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  • 2009 American Music Awards Play By Play – West Coast Edition

    Since I’m on the West Coast, we’ll pretend this show is just starting.

    (By the way, Money Mike posted his own East Coast version up. It’s East Coast vs. West Coast all over again.)

    I remember as a kid when I used to count down the time until the AMAs were about to start. Now? Not so much. They don’t make award shows like they used to, but hopefully we’ll get some fun performances.

    I expect lots of Jay-Z love, lots of Michael Jackson love, lots of Taylor Swift love, and the opposite of lots of love for Kanye West.

    Like Arsenio used to say, “Let’s get busy!”

    Janet Jackson
    Janet Jackson
    – The show started with Janet already in mid-performance. She’s going through the old hits, though not wearing the old wardrobe. She’s wearing a brown outfit that makes her look like a baggy Pocahontas.

    – Who seated Mary J. Blige next to Carrie Underwood? I bet they could talk about old boyfriends.

    MJ: Girl, you think Tony Romo was bad? Man, I wanted to break K-Ci’s knee caps.
    CU: You dated KC from the Sunshine Band?
    MJ: Um, no. K-Ci from Jodeci. Forget it.

    – The only problem with Janet going through her old hits is that it just makes anything she’s done in the last 5 years look so bad in comparison.

    – Paula Abdul is the first presenter. No, she didn’t make any Ellen DeGeneres looks, acts, and sounds like a boy jokes, though you know she wanted to.

    – The Black Eyed Peas won the first award which was for favorite group in the pop/rock category. At least this time, Fergie’s face didn’t break the HD tuner on my TV like it did last week.

    (I DVRd Saturday Night Live last week and watched it after the fact. The picture was perfect until Fergie started to sing. The picture became pixelated and then was suddenly fixed when the performance was over. Coincidence? I think not.)

    – The only thing I can really say about Shakira’s performance is, “Oh my damn.”

    – Even though that long dress made her hips and legs look like a pair of parentheses ( ), Kelly Clarkson sung the hell out of We Were Never Meant To Say Goodbye.

    – Alex Rodriguez just introduced Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. I bet he and Timberland and Dr. Dre could talk PEDs for days.

    – Nope, not sick of Empire State Of Mind yet.

    – Kate Hudson is wearing a dress that shows off her 14-year old boyish chest. She could get away with going shirtless and I don’t think anyone would flip.

    – Oh man, I hope my TV can take it. The Black Eyed Peas are back on stage. Fergie Ferg ’bout to break my TV again.

    – Thankfully, my TV was fine. The performance was actually fine too. And she didn’t piss herself on stage, which is always a plus.

    – Your boy Michael Jackson won the award for favorite male artist in the Soul/R&B and you know who accepted it for him. If you answered greasy Jermaine, you were right. Also, you got to see his son Jermajesty, which was a treat in that of itself. I was almost sure that child didn’t really exist. But he did!

    – I know nothing about the Zack Brown band. But what I learned today is that some of those dudes have some manly beards.

    – Beyonce won an award and then it was announced that she wasn’t there. My heart rate has never been so up and down in a five second period ever in my life.

    – Hat makers thank Ne-Yo for keeping them in business.

    – Rihanna has the same haircut that David Silver rocked in the first season of Beverly Hills, 90210.

    – Carrie Underwood looks good and sounds good, but needs to stay off the salad. Yes, you can be too thin. She and Kate Hudson are trying to out-skinny each other.

    – Lady GaGa was carrying something in both of her back pockets, but she doesn’t have any pockets. Hmmm.

    – That Lady GaGa performance was just, um, it was just, um, hmm. If I tried to describe it, you wouldn’t understand and I’d just give myself nightmares. This is why YouTube was invented.

    – Not sure about you, but I can really do without these Perez Hilton audience shots.

    – Some country group called Gloriana just beat Lady GaGa for the Breakthrough Award. I think I saw GaGa walk off in a huff and fly away in her spaceship.

    – Ok, I think they edited this show for us on the West Coast. There’s supposed to be a part during J-Lo’s performance and she falls while performing. All I saw is that she jumped, all of a sudden it went into slow motion, and then jump cut city. Again, why YouTube was created.

    – You go Whitty. Do your thing. Somewhere, Bobby Brown gently weeps while shaving those lines into the side of his head.

    – I’m not sure Whitney did this on purpose or not, but she screamed, “I love YOU,” like Michael Jackson used to do it where you emphasize the “you”. I think that was a shout out to Mike.

    – Taylor just won award number two and she’s not even there. I think that if you don’t attend the show and you’re not in jail like TI, or you didn’t pass away before it was given out, you have to automatically give it to Kanye.

    – And just as I say that, MJ won for favorite male artist in Pop/Rock. Greasy is back on the scene to accept the award, but this time, sans Jermajesty.

    – Lady GaGa was breaking fake glass on her piano that was on fire. Alicia Keys just did her one better by playing her piano in mid air while it was spinning. Supposely GaGa saw that from her space ship and just went into hyper speed.

    – It’s pretty telling that Eminem decided to do his verse from Drake’s Forever since nearly everything on his album was garbage.

    – Timbo is now on stage and the back of his neck looks like a pack of hot dogs. But I’m not mad because he just let Nelly Furtado join him and she’s still looking foine.

    – There’s been a Toni Braxton sighting. Good to see her back and I hope she’s healthy. Jimmy Jackson and Jason Kidd just remembered why they hate each other.

    – My main man Ryan Seacrest is out to give out the Artist Of The Year.

