnn, that is probably underrated on this list, but this is where it felt right. High energy and catchy and awesome in the same way that the best Miley songs are high energy and awesome. It hits you right in the face. Probably the best song she's ever released.

14. Fall Out Boy - "The Takeover, The Break's Over"
This is emo-rock only because of who it's by. It sounds like a normal rock song to me, and Patrick Stump is one of my favorite rock vocalists working today. It intricately weaves melodies together just as deftly as "Famous Last Words" and while it's not nearly as anthemic as that song, it's just as well-constructed. The way it bursts into its main chorus is great, and it manages to hold it all together with a simple but great "We don't fight fair" hook and a simple but great guitar line.

13. LCD Soundsystem - "Someone Great"
This was immediately my favorite song on the LCD Soundsystem album, which is possibly a sign of rapidly approaching middle age. Actually, I just love the hooks to this song, though the emotion is apparent throughout and lends it a certain depth. I don't have much to say about this song that any other publication doesn't.

12. Amy Diamond - "Stay My Baby"
Man, it's so awesome. Amy's made a habit of actually releasing her best songs as singles (except "All The Money In The World"), which allows her to do really well on my lists. This Max Martin penned ballad is just as catchy a ballad, it's own way, as most of his classic boy band ballads were. A great return to form from both Max and Amy.

11. Eve ft. Sean Paul - "Give It To You"
For whatever reason, I've always really loved Sean Paul, even though his hooks kinda are all the same. This is his best song since "Get Busy". Not to minimize the accomplishments of Eve, who provides amazing rapping, and this is all on top of a ridiculously catchy guitar loop. A real surprise.

10. Girls Aloud - "Call the Shots"
Much better than anything off Chemistry, and just as good as all of their classic hits. I guess "The Show" and "No Good Advice" are still their best songs, but this is a great ballad. I never thought they would release another song I loved this much, much less a ballad! I love love the bouncing rubber bandy musical backdrop to this, and the slight electro-flair in the chorus. I often think that GA songs go too far on the electro stuff, but it's really restrained here and I think the song really benefits from it. Another real surprise.

9. Britney Spears - "Gimme More"
IT'S BRITNEY BITCH. Not that much better than a few other similar songs on her album, I guess, but the melody to this grabs me. Who could have guessed this song would be this good? More on Britney in the rest of my year end stuff. "Gimme gimme more/gimme more/gimme gimme more" is my #1 favorite hook of the year.

8. Shop Boyz - "Party Like a Rockstar"
Awesome novelty song+really catchy chorus+rap song glorifying golf+genuinely funny lyrics+"t-t-totally dude"= top 10 spot on Greg's list, guaranteed.

7. Natalie Imbruglia - "Glorious"
The higher we get up the list, the more we get to songs I've already written a lot about, which makes it hard to add more. This is still the absolute prettiest song of the year and Natalie is still probably my favorite female vocalist. Oh hell, I'll quote myself: "A really pretty acoustic ballad from Natalie. OK, all of Natalie's songs sound kinda the same -- that's true, and this will win her no new fans. But I'm a previously declared fan of Ms. Imbruglia, and I really, really love this song. It's so pretty and summery! It's got a very catchy melody, and Natalie continues to be one of my 3 or so favorite vocalists in pop music today. This contends for her best non-"Torn" song. Really fun and amazing."

6. My Chemical Romance - "Teenagers"
This is bratty, entitled pop-punk in the way a lot of people hear Avril, but I always just find Avril silly. Not that I don't like Avril. Anyways, this is MCR's "Girlfriend", and it beats Avril at her own game, as it manages to have an even more infectious chorus, and be self-entitled in a much less annoying way.

5. Rihanna - "Shut Up and Drive"
I love the lyrics to this though, even if the central analogy is a bit obvious (Prince, for one, made the same analogy 20 years ago). The melody grabs me too, and yeah the "Blue Monday" sample is a bit too obvious for my tastes, but I think it all works.

4. Spoon - "The Underdog"
Yeah, this one shocked me. I thought there was no way I could like another indie song this much, and had basically written off that "Take Me Out" was a fluke and I was done with indie after that. This, on the other hand, is definitely the best indie song since "Take Me Out", with it's stuttering guitar line, hand claps, and great horn hook. The vocal hook is deceptively simple on this, it seems like he's just rambling on and on, but it gets hella stuck in my head anyways. It's all about the instrumentation on this, and it manages to be really danceable too!

3. Aly & AJ - "Potential Break Up Song"
OMG Greg likes an Aly and AJ Song. I dedicated an entire post to this song. It is located here.

2. Natasha Bedingfield - "I Wanna Have Your Babies"
I'm absolutely shocked that TashBed released a song that I like even more than "Unwritten", but here we are. If Natalie Imbruglia is not my favorite female vocalist in pop today, then TashBed is. I dunno what it is about her mannered vocals I love, but it just works for me. This is completely bonkers in both the music and the lyrics, and I admire its sheer dedication to bonkers-ness. Tash's performance really sells here that she's holding in, about to explode, ready to burst. The whole song is just bursting just below the seams with warmth and energy and love. It makes this the most true to new crush/first love song I've heard in a long, long time. This was #1 on my list for a lot of the year, and I keep liking it more and more. I like this song more than I liked "Sweet Temptation", but less than I liked "Not This Year".

1. Miley Cyrus - "See You Again"
Obviously, this is not a surprising placement. I have written very much about this song already, which is my favorite Miley song ever and has the best pure melody since "Come Clean", at least. And NOT ONLY that, but it features Miley's best ever vocal performance, by far. The whole chorus is just pure musical genius. Best part is still "My best friend Leslie says 'Oh she's just being Miley'."

Thus we have the best 30 singles of the year. Future posts will explore best albums, TV shows, and movies (featuring a TRUE SHOCKER at #1), but not for another week or two probably.

Movie Review: Enchanted

2007-12-06T21:17:00.000-05:00

The Movie: Enchanted
Starring: Amy Adams, James Marsden, Patrick Dempsey, Susan Sarandon

This review contains slight spoilers towards the end, please be warned.

Brief Plot Summary: A fairy tale (animated) princess, Giselle (Adams), meets the man of her dreams, Prince Edward (Marsden), and they are engaged to be married. Unfortunately, Prince Edward's evil step-mother (Sarandon) does not approve of the coupling and thrusts Giselle into the real, non-animated world. Edward follows to find her. While in the real world, Giselle searches for Prince Edward, and meets up with single father Robert. They start to click. I'll stop further so I don't spoil the UNBELIEVABLY SHOCKING TWIST ending.

Commentary: Enchanted falls into the same realm of family oriented holiday fare that gets released every year. For whatever reason, this film has been extremely widely critically praised, whereas similar films such as Sky High and Ella Enchanted were basically panned. I've even been reading that it's possible that Amy Adams could be nominated for an Oscar for best actress, a prospect that both delights and baffles me. I'd love to see it, but I'm not entirely sure why this one is a sure-fire Oscar contender while, say, Reese Witherspoon in Just Like Heaven is completely beneath that ceremony.

Oh wait, do I sound negative? Then let me state up front: Enchanted is quite possibly my favorite movie of the last several years. Sky High and Ella Enchanted are the two closest, most obvious, parallels to this movie in the last few years. And while I am a big fan of both of those films, I don't think there's really any doubt that Enchanted is substantially better than both of them. So what's the Enchanted difference?

First, the humor in the movie was frequently genuinely funny, thanks to the stellar comedic performances of Amy Adams and James Marsden. The scriptwriter for this is clearly well schooled in Disney films, and he satirizes the most ridiculous aspects of these movies excellently. Working purely as a vehicle for humor, this movie just blows away all of the other movies of this type. The costumes and production design in this movie are also pitch perfect and frequently beautiful. Amy Adams has been singled out for the most praise in this film, understandably. She is just incandescent in this role, and she really makes you love the character of Giselle. Not only is she funny, she hits the emotion in the movie really well, and just charms the hell out of you.

The movie toes the line between saying that the fairy tale romance & fantasies do exist and do come true and between showing the fallacy of these notions when transported to the real world. By believing in the supremacy of true love while at the same time acknowledging that true love is a deep emotion and requires significant work to achieve and maintain, the film has staked out a fairly unique place. It's a dangerous ground, as it could end up being pandering or self-contradictory, but I think it manages to get out a coherent and consistent message, and I think there's a lot of truth to the message it tells.

Further, the love story in this movie was so great. It's really one of the better love stories I've seen on film. There's a scene right towards the end where Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey dance with each other which is just heart-bustingly beautiful and perfect. It made me cry (tears continued intermittently through the part where Patrick wakes up Amy with the kiss), which was really embarrassing because I was watching the movie in the theater with my brother, mother, and sister-in-law (I hid my tears). My favorite movie scene of the year, I think.

So did I have any problems with this movie at all. Yes I did, and it's one that several other reviewers mention too: the ending. I guess I understand basically what they were trying to do, seeing as all of the movies of this time seem to end with a big action sequence. Since this parodies Disney movies, it makes sense to throw in a big action ending too, and try to subvert the conventions. Unfortunately, the execution takes you right out of the movie and doesn't feel right. Fortunately the sequence is fairly short and easily ignorable/forgettable.

I have no particular comment about the animation scenes. They were fairly well done, but seem to exist solely for the purpose of setting up the plot. Ditto the songs, which are basically necessary given the nature of the film. I was not notably impressed by any of the songs, which were generally not too good. The "That's How You Know" sequence was very funny.

So, back to the beginning. Why Enchanted and why Amy Adams with all the critical praise? The answer is that I don't know but it really warms my heart to see that when a movie of this type is executed this well the critics sit up and notice.

Final Grade/Comments: The fact that I wanted to watch the movie over again immediately after seeing it, despite the lack of a game-changing twist or complicated plot speaks to how much I enjoyed it. The young woman sitting behind me said to her companion, as the movie was ended, "Oh my God, that was like the best love story ever." OK, while I can't quite agree with that hyperbole, I do say this was the best movie of its type in a long, long while and it beats 99% of the Disney fare it's spoofing at their own game. The poorly conceived ending is not enough to sway this away from a 10/10 and my guess is I would have enjoyed the movie even more had the sound in the theater I was watching the movie at not kicked out for 10 minutes during what appeared to be a crucial scene.

Day after day, it's Unfabulous

2007-10-28T22:38:00.000-05:00

Unfabulous has returned and, apparently, nobody cares about this except for me.

It used to really bother me that nobody except for me appears to like this show. In fact, for all I know, I'm the biggest fan aged 20 or over of this show in the entire world. It's not like it's my favorite show in the world or anything, but it's probably my 3rd favorite comedy show on TV, behind How I Met Your Mother and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and along with Even Stevens and Phil of the Future and a few others, it's one of the few shows of this type that legitimately makes me laugh on its own merits. It's not just cute, it's actually really funny.

So what do I think of the new season? I think it's just as good as it's ever been, maybe a little better. The Addie and Jake relationship is great, much better than the Addie/Randy relationship, which was akin to an anchor. Their relationship is really sweet and funny. I shouldn't be so hard on Randy, he guest starred on the last episode "The Two Timer", which was the best episode of the season yet, and maybe the best episode of the show yet. Unless the best episode of the season was the one with Rob Hottie. Or the one with the girl who got expelled from Catholic School. Or, etc., etc. It's been a remarkably consistent season, and I'm loving it.

The main problem I have with the show is that the supporting cast is pretty weak. Emma Roberts apparently bugs a lot of people, but I think she's outstanding. She's right up there with Kay Panabaker right now for my favorite. Her timing is great, and I love her trademark eye rolls! She's not a great singer, no, but I think it works for the show. But apart from her, Malesa Jow, Jordan Calloway, and Tadhg Kelly are merely ways of passing the time while Emma's not on the screen. Of those, Jordan Calloway most frequently has good moments, and he has been pretty funny this season, but there isn't generally too much for his character to do.

Fortunately, it's a one person show. As long as it keeps its extremely clever plots, good dialogue, and Emma Roberts, it's gonna be a great show no matter what. It's just sometimes I wish other people agreed with me.

I don't even know why it bothers me that other people don't like the show. When it comes to pop music I can often have idiosyncratic tastes, but there's such a strong pop music community on the internet I forget how unusual they are "in real life". Like, I just get to thinking that of course Britney is a classic and the Paris Hilton album was under-rated and Hilary Duff rules and etc., etc. It would be great if there was a similar community related to my taste in TV and movies, and maybe there is, but I know nothing about it. (In the meantime, if you really need an even-handed, objective review of a pre-teen TV show or a romantic comedy, or a high school/college movie there's always here.)

Thus, The TCR recommends you check out Unfabulous which airs Sunday nights on Nickelodeon at 8:30, on the nights when it isn't preempted.

(Speaking of Emma Roberts, I promised a review of Nancy Drew, but actually I wrote that movie up in my mid-year wrap up and my opinions on it have not really changed since then. Still a B+/A- type movie, and still one of the 4 or 5 best films I've seen this year.)

Movie Reviews: Custody/The Party Never Stops

2007-10-17T22:07:00.000-05:00

In this post I will review two recent Lifetime Original Movies which I watched because they starred favorites of the TCR. Namely, Custody, starring Kay Panabaker and The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker starring Sara Paxton. Let's roll.

Custody

I think I've reviewed each of Kay Panabaker's projects to date except Life Is Ruff (actually have I really written anything about Debbie Berwick on here?), so it only makes sense to throw one together on this. (Please note that Life Is Ruff will never be reviewed on this blog. Know that it is terrible.)

(Brief) Plot Summary ('cause, actually I don't really totally remember what happened): Rob Morrow (from Numbers) plays a widowed English professor named David Gordon who has a daughter named Amanda (Kay Panabaker - Official Actress of the TCR). Amanda's mom died when she was extremely young, and so she never even really knew her. David and Amanda have a solid and steady group of (wacky!) friends, and their life is generally pleasant. This is all changed when a new man, John Sullivan (James Denton from Desperate Housewives) shows up claiming to be Amanda's real birth father. This fact is quickly confirmed by David. John decides he wants to get to know Amanda and, actually, sues for full time custody of Amanda and wins. The movie proceeds from there, and I don't wanna give away too much even though nothing that happens is too surprising.

Commentary: Well, this was a pretty cute movie, but there wasn't really very much to it. The group of wacky and witty and diverse friends was an unnecessary distraction and was really cliched. It was like watching a very low-rent version of a Richard Curtis movie. Kay Panabaker was cute and charming as always, and she does well with the dramatic parts of the movie. I've embarrassingly gushed over Kay and her talents many times before on this blog (just click the Kay Panabaker tag at the end of this post), so I'll avoid going too overboard this time. But she continues to have such a charming screen presence, and she continues to have pitch-perfect facial expressions, vocal inflections, etc. All the little things she does that always impress me so much. Suffice to say, I really liked her performance, even though there really wasn't too much to her character. The movie was cliched, the characters actions were cliched, the characters themselves were cliched, etc. etc.

I've spoken out against judging movies solely based on the originality of their plot many times before but, unfortunately, that seems to be a pretty valid criticism of this movie. It's not original, and it doesn't go about its unoriginality in a particularly interesting way. I'm as big a Kay Panabaker fan as you'll meet and I almost fell asleep partway through this.

But none of this is to say there isn't anything to enjoy in this movie beyond Kay. Kay's friend is a really fun character, and I liked the actress a lot. The ending, though expected, was also very satisfying and well done. The best part of the movie, all in all, was the relationship between Kay's character and Rob Morrow's character. This was a pretty real relationship, and it was well done. Most of the best moments in the movie are the quiet, personal moments shared by those two, and they lend a depth to the movie that would otherwise not be there.

Final Comments/Grade: Emotionally affecting, satisfying ending, one of my favorite actresses giving a great performance as lead, but yet incredibly uninteresting. Cute, but with no substance at all. I've given good grades to cute movies with little substance many times before (Raise Your Voice, Ella Enchanted), but I just can't in good conscience give a good grade to a movie that entertained me so little. Especially when the plot and characters and themes are as unoriginal as they are here. 5/10.

