Well, to be totally honest, this guy is smarter, better-looking, richer, more successful and more fun than I'll ever be. So maybe this is what well-educated, skinny, popular kids wear when they're somehow fooling the world that they deserve to be much more than our generation's Camper Van Beethoven. But something doesn't sit right with me. I'd ask one of my friends that go to Columbia, but if I had a ton of friends who went to Columbia, I probably wouldn't be trying to pay my rent by writing 400-word blurbs on Hydra Head bands. I feel lost, confused,,,,,,,[sic—that's how little I care about an Oxford comma] and really old.

Seriously, do people wear this shit? Is there some uptown hipster keffiyeh community I've somehow missed? Is this some kind of Seinfeld-ian puffy shirt fiasco? Or is he trying to protect his neck from real vampires?!

^*Side note to Art Brut: You may want to defriend that dude.

Chalk this up to my naivete, but when I found out yesterday that Rock Of Love's neck-tattooed runner-up Heather would be touring with a Poison tribute band, I thought to myself, "Oh, well, it's nice that we've finally hit rock bottom." But then the above video—an outtake from VH1's upcoming show Celebrity Rehab—crossed my transom, and I had to recalibrate my definition of "basement level." In the above clip, former Crazy Town guy Seth "Shifty Shellshock" Binzer showily fires up a crack pipe for the camera, berating his addiction the whole time. The saddest part? Right now, he's probably more bummed out that this FoxNews.com story on the "leaked" videos didn't even remember his name than anything.

Celebrity Rehab Outtakes: Seth Binzer Smokes Crack [LiveLeak; HT Defamer]

Between the My Chemical Romance-inspired outfits, the karaoke-on-cough-syrup cover (so as to better make the dance "dramatic," I guess, although this cover is seriously veering into "you ruined my favorite song" territory), and the fact that Garth and Hough seem to be either in "jazzhands-face mode" or trying to prevent themselves from cracking up, I was in a full-body cringe for pretty much the entire minute and 46 seconds. Is it camp? Perhaps. Or maybe it's the new brand of camp that's designed to get an instantaneous rise out of, uh, blogger types so as to increase "visibility" for the show. Which, of course, leads to the inevitable denouement where all of American popular culture nicks its concepts of "linearity" and "cohesion" from the 2007 Video Music Awards. Suddenly, the idea of the blipvert seems so... benign.

In any case, Barnes penned a colorful defense of his band appearing in this ad—and that Outback spot a few months ago—for Stereogum, in which he throws down the generational gauntlet and says that punk rock basically screwed up everyone's idea of what the "right" way to make a living is. And while I can see his point as far as getting paid—those six seconds of "Gronlandic Edit" will probably make more money for him and his bandmates than any show—I have to wonder whether or not this commercial will do anything for him and his band as far as awareness goes. (I've also wondered the same thing every time one of those Wilco VW ads has come on, because while they sound really great in the context of crappy sports-broadcast commercial breaks, there's almost no identifying of the song itself.) Or has the shattering of the mass music market made crossover impossible for anyone who isn't borne from the American Idol stable, a new truth that's further proven by last night's American Music Awards results?

of Montreal Talk T-Mobile: "Selling Out Isn't Possible" [Stereogum]

"The legendary Miss Britney Spears"
We're guessing that you don't remember that this phrase is actually part of "Gimme More," since the ungrateful shits at MTV don't play the video in full at any hour that isn't ungodly. And we've given them so much over the years!

"The hit single 'Gimme More'"
It may be skidding down the charts, but it's still sorta gaining at radio, y'all! (Actually, we're surprised that they didn't mention that "More" was Britney's highest-charting single in years, but maybe they saw that as too desperate.)

"The new songs everybody's talking about"
Yes, we read Oh No They Didn't.

"Today's biggest star"
And TMZ, too. And Perez Hilton. And ... well, let's just say that you really don't want to read our Google News alerts. Because they make us cry every day.

"Rush-released"
We're pretty much expecting this record to tank, but our bean-counters decided that coming in on the charts behind the Eagles would be a lot less embarrassing than losing out to Celine Dion. (At least Blackout will sell more than that Backstreet Boys album ... right? Right?)

"The new album the world has been waiting for"
If we say it enough times, it'll be true! And maybe then her success will inspire her to finally hire a driver.

Britney Spears Blackout Spot [YouTube]

Oh, and apologies in advance if any of our fake band names turn out to be someone's real band name. Especially because you chose that as your band name. And thanks to the Knife, the fine folks at Holiday Inn, and the state of New Jersey for their inadvertent on the spot band name inspiration.

