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  • Kylie Minogue’s “All the Lovers”: Not Just Another Video With People Taking Their Clothes Off on a City Street

    Though most everywhere else in the world, Kylie Minogue has been a pop icon second only to Madonna for the last 25 years, we here in the U.S. have given her only intermittent attention. Back in the 80s, we appreciated her teenybopper take on the 60s dance hit “The Loco-Motion”, and in 2001, we couldn’t get the la-la-la’s of “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” out of our heads, but that’s pretty much it. Kylie’s getting set to release her 11th studio album (her first on the venerable Astralwerks label) – Aphrodite – on July 6. The album is preceded by the single “All the Lovers”, which comes with a video that should prove very, very eye-catching, taking the “city street nudity” theme, introduced by Alanis Morissette back in the 90s and most recently advanced by Matt & Kim and Erykah Badu, to another level altogether.

    Okay, so no one’s getting naked naked in this video, least of all Kylie, who despite being probably more scantily clad than she normally appears in public, remains the most covered. Watch as pedestrians on a bustling city street spontaneously rip their clothes off – spilling their milk, spilling their briefcases, spilling their… marshmallows? – and find the nearest body to make out with. Meanwhile, Kylie rises – all-goddess-of-love-like – as the beautiful gleaming spire at the top of an ever-rising ziggurat of writhing (and occasionally swaying-to-the-chorus) flesh, a glittering tower of carnal indulgence. Oh yes, this video should definitely get Ms. Minogue the undivided attention of the American listening public. Until next year at least.

  • Awesome Song Alert! “Crash Years” by the New Pornographers

    Never mind their naughty, naughty name, the New Pornographers, a veritable herd of super-talented late-thirty/early-fortysomething Vancouverites, have put out five albums of smart, sharply ingratiating pop over the last decade. The New Pornographers aren’t so much a traditional band as they are a sort of indie-rock network whose members – most famous among them singer-songwriters Neko Case and Carl (A.C.) Newman – freely engage in high profile solo projects (Case’s Middle Cyclone was one of the most critically celebrated albums of 2009), or form other groups with each other and other local musicians.

    Their latest album, appropriately titled Together hit stores last month, accompanied by the single “Crash Years” , and if ever the band is to break out of the indie-rock ghetto and score a major hit single on the pop charts, this will be the song to do it. The song is a sweet, summery ode to… well, ruin. Physical ruin. Personal ruin. Societal ruin. Economic ruin. Who knows. Take your pick. The New Pornographers leave us room to choose, and if we’re all so well-adjusted that nothing springs immediately to mind from our personal lives, the evening news has certainly presented us with a nice buffet of creeping dread to resonate with. (Is that oil I smell? Or just dead pelican?) Meanwhile, the band whistles a happy tune (literally) over big, airy guitar strumming, and one of the best instrumental hooks I’ve ever heard. As great as Case’s singing on the track is, it took me about a half dozen listens before I was even paying attention to what she was singing, I was so taken by the pizzicato bass-guitar-cello’s winking, nudging bum-bum-BUM-bump, bum-bum-BUM-bump hook.

    It’s pretty much a recession-era street party of a song, culminating with a promise that “tonight will be an open mic”. Which could mean that tonight’s the night, you get up on a stage and embarrass yourself with recitations of your corny dead-dog poetry. Or it could be an exhortation: Engage! Dance! Sing! Like, democracy, baby! The band have put out a video for the song – one of those choreographed single-shot deals featuring a slow parade of multi-colored Busby Berkeley umbrella dancers performing on what looks like a freshly rained-upon, brick-paved boulevard. It’s clever enough, but sort of a drag. To really see this song in action, check out the band’s performance on the Jimmy Fallon show from last month:

  • What Will Drake Sell First Week With His Debut Album “Thank Me Later”?

    Thank Me Later
    Only two rappers have ever crossed the 1 million sales mark during the first week of their release in Soundscan history. Those two rappers are Eminem, who did it twice, and Lil’ Wayne who did it with Tha Carter III.

    Just two weeks ago when Drake’s Thank Me Later was leaked, people were talking as if Drake would join that exclusive club.

    However, talk of the 1 million club has subsided a bit, and expectations are a bit more realistic now that the album is officially out. I have gone on record as saying that I think he crosses the 500,000 mark.

    Rapper The Game thinks that he’ll sell 650,000 according to an article on MTV.com.

    Game said:

    You think he ain’t gonna go out there and push over gold the first week? I got [him selling] over 650,000 first week. That’s what I’m giving Drake: 650, man. Every now and then, a man comes along and reshapes hip-hop; this is the dude for this time. I came out, my first album, 590,000. I feel he got a bigger buzz than I did. When I came out, everybody else was still poppin’. Right now … he’s just coming down. I got my album coming, Tip coming, Ross coming, but everybody is on their Drake stuff — even me. Dude is good, man.


    What does everyone else think? We’ll know next week how hot Drake really is when the numbers are announced. Until then, it’s just guesses.