Listening Post

A very nice reader named Mary put up a link to this song in the comment section of Friday's post, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't cry while listening to it. I cried a lot this past weekend and I seriously doubt it's going to stop anytime soon.

Here's Pink -- Beam Me Up.

Bored This Way

Lucas Kavner at the Huffington Post dissects the breathtaking silliness of last night's first ever "Best Video with a Message" award at the MTV Video Music Awards:

"Certainly there's nothing wrong with rewarding artists who release music based on personal convictions, but isn't that kind of par for the course? If, as MTV president (Stephen) Friedman said, he wanted to 'reward' these artists for digging into their personal experiences to create powerful songs, did we really need to point out exactly what message they were trying to get across?

The most powerful songs in history come from 'deeply personal' experiences. In fact, every original song is personal. The lyrics come from somebody's brain and are based around either specific or universal experiences and then, in turn, inspire personal feelings in the listener. That's... what a song is.

There's something oddly icky about MTV assigning more 'meaning' to a song, as if Katy Perry's pop anthem about personal empowerment, which netted her millions of dollars, contains as powerful a "message" as a song from a rock band whose lead singer lost his close friend. Do we need MTV telling us we shouldn't be 'mean' to other people? Does this even make sense anymore?

Somehow this category rivals even the lamest of MTV decisions in recent years, a strange pander to the most common denominator of superfluousness."

As Kavner points out, almost every video nominated for this great honor featured a "message" that was as comically trite as it was predictable, particularly in a year that saw the publicity surrounding the suicides of several supposedly bullied-to-desperation kids reach cacophonous levels. From Katy Perry to P!nk to Rise Against, the theme was the same: you're somebody, loser; please don't kill yourself; it gets better. In the end, of course, the song and video with the absolute least subtlety in its point won out: Lady GaGa's insipid and shamelessly derivative gay anthem Born This Way took the prize.

If I sound especially caustic, it's because I can't help but see this kind of thing as perfectly illustrative of the fact that we're now apparently trying to raise a generation without the ability to think for itself. When an engine of pop culture pabulum as egregious as MTV actually begins translating the meaning of songs for viewers and rewarding the ones that are the most obvious and not the least bit daring, you know that Generation Y -- or whatever the hell is following in its wake -- has one more reason to shut down its collective imagination. Personal inspiration gets trampled in the name of whatever democratized, prepackaged and Wiki-approved form of supposed creativity appeals to the largest and lowest common denominator.

Then again, does anybody really give a shit about the VMAs anymore? The irony of MTV continuing to hand out awards for music videos is pretty laughable; I play more videos on this site than MTV does these days. Somebody wake me when the YouTube/Vevo Awards become a reality.

Listening Post: The 25 Best Singles of 2010 (22-20)

22. Drive-By Truckers -- This Fucking Job (Working This Job)

It would have to be a band like Athens, Georgia's Drive-By Truckers to write and record 2010's ultimate ode to, well, 2010 -- specifically the unrelentingly soul-sucking economic situation which continued to leave millions of Americans either on the precipice of ruin or in full-fledged catastrophe mode. While so many were out of work, so many more were reduced to working far beneath their abilities, and still more followed the well-worn path-of-least-resistance that those who came before them did -- chasing a middle-class American dream in its gruesome death throes -- only to find that it led absolutely nowhere. That's the tragic sentiment that the Truckers captured when they sang, "Sometimes I dream that I had aimed my life in different ways/But there was nothin' to show me a way to get me outta this place/So I just did what my daddy did before me/Only to find the only door I found was closed to me." When all was said and done, This Fucking Job may have wound up being the dead-end anthem for the 2010 leg of the Great Recession.




21. P!nk -- Raise Your Glass

At the other end of the spectrum from the honky-tonk nihilism of This Fucking Job there was P!nk -- and she wasn't content to let the little guy wallow in self-pity. Maybe it was a by-product of the inexplicable success of Glee or maybe it was as a response to the highly publicized suicides of a bunch of kids who claimed to be bullied to the point of absolute hopelessness, but somewhere along the line 2010 became the year of the underdog. There were a couple of songs this year that really captured the "hey, you're somebody, loser" zeitgeist: Katy Perry's Firework was one -- and it's admittedly a damn spectacular song -- but it just didn't have the street cred provided by somebody who's spent a good portion of her career confounding the demands and expectations of the machine that creates cookie-cutter pop stars. Raise Your Glass is P!nk using her substantial powers for good -- creating a loud, brash and anthemic paean to the joys of not quite fitting in. And it just fucking ruled.




20. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti -- Round and Round

Ariel Pink is a bona fide weirdo. He's a recording/performance artist who's been kicking around the Los Angeles area for years, making the kind of music you either worship at the altar of or are utterly repulsed by. In 2010, a lot of bands -- most of them on the 4AD label -- worked over the retro soft rock sound like Ali going at Liston; hell, one of the best albums of the year -- Relayted, by the alt-supergroup Gayngs -- was inspired entirely by 10cc's I'm Not In Love. But only Ariel Pink and his Haunted Graffiti project had the balls to just swipe the 70's sound wholesale. His album, Before Today, is like an honest-to-God time warp; put it on and you may as well be sitting on a shag rug having fondue with Seals and Crofts while Boz Scaggs mixes drinks in the kitchen. And with a little bit of psychedelia and a lot of breezy harmony -- to say nothing of a video shot by the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne entirely on his iPhone -- Round and Round is a perfect representation of the strange and eminently entertaining little feat Ariel Pink accomplished with this record.