In all seriousness, though this is one of those features that is really fun to skim through (beat writers looking for a good off-day story, take note!), if only because you get to see just how much crappy metal lives on in the planes and hotel rooms of America's most prominent athletes. Static-X, S & M-era Metallica, and Staind serve as the introductions for Grady Sizemore, Casey Blake, and Jason Michaels, respectively; how Staind can be either rallying or intimidating is something that will bewilder me until the end of time, or at least the ALCS. There's also the now-mandatory inclusion of "This Is Why I'm Hot" (Ryan Garko, who apparently ditched Ryan Adams for MIMS and other ringtones currently in vogue like "A Bay Bay"). The best pick song-wise is probably Eve's slept-on "Tambourine," which is the music of choice for Kenny Lofton, but for sheer intimidation factor I'd have to go with Travis Hafner's selection, if only because it confused Yarborough so much that it send him into an incoherent string of Humphrey Bogart references:

Cleveland Indians' designated hits: When Tribe players step up to bat, it's to songs of their choosing [cleveland.com]

Pineda:

Perry:

Well, he accquits himself pretty well, I think, but fella, I spent many hours playing Joust at the Jamesway shopping center to the strains of Steve Perry. And you are no Steve Perry. But even more than Pineda's Perry-o-phonic fidelity, the real question might be how the fictional Middle-American residents of fictional South Detroit will take to Journey's latest addition.

"And is this the 2008 line-up of Journey?" [Melodicrock.com]
The Zoo - "Don't Stop Believin" [YouTube]
Journey - "Don't Stop Believin" [YouTube]

Some of the people in attendance were Tom Morello (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE) METALLICA's Kirk Hammett and Zakk Wylde. About two songs into the show, Zakk — who was front row — tried to get onstage with Eddie [Van Halen]. The security were wrestling to pull him off and David Lee Roth came over and said, 'Nah, nah, nah. Are you in show biz? Then get off the stage. Get off the fucking stage.' At that point Eddie came over and acknowledged Zakk, saying something to the effect of, 'Hey, man, I can't do this right now.' Throughout the show though Eddie was smiling at Zakk. At one point Zakk swapped shoes with one of his guests (a girl who was wearing high heels) and spent a good portion of the show wearing these!!

You can see the DLR dressing-down in the above clip; it's kind of sad to just see Wylde standing there, Courteney Cox-in-"Dancing In The Dark"-style, waiting to be held aloft by his heroes, only to get a dressing-down from one of them. On the bright side, his foray into high-heel-wearing—while at a show! what a trouper!—has probably all but guaranteed him a spot in Roth's next home video, or at the very least season 12 of The Surreal Life.

OWNED David Lee Roth Style [YouTube]
ZAKK WYLDE Gets 'Owned' By DAVID LEE ROTH At VAN HALEN Rehearsal; Video Available [Blabbermouth]

I didn't quite realize it during the '90s, but I now cop to being a staunch fanboy of Quentin Tarantino's peculiar brand of movie mixtapes and esoteric music mash notes. But his most recent film, Death Proof, tested my faith. If you had told me beforehand that I would nearly walk out of a movie that coupled a soundtrack comprised of 45 sides from the likes of lifelong musical obsessions like Jack Nitzsche, Joe Tex, and T. Rex to loooong, sumptuous tracking shots of female posteriors jiggling in short-shorts, I might've sliced off your ear. And yet the first 7/8ths of Death Proof were some of the most boring hubris I ever sat through (God only knows how the two-hour "director's cut" will be, but at least there's the fast-forward button), while the last eighth was some of the most exhilarating footage ever committed to tape.

For those who did walk out (or didn't even bother walking into the three-and-a-half hour twofer of Grindhouse), Death Proof's great race hinges on four gals (played by Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thomas, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and stuntwoman Zoë Bell) happening upon—as Zoë and gearheads gush—an immaculate replica of an Alpine White 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T hardtop powered by a supercharged 440 cubic inch "Magnum" V-8 engine that was driven hard and put away wet in the '70s cult classic Vanishing Point. The girls (and QT) are huge fans of the movie, and they're not alone. (There was even a clueless Viggo Mortensen-Jason Priestley 1997 remake.)

Vanishing Point has been a touchstone for musicians like Guns N' Roses (who sampled it on Use Your Illusion II's "Breakdown"), Primal Scream (see 1997's Vanishing Point), and Audioslave, whose video for "Show Me How to Live" shows the band puttering about in a Challenger amid hefty amounts of footage from the original movie:

(Editor's note: This will be Idolator's first and last posting of an Audioslave video.)

Like its similarly supercharged car-obsessed celluloid twin, Monte Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop, VP exists in the median between the counterculture co-opt (in part due to the financial/ cultural successes of Easy Rider) and the instituting of the Interstate Highway System, which paved over the arid landscape of that old, weird America soon after shooting. It could be seen as the connective tissue between On the Road and The Dukes of Hazzard.

