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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Lenny Kravitz

  • 1991 MTV Video Music Awards – Funky Like Doo Doo

    I was looking through old video tapes some time ago and found a copy of the 1991 MTV VMAs. It reminded me how fun this show used to be. Let’s pretend it’s 1991 again and that I’m live blogging this thing. I’m 15 years old and ready to kick it like Arsenio.

    It’s now Arsenio’s third appearance in a row as host for the VMA’s and the dude is hot. Here’s to his Arsenio Hall Show being on the air until we’re all old and gray. Woof, woof, woof!

    Word on the street is that there’s a special guest to open the show. I wonder who it is?

    • It’s Pee Wee Herman!
    • Arsenio says it’s the 8th edition of the VMAs, but it’s the 10th anniversary of MTV.
    • He says everyone is in the back except Elvis and Rick James. Rick, did you have to burn her with the crack pipe? Couldn’t you have burned her with a cigarette or something?
    • Van Halen opens up the show. Time for me to use the restroom.
    • Everyone is wearing red ribbons for AIDS awareness. Where’s Magic?
    • Linda Hamilton has some big ass lips, but Steven Tyler might be skinnier than her.
    • REM wins for Best Group Video and I have a feeling they’ll be up many more times for Losing My Religion.
    • Downtown Julie Brown has a bright career ahead of her. I can just feel it.
    • Christian Slater just won the award for Worst Presenter At Reading Queue Cards.
    • How can C&C Music Factory steal Arsenio’s line for their new song? It’s just one of those things that make you go hmmmm …
    • Dude from C&C is wearing a see through blouse, biker shorts, nylons, and stirrups and keeps grabbing his package on stage. Maybe that’s to show us that he’s still a dude.
    • Hey, it’s Lenny Kravitz. Where’s Denise Huxtable?
    • REM wins again for Breakthrough Video and Michael Stipe just says, “Ok”. Great speech.
    • DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince are out to introduce the Best Dance Video. Our parents just don’t understand.
    • C&C Music Factory won by the way. Even that girl who can’t sing.
    • Mariah Carey is performing Emotions. Jeez, this girl is always wearing long sleeved blouses. She’s going to be 35 years old and wearing long sleeves. You can show some skin girl!
    • If REM wins one more award, I’m going to stop …. jeez, they just won Best Direction.
    • Cindy Crawford might be on my Top Five Women That I Want To Be “Romantically Linked” To If I Was Famous list. But wait, she’s going to be old one day. And maybe not so hot.
    • EMF aren’t that Unbelievable by the way.
    • I bet you anything that the lead singer of Color Me Badd gets really, really fat. Call it a hunch.
    • When did Janet Jackson get so hot? I didn’t even know she had breasts.
    • Who knew that MC Hammer had someone named Ho Frat Ho helping him with choreography?
    • Paula Abdul is looking a little chunky and she’s trying to sing live. I approve of lip synching here.
    • Why is Eazy E wearing little white shorts? That’s not gangster.
    • Woohoo! Rap Video Of The Year went to Double L who’s gonna rock the bells. That’s my man.
    • They should rename Queensryche, Queenswrongche.
    • Wayne’s World, party time, excellent!
    • Did I just say that LL was my man? Well, he is, but so is Brandon Walsh, who is presenting with Jennifer Connelly for Best New Artist. Hey, LL would let Brandon Walsh hang out in his hood. (Jesus Jones won by the way.)
      • LL just rocked the show with the performance of the night in a leather derby cap, leather pants, a big gold medallion, some nikes, and a silver belt, while shirtless.
      • The Video Vanguard Award is now the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Really, this show should be called the MTV Michael Jackson Music Awards. (By the way, Bon Jovi won the MJ award.)
      • The censor is about a half second off on every curse word.
      • The drummer for Metalica is dressed exactly like LL, except without the hat and gold medallion.
      • That Daisy Fuentes from MTV Mexico is kind of cute.
      • James Brown and MC Hammer just gave it three times for Arsenio. Hey, hey, hey!
      • Queenswrongche just won the Viewer’s Choice Award. I can live with that as long as it wasn’t REM.
      • LL is still sweaty from his performance. Go take a shower man!
      • Is Don Henley right for this show? The song is great, but he’s not shirtless, doesn’t have a mohawk, and isn’t wearing a woman’s blouse.
      • Guns N’ Roses are live from London and Axl Rose is wearing a kilt, what looks like a mini wrestling belt, and is just as sweaty as LL is.
      • Let’s hope that Gerardo doesn’t win Male Video Of The Year. I’m rooting for George Michael, just to see if Cindy Crawford accepts with him. Damn, Chris Isaak won.
      • Let’s do a poll. Is Cher really all that sexy? I say not, even as much as she forces it.
      • If Janet Jackson doesn’t win for Female Video, this show is rigged. Woohoo! But she’s not even there to accept. Must’ve been because they didn’t name the Video Vanguard after her.
      • Prince is on stage with the New Power Generation and his first move was to fall flat on his stomach and have other men jump on top of him, while thrusting him from behind.
      • There are also several men and woman in thong underwear cavorting on stage.
      • And Prince himself is wearing pants where the parts covering up his butt are gone, so if you ever wanted to see Prince’s butt cheeks, this is your chance.
      • Arsenio just said it was funky like doo doo.
      • Well, I didn’t get George and Cindy winning an award together, but they are out to present the Video Of The Year.