The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker

(Brief) Plot Summary ('cause, actually I don't really totally remember what happened): Jesse Tanner (Sara Paxton) is a goody-two-shoes who lives in a small town with her mother and younger sister, her father having died several years previous. Jesse is about to be the first person in her family to go to college and she's very excited, though she will miss her mom. She instantly becomes friends with her college roommate Shanna (Chelsea Hobbs), who is a big partier who is planning on joining a sorority. Jesse and Shanna get big into the partying scene, which causes various troubles in Jesse's life. In one particularly awesome plot point, she is filmed topless for a Girls Gone Wild type movie which is posted on the internet. The movie proceeds in like fashion, again, not wanting to give too much away.

Commentary: This movie was extremely repetitive and not a whole hell of a lot happened, which means it probably should have been really boring. The constant stream of "Jesse does something wrong/her life screws up/her mom gets mad and forbids her from partying any more/OK I'll party this one last time" gets really tiresome (that sequence takes place like 3 or 4 times). Even though the plot is repetitive and the message is totally after-school-special, I nonetheless found myself very entertained.

My first inclination is to attribute this to a "so bad it's good" type ethos, due to the hysterics, scaremongering, ridiculous plot devices, and general shoddiness of the film. In fact, the film seems to be poorly made. I guess, the most important part of why I enjoyed this movie was the performance of the leads, Sara Paxton and Chelsea Hobbs. They both did a great job, and their chemistry was a hoot. And I'll be damned, but the relationship gave the movie a real emotional core. The movie really got to me. It's becoming increasingly easy to emotionally manipulate me in a film, and almost any movie that is supposed to make you sad or happy will get me choked up. So I can't fairly use that as a criteria for judging a movie, but there it is.

Chelsea Hobbs, as a newcomer, provided the most emotionally affecting scenes and the biggest laughs. She wasn't a revelation or anything, and it definitely wasn't a great performance, but she didn't screw it up and sometimes that's enough, especially for a movie like this. Sara was her usual charming self, though she had a bad tendency to overact. This was probably the weakest performance I've ever seen from Sara.

Though I was entertained, the story was very poorly structured and cliched. The whole movie was crazily over the top, and the over-the-topness resulted in the message not really being put across. It's hard to take anything about this movie seriously, so if it's really trying to express the dangers of binge drinking it's a failure from that standpoint.

Final Comments: Opposite of Custody, this movie was not cute, and it was very poorly done. But Custody put me to sleep, this movie I couldn't turn away from. Both movies featured strong performances from the leads, though I was a bit disappointed by Sara. I generally tend to go with poorly made but entertaining over well made but boring. 6/10.

Movie Review: Sydney White

2007-10-13T17:29:00.000-05:00

Before I do the review, first a minor procedural note. Question: What is the status of this blog? The quick answer is that I don't know. It's frustrating to spend significant time on writing for a blog when nobody reads or cares about it. I think that there are more productive and enjoyable ways to spend my free time. At this point, I may re-start writing regularly at some point, I may quit writing altogether, or I may go back to my old "one really long post a month" style. I know that I'm not a very good writer, and I'm becoming less and less convinced that my blog is providing a unique or interesting viewpoint, particularly with regards to music. If the blog does return full-time, expect there to be significant changes. But, I do generally enjoy writing the posts and re-reading them. So it will probably continue in some form, at least as a vanity project.

OK, now here's a review for Sydney White. A very overdue review of Nancy Drew should be forthcoming shortly.

The Movie: Sydney White
The Plot: Sydney White's (Amanda Bynes) mom died when she was young, leaving her to be raised by her plumber father. She spent her entire youth growing up on construction sites, acting manly, etc. But, when she finally gets into college (the same college her mom went to!), she is determined to join the same sorority her mom belonged to, the Kappas. Running the Kappas is queen of the school Rachel Witchburn. When Rachel prevents Sydney from joining the Kappa sorority, she ends up with a group of offensively stereotypical dorks, who live in a run-down dorm called "The Vortex". Each of these dorks is, "hilariously", an analogue to one of Snow White's seven dwarves (by process of elimination Samm Levine's character is an analogue to Happy, but the connection is extremely thin at best). She rallies the dorks together to take down Rachel Witchburn and the Greek system and get The Vortex a little respect. Also, she has a budding romantic relationship with Tyler Prince, the hottest guy on campus and ex-boyfriend of Rachel.

Commentary: Don't be fooled by the plot summary and the seeming feel of the movie, there are several important differences between this film and Revenge of the Nerds. For example:

In Revenge of the Nerds, the characters live in a run down house, which they touchingly renovate half-way through the movie. In Sydney White the characters live in a run down house, which they touchingly renovate AT THE END of the movie.
In ROTN, the main characters are fighting against the king of the school, a jock who is president of the biggest fraternity on campus and hates nerds. In Sydney White, the main characters are fighting against the QUEEN of the school, a GLAMOROUS AND GORGEOUS GIRLY GIRL who is president of the biggest SORORITY on campus and hates DORKS.
In ROTN, the main character gives a touching speech at the end, where he proclaims how it's not that bad to be a nerd and gets everybody fired up. After the speech, people touchingly get up to proclaim how they are also nerds. Everybody except the evil jocks admits they are nerds and the jocks are defeated. In Sydney White, the main character gives a touching speech at the end, where SHE proclaims how it's not that bad to be a DORK and gets everybody fired up. After the speech, people touchingly get up to proclaim how they are also DORK. Everybody except RACHEL WITCHBURN admits they are nerds and RACHEL IS defeated.

OK, OK, I'll stop there, I think I've made my point. In a way, it's nice to have a throwback to the old 80's style of teen movie. There are ridiculously over-the-top nerds, and there are jocks who hate the nerds, and pretty girls who love the jocks. The problem is that this movie is just too indebted to those old movies, and content not to add anything new to the plot.

I mean, look, originality and unpredictability are far from all I look for in a movie. Sara Paxton does a great job as Rachel, in a role that's fairly dissimilar to everything else I've seen her play. I hope she continues to act in roles like these in the future. Amanda Bynes gives a good performance as always, she continues to be a real charmer. No, the performances were generally pretty good. And honestly, the unoriginality could be easily forgiven if the movie itself were more entertaining. But the movie has several other flaws: The geeks are all too over the top, and their shticks got extremely tiresome after a while. The love story/Tyler Prince aspect of the movie adds almost nothing, and probably hurts more than it helps.

And then there's the Snow White stuff. My contention is that this movie would be much better had they not tried to jam in Snow White references. Making the dorks all analogous to the dwarves is kind of cute, and I enjoyed watching that unfold. The character names, though, are groan-inducing. And, importantly, the Snow White stuff is jammed in and unnecessary, and ultimately hurts the flow of the movie. Instead of a magic mirror, Rachel checks Myspace to see who is the most popular girl on school. Once Sydney inevitably passes her to #1, she sends a computer virus to destroy her APPLE computer (Har de har har). Seeing them jam this crap into this movie almost made me cringe, and I really wish they had just played it straight, especially since the movie could/would have played essentially the same without jamming those explicit references in there.

On top of all of this, I had significant problems with the character of Sydney. She was just too damn perfect. There was seemingly nothing she couldn't do, and if she had started walking on water in the middle of the movie I would not have been surprised at all. A character has to be relateable to be likeable, and hard as Amanda tried and well as she acted, she just wasn't relateable at all. Let's see, very attractive, athletic, handy, loves sports, gives to charity, genuinely wants to be friends with dorks, totally unselfish, reads comic books, and just wants to connect with her mom. I mean, come on.

There's a kernel of a pretty good movie in here. The parts that directly involved Amanda Bynes and Sara Paxton's conflict were fun, and their interactions with each other were a hoot to watch. Unfortunately, it's the "everything else" part of the movie that drags it down.

Special notice should to to Crystal Hunt, who plays Dinky in the film. Dinky is a member of the Kappa fraternity, who is nonetheless friends with Sydney and a sympathetic character. I was extremely impressed by Crystal's work in this movie. She was SO cute, and her Southern accent was a hoot. So for cuteness, and real charm, and some good acting ability too, Crystal gets the official TCR seal of approval. I really look forward to seeing her in future work. This character was the only well done character in the film, other than Rachel, and I'm inclined to think that Crystal was a huge part of that.

Final Rating:
Amanda Bynes, Sara Paxton, and Crystal Hunt are excellent. The movie is pretty charming, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't reasonably entertained by it. That being said, this is not a movie I can recommend watching. The real problem is that it's just not a very good movie. 4/10.

Used CD Store Haul

2007-08-25T20:36:00.000-05:00

Went to the local used CD store for the first time today (I had never noticed it before, tho it's only 5 minutes from my apartment!!!) and had a nice little haul. All albums I had never heard in their entirety before. Below is a list, the used price, and initial comments. Following the albums is a list of albums that were on sale which I could have bought. Let me know what seems worth it! The initial comments are very initial, I reserve the right to change my mind at any future time.

1. Sheryl Crow - Tuesday Night Music Club
Used Price: $5.99
Initial Comments: Considering how Sheryl Crow and The Globe Sessions are two of my favorite albums of the 90's, and that I enjoy the singles I've heard off this album, it's kinda weird that I've never heard this album. I've always heard that it's worse than those two and I guess I just could never get up the interest to actually go out and get it. "Leaving Las Vegas" is a classic, every bit as good as "My Favorite Mistake" and "If It Makes You Happy" and all her other great ones. And I guess the overplaying had just made me forget that "All I Wanna Do" is really a good song! But this album isn't just about "All I Wanna Do" and "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Strong Enough", it's filled with lots of great down-tempo acoustic numbers. There's a little musical bounciness here and there, but it's a mostly somber effort throughout. Not quite as good as The Globe Sessions, which this album clearly resembles, but it sounds pretty good on first listen. Initial listens revealed no standout tracks beyond those three hit singles, which means they did a good job picking singles out ("Can't Cry Anymore" is probably my favorite of the rest).

2. Fefe Dobson - Fefe Dobson
Used Price: $4.99
Initial Comments: I only ever heard "Unforgiven", which some people love but I never cared for too much. But I figured at 5 bucks it's probably worth at least giving it a check-over. A nice little teenpop-punk effort, with crunchy guitars throughout, though the up-tempo numbers are balanced out by a lot of ballads. The guitars have plenty of power, and these aren't bad songs, but none of the songs really grabbed me. "Rock It Till You Drop It" was particularly bad. Actually, I really liked "Stupid Little Love Song", I wish the rest of the songs had that kind of energy, but there are just too many ballads here, and few stand out ("Julia" is pretty and pleasantly Meg and Dia-ish). I'll give it another try or two, but I'm not too impressed by my first listen.

3. Shooter Jennings - Put the 'O' Back in Country
Used Price: $7.99
Initial Comments: The most expensive album I bought, and the only one in which I had not heard any of the tracks, but Rolling Country Thread raves convinced me to get it. I was really surprised to see this priced so much more expensive than the other stuff (3 bucks more than Come on Over for example, though it probably sold less than 1/10 the copies). I guess this had a bit more "hip" cred and is a bit tougher to find, so it can fetch a little more used. This is some cooking old school country rock! The most raves here were reserved for the single "4th of July" and man is that a great one. My initial reaction is that it's one of my favorite country singles of this decade. But this is really solid country rock throughout. I could have sworn listening to this that Shooter was some real old-timer, some 50 year old who'd been around since the 70's, but, no, this was just his debut album. This and pretty acoustic female are my favorite types of modern country and is it as good as Montgomery Gentry or Horse of a Different Color or Toby Keith at his best or etc., etc.? Okay, it isn't, but it's good enough as is, and right there with Eric Church in that second tier of good modern country-rock. Even though I expected to love "4th of July" based on the raves, I was surprised by how much I liked the album as a whole.

4. Lush - Lovelife
Used Price: $5.99
Initial Comments: Britpop, of which I've only heard "Ciao!", but figured it might be worth it to check out the rest. They didn't have any Pulp or Blur, otherwise I might have been tempted to go elsewhere for my Britpop, but I'm glad I heard this, even if I probably won't play it a ton in the future. It drones and drones and drones and it all kinda starts to blend together, but it's got nicely poppy melodies, and I really dig the groove, and it'll be perfect for when I'm in the mood for this type of album. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that if you had played me 4 years ago in my indie phase I would have positively eaten up, but I'm mostly tired of this music now. Every once in a while I get in an indie mood still though, so this can remain a guilty pleasure. "Ciao!" breaks up the monotony with a bang in the middle (and it still sounds great to me), but it's not remotely representative of the rest of the album. "Ladykillers" sounds particularly good.

5. The Veronicas - The Secret Life of...
Used Price: $4.99
Initial Comments: I love "4ever" but never bothered to check out the album since everybody was saying that the album itself was pretty mediocre. I mean it's got the two Martin/Luke songs, and it's got "When It All Falls Apart", but there's no real reason to listen to this all the way through. It's pretty boring. But, because I bought the album, I just now realized that "When It All Falls Apart" is a Steinberg/Alexander song, like "Too Little, Too Late" and McPhee's "Over It"! I should have realized, since it perfectly taps into that same kind of area that those two do. And it's a genuinely great song, as is "4ever", but there just are not enough highlights here to really justify a full value purchase. But it was a solid five dollar purchase. Like the Fefe Dobson album I like the album in theory more than I like the album actually.

6. Skye Sweetnam - Noise from the Basement
Used Price: $2.99 (!)
Initial Comments: Yes, sorry Dave Bedbug, until today I had never actually heard this album in full. Kinda weird that it was priced so much lower (percentage-wise) than the Fefe and the Veronicas ones, but I'm not complaining. While I'm not quite in the Skye fan nation like Dave, I do have to agree that this was far better than the similar Fefe and Veronicas albums. I still there's nothing on here which touches Avril at her best, but it's an enjoyable listen and, similar to the Shooter album above, it's solidly in that second tier of 00's teenpop. And there's nothing wrong with that. Initial rating is like an 8, and it could have gotten up over that "classic" hump if it had more memorable tunes or if it was less same-y sounding. First listen favorite is "Hypocrite". "Billy S" was a terrible choice as a single.

7. Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind
Used Price: $4.99
Initial Comments: I actually already knew 6 songs on here (out of 14) making it the album in this haul that I knew the most of already. So many great hooks on here that the album really should be better than it is, but it' s still pretty good and the singles are classic. Probably my favorite of the popular 90's alt rock albums, unless Sheryl Crow counts. Pretty much every song on here has a great hook on it, which is why it's kind of a shame that the songs themselves aren't all so great. I mean, like "Narcolepsy" has a great hook and all, but why do we need to take 1 and a half really boring minutes to get to it? And "Jumper" is a 10/10 chorus surrounded by a like 6/10 song. But there's still an awful lot of good stuff on here and this is probably like an 8/10 album or so (though "Side 1" is way way better than "Side 2"). "Semi-Charmed Life" is still a classic, and "Losing a Whole Year", "Graduate", "How's It Gonna Be" and a couple others are very very good.

I also bought Penguin, Heroes are Hard to Find, and Rumours, all by Fleetwood Mac. The first two I haven't heard and do not have high hopes for, but I've never heard any pre-Buckingham/Nicks Fleetwood, other than "Albatross", and I've always wanted to see how it sounds. As for Rumours, what can anybody even say about it at this point? The main criticism I can think of is that it's only arguably the best pop album of all time and not definitely the best pop album of all time.

Total price was $52, including tax, which I'm pretty happy about.

Contemplated/Contemplating:

Ace of Base - The Sign ($1.99)
Roxette - Joyride ($5.99)
Britney Spears - ...Baby One More Time ($2.99)
George Michael - Faith ($5.99)
Deana Carter - Did I Shave My Legs For This? ($5.99)
Amy Grant - The Christmas Album ($4.99)

They also had nearly every Everything But The Girl and Pet Shop Boys albums there, for no more than 6 dollars an album.

They had a ton of 90's and early 00's popular country albums there if anybody has any particular suggestions I can see if they have it.

Any opinions on the above are welcomed, via comments or email.

