MELT AWAY MY WINTER BLAHS

and please invite me to your party, where this is ON REPEAT

THE FACTS OF LIFE OVER THREE DECADES

It's all about the HAVE VS. THE HAVE NOTS

HE HIT ME

How do you like your domestic violence veiled?

Soulful with haunting Phil Spector undertones?



Pugnacious taunting?



Gay and celestial?


I don't care if it feels like a kiss, or if it didn't hurt, or if I was untrue, just keep your hands to yourself.

THE ONE THING I LEARNED IN THE AUGHTS

Everything is derivative

Which one do you like better?



OR:



WHATEVER I STILL LIKE IT ALL ANYWAY. Maybe we'll be more original in '10s, maybe 2012 will fuck it all up. Let's hope for the best <3.

it was a weird year

TOP 5 most played songs on my iTunes (via YouTube) 

5. 

4.

3.

2.

1.

Maybe next year I'll have better taste?

KEANU REEVES

I love that Alex Winter is a total nerd in real life while Keanu never "breaks character"

CHANNELING SOME WHITE BOY ANGST

Hey man, today I got held up at frustration station over some minor legal issues (no joke), and my only place of respite was recalling some mediocre soft alt bands. 

This was the first song that came to my head: 

I know, I KNOW. It's real bad. Listening to this once again, I noticed that I'm only fond of the first few measures, but then once the chorus arrives (too soon in my opinion), the lyrics and flat, whiney vocals are frankly unlistenable. What I'll call the bridge (bc I'm no music expert) is atrocious, probably because the singer starts belting out like a Hanson brother. Totally soured my bummer trip. 

Then I noticed the featured videos on the side bar featured the Gin Blossoms' "Found About You" 

Gin Blossoms - Found Out About You

Just as cheesy and mopey, but at least it's more melodic. Plus, the vocals are a hundred times better. Unlike "All I Want," the bridge is cleaner, which makes it more palatable for nostaglic staying power on soft rock radio. 

As the 90s make its inevitable comeback, I'm sure there's people out that would like to talk shit on them. However, I bet if you play "Hey Jealously" at the end of party, 10 beers deep, they'll be crooning with the rest of us. 

Hey Jealousy @ Yahoo! Video

Oh, just for the record, I don't mind flat, whiney vocals. You just got crank the angst like Galaxie 500 does in "Blue Thunder." The "LAAAAAAAAAAAAAs" are absolutely tedious, but at least we can sing along when we're having a shitty day. 

Galaxie 500 - New Music - More Music Videos

 

I LIED

I caught Jacko mania.  Here are three unappreciated Michael Jackson clips you never really hear anymore.

I like the song, but something about this video makes me really uncomfortable. RIP LINDA TOO.



OMG I LOVE IT WHEN GROUPS FROM THE 60s and 70s HAVE AN EMBARRASSING 80s PHASE. Sorry, Michael basically created the 80s, and y'all were just trying to leverage some more fame. Though I am sucker for the falsetto chorus line ("It's TORTURE") and retro dystopic futures/orientalism.



DIRTY DI-AN-A, no! Not his best, but something about metal guitar riffs and women on the edge go so well together.


And this song (not the iMovie) tugs at my heart strings:

TEEN BEAT PART DUH

A few days ago, a friend posted this video on their Facebook wall and referenced their painfully embarrassing Tori phase. I had one, too, right after my three year Smashing Pumpkins binge that led me into trouble. I wonder if my life would had been any different had this been a hit song. Would I be more well-adjusted? Would Kurt Cobain still be alive and well, or even relevant? Would Y Kant Tori Read be our number one export to keep our economy strong?

If only "The Big Picture" made the top of the charts, we'd all be happy and have our problems solved.

(Favorite lyric: Mothers on my case/I told it's my life/WELL SHE JUST DIED. WHAT?)

TEEN BEAT PART 1

Out of a class of 25 boys, I definitely lingered at the bottom five on the popularity rankings at the small catholic boys school I attended. I had zero coordination in the outfield, talked real funny, and had a brief Tori Amos phase.

This is a year after I listened to Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails on heavy rotation to get me through seventh grade. This self-diagnosed prescription for my angst problem led me to believe that I really was Billy Corgan. Such to the extent that I begin penning my own lyrics for the band's follow up to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Fortunately, Adore would come out that summer before publication.



(Let's pause for second to think about how fabulously melodramatic that title is. If I ever compile a list for a Listener's Guide to Seventh Grade in the Mid to Late 90s, Mellon Collie would be firmly ranked as number one on its title alone.)

Anyway, I envisioned myself as Billy Corgan because, as an only child with strict parents that banned everything R rated and above, I had to entertain my penchant for all things grotesque and macabre somehow. Smuggling contraband (Parental Advisory CDs and other offensive materials from the local mall) and the petty theft from my mother's purse to fund the operation was not enough. My delinquency was too small scale, and I needed to escalate to something more permanent. Plus, I had a lot of time to kill on the hour long bus ride from Bryn Mawr to West Chester. So, under the influence of the Smashing Pumpkins' discography, I wrote my first poem.

I'm not sure how to describe my seventh grade sonnets. I'm sure I lifted lyrics like "I lie just to be real and I die just to feel," peppered with "fuck you," images of severed body limbs, and post-apocalyptic landscapes. Suddenly, the other kids noticed me scrawling away and I was a hit on the bus. I was even commissioned by a devoted few. I knew the humor was at my expense, but no longer was I the kid that hid under the bleaches during gym, or who kept the bench warm outside of the school psychologist's office. So what if I was still a loser. At least I secured a position as back seat poet with a mean publicity machine.



Soon enough my English teacher would get word of my nascent literary career. Some eighth grade snitch found a draft buried in my desk. My school was too small for lockers so personal property was easily subject for confiscation. I was too shocked and embarrassed to build a defense case at the time. Not that it would save me in a catholic school where you're guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of a nun. Besides, I'd always shutdown in the face of male aggression and think of a happy place. A place where the teacher would instead tell me to lighten up and rewrite the poem in the form of a dirty limerick.

GUYS BE RUNNIN GAMES LIKE THE NEW YORK KNICKS

Let's file this under things I can't wait to do when I get back to the city. I have a lot of time on my hands so I'm making a list.

1. I'll let MC Lyte take the mic on this one:



Okay, the video quality is poor and the rhymes are weak at times. I mean at 2:04, we see Lyte get a little too vulnerable in front of Positive K. Face it: You don't need to get all touchy feely in front of the same guy who did "I Got a Man" 2 years later. What you do need to tell him is that "if you got some thoughts about taking me to bed/Kill that and get a five dollar crackhead."

Also, the only thing I'm crushing on right now is Lyte's terribly poor choice of gold earrings and light blue flannel tucked into what seems to be pleated khakis (?). How oppressively 1991. On that note, you will see me rocking this look on the streets of Philadelphia come June.