      • Cindy just said Prince stole her yellow pants. If they were really Cindy’s pants, Prince would’ve had to roll them up about three or four times.
      • And guess who wins for Video Of The Year? If you guessed anyone but REM, you’d be wrong.

  • The Random Endorsement Files: Cindy Blackman- Europeans are Crazy!

    From the Random Endorsement Files: the new pitchwoman for Volkswagen appears to be none other than Lenny Kravitz… ‘s drummer. That would be Cindy Blackman, whose appearances in Kravitz’s videos have been, for this writer, all that truly matters about Kravitz’s recording career. Witness her magnificence in the 1993 video for “Are You Gonna Go My Way”!

    There she is amidst all the dread-flailing and fancy lights – she’s the only one in the whole video not throwing her hair around. In fact, her whole body seems completely consumed in the generation of the song’s relentless beat. That singularity of purpose coupled with giant black sunglasses and auburn chrysanthemum afro make her the most magnetic sight in a video full of people trying really, really, really hard to hold our attention. There’s really no one else in the video I want to look at, and I can’t think of anyone else who projects such a mystifyingly wonderful stage presence from behind a drum kit without opening his or her mouth.

    Which, apart from the shear randomness of the casting, is what makes her appearance in this new Volkswagen ad such a surprise: Cindy Blackman speaks! Playing the leader of the house band (Kravitz’s band, minus the Lenny) for a talk show hosted by a VW bug with a comically thick accent and an effusively flattering manner, she delivers the familiar tagline – “Europeans are crazy” – with a withering cool. Even better though is the “whooo” she launches before she and the rest of the band play the ad out. The vocal equivalent of the ascending flare of a firecracker just before it explodes into its colors, that “whooo” is what makes the commercial for me – a nanosecond of good old-fashioned, retro-soul, dance-to-the-music joy, incorruptible even within the context of something so crass as a car ad (albeit a crazy European one).

    Of course, more than making want to check out the new VW Tiguan, the ad made me want to look further in Cindy Blackman’s work, and as might have been predicted, the Lenny Kravitz connection is not just the tip of the proverbial iceberg (she’s played on Joss Stone’s records too), it’s also largely an anomaly in a career that’s found the 48-year-old Brooklynite jamming with a virtual who’s who of contemporary jazz players – Bill Laswell, Cassandra Wilson, George Benson, Hugh Masekela, and her most frequent collaborator bassist Ron Carter, among many others – and, with her gift for dynamic Tony Williams style polyrhythms, holding her own quite well in a still-very-much male-dominated genre on a still-very-much mail-dominated instrument.

    Since 1987, she’s released 10 albums as a band leader, and though her most recent album – 2004’s monumental double-disc Music for a New Millennium – is woefully out of print (at the time of this writing, Amazon has a single third party listing for the album, selling for $170), you can hear a few tracks from the album, recorded with saxophonist JD Allen, keyboardist Carlton Holmes, and bassist George Mitchell on Blackman’s website. I’m particularly digging “Letter to Theo”. Whooo!

    -P.Lorentz

  • Potpourri: Mariah, Kanye, MJ and more…

    …Titled after my favorite category in “Jeopardy”. Word to Alex Trebek…
    There’s nothing major to report, so I’ll just shoot a couple of short takes over…
    Apparently there was some poll in the U.K. (they do polls a lot out there) asking what the greatest song in British history was. I can’t remember where I was reading this, but I do remember that Oasis had the #1 and the #2 songs. Now, I don’t dislike Oasis at all, but isn’t that a lot like doing a similar poll in America and giving the Top Two spots to Lenny Kravitz??
    How about The King of Pop, folks? The 25th anniversary re-issue of “Thriller” sold about 160,000 copies last week. As an older album, it’s ineligible for the Billboard album charts, but if it was, it would have placed at #2 right behind Jack Johnson. Guess Neverland Ranch is staying open.
    Mariah’s new single is out-entitled “Touch My Body”. Right now, I’m torn between liking it and thinking it’s completely silly. This song almost sounds beneath her (very similar to the way I feel about Janet’s “Feedback”), but it’s…cute. Yeah, that’s a good word. Cute.
    Listen and judge for yourself:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlHmyCxU-Ng
    Finally, because a post of mine isn’t complete with a Kanye reference: is it me or does the video for “Flashing Lights” make absolutely no sense? Then again, if you’re one of the Kanye critics, seeing him get beaten with a shovel might do something for you. Enjoy!!