My Favorite Albums of 2010 Sunday, Jan 2 2011 

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I’ve been working on my lists of favorite albums, singles/tracks, and videos of 2010 for the past week or so. This year I’ve been particularly interested in thinking about what these favorites say about me and what I like in music or videos. I’ve enjoyed thinking about it. So, I’ll start by listing my favorite albums of last year; then I’ll write a little about my overall thoughts about this list.

Perfume Genius

My favorite album of 2010 was Perfume Genius’s Learning. Perfume Genius is the musical nom de plume of Mike Hadreas, an early 20-something who has produced an amazingly intimate and unique album.

I came cross this album while reading omg blog’s list of the top gayest songs of 2010. After listening to “Learning,” the title track from Perfume Genius’s album (obviously), I wanted to hear more. So, I googled the album and starting listening to it and reading reviews.

This album, which is really short at only about a half-hour long, reminds me of Sadie Benning’s early short videos, which I sometimes show my gay lit students. These videos were made with a children’s camera and are therefore very stylized and amateurish (in a good way). These qualities also make them experimental and fascinating.

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American Idiot: A Review Friday, Dec 17 2010 

music and song of the week and theater thisgaudygildedstage 2:46 pm

While we were in New York, PJ and I really wanted to see Green Day’s American Idiot. We both love the original album, and we both have crushes on John Gallagher from seeing him in Spring Awakening. So, we got tickets from the TKTS Booth. Our seats weren’t the best, but we enjoyed the performance. Here’s a sample of the musical from when the cast was on Letterman:

Before seeing the show, we had heard a little about the production (in addition to knowing the original Green Day album well). What we had heard was that there are three plot lines but that they three stories don’t really jive together well. We had also heard that it’s all a little confusing.

After seeing it, we thought that these comments were ludicrous. The plot does revolve around three guys. They want to move to the city and start a band, but one of them ends up not being able to leave their home town because his girlfriend gets pregnant. The other two go anyway, but they soon part company when one of them joins the army and the other one becomes a drug addict. The show follows their separate lives over the course of about 6 months or so.

All of it is very clear and not only easy to follow but also engaging, at times dazzling, and very entertaining.

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A Little Night Music: A Review Tuesday, Dec 14 2010 

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While we were in New York last week, PJ and I saw A  Little Night Music, starring Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch. We had never seen Peters or Stritch live before; we had also never seen a live performance of a Stephen Sondheim play. We had wanted to see this production last year, when Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury were starring in it. I’m glad we had to wait a year.

One of the things I love most about theater is when you experience a performance that’s truly amazing, one that transports you to someplace new and exciting, one that makes the hairs on your arms stand up. Bernadette Peters delivers such a performance in this show. She was amazing. Here’s a little taste of her version of “Send in the Clowns”:

In case you don’t know, A Little Night Music is about romantic intrigues among a group of Swedish couples around the turn of the twentieth century. Desiree is an aging actress with an illegitimate daughter who lives with Desiree’s mother, an elderly woman who lives with her memories of her own sordid liaisons. Desiree is beginning to feel that it’s time to leave the stage and settle down. She returns to her home town in the hopes that her daughter’s father, who was relatively recently widowed, will pick up where the two of them left off.

He wants to–after seeing her on stage, he wants to resume their previous affair, but he is now married to a much younger woman, putting an end to Desiree’s fantasy of settling down together. Or so it initially appears. Desiree soon learns that her former lover, Fredrik, and his young wife, Anna, have yet to consummate their marriage after six months, giving her hope that she will be able to seduce him away from Anna.

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SotW: Kiss Like Your Kiss by Lucinda Williams Thursday, Dec 2 2010 

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PJ and I love Lucinda Williams’s music, so I was delighted when I stumbled across a new song from her, “Kiss Like Your Kiss,” which features Elvis Costello:

This song is off the anthology album True Blood: Music from the Original HBO Series Vol. 2. I love the show, but I hadn’t paid attention to the album coming out — it’s been out since May. It also has songs by M.Ward, Jakob Dylan, Jace Everett, and Eels that I like.

“Kiss Like Your Kiss” is a beautiful love song, though it’s rather mournful and dark, as I suppose is appropriate for True Blood. It’s immediately become one of my favorite songs of the year!

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SotW: Changing Your Mind by Bob Schneider Wednesday, Oct 20 2010 

music and song of the week thisgaudygildedstage 11:02 am

This week’s song of the week is Bob Schneider’s “Changing Your Mind,” which was featured in the movie Harmony and Me. Here’s a live version I found on YouTube:

This song is great in the movie, but it’s also just a great song. I didn’t know anything about Schneider’s music before now, but I definitely want to check more of it out. What I’ve learned so far is that he’s an Austin-based musician, which speaks well of him in my book. Also, his newest album includes a version of this song with Patty Griffin, also a plus.