Its driver anti-hero, a Joe Namath-looking pill-popper named Kowalski, has quite the resumé: Vietnam vet, disgraced cop, demolition derby driver, dopehead, gearhead, screwhead, and—as his interstate chase with cops intensifies—counterculture hero. Kowalski's co-pilot for the duration of the movie—who never sets foot inside the Challenger—is a blind deejay named "Super Soul," played by Cleavon Little (better known as the black sheriff in Blazing Saddles). "Super Soul" uncovers some other roles of Kowalski: "the last American hero, the electric centaur, the demigod." He in turn talks back to the radio (surely a result of being up for three days on uppers) and the enclaves of burnt-out hippies and Christians he encounters along the way embrace Kowalski as well. "Super Soul" mans a freeform FM radio station (conveniently with the call letters KOW) spieling about how Kowalski is a "soul hero in his soul mobile" trying to escape the "blue blue meanies." KOW also, apparently, plays nothing but Delaney & Bonnie & Friends 24/7.

Conveniently, I've spent lots of time of late spinning Delaney & Bonnie's 1971 masterpiece, Motel Shot (which Robert Christgau once deemed "a seamless delight, the most unflawed listening music I've heard in a long while"), especially their ramshackle top-twenty hit "Never Ending Song of Love." That song doesn't appear in the movie, but the couple's vision of music-making permeates throughout; they even appear on a makeshift stage singing to a clutch of snake-handling faith healers under the moniker "J. Hovah Singers."

Much like Kowalski, Delaney & Bonnie had a varied career, and wound up stuck in the no-man's land between Stax southern soul and British blues-rock, straddling both yet never crossing over. Delaney Bramlett was the house guitarist on Shindig!, while Bonnie Lynn O'Farrell was the first white Ikette. Hitched out in LA, the couple cut a record on Stax and toured with their band of "friends," which could include the likes of Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Duane Allman, Dr. John, Jim Dickinson, Billy Preston, Bobby Keys, and Leon Russell on any given night, before most of their backing band wound up as either Derek's Dominos or Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen. The couple divorced by '72 and cut middling solo discs, both finding Christ somewhere out on life's highway. Bonnie perhaps had the more noteworthy career, decking Elvis Costello after he dissed Ray Charles out on tour in the late '70s before going on to play "Bonnie" on Roseanne in the early '90s.

Much like Easy Rider did with its soundtrack of au courant acid rock and psychedelia, so too does Vanishing Point's soundtrack reflect the sound of the post-'60s hangover, with a return to "roots"—soul, blues, folk, bluegrass, country, and gospel, with hard-rock pit stops like Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" and the J.B. Pickers' roiling jam "Freedom of Expression," which soundtracks this chase sequence.

Jimmy Reed and Big Mama Thornton appear, and you get the first recorded appearance of Kim Carnes, who appears on the Vanishing Point soundtrack under the name Dave & Kim. There's also the Doug Dillard Expedition, whose quicksilver bluegrass breakdown soundtracks—what else?—a getaway scene. "Speed means freedom of the soul," Super Soul portends as Kowalski speeds towards his fate. A man of few words, Kowalski would no doubt take the present-day advice of Rihanna to heart: "Shut up and drive."

Once again, aside from cleaning up the spelling and grammar here and there (and the occasional editor's note where applicable), I have left her musings mostly intact.

10. The Miracles - "Love Machine"

Okay this is it, all of you chicklets, the final ten. Now pay attention. Because I am now going to teach you things you will take with you for the rest of your lives. I am 12 years old and had just gotten a friendship ring from my first true love, Jimmy. And "Ooo Baby Baby" was what I wanted him to sing to me. Well, and maybe "I am just a love machine and I won't work for anybody but you."

(Editor's note: My mother was clearly "advanced" at the tender age of 12. She also apparently had a time machine which she could use to learn the lyrics to hit makeout songs that would only be released almost a decade after she was 12. And then, cursed with this knowledge, she could only pine for her sixth-grade lotharios to sing electro-funk hits of the '70s back to her. While, I dunno, sharing an Eskimo Pie or a bong rip or whatever kids did in the '60s.)

9. Earth Wind and Fire - "Getaway"

Okay here they come again, in at No. 9 and for a good reason. So we all have to thank Maurice White. Who is, by the way, my sign. Sagittarius. Can anyone hit the notes like Philip Bailey? (Well, we know Mariah can.) Just listen to this and take these words to heart: "We'll leave this troubled land." My personal motto, being an Expanded Functions Dental Assistant—that means he drills 'em and I fill 'em, for clarification—is there are teeth everywhere. So I guess if I leave this troubled land, I can still get work?