High School Musical 2

2007-08-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

A day or 2 later than I hoped to report on this, but I surmise that by now nobody's come to expect timely, relevant content from this blog. Be warned that, as always on this site, the review contains spoilers.

High School Musical 2

High School Musical 2 was on the whole, as expected, a pretty big dropoff from the original movie. It was gonna be difficult to capture the kind of quirky, infectious charm the original film had, but there were several missteps along the way that impeded it here.

First and foremost there was way too much Sharpay and entirely not enough Gabriella. Tellingly, Gabriella's solo number "Gotta Go My Own Way" was in my opinion the best song in the film while Sharpa's solo number "Fabulous" was, in my opinion, by far the worst. Ashely Tisdale can't REALLY be faulted here cause she plays it the same she played it in the original HSM but over the course of a full move it really starts to grate. She really needed to tone it down given the greatly increased scope of the role. And what was with the lack of Gabriella? I would liked to have seen more scenes showing her pain of losing Troy and even some more scenes with her and Troy together, though I realize that the mechanics of the plot complicate this somewhat.

On that note, I thought everybody in the movie was being very unfair to Troy. The basic message of this movie is, what, don't forget your friends? Success means nothing if you have to step on your friends to get there? But, come on, Troy was being heavily recruited by what was, apparently, an excellent college basketball program. His teammates should have been incredibly stoked for him. But they were mad that he ditched their 2 on 2 game and mad that he didn't invite them to the college practice. A real friend would have been thrilled for Troy there, and I was shocked that when Troy and Chad reunited at the end this wasn't addressed. I thought that Chad was being very unfair to Troy and I really feel it was sending the wrong message. Friends should be supportive of each other! Similarly, he was offered a nice, cushy job. What was he supposed to do, turn it down to keep working with his friends? I'm sorry, that's not the way the world works and I highly doubt any of his friends would not have taken the same route he did. Gabriella did, indeed have legitimate beefs with him. He stood her up twice and ditched her in the talent show to sing with Sharpay. Though those are bad indeed, I wish the movie had better acknowledged the incredibly awkward and uncomfortable position Sharpay had put him in.

I guess my main problem, as highlighted by that previous paragraph, is that they didn't devote enough time to the mechanics of the plot. Everything had to be super rushed along so they had more time for Sharpay and non-story advancing songs, which meant the character motivations made no sense. I mean, they basically just said that Troy was being a jerk to his team, so I have to take their word for it, but the facts I saw on the screen did not support it. And, hmm, Ryan doesn't have a song and neither does Chad. I know, I'll give them a completely random duet. I know it's difficult to manage a cast of this size, but everything seemed oddly patched together and it seemed like they were straining to allocate enough time to the supporting roles.

The ending of the movie was genuinely emotional and uplifting, and I can't take that away. It was what it was. However, it was very rushed and I feel like the movie didn't "earn" it. There was no motivation or justification for Troy and Gabriella getting back together. All it would have taken would have been one scene with Gabriella, where she realizes she really loves Troy after all and blah, blah, blah. And the Sharpay redemption arc came out of nowhere entirely. And, wait a minute, wasn't there a Sharpay redemption arc which came out of nowhere entirely in the first movie too? A little continuity please? After acting like an irredemable jerk for the whole movie, there was absolutely no reason to believe she was going to turn around and start being nice. Absurdity! The problem is that the movie starts so absurdly slow that the ending redemption stuff has to be super rushed. About 45 minutes into the movie I was convinced this movie was a horrible bomb. The movie got much better as it goes along, but it took so long to get chugging that I wish they had cut a bunch of stuff off there and dedicated it to the redemption stuff at the end, which may well have allowed it to pack even more punch.

What bugs me, is that I think there might be a really nice message to make with a similar movie. The end of high school, planning for your future, all while trying to still have fun with your current friends and your current life. Planning a future completely separate from the life you've known and which may well tear you from your friends. It is a very scary and difficult time, and requires a tricky trade-off. I wish they had explored that more. Additionally, the idea that success comes at a price and success isn't worth it if you lose your friends and life along the way is a truly winning theme. I mean, lots of other movies use it, but it's a great theme in itself and I always like to see it showing up. I just don't think they displayed it well enough by what was happening onscreen.

All of this is not to say that this was a bad movie or that I did not enjoy it. I realize this post has been excessively negative, but there were several things to like about the movie. Ryan & Sharpay's parents were a hoot and I found them very funny. Lucas Grabeel as Ryan Evans was a particular highlight again. In fact, all of the actors and actresses in the movie, excepting Ashley Tisdale (and I still think it's mostly the writers at fault there) are skilled and do a nice job with the roles. They all have a winning charm, particularly Zac and Vanessa. The ending WAS emotional and a pleasure to watch. And, of course, the singing and dancing.

So what about the songs, which is the main reason to watch the movie in the first place? I though that on the whole the music was very fun, and about on par with the music of the first movie. "Gotta Go My Own Way", "Bet on It" (what an awful and bizarre dance sequence though!), "Everyday", and "You Are the Music in Me" were genuinely good songs. "You Are the Music in Me" and "Everyday" were written by Jamie Houston, who wrote "Breaking Free" in the first movie and has generally been hit and miss throughout his career. For example, apart from the High School Musical success, he has "Amigas Cheetas", a particularly mediocre Cheetas song, "Vertical", a mediocre Corbin Bleu song, and several mediocre Vanessa Ann Hudgens songs. But he knocks it out the park here. "Bet On It" was written by Antonina Armato and Tim James, who co-wrote half of the excellent Aly & AJ album and produced the whole thing, co-wrote many of the good Miley/Hannah season 2 tracks including "See You Again", and have generally owned music in 2007. What an outstanding year for them.

Final Review/Comments: The movie started out really, really slow but picked it up a lot at the end. Despite my many problems with it, the movie was better than I expected and I really enjoyed it, in no small part due to the music and dancing. On the whole it was definitely not as good as High School Musical but it was definitely worth a viewing and comes with my recommendation, contingent that you aren't expecting some kind of transcendent masterpiece. B MINUS.

Album Review: Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus

2007-08-07T20:52:00.000-05:00

Really belated review of the new Hannah Montana soundtrack, but better late than never. Or so they say.

The new Hannah Montana soundtrack features two different disks, one of which is by "Hannah Montana" and the other is by "Miley Cyrus". From a musical standpoint, there's not too much of a difference, but from a lyrical standpoint, the first disk consists primarily of lyrics very similar to the first soundtrack: songs that directly reference the show/character, inspirational stuff, etc. Disk 2 seems to have lyrics that are more typical of a teen pop album of this era: boys, breakups, etc. But what they both have in common is their maddening inconsistency. Disney, for the life of them, just cannot seem to develop a whole album's worth of good songs for Hannah. In this case, going with the two disk format was probably a mistake, as a really solid album could be made from the highlights of the two disks.

The main problem with the Hannah Montana disk is the proliferation of really boring ballads that go nowhere ("Make Some Noise", "True Friend") and boring rock songs that go nowhere ("You and Me Together", "Bigger Than Us") and boring R&B songs that go nowhere ("Old Blue Jeans"). Three of the four Radio Disney focus songs to this point (namely "Nobody's Perfect", "We Got The Party", and "Life's What You Make It") are actually quite good songs, somewhat surprisingly. "Nobody's Perfect" is a song that I really disliked originally, but which repeated RD exposure has brought me around on. I really like it now! And "We Got the Party" is just such a fun little reggae rock song. Additionally, "One in a Million" is a really pretty ballad that I like a lot, and "Rock Star", though not quite as good as it could be, is still a good little song. Still, that's a hit rate of 5/10, which is not particularly impressive.

Meet Miley Cyrus opens with a bang, as the first two songs on the album are the 2 best songs on the entire 2-cd album. The opening track is "See You Again" and my God it's amazing. When was it released, 1986? It's got such an awesome retro sound and melody and great lyrics too! The album segues from that to "East Northumberland High", another really catchy number. "ENH" has really great teen lyrics and a fun melody. Unfortunately, it all noodles into pretty boring teen dance stuff and ballads after that, and it's off to snooze-land. There's a bit of interesting musical choices, like the latin tinge to "Let's Dance", but for the most part the melodies aren't too catchy and the sugar rush overload production is a bit too much and gets annoying. Which isn't too say the whole rest of the album is bad: "Right Here" is a good song, so is "Start All Over", just that it all tends to blend together and that it's tough to listen to in long stretches.

Inspired by Dave Moore Here's a one album condensation that might actually make an enjoyable listening experience:

Hannah Montana 2
1. "We Got The Party"
2. "Nobody's Perfect"
3. "Rock Star"
4. "Life's What You Make It"
5. "One in a Million"

Meet Miley Cyrus
6. "See You Again"
7. "East Northumberland High"
8. "Right Here"
9. "Start All Over"
10. "I Miss You"

As it stands, though the highlights are as high as any album released this year, I cannot imagine listening to this whole thing in one go, and I can't in good conscience rate an album like that highly. C+. (The one disk condensation would be like a B+ or something). But you have to at least listen to "See You Again", which is probably the best song the Diz machinery will ever produce. There's a pretty good chance it will end up my single of the year (I like both it and "Shut Up And Drive" better than "Sweet Temptation (Hollow)", my single of the year for 2006).

Number Ones

2007-08-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

My dad asked me to make him a CD of my all time favorite Billboard Hot 100 Number 1 singles for his birthday. I thought I'd post the tracklist here, with a touch of commentary. Note that the list skews pretty old because, well, I'm making it for my dad. If I were just listing my true favorites I'd probably swap out a least 3 or 4 of those 60s/70s tracks for 90s and 00s ones ("In Da Club", "Genie In A Bottle", and "Get Busy" seem promising).

1. Tennessee Ernie Ford - "Sixteen Tons" (1955): A great working class song and country classic. Really ahead of its time and it still sounds great today.

2. Domenico Modugno - "Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu)" (1956): A really pretty melody and unlike a lot of the great 50's pop classics this one isn't killed by cheesy production. It maintains a nicely understated musical backing and just lets Domenico let fly with that great melody.

3. The Shirelles - "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" (1961): Another track a bit ahead of its time. Not included here because of any influence or anything, I just love the melody and the lyrics. I like the desperate neediness a lot, it really comes through in both the lyrics and the vocals. This has been one of my favorites my whole life.

4. The Tornados - "Telstar" (1962): Well I had to include an instrumental on here, and I never seriously considered anything else, though there are several other instrumental number one songs I really enjoy ("Love Is Blue", "Happy Organ", "Romeo and Juliet"). Just so futuristic and amazing. All about the melody on this one too, like I've said several times before I'm really a melody guy. Replay value is huge!

5. The Beatles - "She Loves You" (1964): I debated for a long time which Beatles song to include. For a variety of reasons (stylistic and era diversity, mostly), I ended up going with this one, my favorite of their Beatlemania period. Really underrated lyrics on this one and great vocals. And this one doesn't have the best melody of the Beatles tunes ("Hello Goodbye" is better, so is "Paperback Writer" and a few others), but it's just so happy! And the music on this one is great.

6. Nancy Sinatra - "These Boots Were Made For Walking" (1966): So awesome. What attitude on this one! Not much of a melody to speak of here, but really amazing vocals and that bass line. "Truthin". One of the most enduringly popular 60s songs, and a karaoke staple, this one is almost impossible not to love.

7. Rolling Stones - "Paint It, Black" (1966): My favorite of the Rolling Stones songs to hit number one, this one was a no-brainer to include as there was no way I could leave off the Stones. It's unfortunate that my favorite of their number ones is probably not one of my 5 or 10 favorite of their songs overall, and I do wish "Jumping Jack Flas" or "Under My Thumb" had hit number one, but what are you gonna do.

8. The Four Tops - "Reach Out, I'll Be There" (1966): Definitely the best song Motown ever produced, in my opinion. I really wanted to include a Supremes song on this, but I just like this song and the Shirelles too much more than any Supremes single, so they got bumped. Note that "Be My Baby" and "The Tracks of My Tears" never hit number one, though I may well prefer this song anyways. Amazing melody. Even better than "It's the Same Old Song" (which never hit #1).

What an utterly absurdly good year for number ones 1966 was. In addition to the 3 on this mix, there's "96 Tears", "Wild Thing", "Last Train to Clarksville", "Paperback Writer", and "Good Vibrations", all 5 of which were seriously considered at some point. And one of which ("96 Tears") was the very last song cut.

9. The Turtles - "Happy Together" (1967): One of my favorite songs of all time, and an easy inclusion. Fun and summery, beats the British Invasion bands at their own game. Yeah it's cliched, and overdone, and etc., but I still love it.

10. The Box Tops - "The Letter" (1967): Classic melody and lyrics and great scratchy vocals. This one is kind of throwaway, but it manages to pack a good punch in 2 minutes, and it's the one #1 most prone to get hopelessly stuck in my head for hours. ("Crimson and Clover" was too long to include on the mix, and I figured the downgrade from that to this was less than the cost of deleting another song entirely).

11. Shocking Blue - "Venus" (1970): This one is my silly inclusion. It's a personal favorite, and I even like it more than the Bananarama version, but I'm not going to pretend to objectively defend it. It's got ridiculous, mannered vocals, but I think they work for the song and they melody/music are undefeatable.

12. Charlie Rich - "The Most Beautiful Girl" (1973): A slick country/pop classic, that I suppose gets noted as a country song 'cause of the slightly twangy guitar. But it's just a really pretty and sweet love song. Probably my favorite song on Charlie's country classic Behind Closed Doors and probably my favorite true country #1, so it sneaks in.

13. George McCRae - "Rock Your Baby" (1974): Such an amazing midtempo ballad. Once again, there was no point where I even considered not including this. Fun fact: I don't know a single other George McCrae song.

14. The Bee Gees - "You Should Be Dancing" (1976): I really wanted to include a disco song on here, in deference to it's chart domination, and this is definitely my favorite Bee Gees number one. While that would seem to make it a slam dunk, I debated seriously between this and "Don't Leave Me This Way", and I'm still not sure I made the right decision. In any event, really nice chorus here and some real powerhouse instrumental hooks make this an amazing song.

15. Kim Carnes - "Bette Davis Eyes" (1981): Awesome, underrated power ballad here. This is the slot that really should have gone to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (i.e. power ballad, scratchy throat female singer, drama), but man I just like this song more. Plus this came first!

16. Human League - "Don't You Want Me" (1982): Not impossibly one of my 10 favorite singles of all time. And, yeah, my dad prolly won't like it, but damnit I left "Genie in a Bottle" off for his sake and no way and I leaving both this and Xtina out. Plus it feels just wrong not to have an 80's upbeat synth song on here.

17. Prince - "Let's Go Crazy" (1984): Another easy inclusion. Like I'm gonna leave Prince off here. I really wish "Little Red Corvette" had made it to #1, and it was some debate as to whether include "When Doves Cry" or "Let's Go Crazy", but this song was picked due to a surplus of 80s ballads already otherwise included.

18. Wham! featuring George Michael - "Careless Whisper" (1985): Frickin' awesome ballad and George Michael is a really underrated songwriter. George Michael has several of my favorite number ones of the 80s but this one, with a killer downtempo melody, a powerhouse instrumental hook, and great heartbreaking lyrics is an all-time classic and a personal favorite.

19. Roxette - "Listen to Your Heart" (1989): Like "Venus", this is another silly personal favorite. But I love Roxette's female vocalist, and the music and melody is amazing on this song. This encapsulates why Roxette is one of my favorite singles bands of the late 80s/early 90s, and it's their best single to boot.

20. Mariah Carey - "Emotions" (1991): Once you get past the 80's, it's really unlikely I'll find a number one my dad will like, but it seems wrong to leave out the 90's entirely. This one is retro-sounding, which is good for my dad, and frickin awesome, which is good for me. That it's done by one of my 10 favorite artists of the 90's is just a nice added bonus. I thought picking out only one nineties hit would be hard, but this was a surprisingly easy choice.

21. Beyonce - "Irreplaceable" (2006): I've written plenty about this song on here before. I felt like the mix did need some 00's R&B representative, since I do love the genre so much, and of all my favorites, this one is the most dad friendly, so it's a pretty good default choice. Not to mention I'm loving this song more and more the more I hear it. Still hasn't gotten old.

