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  • 2011 Grammy Awards Live (Sort Of) Blog

    Well, it’s another year of blogging the Grammys. Luckily, I don’t think I’ll need much more than one or two cups of coffee. I’m pretty awake this time. And I hope to see my favorite track from the time period, Empire State Of Mind win some awards tonight.

    There is no host for this year’s show. I was hoping that they’d bring Arsenio Hall back to reprise his MTV Music Video Awards hosting gig. Sadly, that’s not happening.

    Looks like it’s Aretha Franklin Appreciation night. I wonder if someone drives up in a Pink Cadillac?

    (I’ll be cherry picking my favorite Grammy tweets of the night and adding them.)

    8:04PM – Christina Aguilera, fresh off a National Anthem disaster with definite mother’s milk boobs going on, decides to wail alongside Jennifer Hudson and Martina McBride on Natural Woman. I think Florence Henderson is up there too. Wait, that’s the girl from Florence And The Machine. My bad. Hey, I think Yoli Adams is up there too.

    8:20PM – All five girls are back on stage to give out the best Pop/Duo/Group Grammy. Yoli Adams is Manute Bol to Christina Aguilera’s Mugsy Bogues. Train won with Hey, Soul Sister, if anyone cared.

    MissLove32
    Rihanna looks like she’s wearing christmas wreathes as a dress.

    8:23PM – Lady Gaga is out performing her new song, Born This Way. It sounds so much like a Madonna song that Alex Rodriguez nearly jumped on stage mesmerized.

    gidget
    Now I have Hey, Soul Sister stuck in my head. DAMN YOU, GRAMMYS.

    8:34PM – Miranda Lambert looks like Paris Hilton if someone fed Paris Hilton.

    8:51PM – Hmm, I think Bruno Mars may have forgotten to put gel in his hair.

    8:53PM – Janelle Monae’s hair looks like an afro-puff diving board. She kinda tore it up though.

    9:09PM – Justin Bieber is transitioning into Joey McIntyre right in front of our eyes. My eyes are tearing up.

    9:10PM – To counter Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith, Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff should’ve joined them and showed them a thing or two.

    9:11PM – If you’re Usher, do you just piggyback on Justin Bieber for the rest of your career? Just go back to Chili, find out what she wants, and let Bieber rake in the money for you homie.

    knbrmurph
    Big ups to the rapper B.o.B. for rocking the monocle at the #Grammys. But Mr. Peanut called. He wants his look back.

    9:22PM – Jealous of Beyonce and Nicki Minaj for their bodacious badonkadonks, Lady Gaga is wearing external butt pads. Doesn’t work like that home girl. You weren’t born that way.

    WhitneyCummings
    Does Donnie wahlberg know he’s not blind?

    9:31PM – I wonder how many times Bob Dylan tries to clear his throat before he’s just like, “Argh! Forget it!”

    9:32PM – If I were Jakob Dylan, I’d change my name to Jaden and hope my dad put me in a song or something.

    liss98
    I can’t believe Kate Hudson let that dude from Muse touch her, much less knock her up. Eeek. Then again, Chris R. was skeevy, too.

    9:45PM – I think the Jersey Shore crew should cover Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now and rename it, D.T.F.

    girlwonderful
    Oh, I just saw Cee-Lo, y’all didn’t tell him he dressed up as the NBC logo.

    9:49PM – If Gwyneth Paltrow had boobs, I’d be turned on by her outfit right now. But at least she can sing a little bit.

    steveaustinBSR
    is koko b. ware at the grammeys?

    10:05PM – I’m pretty certain that John Mayer has a bet with his friends that he can look as scraggly and unkempt as possible and still pull chicks.

    10:15PM – Hey, it’s the claymation version of Eminem. Wait, that might be the real Eminem.

    10:19PM – Dr. Dre’s going to need a doctor to bring him back to life unless he gets off them steroids.

    10:40PM – Who knew that one of the oldest cats on stage would give the liveliest performance. If I was wearing a cap, I’d tip it to you Mick Jagger. Instead, I’ll tip Janelle Monae’s afro-bangs.