(Editor's note: Even in the promised land, she would remain a practical and frugal woman.)

8. Natalie Cole - "This Will Be"

Okay, so you don't automatically think of Natalie as funk, but if you had seen her perform live in a glistening velvet two-piece number, like I did, you would know what I mean. She did some of her best work from 1975 to 1977—just two short years! Now, this is my darling daughter's wedding song. If I can find her a nice boy to marry, he will have to be something special cause she is the most beautiful person in the world. After myself of course. And OK, Jess. I guess I will have to add him, too. And Natalie was not picked for her family connections, although her dad is one of the greatest.

(Editor's note: Gee, thanks. Between the baldness genes and the cankles, any and all deformities on my part are your fault, you know.)

7. Cameo - "Word Up"

So I am with my second child—Jess is in the front of the shopping cart—at K-Mart. I have my big '80s glasses on, knee socks, and Dr. Scholl's orthopedic sandals. In February. Are you getting hot now? And as we are driving home listening to "Word Up," I am so mad that I am here with these kids and not on stage with Cameo!

(Editor's note: Among the other things that keep me up at night—nuclear war, the fate of taco-flavored Doritos, my ex-girlfriends—I can now add "I kept my mother from grinding on Larry Blackmon's codpiece.")

6. The Gap Band - "Early In The Morning"

Now comes the really heavy funk! Founded by the Wilson Brothers, the group's name was conceived as a response to the Tulsa Race Riot, which was "one of the most violent racially motivated attacks in United States history" according to Wikipedia. (Click on that link and read about it!) This song made it to No. 1 on the Billboard R & B charts, and over two decades later my good pal, Romulus Kelly, was still producing hits for the band in 2005 with Charlie's solo joint Charlie, Last Name Wilson bitch!

(Editor's note: "Bitch"??)

5. Sly and The Family Stone - "If You Want Me To Stay"

Okay, I promised earlier in this process that I would reveal Jess' true origin, the story of his conception. Well for years the poor thing thought he was conceived after a Sly concert, the headline act that night after Fleetwood Mac. What a great night! And I just wanted the story to be great for Jess. Well, two years ago at Christmas, Jess and his sister Sara and I were in Washington D.C., having a blast, staying at this really cool hotel. Our room was the Zebra room with bathrobes to match! While we were playing with the electronic "Whack-A-Mole" game Jess had just received from Santa—and after several Bloody Mary's for me—I told him the truth. It was not a Sly concert. It was after a movie—the premiere of the remake of King Kong. You know, the stupid one with Jeff Bridges. After I mopped up Jess' tears, he forgave me. I think.

(Editor's note: At least I wasn't conceived in the movie theater. Or behind it. As far as I know. That's something. I guess.)

4. Teena Marie - "Lover Girl"

I saw this bad lady just two years ago in Baltimore! She is still the FUNKIEST white woman out there, even at the age of 51. You know, maybe there is still hope for me after all. Everyone in the music industry should bow down to the Lady T. She helped out all of her fellow musicians with the "Brockert Initiative," and kudos to Teena for that!

(Editor's note: The "Brockert Initiative," according to our friends at Wikipedia: "Upon discovering she had been underpaid royalties for the four albums she recorded for Motown, Teena Marie decided to leave the label and later sued it for having restricted her artistic control. A law was passed as a result, The Brockert Initiative, popularly known as "The Teena Marie Law", which set a precedent for artists seeking control of their careers by limiting the length of recording contracts." My mom is schooling me left and right with this one.)

3. Rufus and Chaka Khan - "Tell Me Something Good"

So if I am stranded on a desert island, other than my Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, I would want Rufus and Chaka's Stompin' At The Savoy CD. And when the Lip Smackers and the CD were gone, I would just want someone to kill me. This is best of Rufus and Chaka, with songs written by Stevie Wonder and Bobby Womack. Buy this one! Now! If you watched the Video Music Awards on MTV, you would not have heard anything like this! These people knew how to sing for Lord's sakes! I suffered through 17 hours of labor with Jess only to have to suffer through that on Sunday night!

(Editor's note: I don't know if I've ever heard this woman so angry as with the vitriol that was flying off of my laptop's screen during the Video Music Awards. When Mary J. only came out to present an award, I thought my mom was going to cry and/or hurl a high heel at the TV. But then again it's not particularly surprising, considering my mother wouldn't cross the room to spit on Britney Spears' weave. She once called the later work of Diana Ross "bubblegum disco shit," so never let it be said she's not constantly keeping it real in her own inscrutable way.)