Shocking omissions? Inexplicable inclusions? Comment, and I will defend myself!

New Pop

2007-07-31T18:33:00.000-05:00

I heard them too late to be on my singles list, but they'd contend:

Carrie Underwood - "So Small": The debut single off of her new release, this song is a dramatic, sweeping country ballad, along the lines of "Jesus, Take the Wheel". Now, we'd all like to hear more poppy stuff like "Before He Cheats" out of her, but let's not forget that "Jesus, Take the Wheel" was a completely brilliant single as well. And, oh yeah, so is this one. The production on this is a bit cheesy and so are the lyrics, but she's an amazing singer and what an awesome melody! The type of song that can really sweep you up and carry you away, if you let yourself give into it. It's a really pretty song, and I'm so pumped for this album. [8.5 out of 10]

Girls Aloud - "Sexy! No, No, No": My favorite GA single since, oh, 2004 or so? It's a lot harder and more electro than most of their singles, and a bit less based on melody and more based on music. Those usually portend ill for me, as I tend to love songs with strong melodies, but the propulsive rhythm and vocal/musical effects make this their most infectious single in a while. It's fun, and I'm sure it would be a great dance song! I wish the clubs in America would play this song, but that's clearly never going to happen :(. [8 out of 10]

Natalie Imbruglia - "Glorious": A really pretty acoustic ballad from Natalie. OK, all of Natalie's songs sound kinda the same -- that's true, and this will win her no new fans. But I'm a previously declared fan of Ms. Imbruglia, and I really, really love this song. It's so pretty and summery! It's got a very catchy melody, and Natalie continues to be one of my 3 or so favorite vocalists in pop music today. This contends for her best non-"Torn" song. Really fun and amazing. [9 out of 10]

208/365-Year Top Singles List

2007-07-28T18:03:00.001-05:00

This was supposed to be a half-year singles list, but obviously I am too late for that, so it is what it is. Since my year-end list consists of 50 singles, this list therefore consists of (208)/365 * 50 = 28.63 singles. I'll round to 29.

The TCR 208/365-Year Top 29 Singles:

1. Rihanna - "Shut Up and Drive": Much like my 2006 single of the year, "Sweet Temptation (Hollow)", this is a song that a lot of people seem to like, but nobody seems to like as much as me. Oh well. It's got a great melody, fun car-as-metaphor-for man lyrics, and the same enveloping, warm instrumental background as "Umbrella". The central metaphor may be somewhat stilted, but it produces several nice little turns of phrase. The bridge takes everything down a notch, but I like it.

2. Miley Cyrus - "See You Again": Although I thought that, on the whole, the music in Hannah Montana 2 lacked the fairly consistent highs of the first season's soundtrack, I loved this song. I mean, if I made a list of my favorite 5 Hannah/Miley songs, about 4 would come from soundtrack 1, but I can tell you that this song would be number one. Frickin' incredibly infectious melody and definitely Miley's best lyrics ever: "The last time I freaked out/I just kept looking down/I st-st-stuttered when you asked me what I'm thinking 'bout/Felt like I couldn't breathe/You asked what's wrong with me/My best friend Lesley says 'Oh she's just being Miley'/The next time we hang out/I will redeem myself/My heart can't rest 'til then/Oh I can't wait to see you again". The "st-st-stuttered" is my favorite moment in music in 2007, and "My best friend Lesley says 'Oh she's just being Miley" is also in my top 5. I've probably listened to this song 50 times since the soundtrack was released. Very, very questionable eligibility, but when it comes to this Diz stuff, who is to say what is and isn't a single. Shrug.

3. Aly & AJ - "Potential Breakup Song": Best lyrics of the year, best vocal performance of the year, and a truly outstanding melody. I guess that would seem to add up to higher than number 3, but Miley and Rihanna have truly transcendent melodies (and good vox/lyrix too). (see previous Potential Break-Up Post). Also, best music video of the year.

I'm certain that the three songs listed above, (plus "The Best Damn Thing", if ever released) are my 3 favorite songs of the year, but the order keeps changing in my head! This is where I stand now.

4. Keith Urban - "Stupid Boy": Heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. Very nice guitar sound on this one, Keith is a great singer, and and a nice melody, but it's really the lyrics that make this one. That, and the song-end fakeout at 3:45 leading to the best outro of the year. That outro, a 2 and a half minute powerhouse of a gutpunch makes for as moving an experience as music can create.

5. Natasha Bedingfield - "I Wanna Have Your Babies": Still totally awesome. I've written about the outstanding lyrics and melody of this song before, and have nothing new to add.

6. My Chemical Romance - "Famous Last Words": Powerhouse rock epic which, like Aly & AJ, weaves together various awesome but disparate parts in a very deft way to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Not to mention, I AM NOT AFRAID TO KEEP ON LIVING is the greatest sing/shout-along chorus to come along in years.

7. Vanessa Hudgens - "Say OK": Quite possibly still the best pure melody of the year. And Vanessa gives a good performance too! Not quite ambitious enough to crack any higher than this, but if I had to pick any one song to listen to over and over again for hours this would be the one. Dozens of listens later that melody is still as amazing as it was when I first heard it. One of the prettiest songs in years.

8. My Chemical Romance - "Teenagers": So fun! Don't trust anybody over 30! Funniest lyrics of the year, and a great high-energy chorus. Great usage of electric guitar. MCR continue to be the best mainstream guitar based rock band out there today. This is a great song that may climb even higher as the year goes on.

9. Natasha - "Hey Hey Hey": I suppose there isn't too much too this song, but it's a fun, infectious number that deserved to be a smash hit. Natasha has breathy, airy vocals that lend a sense of airiness to the song, and which conflict with the hard, driving background music in a really wonderful way. Then we kick into "Hey Hey Hey" and nothing else matters. It's very slight, and I'd like to see what a self-assured braggart of a singer could do with it, but it's a real winner as is.

10. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - "Catch You": I've really loved this song since the first time I heard it, and I still think it's the best song on SEB's (kinda disappointing) album this year. This thing has the power to just lodge in my head and hang around there for a long, long time.

11. Amerie - "Gotta Work": Yeah, yeah, yeah, a ripoff of "Crazy in Love", not to mention "1 Thing", but it's a bouncy fun number. The trumpets are great and the chorus is great. But the stutter-step, start-and-stop verse, with it's bouncy, fast, shouting qualities is what really made me love the song. You'd think they'd try to marry a chorus like this to some silky-smooth melody, but there isn't even really any melody to the verses at all. Unexpected, but it really holds the song together, I think, and is the main reason the song holds up to multiple listens so well when other similar songs tend to fade away quickly. I'm hoping for this one to go #1.

12. Ne-Yo - "Because of You": Speaking of silky-smooth melodies...I like Ne-Yo a whole lot, and all of his singles have been pretty good. His album gets a bit tiresome to listen to all the way through, because the songs are so samey, but this is basically the theoretical peak of the style of music he's going for. I love the slap bass in the verses and the main instrumental hook, but the silky smooth melody and vocals are the story of this song. Just kinda makes me drift away when I listen to it. Like "Say OK", one of those melodies that just says super-crisp no matter how many times you hear it.

13. Avril Lavigne - "Hot": Man, the art of the power-ballad is practically dead these days. So many amazing power ballads in the 80s but nobody even tries any more. Avril is one of the last who consistently produces great power ballads. This song is right in her wheelhouse and she knocks it out. Very catchy melody, it gets stuck in my head for days.

14. Blake Shelton - "The More I Drink": Hilarious and true! Drinking does, in fact, make one want to drink more. This is part of a long, long tradition of drinkin' songs in country, and it's a worthy entry into the lineage. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the chorus is catchy as hell too.

15. Katharine McPhee - "Over It": So pretty it almost makes me tear up. Just a great wistful melody and so what if it's a "Too Little, Too Late" ripoff, the formula works and McPhee knocks it right out of the park, as always.

16. Fall Out Boy - "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race": Fall Out Boy step out of their normal box to create a more ambitious, experimental rock song, but it really works. A great explosion of a high energy rock song. Nothing going on with the lyrics and not great vocals, but just as pure music it's very, very good.

17. Toby Keith - "High Maintenance Woman": Another I've written plenty about and have nothing to add too. Like Blake Shelton, catchy-as-hell and funny. Lyrix aren't quite as good as Blake's, so it ranks 2 slots lower.

18. Cupid ft. DJ Unk and Fabo - "Cupid Shuffle (Remix)": Best hip hop novelty song of the year! This has a catchy melody and a nice energy, and that basically makes up for the lack of substantive lyrics. I have never done the Cupid Shuffle myself, but I can tell you this is a hell of a lot better than the Cha Cha Slide song (as a pure song).

19. Shop Boyz - "Party Like a Rockstar": OK, putting the two best hip-hop novelty songs of the year right in a row required a bit of cheating/shuffling, but it seemed appropriate. Really fun song, though. The Boyz have some great flow and they can write some great lyrics and it all comes together in this one song. The rest of their album is just OK, but it kicks way into high gear for this. Like I said about Ne-Yo, this is basically the theoretically best possible song for what it's going for.

20. Sara Evans - "As If": Another great single from one of my 5 or so favorite single artists of the decade. And, okay, this great single sounds kinda like most of her other great singles, but she's got her sound and she runs with it. She's still a really phenomenal singer, and this song has a very nice melody and good lyrics. Not much going on with the music, and it's a little too unoriginal to rank any higher.

21. Rihanna ft. Jay Z - "Umbrella": Amazing synths and amazing lyrics, but the melody (other than ella ella ey ey ey) doesn't grab me as much as it apparently grabs some others. And the Jay-Z part is stupid. It's gotten old from overplaying but don't let that diminish that this is still a very good song. Just needs a little bit more to be a great song. But, great marriage between the sound of the song and the title/lyrics though, very impressive.

22. Tim Armstrong ft. Skye Sweetnam - "Into Action": Heh, a fun throwaway number that will be completely forgotten 5 years from now. But given all that, it's pretty amazing. So fun and catchy. I thought ska was a dead genre, but if the genre can still produce numbers like this bring it on.

23. Carrie Underwood - "Wasted": OK, with the release of this, they've finally run of out great singles on Carrie's debut album to release. (Seriously, the 2nd best song on her debut album). Her 2nd album is definitely my most anticipated album of the 2nd half of the year, let's hope it doesn't get delayed.

24. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - "Me and My Imagination": Great disco melody and disco beat. Sophie's not a great pop singer, but she's competent and she's able to carry a good pop song. This is a dreamy, dizzying little pop number, and I don't like it as much as "Catch You", but I do like it an awful lot.

25. Fergie - "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)": Probably my favorite song on Fergie's album other than "Fergalicious". It should be clear from this list that I am a real sucker for mid-tempo ballads. For whatever reason, mid-tempo ballad melodies ("Say OK", "Hot", "Because of You", "Over It") seem to hit me way stronger than the melodies for other songs. I'm not sure why that is but I certainly am not going to fight it.

26. MIMS - "This Is Why I'm Hot": Fun brag-rap that straddles the line between amazing and completely irritating. It mostly sits on the right side of that line, but it is tough to listen to over and over again. But come on: "I'm hot cuz I'm fly/you ain't cuz you're not". Awesome.

27. Ciara - "Like a Boy": It's a mid-tempo ballad. The melody grabs me. Shocker. Nice bouncy musical backdrop though.

28. Enrique Iglesias - "Do You Know (The Ping Pong Song)": Probably the best single Enrique has ever released, thanks to a great chorus and very inventive ping pong ball percussion. The cheesy music and dragging verses do all they can to eliminate the goodwill generated by that chorus and percussion, but the forces of good win out.

29. Kelly Clarkson - "Never Again": I still like the lyrics and I still love the bridge. The melody is maybe not as strong as the best of KC, but it's still pretty good. A tad disappointing, maybe, just because it's Kelly, but judged on it's own it's still a triumph. I like the "Sunday School answer" line.

Movies of 2007

2007-07-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

OK, after what basically amounts to a 3 month break from this blog, I'm back and ready to go. Starting with a summary review of all 2007 movies I've seen, then later posts catching up on some albums (Hannah Montana in particular) ("See You Again" 4eva).

This is probably incomplete, I'm basically going off the top of my head and skimming through IMDB, but here's all the 2007 movies I've seen so far:

Idiocracy
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard
One sentence plot summary: Average man and prostitute are put in a sleep chamber for 500 years, and awaken to find America so dumbed down and devolved that they are the smartest people on the planet.
Review/Comments: IMDB suggests that this was actually released in late 2006, but I only watched it this year and I've already thought out my opinion on it, so such is my commitment to accuracy that I am going to throw away my one rule for this post and just put this in anyways. This was a reasonably funny movie. It wasn't as funny as some of the reviews I've read have made it out to be, but it is one of the better comedies of this decade, particularly considering how little I typically enjoy current (non-romantic) comedies. I really did not see this as some kind of highbrow biting cultural satire or whatever, as the subjects of the satire seem to be very, very broad, but there were some good visual jokes. I didn't care for the lowbrow genital jokes and fart jokes and whatnot. In any event, if as Kogan says, Hero Story Variant 7(b) is "Everybody is being snookered but me", then most of the reviews of this movie I've seen fit squarely into Hero Story Variant 7(c): "Society (not including me OR my readers) are being snookered and we are above that". Which is to say: "Oh man, how true, people DO watch stupid TV and stupid movies and people like Paris Hilton are more famous than smart people who contribute more to society, etc. etc." But unlike in the other hero story, people here aren't trying to convince their readers, who are implicitly assumed to be as smart and informed as the author, but just attacking a strawman. And so it goes...
Rating: B MINUS

Jump In
Starring: Corbin Bleu, Keke Palmer
One Sentence Plot Review: Boxer learns to jump rope, much to the chagrin of overbearing father.
Comments/Review: Semi-review previously published here.
Rating: C PLUS

Catch and Release
Starring: Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Smith, Juliette Lewis
One Sentence Plot Review: Woman's fiancee dies and she falls in love with his best friend who she previously considered loathsome.
Comments/Review: Nobody seemed to care too much about this movie, it got generally lukewarmly positive reviews, and faded out of the theaters very quickly. All of this is understandable, because it is a very slight movie, and I suppose not for everybody, and it breaks no new ground, but I really enjoyed it. The acting is uniformly excellent, the characters are real and well rounded, the dialogue is crisp, and the emotional scenes pack a real heft. Not to mention, some of the comedy is actually pretty funny. The movie made me cry, which is becoming progressively easier and easier to make me do. There's a real warmth and heart to this little movie, and that's enough to take me above all of it's faults and cliches. Congrats to Susannah Grant, whose In Her Shoes I really wanna see now, after being put off by the mediocre reviews.
Rating: A MINUS

Music and Lyrics
Starring: Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore
One Sentence Plot Review: Washed up pop star hires plant waterer to write a song with him for a big pop star and in the process they fall in love.
Review/Comments: This was the second of the romantic comedies released earlier this year that I really wanted to see (after Catch and Release), but the movies, though I tend to lump them together for that reason, are in fact quite different. Catch and Release is all about the emotional core and more about the drama, whereas Music and Lyrics is your pretty standard silly romantic comedy. It won't surprise careful readers of this blog to know that I loved it. This movie was written and directed by Marc Lawrence, whose previous Two Weeks Notice and Miss Congeniality I really disliked, so I'm perfectly content to attribute the success of this film to the wit and charm of Hugh and Drew and to the awesome music. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore are two of the best romantic comedy actors, and seeing them together is great! They have really good chemistry and are both really funny throughout, and the movie is genuinely romantic. And the Wham! style 80s pop hits for Hugh Grant's character are genuinely really good. 'Tis completely fluffy, escapist fare, a cotton candy movie, but to me fluffy, escapist fare is one of the best uses of the film genre. Probably one of the 5 best traditional romantic comedies of this decade.
Rating: B PLUS
Okay, Okay, So What ARE the 5 Best RomComs of This Decade: Bridget Jones, Love Actually, Just Like Heaven, Down With Love, and this movie.