    Let me run down the candidates quickly:

    Eminem – Relapse may be the worst album of the year.
    Michael Jackson – Dude sold more records dead than anyone alive is selling this year, except probably Taylor Swift. Also took all the buzz away from the Beatles re-releases.
    Kings Of Leon – My friend Christal had to show me their video the other day. I’d never seen it before. Enough said.
    Lady GaGa – She’s too far ahead of her time. Like by maybe 500 years.
    Taylor Swift – I don’t have a Taylor Swift song in my music library, but she was pretty fun on Saturday Night Live.

    And Taylor Swift beats MJ. Ok, maybe she wasn’t that fun on Saturday Night Live. And she talks like Drew Barrymore.

    – Adam Lambert is closing the show. However, I don’t think he’s closing it out Mariano Rivera style.

    – I wonder if I can get my hair as high as Adam’s. That might be a 2010 goal for me.

    – Wait, is Adam Lambert gay?


    Photo of Janet from Wikipedia and shared through creative commons

  • Random Thoughts On John Mayer

    I will warn you that there’s no real direction to this. Read at your own risk. It’s a bit of a hodge podge.

    My main man Money Mike should have a review up of John Mayer’s new album, Battle Studies pretty soon, but after watching John Mayer’s concert on Fuse and hearing Battle Studies a few times, I felt the need to put some thoughts out there about the man of the hour, the man with power, too sweet to be sour (word to Superstar Billy Graham).

    John Mayer's Battle Studies
    John Mayer’s Battle Studies
    – One of my favorite Twitterers, ToureX tweeted out that the John Mayer concert he was hosting was filled with females and noticed that Mayer isn’t necessarily a guy oozing machismo.
    He said:

    At a John Mayer concert filled with chicks. Guys think machimso wins girls but humble guys like Mayer drive em crazy.

    Is John Mayer humble? He seems kind of smug and smarmy to me. Money Mike calls him “douchey”. I wonder what girls think about the way he handles himself. If you’re female (or wish to be female, or have a female understanding, or simply like to wear pink), comment below. We guys might just be hating and maybe ToureX is on the money.

    – My friend Carletta tweeted out something pretty brilliant the other day.
    She said:

    I think Mayer has relationships only to have things to write songs about. Works for me.

    It does seem that young John likes to love them and leave them and then write about them and sing about them. Who’s next on his list? My money is on him stealing Scarlett Johansson away from Ryan Reynolds who then goes on a roid rage, only to take a guitar to the face. And then Johansson and Mayer leave to Barbados, happily ever after until he needs a new muse for some breakup songs. Works for Usher right?

    – Battle Studies is a pretty good record. It’s doesn’t come close to touching Continuum, which I have given “classic” status to, but there are some good songs on it. Mayer compares the dissolving of a relationship to a battle with lines like, “Red wine and ambien, you’re talking shit again, it’s heartbreak warfare,” in Heartbreak Warfare, and goes a little wacky on us with Who Says with my favorite line, “I don’t remember you lookin’ any better, but then again, I don’t remember you.”

    – I think he might have a hit record with Half Of My Heart if he recuts it with more of Taylor Swift on the hook. She is the it girl. And maybe have Kanye West come on and throw 16 on it. Hey, why not? He and Kanye have already worked together before. Check out Bittersweet.

    – Mayer in concert isn’t too interesting until he gets to go crazy on the guitar. He performed most of his hits, as well as certain songs from Continuum that Mayer fans adore like Gravity and Belief. But he didn’t perform my favorite Johnny Mayer track, which is the last cut on the album, I’m Gonna Find Another You.

    You might have your reasons, but you will never have my rhyme
    I’m gonna sing my way away from blue
    I’m gonna find another you

    – I also noticed that Mayer is way skinnier than you ever thought and that he has arms the size of pipe cleaners.

    – Lastly, in the last song on Battle Studies, Mayer talks about how you can only be friends or lovers with someone, and you can’t really have it both ways. In Friends, Lovers, Or Nothing he kind of shows his ass a bit. I’m proof that you can have a dual relationship after the fact, so maybe my main man Johnny Mayer needs to just be a bit nicer to Jessica and Jennifer and maybe they’ll stick around. But then again, he won’t have a muse for the heartbreaks and warfare.

  • First Look: Shakira

    Shakira is one of the more interesting characters in pop music today.

    Musically, she’s been all over the place. She started off on a sort of Alanis Morissette vibe, and then once she started singing in English, her music became more dance/pop oriented, but not really any more mainstream. “Hips Don’t Lie”, her song with Wyclef, was a huge hit, but it was still a bit odd compared to the majority of pop music out these days.

    Her new single “Give it Up to Me” represents her most obvious dalliance with mainstream pop so far. Featuring the production of Timbaland and the rapping talent (I say that unironically) of Lil Wayne, the song is focus-grouped to hit #1 on the charts. Which it probably won’t, because, frankly? It’s not that good a song. Wayne’s verse is credible, and the song is catchy enough, but there’s barely 2 verses in it and ultimately it just sounds lazy. The video is suitably odd, with Shakira dressed up as Lady Liberty and some bodacious choreography, but…I dunno. Something about the song leaves me a little unimpressed. It’s similar to the transformation Nelly Furtado made when she started working with Timbaland, only nowhere near as good.

    Sounds to me like her record company heard the album, didn’t hear anything they would consider a hit and had Shakira go back into the studio with the most obvious people they could find. Sigh. Some people never learn.