2. Marvin Gaye - "Let's Get It On"

So my BFF and I are working together at a dental office and every time this song would come on, no matter what the patient we were currently enduring, we would meet in the hallway and groove to this. If we hear it when apart, we still call each other and play it for each other on our cell phones. Marvin started his career with Bo Diddley—that is just about the coolest fact in this whole feature! He was sensuality all over the place!

1. Con Funk Shun - "Chase Me"

This is why this whole feature was written—this is true FUNK! Love Felton Pilate's voice, and if any man out there can sing the words to "Love's Train," then he can come and get me! Now at my viewing before my funeral, I want a good wake (since I'm Irish Catholic), a great donnybrook to break out, and this song to be playing during the insanity. Of course, the people who know me know that besides all of the music and singing and drinking and raisin pie, I want to be buried above ground with my jammies on and a key inside the casket. So I can get out! Well I guess I don't need a last will and testament because everyone on the Web now knows my last request. Just don't screw it up, okay?

In closing, I want you all to know what a privilege and honor this has been for me. I want to thank you from deep within my (neo) soul. And you tell Jess to let me continue to educate you or I will hurt myself. I have so many more people to talk about: Sam Cooke, Fonda Rae, the Jimmy Castor Bunch, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Carl Carlton, The Capitols...the list goes on forever. It is all about the MUSIC, isn't it? Love to all!

See you on the flip side,
Kitty

P.S. The MTV video awards sucked and it makes me sad that so many good artists are not being recognized. Let us work on that, okay? WE HAVE THE POWER!

Sources told the Daily News that MTV has already lectured Spears to behave in Las Vegas or risk her spot in the lineup.

"Britney knows she's on thin ice. When they agreed to the performance, they sat her down and told her she should not be going out, and instead focus on rehearsing and resting," an insider said. "She seemed to be thankful and appreciative for the chance, but who knows with her? MTV made it clear that her usual behavior will not be tolerated."

Another source said that Spears was "totally phoning this in. ... She's been drinking a bunch and not putting her all into rehearsing." Which seems sorta likely given the above clip of her rehearsing, where she seems a bit more interested in not losing her hat than actually working on her dance steps. And hey, if the plug does get pulled? We're sure this guy would love a chance to get back into the VMA spotlight.

MTV lectures Britney Spears to behave on VMAs [NY Daily News]

In the criminal justice system, tribute video-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies...are totally getting it on! These are their stories. Just when I thought I was out of the slash fic game, they pulled me back in, this time with some of that red-hot detective-on-detective action. Think about the kind of gritty music that might accompany a story of twisted love between two sex crime investigators. Now totally forget about that sort of music and watch these two clips:

Song: "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls
Concept:: Benson and Stabler as playful, flirtatious duo unsure of whether they want to sacrifice chill time with friends for a serious relationship.
In the future, Internet scholars will use the text in the beginning of this video to summarize the YouTube-era zeitgeist: "I get bored ok?! And I resorted to Spice GIrls...Enjoy!" Those three phrases perfectly encapsulate the boredom/silly music/desire to entertain rhythm of YouTube. As for the real matter at hand, yes, this video does rock. First of all, you have to appreciate the combination of bouncy pop music and sex crimes investigation—I can't think of a more inappropriate song for these clips. Second of all, even if you take the characters out of the the sex-crimes context, it's still totally incongruous. These people are in their late thirties/early forties; one is married with kids, the other ... I forget what her deal is, but somehow she's hardened by life. And yet what this video aims to tell us is that Olivia was all, "Listen, Elliot, I want to hang out with you this summer, but that means you have to be cool with Munch and Tutuola. They're really important to me and I can't just start ignoring them because I'm with you." Then Elliot just shrugged and was like, "Zigazig ha!" The only thing that disappoints a little bit here is the editing. It's not terrible, but with such a high-energy song I'd have liked to have seen more crazy wipe transitions and a few quicker cuts.
Best music-to-image sync-up moment: A little over a minute in, the Spice Girls sing "I won't be hasty, I'll give you a try. If you really bug me then I'll say goodbye," as Olivia looks annoyed and walks out on Elliot.
Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: At 1:33 there's a clip of Stabler running frantically through a crowd to get to an injured Benson as a child kidnapper escapes. The severity of that situation in combination with "Wannabe" is just too much.