Ocean's Thirteen
Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino and a bunch of other people.
One Sentence Plot Summary: A bunch of people rob a casino
Review/Comments: Yeah, it was basically the same as the first movie, but all of the actors have so much fun with it, and the plotting/pacing is so tight that it makes a really compelling watch. Way better than Ocean's Twelve at any rate.
Rating: B

Spiderman 3
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace
One Sentence Plot Summary: MAN HAS POWERS OF SPIDER.
Review/Comments: I apparently enjoyed this movie a lot better than most reviewers. The balance between ridiculous soap opera-esque drama and superhero action was very true to the comics, all the characterizations and acting were a hoot as always, and I thought emo-Peter was really funny. Calling the female temptress Gwen Stacy was a nice callback to the character in the comics, though clearly this character wasn't intended to be a straight adaptation of the Gwen I know and love. Sandman backstory was kinda pointless but not too distracting and at least they tried to make a character out of him. All in all a fun little romp and, I suppose, not as good as Spiderman 2 or the other great superhero movies of modern era, but better than the first Spiderman for sure and a worthy view.
Rating: B

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Starring: A bunch of people I never heard of and Jessica Alba
One Sentence Plot Summary: The four superheroes save the world from Silver Surfer and Galactus.
Review/Comments: Silver Surfer is so badass. It's pretty hard to screw him up too bad, although the 90's cartoon certainly pulled it off. They do a good job of adapting him here, and it makes for some exciting action scenes and pretty visual effects. The characters are all one-dimensional and silly, but then again so are the comics characters so I guess that's OK. The Johnny Storm/Super Skrull attack on Surfered up Dr. Doom was really enjoyable, and by far the best action sequence yet in these movies. The plotting was all sorts of screwed up though, Galactus sucked, and Dr. Doom continues to be really underwhelming. And you don't need an Oscar caliber performance in a movie like this, but come on a little bit can't hurt here. Better than the first, but this is still a second tier action franchise
Rating: C MINUS

Nancy Drew
Starring: Emma Roberts
One Sentence Plot Summary: The teen detective goes to LA and solves a mystery involving a disappeared actress
Review/Comments: Back when I thought Kay Panabaker (still the Official Actress of the TCR) was going to have a more substantial role in this film (i.e. more than one minute of screen time), this was my most anticipated film of the year. Even once I learned the truth of KPB's involvement, the presence of Emma Robers had me really pumped. And it didn't let me down! The only problem I had with this movie was that the kid Emma meets up with and befriends in L.A. is really annoying, but that's a fairly minor concern. I liked how they attempted to integrate the fish-out-of-water stuff with the mystery stuff, though I wish they had spent more time on the social aspect of Nancy's time and less on the not-so-interesting mystery itself. What I liked was that they made Nancy's character a real standout original and didn't try to make her over or make her change to fit in. She knew who she was and she never wavered and that was that. Emma's performance in this was truly outstanding, she's still got the most charm and screen presence of any young non-Panabaker actress out there.
Rating: B PLUS

Live Free or Die Hard
Starring: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Review/Comments: I actually had no idea Mary Elizabeth Winstead was in this film and it was a really nice surprise to see her. I loved her in Sky High, she was OK in Final Destination 3, and she's one of my big celebrity crushes. She was pretty good in this film, though that's mostly beside the point. The point is that Bruce Willis still kicks ass, and this was basically an 80's action movie. Very ridiculous, and the computer stuff is embarrasing, and the plot veers wildly out of control about halfway through, but so much fun that it doesn't even really matter. Just sit back eat your popcorn and enjoy it.
Rating: B

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and whoever plays Ron Weasley (research!)
Review/Comments: Harry Potter movies are Harry Potter movies, enjoyable fare without much depth. I never read the books and probably never will, but the movies are enjoyable if slight. This was, as reported elsewhere, much darker than the previous movies, but it's exactly the same quality.
Rating: B

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a pretty narrow range of ratings, but I tend to only watch movies I think I'm gonna like and haven't really loved too much I've seen this year.

Potential Break Up Song

2007-06-17T15:46:00.000-05:00

After 6 weeks of not posting, only Aly and AJ can hope to stir me enough to get a-writin' again.

(Have not yet seen Nancy Drew, and I guess I'm not alone in that. Have seen several bloggable movies lately, so maybe a compendium post or something.)

Aly & AJ - "Potential Break Up Song"

Review: Starts up with a pounding pulse that never lets out. Aly & AJ give what is, by a good margin, their best vocal performance ever. There are three melodies in this song (verse, pre-chorus, chorus) are strong enough to carry a pop song on their own. It even features some pretty neat non-vocal hooks. And yet, none of these are the best part of the song. What great lyrics! They are so evocative and emotional and they tell a real story and a sad story and they do it in a really funny way. Gut punch right from the start "It took too long for you to call back, and normally I would just forget that except for the fact it was my birthday, my stupid birthday". Brilliant! Then how after a whole song of bashing the poor guy, there's the twist at the end: It's not just a potential break-up song, it's a potential make up song too!

The song represents a significant stylistic shift from Aly & AJ, and I loved their old style, but how can I complain? Actually, I'm still a touch skeptical, but whatever, this one is good. Aly & AJ still continue to work within the strict confines of the Disney environment and expand and deepen it. I mean, seriously, compare this to other Disney fare. Compare it to other Disney fare that I truly love, like "Say OK" or "I've Got Nerve" or "Breaking Free". Diz is perfectly capable of, as in those three songs, producing a staggeringly brilliant melody and producing nicely uplifting lyrics. But this song is on a different planet from those. The level of complexity and depth in the lyrics, the level of sophistication to the music and melody are just well beyond any other Diz fare.

OK, OK, I don't want to overstate my case here. This song is no more impressive or brilliant than any of Hilary Duff's best work, but the Diz formula has changed since then and it's heartening to see that it can still produce works like this. Plus, Wikipedia lists Aly and AJ as the sole writers on this song, and if true I'm just insanely impressed that at their young age they can write such brilliant melodies and lyrics and deliver such a heartbreaking and powerful vocal performance. And a great acting job in the video!

This is a song of sweeping, stunning brilliance, and there's a pretty good chance I like it even more than "Rush" and a pretty good chance that it will be my single of the year. 10 out of 10. (I wussed out and gave this song a 9 on the jukebox).

Studyin' Orphans

2007-05-03T18:53:00.000-05:00

Reviews of Avril, Hilary, and Miranda Lambert are forthcoming. Just need a few more listens. Meantime, here are some orphan song reviews. Songs that got me through the tough studying:

1. Point of Grace - "Circle of Friends"
Review: From 1996 through 2000, when I was in high school, I was heavily involved in my local church's youth group, and so was thus exposed to a crapload of Christian music. I was never huge on it then, and some of it is just embarrassingly bad looking back on it now (Michael W Smith - "Friends"; Avalon - "Testify to Love"). Recently, though, I've been re-examining some of the songs that we used to listen to, and there's two aspects of Christian music I'll still rep for: early Amy Grant and this song (er, counting only CCM and not genre Christian music, e.g. "Jesus Take the Wheel", or hymns). Early Amy Grant I've talked about before, so I'll talk about Point of Grace. They're a tightly harmonized, airy voiced trio of female singers who do lite-pop, definitely the Christian Wilson Phillips. And while that's not my favorite genre, this is a kicking, snapping little song that has nice lyrics which don't beat you over the head with Christianity, and great hooks in the chorus and pre-chorus. The girls are good singers and have good harmony. The whole song is an airy, floating song, like a cloud. It rolls along, washing over you without ever grabbing you, and just gently opening up. It shows a great restraint in both the melody and chorus. If all Christian songs were this good (I'm looking at you, Steven Curtis Chapman) the genre wouldn't have such a bad name today. [8/10].

2. The Hives - "Hate to Say I Told You So"
Review: Man, is it just me or does this song hold up REALLY well. When it came out, it was one in a sea of jangly pop-rock tunes in the vein of The Strokes and The White Stripes and The Vines and whatever. They all blended together in my head and I never really particularly paid too much attention to this song. And anyways, it really isn't as good as "Last Nite" or "Fell In Love with a Girl", which probably caused me to underrate it at the time, but those are two excellent pop tunes. Which means this is pretty danged good too. The fuzzed out jangly guitar creates a propulsive beat that drives the entire song forwards. There's not much of a melody, and the guy isn't much of a singer, he's basically just talking the words. But the rhythm of the verses fit right in with the propulsive beat of the guitar and bass and push the song way forward like a charging train. The song doesn't rock particularly hard, and it doesn't have a very fast tempo, and it doesn't REALLY drive that hard, it just gives the impression of driving hard. Which, it turns out, is good enough. [8.5/10]

3. Blue October - "Hate Me"
Review: A modern rock song, in the vein of more classic, growly rock. The singer's got a kind of whiny voice and the chorus is a classic annoying emo shouting chorus. But good god does this song inject a ton of emotional wallop. What are the lyrics about? I'm not really sure, it sounds to me like he's got one incredibly messed up relationship with his girlfriend, but Wikipedia says it's about his mother, which is just crazy! For a big, manly, growly rock song, the singer and melody sound like they are about 5 seconds from completely breaking down and falling apart. It's teetering right on the edge, which is a dangerous place to stay, but it deftly rides it the entire time. Song makes me wanna cry. Uh, yeah, so what I'm saying is that it definitely should have made my top 50 singles last year. Whoops. [9/10]

4. BBMak - "Ghost of You and Me"
Review: Well, BBMak were like a 3rd tier boy band. Actually, they PLAYED THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS and so WERE NOT a boy band, or so the marketing went at the time. Whatever. The most notable thing about them was their guest appearance in an episode of TCR favorite Even Stevens. And their biggest (only?) hit, "Back Here" was a limp, boring little number that never went anywhere. But this minor followup hit was, I think, a far superior song. It's actually probably my favorite boy band ballad (OK, maybe "Shape of My Heart"). Most boyband ballads just ride on airy harmonies and hope that they can just let the beauty carry them, when really the singers usually have too weak a voice to make something interesting out of a limp ballad. And on first listen, that's what they are doing here. But the verses cascade into a beautiful, flowing melody in the chorus that lift the song above generic boyband drek and into something a little more. The singers aren't anything special, and there's nothing to the lyrics, but it's all about the melody here, boys. [8/10]

5. Katharine McPhee - "Home"
Daughtry and McPhee both have songs called "Home" on their debut albums? Whatever. McPhee's is way better. This is an extremely pretty song without much of a melody, but unlike BBMak, Kat DOES have the vocal strength to knock it outta the park. It's a love song, with lyrics that aren't groundbreaking, but feature several very nice turns of phrase. And the plinking piano line underpins the song with a touch of class and keeps it from going off the rails. A very light drum kicks in on the chorus, adding a slight beat to the whole affair. The instruments slowly build up throughout the chorus and in subsequent choruses until eventually the entire song is soaring and kicking. It's very lovely one it's all kicked in, and rather than beat you over the head with it right from the start, they build it up gradually, almost imperceptably. And before you know it it's kicking around under the vocal line and adding power to her declaration of love. Katharine has a great voice. American Idol ballad is never a good sign, and it deservedly has a horrible reputation of being treacly, over the top, and cliched. Cliched I'll give you but this is very nicely restrained and Katharine knows better than to inject too much emotion into the vocals (if anything, the opposite is the problem). A superior ballad. [8/10].

Just five songs for today folks. Gotta get back to Hilary, Avril, and Miranda! (all 3 are great).

Song Analysis: Aly & AJ - "Speak for Myself"

2007-04-28T19:51:00.000-05:00

Intrepid readers: It's been a while, but my schedule has recently cleared up so hopefully that will give me more postin' time. I have a few ideas for posts in the works, that I didn't have a chance to do because of business. In the meantime, sure been a while since I've done a song analysis, so here's the newest entry in this occassional series:

Previous song analyses:
Hilary Duff - "So Yesterday"
Lee Ann Womack - "I'll Think of a Reason Later"
Natasha Bedingfield - "Stumble"
Charlotte Church - "Moodswings (to Come at Me Like That"

Youtube: "Speak for Myself" (ugh, accompanied to Zack and Cody content. I recommend you listen with your eyes closed.)

Lyrics:
Do you see me, do you care?
You talk about me like I'm not there.
Don't get a word in when you're around.
I bet you don't know what I'm about.

(chorus)
'Cause I will, I will speak for myself
What you see isn't all I am
I need a place to stand
I will, I will speak for myself
There's so much you're missing
If you cared you'd listen

You suffocate me, you drown me out.
I'm tired of waiting without a doubt.
I feel I'm fading, I flicker out.
My heart is screaming without a sound
(chorus)

I'm not sorry for who I am
Take it or leave it
It's my time to take a stand
Throw it or keep it
Know that I don't mean to understand
Won't say it again
(chorus)

Song Analysis/Comments: This song contains the pained, pleading lyrics and the anguished, piercing voices that characterize much of Aly & AJ's best work ("Not This Year", "No One", etc.). The song has no immediately straightforward interpretation, other than that it's obviously a triumphant anthem to standing up for yourself. But as to who is keeping her down and whose grasp she is freeing herself from, I suppose there's no definitive answer, at least not one that I'm aware of. But that won't stop me from analyzing away!

OK, so where are we getting at with this song? First verse plays through pretty standard ignoring lyrics. She is not noticed, they don't care about her, they leave her on the outside (shades of Jordan Pruitt here, though it's worth mentioning this song predates "Outside Looking In" by a good year). And it obviously bugs them. Heck, when you care about somebody and want them to like you and you can't even get them to acknowledge that you exist, that rubs wrong. And the girls (believe it's AJ, but I could be wrong) sing it with just a heartbreakingly anguished and pinched tone to their voice. The very tone to her voice and inflections on the phrasing imply an intense pleading, as if they are pleading to be noticed. Then we go into the chorus, which is just one big kiss off of a "If you don't wanna notice me that's your own fault". Hey, their self esteem doesn't rest on what the popular people thing of them. They are their own girls, and they are gonna do their thing and screw anybody else who doesn't like them. Very triumphant thing to hear from the high school girls. Or, on the other hand, is it a triumphant kiss off to an inattentive boyfriend? I can speak for myself, and you don't really know me, and if you REALLY loved me, you'd want to get to know me.

The second verse plunges way deeper into the despair than the prior ones. It's so melancholy in fact, that it makes me doubt the certainty with which the chorus is presented. Really, she's "suffocating", her heart is "screaming without a sound"? I find the last line in this verse to be extremely fascinating, though I'm still not sure if it actually means anything. This very verse in fact, makes me doubt that it's an anti-bully sentiment, as it seems to be sung to a boyfriend who is treating her badly. That's an interpretation that I tend to reject because they don't seem to sing about relationships and love very frequently, but this really seems like a level of emotional pain that is beyond what we would typically expect from the schoolyard bullies. But on the other hand, it is still fairly consistent with that interpretation.

One way or another, in any event, the song is about getting yourself noticed in the fact of inattentiveness. And not getting yourself noticed by pretending to be somebody else, but of putting yourself out there, in the face of all who have done you wrong, and daring them to get to know the real you. Daring them to stare you down. Only, the air of anguish and of defeat permeates the entire song. The girls' voice just adds an extra layer of despair atop the whole thing that's almost crushing, even when it's triumphant. Even when they are kissing off their opressors, you never forget what they are standing up against. That they are standing up, but that they are still hurt. And that it's OK to let these people hurt you, as long as you are willing to do something about it. But just the decision to stand up for yourself doesn't take the despair away. That's what I think is really going on underneath this seemingly straightforward triumph here. This song is a perfect example of how the vocals can affect the interpretation of the lyrics.

What's the moral of the story here, after all that rambling nonsense: You need to stand up for yourself and never stop being yourself. But, standing up for yourself is hard, and the mere decision to do so doesn't take away all the pain people have caused you. But that's what makes it even more important to do so! This song makes me feel really bad for the girls. It makes me want to go out and slap whoever this song was written about.