Listening Post: The 25 Best Singles of 2010: 23. Best Coast -- Boyfriend, 24. Anberlin -- Impossible, 25. Fences -- Girls with Accents

Tomorrow: 19, 18 & 17

Listening Post

Can't think of a better way to get started on a Monday morning -- and can't even begin to tell you how much I love this woman.

Here's the new single from P!nk.

This is Raise Your Glass.

Back to the wheel with you, lab rats.

Listening Post

I haven't watched the Grammys in years and sitting through them last night I was reminded why.

On the whole, the show and the award-winners themselves were so spectacularly awful that this morning the entire experience comes back to me only in bits and pieces: Will.I.Am dressed like Mr. Roboto; Green Day losing the final vestige of whatever punk cred they had to begin with; Mylie Cyrus looking like she should be on the menu of an Eastern European mail order bride website; Jamie Foxx assaulting the ears of America with an indecipherable cacophony while his sister, who has Down Syndrome and looks like Precious, flails around on the stage (proving that the man who coincidentally introduced Foxx, Robert Downey Jr., was right about the rule he set forth in Tropic Thunder); Celine Dion in 3D; Taylor Swift not being able to sing on-key yet winning Album of the Year; in a related item -- AUTO-TUNE; The Grammys essentially becoming the CMT awards; Kesha and Justin Bieber -- KESHA AND JUSTIN FUCKING BIEBER -- appearing together as a cold harbinger of what we can expect from next year's Grammys.

I could go on, but all it'll do is make my stomach hurt worse.

Still, there were definitely a few bright spots: The Eminem, Lil Wayne, Drake and Travis Barker number was damn hot, and GaGa and Elton John turned out to be pretty inspired. But ask anyone about the high point of the show last night and they're guaranteed to say one word: Pink.

Her performance of Glitter in the Air was absolutely breathtaking.

So here it is.



(Anybody wanna place bets by the way on how long before this video is taken down for copyright violations? Enjoy it while you can, kids.)

Listening Post

Sometimes the dreams still get to me.

Here's Pink's Crystal Ball.

Listening Post

I have this fantasy right now where Pink grabs Sarah Palin by the hair and punches her in the face.

Right after she's screwed me into the ground then killed me and drunk my blood.

I love this woman.

Here's Pink, with So What.

Girls, Girls, Girls

(Part 1: Heaven's Cates/5.4.07)
(Part 2: Screen Savors/5.9.07)



Part 3: Rock & Roll Queens

It should be obvious by now that I never outgrew my adolescent passion for music; quite the opposite, the importance of having that perfect soundtrack to everyday existence has increased exponentially with age. It goes without saying then that I've always had a weakness for female musicians. There's nothing hotter, cooler or sexier than a woman behind a mic, a guitar, a piano etc. (For the record, my wife sings -- and sings very well -- which melts me every time.)

The thoroughly self-indulgent list of the women I love continues with the ones who literally rock my world.



Shirley Manson

She gorgeous, she's an exhibitionist, she's Scottish, she fronts Garbage -- a band that still stands as one of my favorites, and she's just raw sex. Did I mention that she's also an exhibitionist?


Garbage -- Why Do You Love Me?


Alicia Keyes

My God does this woman have soul. If her monumental talent doesn't sway you, check out how stunning she looks in Smokin' Aces.


Alicia Keyes -- If I Ain't Got You


Alison Goldfrapp

The hypnotic thumping heartbeat of her music is the sound of seduction. If you can't get laid to a Goldfrapp song, give it up.


Goldfrapp -- Twist


Poe

The thinking man's musical goddess, she took a lifetime of pain and trauma and turned it into one of the most underrated albums of the last decade -- Haunted. Strength, vulnerability and a little insanity all wrapped up in one mesmerizing package.


Poe -- Amazed (still-frame)


Sheryl Crow

Yup, got a serious thing for her. She's just damn hot.


Sheryl Crow -- If It Makes You Happy


Zia McCabe

I've had a crush on the keyboard player for the Dandy Warhols for as long as I can remember. Anyone who usually plays topless earns an immediate place in my heart.


The Dandy Warhols -- Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth


Neko Case

Sometimes it's all about that indescribable feeling you get when a woman plays a song that you know came right from her heart -- and sings it in a way that makes you believe it's coming from somewhere slightly south of that.


Neko Case -- Maybe Sparrow


Kelly Clarkson

Yes, I like Kelly Clarkson. Go fuck yourself.





Brandi Carlile

I don't care how hard VH1 promotes it or how many idiots first heard it on Grey's Anatomy, her current hit The Story could very well be the best single of the past five years -- by anyone, in any genre. When her voice cracks during the final chorus -- sounding every bit as if it's going to give out completely -- you feel every heartbreak she's ever had, every mistake she's ever made, the weight of a lifetime of tragedy and the power of her desperate cry for help. She's pure and simple passion, and I stand in awe of her.


Brandi Carlile -- The Story


Siouxsie Sioux

No one who grew up in the 80s and had semi-decent taste in music wasn't in love with Siouxsie. My undying devotion was cemented the night she wrapped a feather boa around my neck, pulled my face to within inches of hers and sang Slowdive -- a song about giving head -- to me at a concert in Miami. It took two weeks to get rid of my erection.


Siouxsie and the Banshees -- Christine


Liz Phair

There aren't words to describe how much I love this woman. Liz, if you ever read this -- please for God's sake have sex with me. My wife says it's okay. I swear, if I ever get leukemia or something, that's gonna be my request to the Make-a-Wish foundation.


Liz Phair -- Extraordinary


P!nk

The real fucking deal. More punk than most punks. I want her to fuck me, then kill me and drink my blood.


P!nk -- U + Ur Hand

Next: The Funny Girls