Song: "Jolene" by Dolly Parton
Concept: Benson as heartless homewrecker.
Let's start with the title of this video: "A Desperate Plea from Kathy to Olivia." For those of you not hip to the cast of SVU's (very) minor characters, Kathy is Detective Elliot Stabler's wife, and she shows up every now and then when the writers come up short a few minutes on an episode. The obscurity of the concept is definitely what carries this video. That and the excellent Dolly Parton song. The general story of the song does match the plot of the show pretty well, but the portrayal of detective Benson as a husband-stealing harlot is a little off-base. Editing-wise, the slow fades match the pace of the song, but get a little boring, and I'm not digging the black and white color setting. The experience of watching this is pretty unmoving, but the concept is weird enough to compensate.
Best music-to-image sync-up moment: At 1:10 there's a clip of Benson wearing some sort of hooker getup and walking in slow motion, the closest she ever gets to actually looking like Jolene.
Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: At 1:41 Benson is making out with a dude who, if I remember correctly, ends up being a serial rapist, which is not all that silly, but it is kind of amusing that it's matched with the lyric "You could have your choice of men."

Verdict: I'm actually declaring a hung jury on this one. While I think the Spice Girls video is more entertaining to watch, I'm just really attached to the concept and title of the "Jolene" clip.

This maniac has posted the entirety of the Pet Shop Boys' performance of their new score to The Battleship Potemkin. My film school experience would have been markedly improved by more Neil Tennant.

bookdemon has a handful of hypnotically odd Sun City Girls performances and clips. R.I.P. Charlie Gocher.

Chicago together with Rev. Al Green performing "Tied Of Being Alone." I...I don't know how to feel about this one.

Flipper doing "Way Of The World." Heroes to secretly optimistic drunken nihilists everywhere.

A cartoon Tom Waits performance in that '70s animation style that makes me vaguely uncomfortable for reasons I can't quite pinpoint ala Heavy Metal or Bakshi's Lord Of The Rings. (It feels...sleazy. Or at least some kinda perverse.)

Alan Rickman: pouty, droll, inexplicably appealing. If he weren't acting, Alan Rickman would teach something like English lit or art history at a prestigious liberal arts college where he would be universally beloved by the female student body for his dry wit, passionate teaching style, and sexy accent. Instead he's playing Snape in Harry Potter, which has skewed his fan base much, much younger. This week we explore Alan's youth appeal:

Song: "Don't Speak" by No Doubt
Concept: Alan Rickman as jilted lover.
The greatest thing about this video is its first minute. It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book: you can either be taken by force by haggard, bearded Alan Rickman, or you can go in soft and slow with gentlemanly Alan Rickman, but either way, it's totally hot. As a music video, this clip is really not bad—"Don't Speak" works well for emotionally fraught makeouts, and the dancing footage is a convenient and successful filler. It's not terribly interesting, but sometimes you just have to sit back and let a tribute video's general concept sink in.
Best music-to-image sync-up moment: At 1:21, the dance move is perfectly matched to the drum entrance.
Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: At 2:06, there's a really weird still shot of Alan with his eyes half-closed that stays onscreen for a solid five seconds. But ... why?

Song: "All Night" by Damian Marley
Concept: Alan Rickman as totally chill dude who will bring the weed to the party. And he can dance!
This video has the advantage, energy-wise. The editing is quicker and there's a better variety of clips, making it a little more interesting to watch. The song is fun and appropriately inappropriate for the subject—though in a weird way it does kind of fit, since many women of all ages do seem to want Alan Rickman's loving all night. Still, old English white dude plus Marley brother equals unavoidable incongruity.
Best music-to-image sync-up moment: This is kind of cheesy, but about thirty seconds in Damian Marley sings "Now she call me on the phone and said she's home alone, and she want me to come over and her house a home" as we see clips of Alan Rickman, yes, talking on the phone and then making some lady's house a home.
Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: The last twenty seconds are seriously bizarre. We get a very tense sex scene, then the music stops, and then there is a completely silent thirteen-second clip of Snape writing at his desk.

Verdict: The song choices are equally inexplicable, but the Damian Marley video has the edge in general enjoyability and technique, making it the distinguished Englishman over the age of sixty that I would most like to make out with—and the winner of this week's match-up.

Fabricando Tom Zé (Fabricating Tom Zé), directed by Decio Matos, Jr.
Brazil, 2006, 89 min.

I was a high school punk, all but guaranteeing that whatever music I liked, the parents would hate. (Wait, think that just meant I was a teenager.) Guitar feedback, tonsil-ejecting screams, caveman drumming—I reveled in such ejaculatory noise, as did all of my high school friends. We were quite smug in our urbane embrace of all sorts of sonic offal, be it the Swans or the Geto Boys. That is, until that fateful day when my best friend's father played us a disc of "world music" called Brazil Classics Volume 4: The Best of Tom Zé, as compiled by Talking Head David Byrne (who was never punk enough for my tastes).