Or is it just about trying to be religious in the face of a sinful world? Is it about being crushed and suffocated and ignored in the face of a world that glorifies sins such as violence and lust and turns its nose at the fundamentalists? In a nation where more than half of people say they are Christian but that turn their noses up at public Christian displays. Is it about being yourself, and rubbing it in the nose of that world, and triumphing over sin and not letting the world get what it wants. And I am gonna speak your mind and be myself, and if you only listened to me you would understand.

Aly & AJ's lyrics are constantly toeing the line between the religious and the secular and that is one of the things I find most fascinating about them. I mean, listen, I don't agree with any of the above sentiments, but I love the way that they have managed to integrate their evangelical Christianity into their lyrics without beating our head over them. These aren't explicitly Christian lyrics here, and they can't possibly be offensive to anybody, as they can just as easily be interpreted in a secular way. But if you listen to the song with that interpretation specifically in mind, it falls out pretty naturally, and I can't believe that's just a coincidence. And listen, again, just to make things perfectly clear here, I find their brand of evangelical Christianity (or at least what I know of it from their interviews, etc.) to be rather distateful, but at least they are being real. I get the impression from listening to Into the Rush that this album, this really is a document of Aly & AJ. A kind of sense I don't get from, say, Fall Out Boy or Hannah Montana or Paris Hilton or most pop stars. And if evangelical Christianity is clearly a part of who they are, then by gum, that's what I wanna hear.

Continuing on the above point, I've been doing a lot of self-reflection lately, and thinking about what it is exactly that draws me so heavily towards teen pop. I love pop music in general, and I love lots of different types of music, but lately it's the teen pop that's been drawing me in. And it's just the intense personal nature of it. I just get this despaired sense of real personal nature from Ashlee and from Jordan Pruitt and from Aly & AJ, like they are too young to know that you shouldn't really put yourself out on the record like that. And when I can listen to the album and really feel like I've gotten to know and love the singer/songwriters of that album, that to me is the height of the music listening experience. And I get that experience from lots of different genres, but I think teenpop is where I've found the most raw emotions, the most ebullient love and the most despairing sadness, and the most crushing loneliness, etc., etc. And you hear it all on Into the Rush: the high highs and the low lows (but, yeah, the low lows are presented a lot more convincingly than the high highs. The girls know how to pull off drama.) And you've got the explicitly relgious songs ("Protecting Me") and the explicitly secular songs ("Chemicals React") and the maybe religious, maybe secular songs (this song, "Rush"), and it all adds up to Aly & AJ. Or if it doesn't actually add up to who Aly & AJ really are, it all adds up to somebody and something, and who I love and identify with isn't really Aly & AJ but is "Aly & AJ", as an image they calculatedly present of themselves. Heck, I don't care. It's something.

The point being, of all this fractured prose, that there are a lot of different interpretations to this song, and I don't even know myself which one I'd lean towards. Is it an anti-bullying sentiment, or a kiss off to an inattentive boyfriend, or a song about remaining Christian in a secular world? It's all 3! I picked this song partly as an excuse to run that real emotions rant, but also to highlight a song with multiple interesting interpretations and to highlight a song where the vocal performance really adds to the lyrics.

Final Rating: A powerhouse vocal effort, truly anguished lyrics, and one heck of a catchy melody make this my favorite album track off of their debut effort and one of my top 5 favorite Aly & AJ songs overall ("Not This Year" --> "Rush" --> "Greatest Time of Year" --> This song --> "Chemicals React"). 8.5/10.

American Idol Top 7 - Country Night

2007-04-17T18:47:00.000-05:00

Well, readers, it's definitely been a while since I last chimed in on my thoughts about American Idol and with this being country week it seemed like the perfect opportunity. As always, I am making a concerted effort to get this all written down before I hear the judges comments, to avoid tainting. So awaaaay we go:

1. Phil Stacey - "Where the Blacktop Ends" (Keith Urban)
Comments: Phil still has a real nice tone to his voice, but this is pretty boring. He's got no life to this performance at all and seems incapable of injecting emotion to his performances. Martina was right, this sounds way too practiced and deliberate. He needs to let loose a little bit. He left out the soulful lick that Martina liked so much! It was a decent performance, but it sure wasn't anything great. Randy comes in with crazy over-praise. "You seem to be best in country" <-- They are quite clearly trying to shoehorn somebody into releasing a country album post-Idol, given the success Idol has had in that genre. Really surprised by the judge's reaction to this.
Phil's Performance in 7 Words: Nice Tone, Stiff, Bland, Decent, Ultimately Forgettable

2. Jordin Sparks - "Broken Wing" (Martina McBride)
Comments: This is not one of my favorite Martina McBride songs, but it sure is a singer's song, and Jordin seems kinda countryish, so let's see how she does with it. Jordan hilariously dwarfs Martina McBride. The low register on this isn't really doing it for me that much. I'm starting to realize that Jordin really doesn't have the chops that some of the better singers do, no matter how much emotion she sings with and how awesome her personality is. That being said, she's injecting a really nice heartbreaking twang into the chorus here, though her voice is going a bit out of control. Really nice glory note at the end there, but this was another relatively weak performance from Jordin. By which I mean not as good as her best, but I liked it. She's good at injection emotion into songs and interpreting them. Crazy overpraise from all three judges again, I have no idea what's going on this week.
Jordin's Performance in 7 Words: Emotional, Weak Verse, Good, She's Been Better

3. Sanjaya Malakar - "Something to Talk About" (Bonnie Raitt)
Comments: Rockin' the Willie Nelson bandana. Back to the old Sanjaya of nice tone to his voice but really, really boring performance! His voice is way, way too weak for this song, and there's really no singing required for it. This is really bad, it reminds me of what everybody hates about Sanjaya in the first place, after a few straight weeks of taking 100% of the media heat after being better than Phil and Haley. He seemed to go off tune there and didn't have half enough attitude to pull it off. Judges all hated the performance correctly. Simon: "Utterly horrendous", absolutely correct. This was an extremely bad performance, from a vocal performance maybe Sanjaya's worst (and not even in an entertaining way!).
Sanjaya's Performance in 7 Words: Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Utterly Horrendous

4. LaKisha Jones - "Jesus Take the Wheel" (Carrie Underwood)
Comments: A bit dangerous, of course, doing a Carrie Underwood song, but I really love this song. I know it takes a lot of heat from the intelligentsia, and I think most "intelligent" music critics hate it but I think it's great. She's playing this pretty much straight and with nothing but pure class here. She's applying the amount of drama you need to sell this song. The only problem is, I'm not sure how much I like the soul licks she's injecting into the chorus here, and then she's glory noting it to all get out at the end here. She is singing a soul ballad atop country instrumentation here. It was rather screechy in the chorus, but at least she sold the emotion. Way better than "Conga" at least. Judges pan it probably excessively, but I kind of agree, the glory noting clashed completely with the country instruments. We all know I'm a Simon hata, but I agreed with Simon 100% here. He is so on the money here that I am shocked.
LaKisha's Performance in 7 Words: Screechy, Shouty, Incongruous, High Emotion, Below Par

5. Chris Richardson - "Mayberry" (Rascal Flatts)
Comments: Lots of people hate Chris' nasally and thin voice, but I think he ("Smooth" aside) is OK. He's picked a really good song here where nasally and thin are actually kind of a good thing for the song here. He's piercing up in those high notes and it's putting a bit of emotion here. I even really like the runs and soul licks he's put in here. 'Twas a bit boring and forgettable, but I actually one of Chris's best performances yet. Randy says he lacked emotion, which is true, but since he never shows any emotion during his singing at all I don't see why they chose this week to nail him for it. Simon criticizes him for being nasally, tinny, and nondescript, which he also always is. This was a really unfair judge's reaction here.
Chris' Performance in 7 Words: Somewhat Bland, Nasally, Nice Tone, Above Average

6. Melinda Doolittle - "Trouble Is a Woman" (Julie Reeves)
Comments: I don't even know what to say about Melinda Doolittle at this point, but I'll give it the ol college try. She's doing a really upbeat, and actually fairly trad country song here. Give credit where credit is due: This song is from 1999, and sounds like a contemporary song. Like always, she's got extremely proficient technical chops here and she's doing really interesting things with the phrasing. And she's doing it with a style of music and singing that I actually CARE about! Further credit: Unlike LaKisha, she's actually adapted her singing to match the song here, rather than trying to shoehorn her singing on top of a song where it doesn't fit. This was incredible. By a huge margin the best of the night, and possibly my favorite Melinda Doolittle performance. Judge's are giving it super praise and she really deserves it this week. Simon tells Melinda to drop the humility after directly feeding it for 10 weeks in a row. Screw you Simon.
Melinda's Performance in 7 Words: Proficient, Fun, Interesting, Best Of The Night

7. Blake Lewis - "When the Stars Go Blue" (Tim McGraw/Ryan Adams)
Comments: I've been looking forward to this, because I think Blake is actually his best when he is being forced to reign himself in, as he will this week. He's playing this completely straight so far, and oh my he has a pretty falsetto. Wow, I never noticed that before. When he's not jumping around the stage like an idiot and trying to comtemporize and old song and Blakify the vocals, he's got a really pretty voice. He still has trouble capturing the emotions of the songs, but this is really pretty, and the song has enough natural emotion in the lyrics and melody that it carry through and wash over the performance with no effort from Blake at all. This was a really smart song choice. I thought this was a good performance. I like country night here, this was one of Blake's better performances.
Blake's Performance in 7 Words: Inessential, Pretty, Good Song Choice, Above Average

ONE THROUGH SEVEN:
1. Melinda
2. Blake
3. Chris
4. Jordin
5. Phil
6. LaKisha
7. Sanjaya

I predict that many will call this a weak episode, but this was my favorite non-Leslie Hunt (screw you America, I still haven't forgotten!) featuring episode of the season. Peace out folks!

Album Review: Martina McBride - Waking Up Laughing

2007-04-16T20:37:00.000-05:00

I have been extraordinarily busy over the last 4 - 6 weeks which explains the lack of posting, and will continue to be over the next 2 weeks. Then it'll be back to normal, at least for the next four or five months before it starts back up again. Ah, the joys of being an actuary. As any writer/blogger knows, inertia takes over, wherein the less you write the much more difficult it is to start writing up again and the more you write the more good ideas you get. I continue to post on the Rolling Teenpop thread and ILX American Idol threads though. Anyways, I will post a review of the new Hilary Duff eventually, no matter how ridiculously late it will end up being. I haven't even had the time to really absorb it yet, much less think about what I will write for a review.

I have had time to more or less absorb the new Martina McBride and think it's pretty mediocre, apart from a few tracks.

The album starts out on a rocking note with "If I Had Your Name", which rocks and is a nice kiss off song, so who cares if the lyrics don't really make too much sense. But the whole album from there veers off into trite, treacly, unoriginal country melodies that are often pleasant and pretty but also not groundbreaking (not that we expected this out of Ms. McBride). "Independence Day" aside, Martina is at her best when she is light and flighty. When she gives into the fun and cheese entirely and screws originality lets loose an MOR country masterpiece like "This One's for the Girls" or "When God Fearin' Women Get the Blues". She does a great job seeming self-assured on songs like those, but the lyrics and melodies here veer into the overly sentimental which prevents her from really breaking out. Of particular note is "How I Feel" which is, I think, one of the worst country songs I've heard all year, and "Anyways" (the lead single) which is trite sentimental religious garbage, and I can't decide if that makes it better or worse than the secular kind. The problem is, that sentimental, unoriginal garbage is what sells, which is why, I've noticed, the singles released off country albums are often among the very worst tracks on those albums (see Montgomery Gentry - "Lucky Man" and Rodney Atkins - "Watching You"). Which is one of the main reasons modern country gets such an awful name.

She does let loose, musically at least, on "Beautiful Again" which is kinda brilliant, a bouncy-as-hell little country number that sounds like a throwaway song about dancing with your baby or something. But it is an extremely dark story about somebody whose parents abandon her, is molested by her uncle, gets pregnant young and loses her boyfriend, but the world goes on and gets beautiful again! Uh, only so that something else crappy can happen again, but whatever. It's got a really great bouncy and catchy melody and I kind of like songs that completely mess with your expectations like that. I think that it can actually afford greater lyrical punch to the song. The key comparison here is, I suppose, "Independence Day" (I hate to keep going back to this, but it is the highlight of her career and one of the major highlights of modern country). It's a big sad song, and it comes out blasting with a massive melody and music that instantly convey importance, which is what helps it to convey most of its pathos. Compare a song like "Beautiful Again", where you can just get washed away in it and forget what's going on. When you do take the time to pay attention to it, however, the stark contrast of the music provides a nice counterpoint for the lyrics that help it from all getting too much, just going too far off in one direction. It's a very hard line to travel and just because "Independence Day" travels it completely brilliantly doesn't mean it's always the way to go. I guess there's little hope a song like this will be released as a single, but if by chance it is it will be one of my top 10 country singles of the year.

This is a very unoriginal set by Martina here but it's a pleasant one too, so I kind of have two minds about it. Listening to it for a while at a time gets to be a real chore because the whole thing is just so trite and unoriginal that it really bears down on you. But on the other hand it's a pretty good collection of songs, Martina McBride can still knock em out of the park, and it's generally very pretty all throughout. I can't think of a single reason to recommend this album over several other, superior ones but if you are a big fan of this type of music you will like this one. And if, like me, you are a moderate fan of the genre, I suspect you will find that it's a perfectly pleasant listen, but fairly forgettable and nothing that demands special attention. Well, that's how I feel about it anyways. C+.

Random Notes

2007-04-13T18:09:00.000-05:00

This is a Cure For Bedbugs homage post, it contains stuff that doesn't need its own post:

1) NEW KELLY CLARKSON NEW KELLY CLARKSON NEW KELLY CLARKSON!!! Yes, that's right readers, my current favorite musical artist, Kelly Clarkson, has released the debut single from her new album, titled "Never Again" (one question, anybody know the songwriting credits on this?). Thoughts: the normal kind of rockin, liberated, breakup lyrics we've come to expect from Kelly, but this is lyrically below some of the stuff on Breakaway (say "Behind These Hazel Eyes" or "Hear Me"), because it covers really familiar ground here. Unlike Breakaway, she's not tearing herself out of a co-dependent hole here, she just hates her ex's trophy wife. From a musical standpoint, the chorus is, I hate to say it, a bit comparatively weak. It could stand a bit more punch and power, though it is catchy. The verses are amazing though and I will be shocked if 2007 produces a better musical moment than the incredible bridge. After a few listens, my initial impression is that this is right up there with "Babies" for my favorite single of the year so far. This will presumably be huge and if rock stations had any brains in their heads they'd be playing the heck out of it. It fits on them more than it fits on top 40. Cannot wait to hear the rest of the album. [9/10 or so is my initial gut reaction.]

2) I guess it's been out for a while, but this is my first listen to "Me and My Imagination" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, whose "Catch You" I previously loved. Much more disco than that previous effort, and it lacks the originality of the hook, but it's another great single by her. Initial reaction is that it is at least almost as good as "Catch You". One of my 10 favorite singles of the year to this point.

3) Now this is REALLY treading on C4B's terrain here, but this article on The Onion AV Club really pissed me off. MULTIPLE CHOICE TRIVIA TIME: Which is the most heinous assumption in this article: a) worthwhile, good popular music is only created by formerly indie artists, b) more recent fans of a band are inherently less worthy than longtime fans of the same band, c) the fact that a song was once covered on American Idol reduces the artistic merit of that song, d) it is a good and desirable thing to make blanket, overarching statements about the characteristics about all the fans of an obscure band, e) music likers listen to popular music, music LOVERS listen to obscure music.

