Oh, pretty sparkles!

I apologize for not posting these in a more timely fashion. It’s been a crazy few weeks. Sparkle wasn’t very good, but Sparkle kinda was.

During one of the arguments Whitney Houston’s character in Sparkle has with her daughters about why they shouldn’t try to make it in the music industry, she says, “Was my life not enough of a cautionary tale for you?” It’s a startling moment, to say the least. When Houston uttered it, the film set must have shuddered with sad recognition. Because the life of Houston, who drowned earlier this year in a hotel bathtub after an accidental overdose of prescription pills, was certainly a cautionary tale. Continue…

The 2008 Golden Teddy Awards for Most Excellence in Music

The winners should all be so very proud.

Most Excellent Reason to Loathe the Grammies.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gghjczAt0] So, Spin, Rolling Stone, and Entertainment Weekly all declared that TV on the Radio’s Dear Science was the best album of 2008, and the band didn’t get a single Grammy nomination. Meanwhile, Kid Rock got a nomination for a song built entirely on a Lynyrd Skynyrd hook. And the Christianist boy bandJonas Brothers, who were spit out by the Random Pop Star GeneratorTM, were short-listed for Best New Artist. I know that the Grammys have been a joke for decades, but still.

Most Excellent Album from Any Source.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7mMoc-x_v0] TV on the Radio’s Dear Science is the best possible outcome for the freak show love child of David Bowie, Beck, Prince, and the Talking Heads. With distortion. Or something like that. It’s accessible, danceable art rock with slam poetry lyrics.

Most Excellent Album More than 75% Computer Generated.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7FUMLIG03k] I just listed to Robyn’s Robyn for the bazillioninth time while making my fabu white and green bean salad, and I still love it, especially this song here on the left. It’s the album that Britney Spears would make if she had talent. And how can you not love someone who describes herself as the “most killingest pop star on the planet. A pint-sized atom bomb dosed to the tits on electric and dispensing wisdom in three-minute modernist pop bulletins on the post-adolescent condition.” They’re not modernist, actually. Even though “postmodernist” wouldn’t be exactly right, it’s the closest word we have.

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