10.10.2002
posted by fred solinger 9:32 PM
the best commercial on television is for steven seagal's true hollywood story. it seems to be about only twenty seconds long. first, the professional announcer sets the scene, intoning over a montage of seagal images. then it cuts to video footage: seagal, with his back to the camera, is running down a hall. his arms, swinging very freely, are bent at about a 140-degree angle; his hands, open, are pointing towards the ground; his feet are giving his ass a kicking with every stride. over the top of this, a disembodied voice says, "if you look at him run, he runs like a woman."
posted by fred solinger 9:18 PM
kabbalism: is it the religion for celebs who smirk at scientologists? reason i ask is that i just saw madonna on larry king talking about the sect. it seems like a very convenient faith: according to her, one is not beholden to petty dogma or forced to adhere to constricting rules, dietary or otherwise. instead, they just have to understand that "we are all one." jesus was a kabbalist, she says. so is guy ritchie. (guess who converted whom?)
posted by fred solinger 7:43 PM
"the ketchup song" is the worst song on the radio right now. thankfully, for now it's quarantined on ktu, which always seems to be ground zero for this type of contagion, cf. "heaven." now, i was aware of "the ketchup song," how it was poised to be the next big novelty hit. also, i heard this song on the radio which i wanted to come home and say was the worst song currently on the airwaves. i subjected myself to at least two minutes worth of the song, a song that seems to be nothing more than the chorus of "rapper's delight" with some "la la"s thrown in and set to a "latin" beat that even paulina rubio would scoff at. i'm saying to myself: "this must be 'the ketchup song.' it has to be." so i sit through this onslaught and, whaddya know, the dj doesn't say what the song was. so i go to ktu's website, check their playlist -- and there it is. "the ketchup song." i verify some lyrics, and that brings us up to date."the ketchup song" is the sound of your mother dragging you out to the dancefloor at your sister's wedding.
10.9.2002
posted by fred solinger 8:25 PM
i don't think i've said anything about erick sermon's "react." hip-hop's recent fling with the east began with timbaland's asian dalliances and were brought further into focus by dj quik's production on "addictive" by truth hurts. that track was structured so that it seemed like the bollywood soundtrack was coming from a passing car of from the upstairs neighbor's apartment. truth hurts peformed her half of the song as if she were coolly unaware of her hindi counterpart. this is where "react" differs from what came before it: the chorus of the song is a reaction to the vocal sample. "whatever she said, then i'm that," sermon responds. this self-consciousness would seem self-congratulatory in other hands; sermon is such a laid-back, mirthful guy, though, that i'll give him a break (a luxury i wouldn't afford to, say, jermaine dupri). besides, it's satisfying to hear him finally formulate a cogent post-epmd, post-zapp sound, like an artless timbaland with dr. dre’s polish (providing he did produce the track, which has always been his raison d'etre.)
posted by fred solinger 4:27 PM
what the FUCK?!: pardon my language but, again i say, what the FUCK?! link from mitch; i don't know whether to thank him or to (meep) spank him.
posted by fred solinger 4:18 PM
stolen from bill:
Not a sample sale?Toni Braxton is accusing hitmaking couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé Knowles of "lifting" one of her songs.
A few months ago, expectant mother Braxton recorded "Me and My Boyfriend" (which samples Tupac Shakur's "Me and My Girlfriend") for her CD "More than a Woman," which is due out next month.
Braxton's Arista Records rep, Chris Chambers, tells us that Braxton offered Def Jam Records president Kevin Liles, a friend, the chance to hear the completed track early.
According to Chambers, Braxton believes Liles "played it for [Def Jam artist] Jay-Z" and that the rapper and his new love interest, Knowles, cribbed the Tupac sample and a melody from Baxton for their duet "Bonnie and Clyde."
"When you listen to them, they are the same song," claims Chambers. "She [Braxton] thinks it's unethical."
A Def Jam rep had no comment at press time.