    10:50PM – True story – my mom’s go-to song in karaoke was Barbra Streisand’s Evergreen. But it was before there was karaoke.

    10:53PM – Eminem needs to give his Grammy to Questlove, or at least buy my man a platinum afro pick.

    MissRiza
    Turned to the Grammy’s just in time to see Nicki Minaj’s outfit…good to know I didn’t miss much! #hotmess

    11:04PM – Lady Antebellum beat out Jay-Z and Alicia Keys for Record Of The Year and I haven’t been this angry since Huey Lewis And The News got jobbed out in 1986 by We Are The World.

    11:22PM – I think I saw Eminem with a sign that said, “If Lady Antebellum wins, we riot!”

    11:23PM – And the winner of the biggest award, Album Of The Year goes to Arcade Fire. Where’s ODB when we need him? Wu-Tang is for the children!

  • PAUL’S TOP 100 OF 2010 – PART 9: #20-11 “Plug me in and flip some switches…”

    We’re heading into the home stretch. Only the best of the best are left. Well, here’s the second best of the best:

    #20
    #20: “I AM NOT A ROBOT” by MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS.
    A sweet reassurance from one non-robot to another: “You’re vulnerable, you’re vulnerable… You are not a robot.” And: “Guess what? I am not a robot.” Which, in the age of Autotune, is probably a necessary clarification.

    #19
    #19: “WE USED TO WAIT” by ARCADE FIRE.
    It was about this time last year that I finally did it – I got rid of my CD of Arcade Fire’s album Funeral, and put the proceeds towards purchasing a CD I might actually listen to. Like the reissue of Altered Images’ Happy Birthday. And then I got a facebook message from a friend. It was a link to a site where through the wonder of Googlemaps and internet pop-up windows, you could put the house where you grew up (or any other house you knew the street address for) into an interactive video experience set to this Arcade Fire song. Well, I’m no big fan of Arcade Fire – seriously, I’ve tried! – but I love me some googlemaps and I found “thewildernessdowntown” a most fascinating toy, and in the process of playing and re-playing and re-playing the “video” – Hey, what’s the address for the Culver’s on Main Street?” – I ended up falling in love with the actual song. Go figure.

    #18
    #18: “I FEEL BETTER” by HOT CHIP.
    Hot Chip is not a boy band, but they are played by one on TV, at least they are in this video. (The real Hot Chip appears in the audience, and they get zapped to oblivion at the 3:25 mark of this hilariously confounding video.) The YouTube comment section on this is pretty fun. My favorite comment comes courtesy of ImGodly4U: “Wtf? 4 gay guys singing. Then voldemort shows up and has a dance off, blasts them in the face with his shoop da whoop thing. and then Gnarles Barkly comes and blows shit up? This video is amazing…” Video aside, this is a strangely moving, deeply emotional song – strange in the sense that it’s got an irresistibly skippity dance beat, and it’s AutoTuned like crazy, but it’s all about the guts of a vital relationship at a vulnerable moment. I love the long notes and the halting melody. It’s the highlight of an album full of highlights.

    #17
    #17: “ONLY PRETTIER” by MIRANDA LAMBERT.
    “Let’s shake hands and reach across those party lines…” A perfect song for this past election season. I love the song’s raucous stomp, but Miranda’s delivery of lines like “I don’t have to be hateful, I can just say ‘bless your heart’” is what makes the song for me. It has the bite of a Palin/Pelosi girlfight.

    #16
    #16: “FEMBOT” by ROBYN.
    “Once you gone tech, you ain’t never goin’ back…” The Swedish pop goddess (err… “scientifically advanced hot mama”) lists her specifications, runs her diagnostics, and does a little demo/infomercial for the people. Check out those automatic booty applications! Also, this fembot has some crazy internal rhymes. But actually one of my favorite things about this song is how it feels at first like a novelty – and it is superfun, as evidenced by this live performance – but how it also relates to and heightens the themes of the rest of the Body Talk album(s). Here she sings that her “system’s in mint condition”. Later on, she promises to “love you like [she’s] indestructible”, suggesting a few emotional scratches and dents. I’ve already said it, but I’ll say it again: isn’t it wonderful that one of the most emotionally powerful and intimate and smart records of the year is a dance pop album?

