Don’t you just love “Evanescense” latest song, “My Immortal”? I’m loving it, and the video is freaking awesome as well! Thinking about adding it to my “songs to play at my funeral”-list.
Is it just me, or is the video to “Boogie Pimp”‘s “Don’t You Want Somebody To Love” the best video of all year? It’s got everything – good track, humor, techno beat, failing parachute, mega-hot chick and crying babies. Hilarious stuff! But ofcourse, after the “Christina Weekend” on MTV last weekend you kinda crave good music and good videos. ANd speaking of music vids, Britney’s latest (“Toxic”) was a bit of a dud. Stylish, hip, hi tech, computer animated, naked Britney and not very good music either. One of these days she’s gonna make an artistic video and catch everyone by surprise. Btw, here’s a question I’ve been wondering for a while – just how much creative input does the artists have in their videos? Take someone like Jewel, her first videos were deep, artistic and thought-provoking, then we had that “Veronica’s Secret” commercial-like video she did, then the sarcastic and ironic “Intuition” video but her latest (“Stand”) is too deep for me to understand. Just how much does she have to say about them? The video to “Intuition” was totally in sync with the song, that doesn’t happen alot, does it?
(yeap, I’m on helpdesk duty which involves serious thinking and alot of idle time)
Can you get nauseuos due to bad music? Perhaps it’s my current medical condition, but again I accidentally flipped through channels and was exposed to something that should be labelled “psychological warfare”… C21’s version of “One Night in Bangkok”. It’s … so awful, it may be the worst cover of a classic – ever! They should be banned from making any more music! Is nothing sacred!? Sir Tim, Benny & Bjorn are kicking in their graves and the dudes aren’t even dead yet! What an awful start to the weekend!
And now I’m disappointed. REALLY disappointed! I recently got the new Moby “18” DVD and I wasn’t in any big hurry to go through everything since I’d seen most of it. And today I saw the last part – the Glastonbury performance. As you may remember from my July 11th update, one of my favorite parts was when he apoligized for “having such a f*cking idiot as our president”. I liked that. But do you think that part was on the DVD? Nope, they’ve edited that out! DISAPPOINTED!
As you may have picked up I’m more of a VH1 person than MTV. Don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or the modern music today sucks or what, but I prefer VH1. And they have their Top 10 lists, and sometimes even Top 100 lists. Usually I disagree on a few of the choices in those lists but never anything major. Except yesterday. As I was flipping through stations I came across “Top 100 Men”, which wasn’t a gay show or anything, a list of the top 100 male popstars. And when it came down to single digits it became pretty interesting. They had already listed Freddie Mercury, Elvis, John Lennon and Michael Jackson and the #1 spot was yet to come. So over the commercial I was hard at work trying to figure out who tha hell could beat them? Couldn’t figure it out. And when it was announced I… I actually got pissed off. It didn’t make any sense what so ever. Robbie f*cking Williams?! What tha hell?! Is it time for me to start watching VH1 Classic now or what!? I find that totally unacceptable!
I’ve got a terrible confession to make. I actually like Lene’s CD. “Play With Me” has got to be one of the best tracks all year. And that has got to mean the rest of this musical year has been a complete mess!!
Sad day today. It may be friday, it may be day after pay day and I might have a great weekend ahead of me. But… Robert Palmer died the other day of a heart attack. At 54. And both “Addicted to love” and “Simply Irresistable” were some of my favorite tracks. So sad.
But on a happier note : The US vs France war of words continues.
I don’t know why I bother watching the VMA’s anymore. It must be the “I’m too old for this shit” syndrome or something like that, but I haven’t enjoyed an MTV award show since the MTV EMA in Stockholm 2000… But like last years MTV EMA’s, the only thing I liked was the opening (Madonna, Britney and Christina) and closing (Metallica) acts.
And while I was writing that I thought of another reason I might not like these shows, a fact that may make me sound a bit rascist but I trust you know me better than that – out of everyone that got awards, how many were white? Coldplay and Linkin Park were the closest one, if you disregard “why oh god wasn’t I born black” Eminem or Justin “I wanna be Michael Jackson so hard I even twist my nuts just so I get the same high pitch voice” Timberlake. Or wait, does it make me a rascist not liking Jay Z, 50 Cents, Piff Diddly, Ashanti, Missy Elliot or whatever everyone’s names are? Now I know what black people must feel like when watching sci-fi…
And while I’m on the subject – how many people would laugh at Chris Rock if he was white? Not many, ’cause he’d be in jail for being the most rascist person on the planet. But he’s black, so that’s ok 🙂 But his joke about Coldplay was pretty funny – it is damn depressing hearing that guy laying all his heartache in that “I’m fighting back my tears”-voice.
