SotW: Whataya Want from Me by Adam Lambert Wednesday, Nov 25 2009 

music and queer culture thisgaudygildedstage 7:51 pm

All the “controversy” about Adam Lambert’s performance on the American Music Awards is really just homophobic silliness. All if want to say about it is that ABC (once again) should be ashamed of itself. When they canceled Lambert’s performance because of his “unpredictability” and scheduled Chris Brown of all people, they made it clear that they are more than happy to further our country’s homophobia and misogyny, which Eve Kosofsy Sedgwick taught us go hand in hand. It’s surprising that a network other than Fox can be the villain in a story about queerness, sexuality, and artistic expression, but ABC continues to claim that mantle every chance they get. Shame on them.

End of rant.

On the flip side, Adam Lambert is an extremely talented musician who has a long career ahead of him. Any doubts about this should be laid to rest with the following live clip from CBS’s The Early Show:

I’m not such a fan that I can’t entertain some of the criticisms about Lambert’s performances from time to time — and let’s face it: the real controversy about the AMA performance should have been that it just wasn’t very good vocally. I also sometimes find myself agreeing with critics who say that he tends to scream a little too much.

But this clip shows just how talented he really is. He can be a great singer; he definitely has a great voice. And it’s a pretty good song (co-written by Pink!).

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SotW: Rave On by M Ward Wednesday, Nov 18 2009 

music and song of the week thisgaudygildedstage 9:52 pm

This week’s song of the week is M. Ward’s “Rave On.” It’s one of my favorite songs on his album, Hold Time. Here’s the video:

What I love most about this song is that it’s a sweet little love song. It was originally written in 1958 by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman, and Norman Petty. A number of artists have covered it since then, including Bruce Springsteen, Buddy Holly (with whom it seems to be most associated), the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and John Mellencamp. Ward’s version is my favorite; I like how he’s slowed it down a bit and stripped it down too.

Here’s a live version I found on YouTube:

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Sotw: Bad Romance by Lady Gaga Thursday, Nov 12 2009 

music thisgaudygildedstage 8:39 pm

This week’s song of the week is Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” the first single off of her new(ish) album, The Fame Monster. Here’s the video, which is crazy amazing:

Since watching the video, I’ve been reading various online reviews of it. Partly, I thought this might help me try to understand it a little more — I think Lady Gaga is a brilliant performance artist, but I don’t always think I’m “getting it” as thoroughly as I’d like to. And I was just interested in what other people had to say about it.

Critics agree that the overall message of the video is to critique various aspects of fame. As Christopher John Farley explains, “The theme of the video seems to be something about how fame seduces, addicts and perverts those that attain it.”

The best part of the video, of course, is the visuals Lady Gaga creates. As Marina Reed points out, “Only Lady GaGa could make getting kidnapped, drugged, and auctioned off to the Russian mafia look this good.” My favorite parts are the crazy eyes while she’s in the bathtub, the use of back lighting in several parts of the video, the hot Russian mafia guys’ bare chests and shoulders and tattoos (they can kidnap my ass any time they want!), the grotesque image of the nude Lady Gaga as deformed and emaciated captive, the hairless cat (totally brilliant), the floating jewels part, Lady Gaga’s white thong (she’s smoking too!), and, of course, the video’s final image. I guess that means I love it all!

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SotW: Shut Up and Drive by Chely Wright Tuesday, Nov 3 2009 

music thisgaudygildedstage 3:41 pm

While PJ and I were driving to Washington D.C. last week, we talked a little about songs about driving. One of my favorites has long been Chely Wright’s “Shut Up and Drive,” so when we got back I downloaded it from iTunes and started listening to it again.

The embedding for the video has been disabled on YouTube, but you can watch it here. (Usually, I don’t choose songs that won’t let you embed the video — I think it’s stupid when they do that — but I love this song enough to overcome that prejudice.)

Now I can’t stop listening to this song. It’s really a great country song, I think. Somebody really ought to cover it.

Listening to it again also made me think about the late 1980s and early 1990s and when I loved a number of country songs, mostly by female artists. Here’s a list (in no particular order) of some of the ones I loved back then. Some of these video also have embedding disabled, but I’ll include what I can and link to what I can’t.

“Like We Never Had a Broken Heart” by Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks:

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    SotW: Give It to Me Right by Melanie Fiona Tuesday, Oct 20 2009 

    music thisgaudygildedstage 9:45 am

    While browsing through the new albums on iTunes today I ran across Melanie Fiona‘s The Bridge, which I’ve downloaded and started listening to. In many ways, The Bridge is an R&B/Soul album in the vein of Amy Winehouses’s Back to Black. I really like it.

    The first single off the album is “Give It to Me Right,” a great song that is representative of the album’s neo-soul, adult, and totally catchy vibe. The official video is here. Here’s a YouTube video of a live version of “Give It to Me Right” from a British t.v. show:

    So far, I love every track on The Bridge. My favorite so far is “Monday Morning.” Here’s a live version of this track:

    Hot! Melanie Fiona can sing, not just in a technical way but also in an interpretative way — she knows how to tell the song’s emotional story. She’s amazing!