    #15
    #15: “THIS TOO SHALL PASS” by OK GO.
    I’m not posting the video for this. Either of them. Because, frankly, you’ve already seen it (them both). A lot. In making clever, born-to-be-viral music videos, this nerdy little band from Chicago has found a way to compensate for their, frankly, not very special songs… But this song IS special. And I love seeing the band play it live, and their live arrangements of this song are often as cleverly sweet as their videos for it. My personal favorite was their glorious appearance on the Colbert Report earlier this year, with Stephen leading his audience in a (unexpectedly) deeply uplifting, flag-waving singalong. Sadly, I can’t find that video anywhere on line. Ah well. I can’t keep letting that bring me down, so here’s a delicate take from a radio appearance. The song loses none of it’s sweetness in this translation. If anything, it’s child-like sing-song optimism is heightened.

    #14
    #14: “ALORS ON DANSE” by STROMAE.
    Stromae is 25-year-old Rwandan-Belgian producer Paul van Haver. He derives his stage name from a slice and dice of the word “maestro”, and scored one of the biggest hits in all of the world (except the U.S.) this year with this exotic dance ode to the ennui of the young urban professional. Stromae does have one big fan in the U.S. (besides me): Kanye West, who released a remix of this song this fall featuring himself rapping all over it. His debut album Cheese has given us three more singles – all pretty wonderful, including the amazing “Te Quiero” – but this “Alors on Danse” has cast a pretty long shadow. For 2011, I’m crossing my fingers that Stromae is no one hit wonder.

    #13
    #13: “NO OTHER ONE” by TAIO CRUZ.
    I love this song’s decidedly mixed signal. The lyrics are a decisive statement of commitment: “I don’t need to ever exchange / I don’t need to ever replace / I’m not going any damn place” – but they’re set to the sound of an air-raid siren and frenzied laser-fighter synth arpeggios. The second verse marriage proposal sounds like an action sequence from a Michael Bay film! Yeah! Explosions!

    This song was released late last year in Europe as the follow-up to Cruz’s “Break Your Heart” which had already been a huge hit there. “No Other One” flopped, but it makes a nice answer song to “Break Your Heart”. Lyrically, “Break Your Heart” was all about fooling around and making his girl jealous, but musically, it’s fun and steady. “No Other One” is settling down for good, but it sounds like a Eurodisco warzone.

    #12
    #12: “RUNAWAY” by KANYE WEST feat. PUSHA T.
    Beyonce may have ceded time from her own acceptance speech to let Taylor Swift finish hers, but Kanye still gave himself the last word. 20 years from now, “Innocent” will still be song Taylor wrote about Kanye for the VMAs. But the song Kanye unveiled that same night buries the “Imma Let You Finish” moment – just by matching and then out-outraging the outrage that was directed at him, West made a beautiful monument to everything people hate about him. I also have to say, this song could easily have been a novelty (this is becoming a theme), but with that weird, brooding coda, it becomes almost symphonic. He’s not just sampling King Crimson on his latest record – he’s actually listening to King Crimson records and taking lessons on sonics and scale from them. (Also: Kudos to Kanye for hooking up artist Vanessa Beecroft (most famous for her “installations” of stationary, uniformed humans) to handle art direction for this video: Gorgeous.

    #11
    #11: “SHARK IN THE WATER” by V.V. BROWN.
    She’s got a bouffant just like Bruno Mars and a similar penchant for 21st Century updates of 50s and 60s pop music styles. This song takes a sunny strummy, playful verse and drives it straight into one fierce-ass chorus. With horns! This was THE song of my Summer of ‘010. My kids are still going to be waking up to nightmares of this song (and me singing along to it) in 2036.

    V V Brown – Shark in the Water
    Uploaded by UniversalMusicGroup. – See the latest featured music videos.

    Only 10 left. Any guesses as to what they might be?

  • PAUL’S TOP 100 OF 2010 – PART 3: #80-71 “You’re a big old wuss if you don’t jump in…””

    Huzzah! The third installment!