But that’s just about the music, I did enjoy other parts of the show, Black is always hilarious and those gay interior designer guys were hilarious, loved their expressions when Madonna was bringing down the house.
One of the things that have been keeping me busy is cathing up with what’s been happening in the Moby-world. As you may remember, I missed his concert in Budapest with one day, so to compensate I’ve downloaded his show at the Glastonbury festival. And once again he reminded me of why I like the guy so much – he, as an american citizen, apologized for “having such a f*cking idiot as our president”. And I liked that on so many levels! Not only because I totally agree with him, but that he won’t give into the normal “our president is almost like god and he’s infallible” bullshit that seems to be going on over there. I’ve heard alot of people not being totally happy with him, but I’ve never heard any american ever use that strong language about the President. And I’m not speaking about the person of “Bush” anymore, I’m speaking about the institution. Just look at any american movies involving the President and he’s bound to be shown off as a larger than life person (Armageddon, Deep Impact, ID4, The Rock and so on). But if you prick him, does he not bleed? And now I could actually be arrested for a felony – threatening the President of the US of A!
Scary, isn’t it!?
You’ve heard that the record industry is now going after people like you and me, people who download and share our music over the internet, right? And here I am, in a former eastern state, looking for a CD but by god, over one week later and I still haven’t found it – the original CD anyway! I’ve found plenty of copies! Plenty of homemade versions with printed out covers, but I haven’t found the original CD. And in Singapore it was even worse – I went into a DVD store and found like 10 retail DVD’s, rest of the store was THOUSANDS of homemade VCD of movies (the VCD’s were homemade, not the movies!). And all this for profit. But I’m the bad guy, sitting at home downloading a track or two for personal, non-profit use?
Going home to Sweden today. Not a day too soon either! Although the staff here have been nice, as well as my two travelling companions, I can’t wait to crash in my soffa enjoying a couple of new DVD’s, eating a bag of OLW chips, drinking some SWEDISH Cola and be guaranteed I’ll get to see the new F1 race!
You know I love Jewel, right? That she’s in the exclusive bunch of people who can do nothing wrong (atleast in my world!). Then I heard Intuition. And although I could clearly hear it was her… I still couldn’t believe it was her. It was such a different track, different style, kinda Shakira meets Aguilera. I was actually kinda thinking “sellout!” there for a while. Then I saw the video. And it all made sense! Still can’t do nothing wrong!
But I’m not sure it’s a good thing that you have to see the video to get the point. Or perhaps I simply wasn’t listening to the lyrics…
Just when I think I can’t dislike J-Lo more than I do, I flip on MTV and … well, I’m shocked! It was her latest video, “I’m glad”…. have you seen it? I’ve never, ever seen any worse cover or rip-off of something I like as much as this! I happen to like “Flashdance”, ALOT! I’d put it right up there of the “10 best movies ever made”! Even after a little bit of the magic disappeared when you realised Jennifer Beals wasn’t dancing, still loved it! But this is far worse than Nikki French’s attempt at a dance-version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (a song I’d put right up there of the “3 best songs ever made”).
Perhaps it’s just because I have this incredible need to fill my head with trivial and/or useless information, but I love VH1 “Pop-up Videos”. I think the show is absolutely hilarious! You can always count on them to combine relevant trivia with something useful and then to finish off with something funny. Favorite so far is the pop-up version of “The Stroke”!
And speaking of irrelevant trivia – have you noticed the t-shirt in the background in Kelly Osbourne’s version of “Papa Don’t Preach” that says “Italians Do It Better”? I’ve always thought it was a homage to Madonna, and the fact that she actually did that song alot better than Kelly. But in the pop-up video to Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” they pretty much zoom in on that T-shirt that Madonna is actually wearing in the video. So it was an intended homage, just not the way I thought. These are the kinds of irrelevant trivia I fill my head with. And that’s why I stand a chance at Trivial Pursuit.
I hope everybody, atleast everyone in Sweden, saw the Melodyfestival finale last night? I actually liked it, especially the song that won. But the biggest reason I liked it was the hosts. Mark and Jonas. I don’t know what it is about Mark Levengood, but he’s got that Zen-like aura that Moby has. Just totally cool. And Jonas is absolutely hilarious! And both of them are pretty good at making fun of themselves and doesn’t take themselves too seriously, a quality I like in people. Although Jonas could have done a better job of actually hosting the thing instead of just reading from a script, it was still one of the best ones I’ve seen. And let’s just hope the Euro-wide finale is as fun as it was last year!