It seemed pretty bland at first, jerky acoustic guitars, those hand drums that Paul Simon liked in the '80s, untranslatable chants. At least until the third track, "Toc," came on. The guitar sounded like someone in need of a sugar fix, and the track kept tightening, twitching like a rubber band, getting weirder, more nerve-wracking, until I heard my best friend's mom start vacuuming in the next room. No, wait ... that was the music itself! This Brazilian guy had made an instrument out of that?

Weird, enervating noises emanating from both instrument and mouth continue to inform Tom Zé's music. For example, check out this South Park-esque video from last year. Without reservation, the Brazilian madman had a profound impact on that mental gatekeeper in my head who determines what is and isn't music, and it continues to this day, much to the chagrin of roommates and girlfriends alike. So when a recent survey of Brazilian film at New York's Museum of Modern Art included a screening of the 2006 documentary Fabricando Tom Zé, I was in attendance. Here's the trailer (in Portuguese, alas):

Director Decio Matos Jr. (of no relation to our own Jackin' Pop editor) is a close friend of Zé's, no doubt giving him unguarded access to the man. We get a glimpse into the classroom he attended as a small boy (one of the instances in the film where a snatch of superfluous animation appears) and Zé boasts to the camera: "What saved me is I'm a terrible singer, composer ... (seeing) no difference between a piano and a vacuum cleaner." Throughout the film, which mostly captures a world tour in 2005, Zé's self-deprecating to a fault, laundry-listing his shortness, bad skin, ugliness, lack of talent, and illiteracy. Yet he doesn't mind making bold announcements about his body of music: "When the geniuses come, they will have something to work with."

As his music attests, Zé is a lively, erratic, combustible sort of fellow, creating new songs in the language of the country he's playing (in Italy, he makes like Lil' Wayne, in that he too has a song about "Giorgio Bush"), or spontaneously composing numbers during soundchecks, or on the tour bus en route to the venue. One classic scene involves a performance with an orchestra of industrial buffers shaving down go-go bells, producing rhythmic sprays of sparks.

Yet all of Zé's intriguing quirks and outlooks on life don't necessarily make for an interesting film. Despite Zé's natural ability to rub both people and ears the wrong way, Matos seems hard-pressed for some grist, resulting in a sense of overstaking conflict between Zé and fellow Tropicalia founders Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Zé was crucial to the movement, penning the classic "2001," which garnered Zé some notoriety when it was performed by Os Mutantes at the Parabelo Festival in São Paulo in 1967:

There certainly may be some truth to the fact that while Veloso and Gil remain the face of Brazil's most popular musical export (even serving as cultural ambassadors) Zé resorted to taking a job as a gas station attendant to pay his bills, but it seems at most to be the result of a fussbudget who proudly embraces being acerbic, reclusive, and embittered, not some conspiratorial attempt on the part of Gil or Veloso. Or else it's an example of what Morrissey once sang: "We hate it when our friends become successful."

The film's most tense moment occurs during a soundcheck at the Montreux Jazz Fest in Switzerland, when Zé decides that an unsympathetic soundman is yet another example of the "the Man" oppressing him and freaks the fuck out. In some small way, he erects a mountain out of a molehill, much like the film does, making this encounter out to be an ongoing conflict between First and Third World, rich vs. poor, white vs. black. Uh ... hate to tell Tom, but I could walk into any bar right now, either around the country or around the world, and witness that "eternal struggle" between a self-serious musician and a douchebag sound guy.

It's not as if Tom Zé hasn't had his comeuppance. The film finally touches on how David Byrne's discovery of Zé became a phenomenon right before it ends. Byrne called his discovery of Zé's brilliant 1975 record Estudando O Samba akin to finding "a message in a bottle," and its brave juxtapose of rural samba forms to urban noise remains jolting even today. By releasing Brazil Classics Volume 4: The Best of Tom Zé in the early '90s, Byrne didn't just bring international acclaim to Zé (creating fans like Beck, Tortoise, and Cibo Matto in the process), he also re-introduced Zé to his native land, which had long ago forgotten his peripheral presence in the Tropicalia movement.

A revisionist sense of history, sure, but the movie title does translate as Fabricating Tom Zé. And now Zé enjoys being a cultural icon of his country (well, as much as someone built for lifelong misery can actually derive pleasure from such status). While peers like Veloso and Gil long ago became pampered by success, by scrabbling all these decades, Zé's music remains vital, bursting with new ideas. Unable to rest on his laurels, he puts it best in the film: "I have to make an invention every time."

Bonus footage:

I guess this sort of "show the sinfulness to the audience so they'll know what to avoid" is in the grand tradition of Christian comic books depicting gory zombies and full-color beheadings to hook their teeange readership. Despite being down with the anti-smoking message, I'm not so sure about the western commercial prospects for such a square video, especially in a country where kids film themselves humping the floor to, uh, Pretty Ricky songs. On the other hand, it might be just what our hypersexualized society requires to turn itself around. Maybe Pretty Ricky needs a little Allah in their life to stifle those urges.