    #80
    #80: “WATER” by BRAD PAISLEY.
    “Grab your swimming trunks, ice up that old Igloo, and drive until the map turns blue…” All I really need, this time of year, is to not be driving home in an ugly snowstorm with this Brad Paisley song stuck in my head. Don’t get me wrong – I love this song. But in the middle of this Wisconsin blizzard, it hurts.

    #79
    #79: “FOR THE SUMMER” by RAY LaMONTAGNE & THE PARIAH DOGS.
    This is the point in the road trip where it dawns on you that you’re never going to actually get to your where you’re going no matter how long you keep driving, so you pull off to the shoulder and have yourself a good cry. Until that State Trooper stops by and tells you to move along. At which point you, y’know, move along.

    #78
    #78: “LITTLE WHITE CHURCH” by LITTLE BIG TOWN.
    This is exactly what I would expect an Alabama weddin’ would look like. Huzzah for the gleeful perpetuation of stereotypes by the stereotyped. (Did I mention my huge collection of Broadway cast albums? It’s HUGE. It’s bigger than Cher, even.) Also: If you squint your eyes real hard, Little Big Town looks exactly like ABBA.

    #77
    #77: “SHINE A LIGHT” by McFLY featuring TAIO CRUZ.
    Still teenagers when their debut album hit #1 in the UK in 2004, McFly were a boy band more Bay City Rollers than Backstreet Boys, their songs owing more to Big Star and the Beatles than Max Martin and Dr. Luke. Things have changed. Their latest, co-written with reigning king of android pop Taio Cruz (who guests here on vocals) sounds more like a bid to become the UK’s answer to Maroon 5. And it’s awesome. And the video has lots of shiny stuff.

    #76
    #76: “DO-WAH-DOO” by KATE NASH.
    The retro-pop lament of the nice girl. Literate and lonely, she holds no illusions about that “other” girl that all the boys think is so sweet. “Everybody thinks that she’s a lady. But I don’t. I think that girl’s shady.” Boys can be so dumb. First of all: Hurray for in-flight choreography! But wait – so Kate’s crushing on a boy who’s a flight attendant? Err… okay.

    #75
    #75: “ONE LIFE STAND” by HOT CHIP.
    This is a band I should have loved from the start – five dorky British guys with synthesizers and an abiding devotion to the music of Devo – but they didn’t win me over until the release of their 5th album earlier this year. This is the title track from that album One Life Stand. And of all the LPs I picked up this year, it’s probably the one that’s logged the most mileage on my turntable: a collection of sincerely dorky and supremely dance-able songs about marriage and family.

    Hot Chip – One Life Stand
    Uploaded by EMI_Music. – See the latest featured music videos.

    #74
    #74: “PRAYIN’” by PLAN B.
    The provocative British rapper transformed himself into an old-school soul singer for his latest album, an operatic R&B concept record about love, betrayal, crime and punishment. And he put some amazing visuals out to go along with it. The album’s called The Defamation of Strickland Banks, and Plan B has talked about putting together a feature film around it, building it out of the videos for the album’s songs. And from what I’ve seen so far, Plan B’s videos kick the asses of Ne-Yo’s and Kanye’s latest excursions into grandiose short-filmmaking.

    #73
    #73: “THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME” by MIRANDA LAMBERT.
    “If I could just come in, I swear I’ll leave… won’t take nothing but a memory from the house that built me.” Another fine country tearjerker.

    #72
    #72: “NIGHT & DAY” by CHIEF.
    The sound of the band Chief falls roughly halfway between Eagles and the Church (just down the block from Fleet Foxes), 70s-style arena rock melodies, layers upon layers of guitars and other strings, and gorgeous four-part harmonies. The video’s great too, a sort of baroque dinner theater cabaret (with stylized stage violence!)

    #71
    #71: “BETTER THAN TODAY” by KYLIE MINOGUE.
    For the third single from her awesome latest album Aphrodite, the international superstar songstress comes down with a severe case of Pac Man Fever. And it’s drivin’ me crazy. Also, I’m going out of my mind. (In a good way.)

    Next time around: The recession comes to hip-hop. And R&B. And indie rock.