I think the sense of sad resignation in “Changing Your Mind” is what appeals to me most. There are times in life when someone in your life makes a decision that drastically affects or perhaps even ends your relationship and there’s nothing you can do about it. This song captures that moment really well, I think.

But it’s also kind of upbeat. The last verse recalls what appealed to you about that person in the first place. And even if the person is gone, at least you have the memories of what was. In other words, to quote a song from Tina Turner, something beautiful remains.

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SotW: I Want to Hold Your Hand by Glee Monday, Oct 11 2010 

music and queer culture and song of the week and television and What I'm Watching thisgaudygildedstage 6:33 pm

Since today is National Coming Out Day, I especially wanted to blog about last week’s episode of Glee, which is one of my favorite shows. Chris Colfer was particularly wonderful in this episode, in which Kurt’s father has a heart attack and is left in a coma. While his father is in the hospital, Kurt sings The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in Glee Club:

This song is very affecting in this episode, but what I like most about it is its potential as a queer song. This song is all about longing and wanting to love another person in this really simple way: to hold their hand.

Ultimately, I think that’s what all gay rights issues are really about: we want to hold the hand of our beloved openly and fearlessly, to be able to acknowledge who we are and who we love and share our lives with. This song sums that up for me, especially with a gay actor singing it.

Colfer’s version of the song is so simply beautiful. After hearing it for the first time, I told PJ that someday, when we’re allowed to marry legally and have a ceremony, I want this version of the song to be sung at our wedding. I think it would be beautiful.

So, I’ve downloaded it from iTunes, and I’m dreaming of the day when I’ll get married to the man I love. I can’t wait.

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SotW: Ice Cream Truck by Cazwell Thursday, Sep 30 2010 

music and queer culture and song of the week thisgaudygildedstage 6:41 pm

Cazwell’s “Ice Cream Truck” has been on YouTube for a couple of months now. It was definitely the queer song of the summer!

In general, I enjoy Cazwell’s provocatively queer sexual imagery. This video is less lyrically sexually explicit and a little more explicit in its imagery than some of his past videos/singles. But I think it’s catchy and fun! It’s also definitely easy on the eyes.

I also love this remix–makes me want to dance!

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SotW: More Than This by Shane Mack Sunday, Sep 19 2010 

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Recently, I saw that TLA Video was having a sale on gay-themed movies, so I decided to take the opportunity to purchase two of my recent favorite gay independent films: Shelter and Socket. I watched Shelter this past Thursday and confirmed how much I like it. I also fell in love with a song on the soundtrack, Shane Mack‘s “More Than This.” Here’s a clip from the movie featuring the song:

I subsequently purchased all four of Mack’s songs on the soundtrack. Each of the songs is great, but this one seems to be sticking with me the most. I didn’t (and still don’t) know much about Mack. He’s apparently working in Nashville and Los Angeles at the moment.

I think what appeals most to be about this song is the refrain:

If this is all, if this is all we ever were
At least I loved enough to hurt
Enough to hurt

Something about that sentiment appeals to me. It’s kind of a nice way of thinking about emotional pain, I suppose — if it hurts then it must have meant something. I like it as a way of recovering the time you spent in pain — it wasn’t a total waste. Maybe you learned something by going through the hurt, but it also means that you loved enough for it to have mattered to you. I like that idea.

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SotW: Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons Wednesday, Sep 1 2010 

music and song of the week thisgaudygildedstage 7:11 am

My favorite song of the summer has been Mumford & Sons‘ “Little Lion Man.” It’s played frequently on Alt Nation in XM radio, and it’s become my favorite sing along!

Mumford & Sons is a London-based band that formed a few years ago. They’re associated with another of my favorites, Laura Marling. Their album, Sign No More, was released in February. I downloaded it from iTunes based on this track but haven’t had time to listen to it yet.

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Natalie Merchant’s “Leave Your Sleep” Concert in Chicago Monday, Jul 26 2010 

music thisgaudygildedstage 6:02 pm

PJ loves Natalie Merchant, so, for his birthday this year, I bought us tickets to see her  in Chicago last week. We’ve been listening to her new album of poetry for children set to music. I wasn’t completely into it, I have to say, so I was really surprised by how blown away I was by the concert. Merchant’s performance for the better part of three hours was simply amazing. It was one of the best concerts — if not the best concert — I’ve ever been to. Merchant was brilliant!

Here’s an explanation of what she’s doing in the album:

We saw her in the Chicago Theatre, which is a great venue. The first part of the concert was all songs from the new album. Instead of a traditional encore, she did a second set of some of her greatest hits and fan favorites.

What impressed me about the concert was two things. First, I really admired her commitment to teaching us a little bit about the poets whose words she’s set to music. She didn’t go into full-fledged lectures or anything, but she gave us a little tidbit about each poet’s life or poetry, something interesting and relevant to the poem. She also presented us with a PowerPoint presentation that had pictures of each poet and in a couple of cases illustrations that went along with the poems.

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