That's right readers, the most heinous assumption is, in fact, e). Listen, I don't wanna pick on Steve Hyden, he makes some good points in the article and by all means seems to be a genuine guy. He brings up an interesting topic of debate. But assumption e) is one that underlies a lot of music writing that I've seen, and as a MUSIC LOVER who also loves pop music more than indie music I'm starting to get danged sick of it. Listen, I spend a lot of time thinking about music. I spend as much or more time seeking out new music now than I did back when I WAS indie. I think there's probably a slight positive correlation in the mass appeal of a song and its quality. I'm willing to bet I was as excited about the release of new Kelly Clarkson music as most people are about release of any music. I pay attention to lyrics, and love songs or hate songs based on their lyrics. Yes, I am a pop music lover and I wish people would stop implying that that makes me a lesser music fan, or that I achieve less emotional connection to music, than a fan of obscure music. Thanks a lot.

Why does it have to be about the social implications of what you like? Why can't it just be about the music? I could clearly and succinctly explain what it is I love about Hilary Duff or Kelly Clarkson or Fall Out Boy and why I think they are better than The Fiery Furnaces or Modest Mouse or whoever. I could explain why I think "Everywhere" is the best song of the 00's. Does this make me a worse person? Clearly, I have extremely selfish reasons to rebel against the social implications of liking certain music ("You like teenpop and the Disney Channel and Hilary Duff? You pedophile!"), but it is something that really bugs me.

4) OK, just 3 points today I guess. Haven't been watching much TV lately and no movies at all, so that's why I haven't posted on them in a while. Still anticipating new Unfabulous which has been pushed back about a million times now and it makes my blood angry to even think about it.

Nostalgia/They're All Gonna Laugh at You

2007-04-02T19:11:00.000-05:00

I wanted to liveblog the Kid's Choice Awards, but I was out of town while they were going on...

In this new and hopefully ongoing series, I will pick one song, album, tv show, movie, whatever to review. But rather than do a straight review of it, I will use that document to launch into a general discourse about reviewing and how I evaluate things. Hopefully it will give some insight into the way I think about this kind of stuff. Anyways, I know it'll be interesting and fun for me to write out, and I hope you guys enjoy it too. As always, feel free to let me know.

The debut installment is about nostaliga, and the work in question is They're All Gonna Laugh at You by Adam Sandler. Just so that you know, two other installments I've basically planned out are Cultural Signifigance/"Macarena" and Musical Autobiography/"Behind These Hazel Eyes". Contingent on how this one turns out, of course. Enjoy.

Nostalgia/They're All Gonna Laugh at You

I hate Adam Sandler. I've seen almost every movie he's ever been in, and I hated every single one of them (oddly enough, one of the few I haven't seen, Punch Drunk Love, is the only one I had a fighting shot of enjoying) (Wedding Singer was OK). I hate his schtick on Saturday Night Live, and not only do I not find him funny, I abhor the very style of comedy that he exemplifies. That kind of silly, lowbrow, frat boy humor that seems to live on forever. But yet, I'd be lying if I said that They're All Gonna Laugh at You wasn't one of my favorite comedy albums of all time.

The album was released in 1993, and so it thus predates nearly the entirety of his film career, though not his Saturday Night Live career. But there's no real tangible differences in the style of humor between this and the rest of his work. So why is it that characters like "The Buffoon" manage to crack me up time and time again with such witty, well-written exchanges as:
Buffoon: I fed my snake beer once. He was slithering this way and that. It was all **'ed up [editor note: Family blog and all]
Admissions Advisor: Well, we discourage excessive drinking here, among both our students and pets.
Buffoon: F***'ing ****
Admissions Advisor: Yes, that's not an uncommon reaction to this policy.
His silly and annoying character, The Buffoon, appears in several skits all throughout the CD, and remains vaguely annoying but funny throughout. As I look down the tracklist, most of the skits are either just stupid ("Right Field", "The Beating of...", "Buddy") or overlong ("I'm So Wasted", "Toll Booth Willie") or both ("The Longest Pee"). But they make me laugh, even most of the ones I just listed. And at some point, I'm forced to ask myself to what extent this love comes from nostalgia as opposed to actual quality, whether it's possible to separate these two, and indeed whether as a reviewer I should even be trying to separate these out.

My older brother bought this album right when it came out. I was 11 and he was 13. And we would go into the basement and play video games, and put this on the stereo and laugh our heads off. And when we thought we heard our mom coming, we would turn it down real low so she wouldn't hear it. She wouldn't have approved of all the swearing, you see, and would surely have confiscated it if she know of it. And we'd listen to passing motorists telling Toll Booth Willie to go f himself, and listen to crazy moms tell their kids that they would all be laughed at and the assistant principal telling cheerleaders that they were required to shower in his office and janitors singing songs about mops and we would just laugh and laugh. Shortly after this, he got his friends and I got mine and we went our separate ways. We are still friendly with each other, but it's nothing like it was then. It can't ever be.

My younger brother and I found this album stored away somewhere in my parents house and immediately put it on. I was immediately flooded with a rush of happy memories. There I was listening to it, and I was 11 years old, and I was turning down the volume because I heard footsteps. I found funny voices and swearing to be the height of comedy. I was still best of friends with my older brother and we were playing Mario Kart and just having a blast. But not only that, I was amazed at how well some of the jokes held up. Even if the skits go on too long or have stupid premises, most of them have funny lines scattered here and there. Oh, and "At a Medium Pace" is kinda brilliant. But where's the line behind "actually funny" and "11 year old Greg funny"? I've listened to the album a few times again since then and I'm not close to knowing yet.

To what extent is nostaliga a positive or negative force though? Fred Bronson has said in his column several times that a person's favorite song of all time tends to have been released when that person was around 13 years old. That rush you feel the first time you hear a song that kicks your ass, the first time you are blown away by how great a song is, it cannot be replicated. My favorite song was released when I was 16/17. Close enough. I went through a long period, in college mostly, where I was pretty much crusading against nostaliga. I hated it. Things should be enjoyed on their own merits, not hazy memories!!! Plus it implies some kind of "things were better back then" kind of viewpoint that I find distasteful. I've backed off that stance considerably since then, but I still can't, for example, watch those BS VH1 nostalgia shows.

So the question is, how much DOES nostalgia impact my enjoyment of music? I mostly listen to current or relatively current music, so not too much, really. But I still have a real soft spot for the pop music of 1996-2000, when I was in high school.

Still, as a reviewer, I always feel the need to strip away nostalgia and context and everything else to just focus on the work itself. It's an instinct that goes against everything I like, since the reviewers who inject the most of their own personality and opinions into their works are the ones who I tend to enjoy most, but it's something I work against. Is there a duty to attempt objectivity on the part of a reviewer? There's certainly a responsibility to give everything a fair shake. A responsibility that I think most reviewers avoid (see my post on romantic comedies or Raise Your Voice). But, I tend to think that as long as a person does a good job of explaining what the work is like, and does a good job of explaining specifically why they enjoy it or not they've done their job. That's basically my philosophy with reviewing things. And there's not a whole lot of room for nostalgia there.

So it's a bit ironic (hypocritical?) that as a reviewer I'm trying to put all of myself and all of my taste out there but I try to strip away all nostalgia from my reviews and thoughts, when it makes up part of my listening habits. But this is what I think of it, after all this: I think people are too quick to attribute things they genuinely enjoy to nostalgia. This was a classic game when I was indie. "Pop music, no I hate that. I only like 'Steal My Sunshine' due to nostalgia!" I think when it comes to pop, there's an unreasonable need to try to justify your tastes, and nostalgia makes an easy scapegoat. I think it's an easy, bullcrap out when people don't want to admit to themselves they really like something or don't wanna examine why they really like something (I say "they" here and later, but this includes myself a lot of times). But I think it's harkening back to a different day in your youth. Music critics are jaded. I've heard thousands and thousands of songs, heard many I love and many I don't. I've almost become inured to the feeling of really loving something. I think people want to go back to the days when they were easier to impress. When music was just about love and enjoyment and not "Oh this is derivative crap, blah blah blah". It's their inner poptimist coming out! Attributing all this to "Oh, it's just nostalgia" is sidestepping the issue and is shortchanging the work.

So screw it, They're All Gonna Laugh at You is an album I loved when I was 11. Maybe though the years, it's become harder and harder to make me laugh. Maybe I've become too critical of comedy. I don't know. This album throws away all my guards and just lets me be silly and laugh. It's a great album, nostalgia be damned.

[8/10]

Random Orphaned Song Reviews

2007-03-19T20:05:00.000-05:00

Not much time for posting, so random dump of song reviews now. Upcoming post on Scatman John.

I couldn't fit these in any other post:

2gether - "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up"; 2gether - "U + Me = Us (Calculus)"
Review: 2-gether was the "fake" boy band produced by MTV. They starred in a TV movie that was all the rage when I was in high school. It was funny, or at least it seemed so at the time. In any event, they released two songs that were hits on MTV, in an example of blatant and shameless cross-promotion that far precedes the Disney Channel's exploitation of the same. Anyways, since they were in a movie that's a parody of boy bands, I guess that makes them a fake or parody boy band, but these both sound like pretty awesome boy band songs to me. The lyrics are just a bit sillier, but these would both fit pretty well in the Backstreet Boys catalogue, for example. Anyways, "U + Me = Us" is their ballad and "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up" is their uptempo tune, and both are good songs with funny lyrics! In any event, I can't think of another song about an ex-girlfriend stealing all of your stuff when she leaves, and it's a pretty good conceit that's handled in a funny way. They've got the boy band look and dance moves and looks down so pat, and they play it so straight faced that it begs the question of where the line between reality and parody is crossed. I guess they are a parody, but they had substantially the same audience as the actual boy bands, and it was pretty genius of MTV. Boybands dominated MTV to an almost nauseating degree at this time, and they capitalized on it. They made their own boy band, but they couched it in "parodying" or "making fun of" boybands, like they were too good for that whole boy band thing. That's a gesture I find inherently distateful, but when it works it works. [8] and [7] respectively

Roxette - "Fading Like a Flower"
Well Roxette is only like, what, the best pop band from 88-92? That's an absolutely fantastic run of 8 singles or so spanning 2 albums, maybe the best set of singles from 2 consecutive albums of any band. Well Madonna or Prince or Michael Jackson or somebody would probably be ahead of them, but anyways it's still excellent. They really deserve their whole post and maybe they'll get it someday, but for now this will suffice. Roxette particularly excelled at writing absolutely massive ballads like "Listen to Your Heart" (my favorite) or "Spending My Time", but this one is uptempo and awesome. There is, of course, the famous dance versions and what not of this track, but I love this song in it's original form with the cheesy 80's pianos and guitar and drums, but it all works. Roxette is all about the spectacle and this is their most spectacular: it's all over the top and crazy and great. And one hell of a catchy chorus. Song starts out with piano, crashing into guitars and piano. Leading to a verse bubbling with tension, waiting to bust out. It breaks out into the big chorus with a sense of great freedom and triumph, and then it just fades out. One of those truly soaring and triumphant choruses like "Breaking Free" and it doesn't even need to be that massive to achieve it! It just soars by contrast to the tension set up in the chorus. Then it just fades away, too soon. Like a flower. [10]

Garth Brooks - "Papa Loved Mama" (not online as far as I can tell)
What can even be said about Garth Brooks? I decided this year that I wanted to start listening to some of the big modern country artists, and Garth was the obvious starting point. So I picked up the hits collection. I already knew only two of the songs, due to my complete ignorance of country until 2005-ish, those two songs being "Friends in Low Places" (clearly the best karaoke song of all time) and "The Thunder Rolls", both of which I love. None of the other songs on his greatest hits really hit the level of those two, but this rollicking and rolling honky tonk type number about a husband killing his wife grabbed my attention on first listen. It's weird to listen to the hits collection though, stripped of all the GARTH-ness of it all. He was massive and great, and he knew he was massive and great and he was a phenomenon and he was the man. But listening to a nicely crafted little fun tune like this, it's impossible to hear any of that. In fact, it's impossible, listening to this greatest hits collection free of context and free of swagger and free of boasting, to fathom just how he became as massive as he did (wasn't until I listened to the live album that I understood that). It just sounds like a good little disposable country number, albeit one that makes an immediate and long-lasting impression. The music to this stands in very stark contrast to the lyrics. Compare to another popular country song about domestic abuse, "Independence Day". That one soars and flies and stays low and sad and just conveys importance from the first listen. The song sticks with you from one listen, and the lyrics match the soaring and the crying and the sadness and the massiveness perfectly. This one sounds throwaway and silly. It sounds like a song that should be about fishin' or drinkin' with the good ol' boys or something. It sounds like a karaoke number, like all Garth's songs do. I sure as hell ain't gonna do karaoke to a song about killing your cheating wife. Upon further listens, it doesn't really stand up as one of the better songs on Garth's greatest hits collection, and it doesn't stick as well as it should, but it's interesting to consider. [6] ---Note to Stylus writers: Somebody do "On Second Thought: Garth Brooks - Double Live." Ripe for the picking.

Toby Keith - "I Love This Bar"
By contrast, this is a song that sounds like it should be about drinkin' with the good ol' boys and it really is about drinkin' with the good ol boys. Another all-time great karaoke song, due to the lyrics being about drinking and bars and the naturally singalong chorus. It's slow and it rolls along, and it's easy to sing and it's laughably simple musically. But Toby's a great singer and he's just got a natural charm to his voice, even his recorded voice. The lyrics are kinda silly, about how much he loves his local bar, but damnit, they're right for the song! It's big and it's massive and it's got natural swagger and charm and it does all of that with no outside context at all. It does all that without even seeming like it's trying to do it. It's the type of song I assumed Garth's catalogue would be filled with, but it really wasn't. It's nothing revolutionary, and it's not nearly as good as the extremely similar "Friends in Low Places", but it'd slide right into Garth's greatest hits collection with great ease. [8]

Anna Nalick - "Breathe (2AM)"
This is acoustic, piano based girl pop, like Sarah McLachlan or Dido or Vanessa Carlton or something. It's not a world away from something like Natalie Imbruglia or Natasha Bedingfield, but somehow I feel oddly disconnected to it and oddly cold towards it and, it's ironic for me to say this, I feel like it doesn't speak to me because I'm not the target for it. (Ironic because it's not like I'm the target for teenpop either). It just feels like sophisticated music for sophisticated people, the type of music that has no dialogue with pop at all and would be offended by being called pop. The genre that just has nothing in it that speaks or appeals to me. But there it sits, on my list of the top 10 singles of 2005, sticking out like a sore thumb amidst the peppy pop songs ("I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)", "Wake Up", "LaLa") and the country ("As Good As I Once Was", "Kerosene"). "Unwritten" stands on the list as well, but that's about 100x sunnier and poppier than this one. To be honest, in fact, I've listened to the whole Anna Nalick album and didn't really care for the other songs. But this song is perfect. It find a genre and sticks to it to the letter and just perfects it, just like that. The lyrics provide insight without being big or cliched or uplifting. I remember when I first heard this song, in mid 2005 on the local top 40 station. I instantly filed it away in the Dido category. But as the song went on, and I heard that amazing, soothing, catchy as hell chorus, I started to get worried. "Hey," I though, "this is a really good song". I learned to embrace it. OK, but WHY is it good?