Pretty Ricky - "Love Like Honey" [YouTube via Blender]
Saudi Music Video Strikes Devout Note [The Telegraph]

My mother basically raised my sister and me on a steady diet of soul, R&B, and funk, possibly to counteract the effects of my dad's love of Yes and Genesis. (Just to give you some idea of her total obsession with R&B: When she recently professed a newfound love for Joni Mitchell, she noted how outré it was for her.) As you'll see, she's a child of the '70s, with her grade school years spent listening to Motown. As the '80s rolled on, her taste swerved a little too far into slick, biz R&B for me—maybe I'm just bitter from how often we had to listen to Anita Baker—but she's still buying records today, with a deep neo-soul jones (and the requisite Idolator love for R. Kelly, of course). She occasionally fantasizes about being reincarnated as Chaka Khan, especially when she's a couple glasses deep into the box wine.

As is her wont, she gleefully trampled all over the guidelines that Matos (who has some experience dealing with an unruly family of budding rock critics) established for the list. (There's some hip-hop, as you will see.) And some of her opinions may be contentious (the woman really dislikes Kool and the Gang for some reason, despite including them) or even opaque. But aside from cleaning up the spelling and grammar here and there (and the occasional editor's note where applicable), I have left her musings mostly intact. Despite having only the vaguest idea of what a blog is, let alone why her son gets paid to write one, I think she'd make a fine addition to the music blogosphere. New updates will appear weekly as we count down to No. 1. And without further ado:

From: Mom
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 6:45 PM
To: Jess
Subject: JESS'S SONGS.WPS

Well here it is. It is my blood and soul! No pun intended! And I hope I will win the Pulitzer Prize for this one! Love you! Please let me know that you received this! Love you!

100. George Clinton - "Atomic Dog"

Okay if I had my way I would change this pick in a heartbeat to "One Nation Under a Groove." Can I? As an ex-funkateer? (Editor's note: No.) Some say that George is a fake. You decide. He is not James Brown nor Sly Stone. But I still want those pink locks!

99. Sugarhill Gang - "Rapper's Delight"

Gave a resurgence to staying at the Holiday Inn at least. The start of rap? Slightly infectious: "hip-hop a hippie..." We all know the words.

98. Stevie Wonder - "So What the Fuss?"

Embedding disabled, sorry y'all.

So many to pick from!!!! Picked this at 98 because it is off his relatively new CD. Wanted something current. And loved the fact that Prince was popping on it!

97. Montell Jordan - "This is How We Do It"

Well I picked this one because when my girls and I were all getting divorced and such, this is what we danced to. And besides, you have to love a guy that is almost 7 feet tall.

96. Heather Headley - "He Is"

This is how I felt about an ex-boyfriend...what was I thinking? Heather has one of the greatest voices I have heard in a long time and considering I have been around for a long time, that is saying something. Just listen to the lyrics, okay?

95. Ready For The World - "Oh Sheila"

Embedding disabled, sorry y'all.

I have no idea why I picked this. I think I was having one of my "I Love Lucy" moments. Thought it was Prince when I first heard it. Kind of like the whole "Love in an elevator/Loving a man like Rita" thing!

(Editor's note: For well over a year, my mother thought the lyrics to the popular Aerosmith hit "Love in an Elevator" were "Loving a Man Like Rita." She seemed genuinely confused when corrected.)

94. Digital Underground - "The Humpty Dance"

Thought this was the next P-Funk. And how can one artist have so many aliases? Just love that nasal voice!

93. Prince - "I Wanna Be Your Lover"

(No YouTube clip available. If you can find one, please let us know.)

OH PRINCEY! Pure sex! That is it. Pure and simple!

92. Anthony Hamilton - "Ain't Nobody Worryin'"

What happened to Anthony Hamilton from North Carolina til now? He sounds awfully like Bill Withers...I love Bill Withers. "Started getting high cause the job train kind of slow." Tell me about it!!!!

91. Alicia Keys - "You Don't Know My Name"

Oh my goodness, Alicia Keys! And the lyrics! What a song! What a remarkable woman at such a young age. If I come back in another life, well, my first choice would be OF COURSE Chaka Khan. Then I guess maybe Tina. Then Alicia!

90. TLC - "No Scrubs"

You know, these kids really don't know how good they have it. And Left Eye's mother was not as mean as I am obviously. They could have done really better [with men] with guidance. That is why I am glad I am such a NAG! And the real reason I picked this one is because I know a SCRUB! Oh no!

89. Angie Stone - "I Wanna Thank Ya"