A new “Absolute”-album has come out. If you don’t know what they are, it’s a collection of hit tracks with a common theme. Like “Absolute Country” or “Absolute Movies”. This one should have been named “Absolute Crap”. It’s a collection of # 1 hits between 1995 and 1999. Britney Spears, Paradiso, Spice Girls, Vengaboys, Eiffel 65, E-Type and so on and so on and most of it is, what I consider, garbage music. Music without any distinct sound or anything. But I say most of it – Depeche Mode, Robert Miles and Cecilia Vennersten is also on it, but that’s simply not good enough for a music collection with only # 1 hits!… or do I have a bad taste in music?
But I’m really digging Shaggy’s “Ode to women”-song. And video. Who can argue with the first line “So amazing how this world was made, I wonder if GOD is a woman”, especially if you’re a Kevin Smith-fan.
Another topic of conversation today is Michael Jackson. After the recent documentaries about him and how he chooses to live people have really dissed him.
True, the guy seems eccentric. True, some of the stuff is weird. True, it’s not normal to share your bed with children. But come on, can’t we find anyone who’s actually doing something illegal and dig into him/her instead? Like everyone in showbiz doing drugs, or politicians trying to evade tax or something? After all b.s that’s been written about Jackson it’s hard to take anything seriously. From that ogygen tank story back in the 80’s to that Voodoo-ritual he went through to have some people offed… yeah, right… I’m not one to accept anything written anywhere to be fact. The only one undeniable fact is that the dude has made awesome music in the past 20 years! Although the most recent music hasn’t been that much to my liking, the amount of great music forgives any kind of eccentricities (that one is for the people who say my spelling sux!). Until he’s actually tried and convicted in any court, it’s all b.s to me. Let’s quote the great man himself, from “They Don’t Care About Us”:
Tell me what has become of my rights? Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now I’m tired of bein’ the victim of shame
They’re throwing me in a class with a bad name, I can’t believe this is the land from which I came
You know I do really hate to say it, the government don’t wanna see.
But if Roosevelt was livin’, he wouldn’t let this be, no, no
Remember back in october last year when I mentioned my two favorite tracks at the moment, one of which was Norah Jones? Well I guess I must have atleast some good taste because she got 5 Grammy’s! Five 🙂 Congrats!
No, I’m not depressed, stop saying that (3 people have already!)! What do I have to be depressed about, I’m doing pretty fine. I’ve got my health, a steady job, my economy is almost under control and I’m not going through any heartache. That’s more than any of my friends can say (I’m a dangerous person to know). But me – I’m doing alright. Although my mother would fill in “but you’re still single, on Valentine’s day!!”.
But you know what? No biggy for me, I’m quite used to it. ‘Cause now that I think about it, I’ve only been in one relationship that coincided with Valentine’s. Ok, 1 1/2 but that’s a completely different story!
And about that Jewel video – I know I’ve said that music should be music and not videos, and her music is great, and that track was pretty good. But I just couldn’t help but to be disappointed over it because every video with Jewel have been… different, odd and deep in ways I probably don’t understand, but this one??? Rolling around in bed in her underwear? Seen it, been there, done that…
One week and two days later, and what goodness do I have to report about? Not much, but here goes ; My female best friend’s husband and daughter was involved in a serious car crash (that ended with them upside down), but doesn’t have anything to show for it except a wrecked car. I’m not sure if that is bad or good news, but since they’re OK I’ll file it under “good”. My american buddies are coming back to town tomorrow. This is surprising since it means they have been here 4 times in the past 12 months, and I haven’t been over there once during the 6 years I’ve known them! And I can still be surprised by small little restaurants that serve great food (“Asperia” in southern stockholm, great Greek restaurant). So that’s something to be glad over, right?
Compare that against ; two good friends are getting divorced (from eachother!), two really good friends are still unemployed, another friend with some bad news I can’t talk about but it got me depressed, losing a space shuttle and the world is on the verge of war again. And on top of that – Jewel’s latest video was more like a “Victoria’s Secret” ad than an inspirational video! Yippi I’m so happy.
Still recovering from an awesome house warming party I attended on saturday night. I was a little bit hesitant about attending because I probably wouldn’t know that many people there so I didn’t think I’d be there that long. But I was so wrong, met some people I haven’t seen in ages, and got to know a few other people (including another “South Park” fan who considers “BASEketball” as one of the greatest movies ever). And I had so much fun that time just flew by and when I woke up on sunday morning I did my usual “check the cab-receipt for the timestamp so I know when I got home”-routine. I got home at about half past three. Let’s just say sunday turned out to be a very unproductive day for me! ‘Cause I’m not 20 any more…
One problem however, it seems that I left some room for misinterpretation as to my opinion about Christina Aguliera. My friend’s girlfriend was giving me a hard time because she thought I actually liked Aguliera… and here I thought I had made it clear I didn’t, not after “Beautiful”…