Anna's voice is nice and kinda generic and forgettable, but she's a good singer and she's got great phrasing. The verse rolls along with a nice little groove to it, into the pre-chorus, which feels like it's leading to something BIG and TRIUMPHANT. Something like "White Flag", some declaration of freedom or some kind of big catchy melody. It leads instead, in a nice bit of misdirection, to a flowing, fading harmony. Friend calls her having troubles. She details all the crap she's going through. Anna tells her, well you've gotta live life, there's nothing you can do about it. So cradle your head in your hands, and...do what, go out? Solve your problems and be proactive and have fun and make the best of it? No, just BREATHE. Just sit down and take stock of the situation. And there's a light at the end of the tunnel and you'll keep making mistakes so what's the point in getting so upset. And it flows through and fades away from the building melody, dropping into a beautiful breathy harmony. A relaxing, soothing harmony. Something that just makes me smile. It doesn't have to be so bad. [10]

Avril Lavigne - "Losing Grip"
The song encapsulates all the problems I have about Avril and all I love about Avril. It's bratty but vulnerable and it's got a melody that's simultaneously catchy and annoying. It's angsty. It's sung with Avril's trademark thin voice that's not strong at all, but instantly conveys the angst and tension that's inherent in most of her lyrics. It sounds like a "real person"s voice. The song is overdramatic about 10 times over, with its huge bombastic melody and it's breakup song lyrics. Dig the lyrics: "Why should I care/Because you weren't there/when I was scared/I was so alone/You, you need to listen/I'm starting to trip/I'm losing my grip/and I'm in this thing alone". Losing grip on what? Her sanity? Her emotions? It's all left vague, and I have no clue what's going on in this song, other than that the dude emotionally devestated her. It's not Avril's best songs, it's probably not one of her 5 or 10 best singles, but it's interesting, and it's probably the single song that best encapsulates her career. [7]

Blink 182 - "All The Small Things"
I don't have much to say about the song here, which hit huge when I was a senior in high school. It was seens as the "antidote" or "alternative" to all the "processed pop" that was out there, though this song shared much of its audience with the fans of those processed pop singers. It's an OK pop-punk song, but not nearly as good as "Dammit" or "What's My Age Again" (or for that matter "The Middle" or "Basket Case" or "Don't Call Me White", etc.). What upset me though was that after remembering the song and seeking out the video, I can't remember what videos it's parodying! I thought I was fairly knowledgeable on this, but clearly my memory is fading. At the start, they are on a plane runway then dancing in front of a group of adoring fans. This is clearly a parody of "I Want It That Way". Then they are in a brick room with combat gear. What the hell? Presumably some boyband video but my memory has faded. It cuts back and forth between these barely distinguishable boy band parodies (maybe they are not parodies of specific videos but just the style?) Then at about 0:30 they are in colored silk pajamas in front of a colored blue silk sheet, which is apparently a parody of "Creep" by why would you parody that??? Boyband and "Creep" parodies continue, then they are on a beach in black and white (at about 0:50). I initially thought this was a parody of the "Survivor" video, but since this video predates that one it can't be the case. That bothers me because I was certain it was a parody of "Survivor". Cutting around, then at 1:10, he looks through a telescope to see a dog biting a man at a beach? This cannot possibly be a parody of a music video, can it? Next new scene is at 1:24, a parody of "Genie in a Bottle" that I could identify in my sleep. Then, one of the band members dresses up as a blonde and runs on a beach holding a red ball? They run naked on a beach next, in a callback presumably to their "What's My Age Again" video. Obvious parody of "Living La Vida Loca" at 1:50 when the girl dumps candle wax on the frontman. At 2:00 we get a brief clip of the singer in a white shirt and a big gold necklace with water dumping on him, that I don't recognize at all. Then is a scene of him dancing in front of a tour bus being washed, which is I think a parody of a Limp Bizkit video though this seems like it predates them too. That's the last new parody in the video. Please provide help if possible. [4]

Career Retrospective: Natalie Imbruglia

2007-03-11T20:28:00.000-05:00

Today's post will discuss Natalie Imbruglia, who is key in my autobiography of a music fan (as will be later explained) and who remains one of my favorite pop stars.

My first introduction to the music of Ms. Imbruglia was "Torn", as was everyone else's. I was 15 when it was released and it was a revalation. Unlike many music critics and especially one would presume most pop music critics, I did not grow up listening to music at all. I never listened to the radio and was entirely not cognizant of pop music at all, until high school. Oh, certainly I "liked" some songs, like "Losing My Religion" and "Motown Philly" and "Under the Bridge" but only because my older brother liked them and I was trying to fit in. For my 13th birthday, in 1995, my parents bought for me a CD player. It went unused and gathered dust for well over a year. In high school though, I was introduced, via a couple of friends, to They Might Be Giants. Flood was the first album I bought and I quickly purchased the rest of their catalogue. I started listening to 80's pop. My older brother listened almost entirely to modern rock radio (99X forever y'all), and I enjoyed listening to some of the poppier modern rock hits of the day. I even bought some albums, albums I probably still have around but am now rather embarrassed about, like Radish and Cowboy Mouth and Monaco. In short, I was a pop music fan who knew nothing about pop music and so didn't like any current pop.

Anyways, I was 15 when I first heard "Torn". I first heard it when I saw the video on VH1. I was transfixed. (It remains to this day probably one of my ten favorite music videos of all time). My friends had introduced me to artists, and I had liked bands my brother liked, but this was a pure pop explosion, and I loved it. It opened my eyes to the world of pure pop bliss. It was my first favorite song, and I found out about it all on my own and loved it all on my own. I had first heard it a bit before it absolutely broke out into a smash and never listened to the radio anyways. All I knew was that none of my friends liked it and my brother didn't like it. Music had been kind of a social thing to this point, but this was all mine and I loved it. I guess my entire history as a music fan can, in some ways, be attributed back to this song. (Not to be too melodramatic though, if it hadn't been this song it would have been something else, like "My Favorite Mistake" or "Steal My Sunshine" or "...Baby One More Time").

So, yeah, in America at least, Natalie is the ultimate one hit wonder. "Torn" ruled the US airplay charts for 11 weeks (though it wasn't allowed to chart on the Hot 100 until well after it had peaked, thanks to Billboard rules at the time which eliminated airplay only singles from charting). The followups "Big Mistake" and "Wishing I Was There" more or less failed to make any impact at all, though "Wishing I Was There" was a minor hit. Any discussion of Natalie has to start with "Torn". It's lovely and it's poppy and it's sweet and it's beautiful and I can't possibly be objective about it but I love it to pieces. I've heard it a million times now (quite possibly more than any other song) and I still haven't gotten tired of it. And yeah, it's a cover of an indie song, by a band named Ednaswap, but it's about 100x better than the original. Ednaswap, who had written the song, somehow felt the need to bury that beautiful lifting melody behind layers of distortion and instruments and fuzz. But the point is, while any discussion of Natalie's music has to start with "Torn", by no means does it have to end there.

The weird thing about "Torn" is that it's not really typical of Natalie's music at all. Natalie's music, for the most part, is characterized by oddball, spare instrumentation and very simple melodic lines. These aren't hook filled acoustic pop songs like "Torn", but they generally sport interesting instrumentation, nice (though generally fairly simplistic) lyrics, and one big central hook. Oh, and Natalie is a first rate singer. Her phrasing is outstanding and it turns very simple melodies into amazing ones. What's ironic about Natalie's music is that all of her songs sound like pop covers of grunge/modern rock songs except "Torn", which is her only song that actually is a pop cover of a grunge/modern rock song.

Right from the time I bought Left of the Middle, one track stood out in my head, in addition to torn. "Big Mistake" builds up slowly, with rather spacey instrumentation and not much melody during the verses. But it explodes in the chorus, which is rather rockin. Anyways, at the time that was my favorite non-"Torn" song on the album, but one song that I might now like even more than "Torn" is "Smoke", which IS rather typical of Natalie's career. It's a very, very pretty ballad, well sung and with nice lyrics and with a chorus that's way catchier than it seems like it should be. The lyrics are rather imagery based, about feeling pain and hurting. And the piercing "Whyyyyyy" in the chorus just cuts straight to the heart. It's achingly beautiful and it makes me want to cry every time I hear it. Thanks to "Smoke" and "Torn", this is one of the few albums which have multiple 10/10 songs on it. The actual followup, in America at least, is "Wishing I Was There", which is sunny pop along the lines of "Torn" and which is probably one of the weaker songs on the album, though the verses are great.

It's not just the singles on the album, pretty much all of the songs on the album are at least very good (heh, except "Impressed"). Personal favorites are "One More Addiction" which is probably the most alt-rock songs on the album and features psychadelic guitars in the chorus, which is possibly the catchiest on the entire album; "Pigeons and Crumbs" which is another very pretty ballad like "Smoke", although it's got more busy and more oddball instrumentation behind it, although the melody never really goes anywhere; and "Intuition" (even better than Jewel!) is very mid 90's, but it's got a nice sunny alt-rock sound to it and the melody is extremely strong throughout (warning: will get stuck in your head).

Natalie followd this album up with White Lilies Island, which is a much more downbeat affair entirely. Most of the songs are co-written with Gary Clark, and you can tell because it's all a bit same-y. Though very good nonetheless! This is a whole album of "Smoke"s and "Pigeons and Crumbs"s, gone are the sunny pop numbers like "Torn" and "Intuition" and "Wishing I Was There". The closest to it is "That Day", unsurprisingly a single from the album. The main guitar hook is nice enough here but what really makes this song is Natalie's performance. The verses are basically spoken word, but remain extremely catchy, due to Natalie's phrasing and wordings. It all leads up to a chorus which not much above spoken word itself and which features musical background that is substantially similar to the verses. The whole song plows ahead like a charging rhino, barely going up for air and just showing a hint of vulnerability. Like most Imbruglia songs, the lyrics are extremely imagery based and don't necessarily tell a complete narrative. As far as I can tell it's a breakup song, but clearly the lyrics are conflicted. The conflict in the lyrics though, is belied by the confident and charging vocals, which makes for an interesting contrast. The other single from this album is "Wrong Impression" , which has a very catchy chorus but isn't really as good as some of her better work. In any event, the album is good, though due to the saminess it's the worst of her three albums.

Other than the singles particular highlights: "Beauty on the Fire" rolls along with a very laid back melody into a prechorus. The song seems to die off right after the prechorus, and I start to lament that she hasn't taken it far enough. But just when it seems about to fade off back into the verse it blows into the chorus which really works in the context of the song. More of the odd spacy instrumentation though. "Satellite" is an acoustic pop song, though it doesn't soar like "Torn", it just kind of rides along sweetly and is very pretty. A great love song. If I could play guitar I would totally cover it. "Talk In Tongues" is a very simple song with not much of a melody at all, but it's very low and sad. And it's catchy enough anyways.

I feel like a broken record here which I guess hits to the main criticism of Imbruglia, which is the similarity of it all. Basically spoken word, very melodically simple verse building up into a big catchy pop chorus, is the basic Imbruglia song structure and most of her songs fit the bill. But the pop hooks are good enough and the verses are pretty enough and her performances are charismatic enough to overcome it all. To me at least.

The singles on her third album are "Shiver", which is a nice ballad that has a good catchy bass hook. The melody on the verses is very classic Imbruglia (one Imbruglia criticism: the verses all sound kinda alike), and it builds up to a pretty standard rock ballad chorus but is catchy. "Counting Down the Days" contends for my very favorite non-"Torn" Imbruglia song, with "That Day" and "Smoke", as it's very pretty and very catchy! It's a song about regretting a breakup, and it probably sports the best lyrics of any Imbruglia song in her catalogue. The production adds a lot to the song too. And it's a hundred times more lively than anything on White Lilies Island.

She only turns to Gary Clark for 2 songs on this album, "When You're Sleeping" and "Sanctuary", and you can tell because they sound exactly like the songs on her second album. Gary Clark is apparently kind of a one trick pony here, but when he does the one trick well enough I'm kinda willing to overlook it. I'm glad she's decided to work with multiple co-writers here though, because it adds a bit of new life to the album. She even turns to Kara Dioguardi for two songs, "Starting Today" and "On the Run", which are two of the particular highlights on the album.

Anyways, the music isn't as relentlessly hooky as most of the stuff that I talk up on here, but if you are in the mood for some more downbeat and pretty pop music, Natalie Imbruglia is one of the finer purveyors of that form. Her songs are a bit soundalike, especially on White Lilies Island, so that means it isn't going to be for everybody. But if you find that you like some of the singles that I linked, definitely go out and buy Left of the Middle and Counting Down the Days. She's just finished up a new album, and apparently it will be released in "Spring 2007", which would be any day now.

Back from the Grave

2007-03-10T09:51:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to bump that damn American Idol post off the top of the page, staring and laughing at me. In reality, I haven't had internet connection at home for the past 10 days, which explains the lack of posts. I've had a couple ideas for posts in the interim, so expect some action over the next few days. I won't make any promises, per se, because I've made enough failed promises on this blog already. OK, to steal an idea blatantly from Frank K, here are my top 10 singles of 2007 thus far (an attempt to redeem this post slightly):

1. Natasha Bedingfield - "Babies": Completely mental lyrics, the "Babies, babies, babies, babies" part is completely bonkers, the main hook is "mm mm mm mm mm mm" (Crash Test Dummies!) and the whole thing never really comes together. But it's still brilliant! Good misdirection to the chorus (lyrically), where it seems like it's gonna be a simple declaration of love. Lyrics are funny and great.

2. Toby Keith - "High Maintenance Woman": Hilarious! "A high maintenance woman don't want no maintenance man". Great vocals, as always. Toby Keith has shown a remarkable knack for writing lyrics with funny lyrics and extremely catchy melody, and this goes right in that vein (erm, "As Good As I Once Was", "I Love This Bar", et al). Main hook can get stuck in your head for days, but in a good way! Right up there with Toby Keith's best work. If he can combine great hit singles like this with the remarkable consistency of White Trash With Money perhaps we can get a great album from the guy.

3. My Chemical Romance - "Famous Last Words": It starts out fairly standard, but ends up being nothing short of a genuine rock epic, weaving about 3 or 4 different, equally big, parts together with a great deftness, and all 3 or 4 parts are great, especially the main chorus! It sneaks up on you, but once it hits, it hits hard: emo-rock has met its peak with this song.

[The top 3 songs are all so close in quality and so different that there's no meaningful separation between them. I've listed them like this, but I keep changing my mind! In any event they are all equal, and will likely all be in my Top 20 or close to it.]

4. Vanessa Hudgens - "Say OK": A beautiful ballad. After "Come Back to Me" I had basically, unfairly, written off her entire musical career, but this song knocked me out. A great vocal performance from Baby V here, as her piercing voice just adds a lot of beauty here. Not much going on in the lyrics here, but I can forgive it for the catchiness and prettiness.

5. Hilary Duff - "With Love": It was hyped that the new Hilary Duff album would be more Eurodance, but this sounds like a pretty standard American R&B song to me. Hilary’s voice is filling out as she gets older, but it’s still remarkably thin. But in any event, it’s a super catchy song with a great and original melody, and that forgives all manner of sins. Markedly inferior, however, to “Play With Fire”.

6. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - "Catch You": This sounds appealingly like an electro cover of a great Blondie song that never was. Nice lyrics/music synergy here as this song just SOUNDS like the soundtrack to a high-energy chase. The catchiest melody and music of the brief year to this point and great stalkerish lyrics make this a refreshingly original pop tune that puts a good start on 2007, after British pop's rather weak 2006. (Kickass video too)

7. Ashley Tisdale - "He Said, She Said": Ashley's not a very strong singer, which does hurt this song a bit, but the production and main hook are so catchy they can overcome it. Ashley's album was really inconsistent, but the best of it is quite good indeed. And this is her best effort.

8. Christina Aguilera - "Candyman": Normally I don't go much for the retro sound, but I dig the crazy lyrics here a lot, and that plus the hook are enough for me. And the video! So, yeah, it's rather simplistic and maybe even a bit annoying, but it's my second favorite song on Xtina's last album, and this is one of her best vocal performances ever. She totally sells the ridiculousness of the song.

9. Katharine McPhee - "Over It": The song has the same songwriters and the exact same general sound as Jojo’s “Too Little, Too Late”, which makes it easy to dismiss. But it also has a great melody, conveying the sadness of the lyrics very well. Alas, the lyrics and vocal performance aren’t quite up to the wistful beauty of the music, but they are still pretty good and that “Too Little, Too Late” formula just works so well that it can drive at least a few more great songs. Still the best "Over It" of the year.

[All songs above this comment are 8/10 or better...songs 1-3 are 9/10 and will strongly contend for top 2o singles of the year, songs 4-8 are 8/10 and will strongly contend for top 50 singles of the year. What really separates the 8/10 songs from the 9/10 songs here is lyrics.]

10. Avril Lavigne - "Girlfriend": I want to like it more than I do but the whole thing bugs me. I like the lyrics a lot, but the main hook is kind annoying and I dislike the video so much that it is seriously hampering my enjoyment of the song. Well below the level of Avril's best work ("Complicated", "My Happy Ending", "He Wasn't", et al). But obviously, I still like the song, or else it wouldn't be up here.