---
i remember a similar 'disagreement' transpired between ice cube and cypress hill, the latter claiming the former stole a beat of theirs that they'd played for him the studio. this situation is interesting because, in olden days, r&b artists used to make the beats that rappers stole: in this scenario, an r&b singer is claiming that a rapper stole a beat that she in turn stole from another rapper. now, i tend to like it when r&b acts jack hip-hop beats -- besides being turnabout-is-fair-play, it's almost like a bootleg, airy vocals and melodies contrasting with a hard-hitting track. what i no longer care for are acts who utilize a beat that was once an r&b song but a song that only became popular after it was used by a hip-hop artist, e.g. ashanti's "foolish." it's the same kind of recycling that makes "heaven (candlelight remix)" insipid, viz. power-ballad-cum-lame-dance-cum-power-ballad-all-over-again.
10.8.2002
posted by fred solinger 8:15 PM
being granted the right to perform a bond theme is an honor, a recognition of either where one is at in the industry (a-ha) or how far one has come (tina turner). then, of course, there's the strange case of matt monro. but i digress.with this boon, there is the weight of expectation and legacy. since bond has been ceded a gradually lower profile, catering to a niche market, the former is easily borne; the latter is arguably as strong as ever, with the redoubtable ghosts of john barry and shirley bassey ever-present. most artists commit self-abnegation, surrendering their particular styles and checking their egos at the door -- iggy pop, for chrissakes, on the shaken and stirred comp, mews a respectful "we have all the time in the world." a small few, though, have made bond their bitch. so to speak.
paul mccartney was the first artist to pen his own bond theme, but the overlapping of styles -- the pomp, the circumstance -- between bond and wings makes this a negligible case. next, then, were duran duran, who flung both bond and his heritage into the fire and forced him to dance therein. the end result: a #1 pop single. "view to a kill" sounds like contemporaneous duran duran material, and even the sampled horns from the 007 theme reinforce that. maybe this is why i'm reminded of duran duran when i hear madonna's "die another day."
like the duranis, madonna makes bond bend -- or dance, even -- to her rules. "i'm gonna break the cycle, i'm gonna shake up the system," she says and that she does. david arnold, current bond composer, is electro-friendly but it's hard to imagine that anyone but madonna and (i'm guessing) mirwais had a hand in this single. pizzicato strings swoop in and out of the track, blissfully unaware of the beat's fluctuating rhythms, of the stop-and-start patterns of the track. james bond is reimagined as a club maven, living in williamsburg, listening to tiga, and the change does him good. the change will assuredly do the bond theme good: "die another day" is the first single since, yes, "view to a kill" to trouble the pop charts. meanwhile, madonna, known for her penchant for frequent reinvention, wisely stays the electronic course and comes up with her best single in ages.
10.7.2002
posted by fred solinger 9:43 PM
songs to download & sing (in this order):
lemon jelly, "space walk"
mitch ryder, "when you were mine"
jay-z ft. beyonce, "'03 bonnie & clyde"
ll cool j ft. marc dorsey, "love u better"
suede, "lonely girls"
sinead o'connor, "molly malone"
foo fighters, "all my life"
shania twain, "gonna getcha good"
snoop dogg ft. pharrell, "from tha chuuuch to da palace"
von bondies, "it came from japan"
posted by fred solinger 8:09 PM
can anything be inferred about the politics of the networks showing -- fox, upn -- and not showing the president's speech on iraq? (abc, cbs, nbc.) abc may not want to interrupt its lead-in to monday night football; cbs, to everybody loves raymond. and nbc has msnbc (and fear factor.)
posted by fred solinger 6:35 PM
i've been negligent by not mentioning some of the fantastic blogs that have recently registered on my radar. they are:
submeat: thomas has great taste -- mainly because it seems to mirror my own -- and probably the best 90s list i've seen to date. (and i don't expect to see too many more.) also, he was unwittingly the catalyst for this post, reminding me of the great sites that i've been meaning to give a nod to for the longest time.
perpetual motion: bill johnson! one of my old a.m.prince cohorts, all grown up and with a site of his own. oh, sure, he likes jeff buckley, but he's generally good people. just don't ask why they call him junebug!
the minor fall, major lift: tmftml is a great repository for links and features pithy commentary on each. readers of this page may remember when it went through a newslink phase, but rest assured, tmftml pulls it off with greater aplomb.