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    SotW: Celebration by Madonna Thursday, Oct 15 2009 

    music thisgaudygildedstage 8:14 pm

    This week’s song of the week is Madonna’s “Celebration,” which is one of the new tracks on her greatest hits album of the same title. It’s a great dance song:

    This collection shows just how amazing Madonna’s career has been (so far).I wish it had a few more of the slower hits, especially “This Used to Be My Playground,” which is one of my favorites. But just about everything you would imagine is represented in this collection. (“Material Girl” is also one of my favs. And of course “Like a Prayer,” “Like a Virgin,” “Human Nature,” “Ray of Light,” and “Holiday.”)

    I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a gay man of the Madonna generation — her career started at just about the same time that I started becoming aware that I was attracted to boys instead of girls. It’s so difficult to explain to younger gay guys just how important Madonna was to gay men my age. She was the first pop icon to embrace gay men openly and aggressively. She put her gay dancers front and center in her videos and then argued for a sexual liberation that included us all.

    Britney is nothing like Madonna in this regard; in fact, her whole virgin thing early in her career was the exact opposite of Madonna. Christina is a little closer, at least in that she routinely includes gay people in her videos. But really there’s no one carrying Madonna’s message of living life fully regardless of who you are, which is why we’re fortunate to still have Madonna herself carrying the torch!

    And I, for one, am delighted that she’s still pushing some of those boundaries. Why not trade in the hubby for a hot, young Brazilian model/DJ? (Made in Brazil, one of my favorite blogs, follows Jesus Luz fairly closely, so I feel that I’m up on — and loving — the Madonna/Luz gossip!) If anyone’s earned the right to have great sex with a yummy boytoy, it’s definitely Madonna. And if their relationship is about more than sex, than good for her. If not, good for her too.

    As she sings in “Celebration,” Madonna has spent her career whispering “An invitation to the dance of life” in our ears. I’m glad that she continues to dance it too.

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    SotW: Heavy Cross by Gossip Wednesday, Oct 7 2009 

    music thisgaudygildedstage 7:46 pm

    I remember when Gossip was “The Gossip,” but they’ve apparently dropped the “The” now that their new album, Music for Men, is out. Regardless, I’ve been listening to the album this week, and I’ve chosen “Heavy Cross” as my song of the week.

    You can click here to see the official video of the song. It can’t be embedded. While looking for a vide that can be embedded, I stumbled across one of the remixes, the Fred Falke Remix, that I really like:

    In the past few months, I’ve started really getting into remixes. Now I even look for them on YouTube and on iTunes. One of the things I like about this remix is that it sounds like an almost entirely different song from the original. Obviously the vocals are the same, but the change in music from rock to dance is a bigger shift than most of the remixes I tend to like use.

    I could therefore imagine that, if you like the original version, you might not like this remix because of the huge generic shift. But I like them both. The synth/electronica vibe seems really cool to me. There are several more remixes on YouTube. I hope they come out as a single.

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    SotW: Dickhead by Kate Nash Monday, Sep 28 2009 

    music thisgaudygildedstage 11:40 am

    Some time ago, our friend Wesley gave us a copy of Kate Nash’s Made of Bricks. It’s not an album that I tend to listen to straight through, but I do like several of the tracks individually. This week’s song of the week comes from this album: track 4, “Dickhead”:

    While in general I like the idea of calling everyone who irritates me a “dickhead,” this song resonates with me this week because I was worried that I was acting like a dickhead in my dealings with a colleague recently. I’m not totally sure whether he thought I was being a dickhead, but in retrospect I thought I was.

    To make sure I’m not a dickhead, from now on whenever I get irritated at other people’s behavior, I’m going to listen to this song once before replying to their email!

    I’ll post the lyrics after the break.

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    SotW: Pony by Kasey Chambers Friday, Sep 25 2009 

    music thisgaudygildedstage 9:11 pm

    This past weekend, PJ and I went to the PawPaw Festival here in Athens. When the weather is good (like this year), it’s a great opportunity to be outside, see friends, drink some pawpaw beer, and listen to live music. This year, you could actually walk around with your beer rather than stay in the beer garden, pictured here, which made the event much more fun.

    The “beer garden” is usually surrounded by an orange plastic fence. It looks less crowded here because lots of people got a beer and then walked around the rest of the festival, which includes lots of tents featuring various local products.

    While we sat on a bale of hay while drinking another beer, the band that was playing, local band Broken Ring, performed Kasey Chambers’s “Pony.” While listening to them sing, I was struck by how much I like this song. Even so, I currently have no Kasey Chambers music on my iPod–even though PJ has several of her cd’s. I’ll have to fix that soon!

    Here’s a video of Kasey Chambers singing “Pony” live:

    I’ll post the lyrics after the break.

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    SotW: Million Dollar Bill by Whitney Houston Wednesday, Sep 16 2009 

    music thisgaudygildedstage 2:58 pm

    Whitney’s back! And to celebrate, I’m listening to “Million Dollar Bill,” the second single off her new album, I Look to You:

    I’ve long been a Whitney fan — her voice and talent have long been unparalleled in my book. But I’ve never been the kind of fan who paid any attention to her private life. I’m not particularly interested in her marriage and divorce, her drug use, or anything else about her life off-stage. I don’t even watch the various interviews she’s done with Dianne Sawyer or Oprah Winfrey. I just want to hear her sing.

    So, I’m glad that she’s back to doing what I love best: singing. I haven’t downloaded the new album yet; I wasn’t especially impressed by the first single. But this new song is just plain fun — a great pop song that’s fun to sing along with. This is what Whitney should be doing with her career right now, I think.

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