the rub: first off, the rub is one of the best-looking sites i've come across and, hands down, the most attractive pita page. but, like yours truly, more than just looks factor into its appeal. the writing is intelligent and compelling even though, musically, our taste has little intersection. different strokes and all of that.
no rock&roll fun: simon b. writes at length about a number of uk music issues, all of which are dear to my anglophilic heart. PLUS: lots of pictures of debbie harry.
spizzazz: spizzazz has fairly great taste, avril notwithstanding. moreover, there's a free-wheeling, devil-may-care approach to writing that was once this page's stock-in-trade.
posted by fred solinger 2:27 PM
odd credit from the sopranos: watching the credits after last night's episode, i noticed this: dialect coach to mr. gandolfini. he was born and raised in westwood, nj; he went to rutgers. why does he need someone to teach him how to speak like he's from jersey? is his accent not stereotypical enough?
posted by fred solinger 1:59 PM
ti esrev er dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup i: so, if you haven't figured out yet, the backwards message in the chorus of missy's "work it" is saying, "i put my thing down, flip it and reverse it." in the second verse, she says, "watch the way missy like to take it backwards." credit it to windows sound recorder and an inquisitive nature.
10.6.2002
posted by fred solinger 2:19 PM
(n.b. the new jay-z single, i've just discovered, is officially being called "'03 bonnie & clyde." it's gone by both names on the net, and even that title is a nod to a line in tupac's original ("'96 bonnie & clyde.") i could've edited the below to include this information, but i didn't want to ruin the symmetry.)
posted by fred solinger 2:17 PM
the metempsychosis of tupac shakur: following tupac's passing, the race was on as to who would be the new tupac. an early contender was dmx because he was raw; his music belied his east coast roots; and he was often seen shirtless. he also had the dubious task of resurrecting steven seagal's film career with exit wounds. the co-star of seagal's lastest movie is the next in line for the tupac crown: ja rule. like dmx, he has a penchant for toplessness; unlike dmx, the ladies love him for his vulnerability. ja rule's problem, though, is that he's far too eager to please. for sho', tupac wouldn't have done a j-lo duet unless he was poking her, and so the search continues.the least likely person to inherit the role, particularly given his fealty to his boro and his kinship with biggie, is jay-z. and yet the new jay-z single, "me and my girlfriend," is "me and my girlfriend" by tupac, d.b.a. makaveli. the beat is the same, the chorus is the same -- well, almost: beyonce sings the second line of the chorus which, in the original, went "down to ride to the bloody end." it doesn't go that way anymore. i have no idea how one begins to credit this thing. (for one, i suppose, there'll be a writing credit for prince, whose "if i was your girlfriend" is interpolated near the end -- a jay-z addition to the original. )
on the heels of common's "i used to love h.e.r." rappers nationwide begin introducing metaphor to their rhymes. so in pac's version, "me and my girlfriend" is about his 9mm; jay-z takes the literal route and makes it about his sex shooter, his girl. rumor has it that jay is poking beyonce, to the, one can only imagine, great consternation of matthew knowles. jay-z has his thuggish side, as we all know, and even his misogynistic side, but here he offers some tenderness: "the problem is you dudes treat the one that you're lovin' with the same respect that you treat the one that you're fuckin'." he even talks about watching sex & the city!
virility, ruggedness, and sensitivity: jay-z states his case as heir to both biggie and pac.
posted by fred solinger 12:16 PM
zadie smith's second novel, the autograph man, is out. and apparently it is no good. a shame since i was looking forward to it; anyone want to say otherwise?
posted by fred solinger 11:37 AM
you know you're watching too much reality tv when you're watching tlc's a dating story -- now, wait, i'm not finished -- and you recognize the woman as one of the "contestants" from the bachelor (gwen). i think this even one-ups big brother 3's josh appearing on blind date. (but still not as amusing as bobbie brown's appearance on the self-same show, where she gets dissed by a meathead.)
contact me.
the following are some sites i visit
from time to time. you'd be all the better if you did the same:
nylpm
freaky
trigger
josh
blog
loatd
grr
skykicking
maura.com
popshots
matos
badger
catherine
pearls
the voice music section
submeat
perpetual motion
tmftml
the rub
no rock&roll fun
spizzazz
fluxblog
close your eyes
technicolour
