Posts Tagged ‘Girl Talk’
Idolator’s Top 10 Favorite Pop Mashups
The Morning Mix: Britney Spears Earns Half A Million For Product Placement
:: Britney Spears wrestled up $500,000 for filling her "Hold It Against Me" video with shots of Sony, Make Up Forever, and PlentyOfFish.com, as well as her own fragrance, Radiance. We're positive that 500,000 Britney fans would have donated one dollar each for the video to be free of obvious product placement. [Rolling Stone]
:: Are these examples of product placement in Katy Perry music videos up to the pop star's high standards? [Vulture]
:: Find out why James Franco won't be singing a Cher song – with Cher — at the Oscars. [E! Online]
:: Taylor Swift whips her hair while rockin' out in Hong Kong. [Pink Is The New Blog]
:: Mash-up master Girl Talk is going on tour — check out the dates at the source. Seeing him live must be like seeing about 100 different music acts all at the same time, no? [Consequence Of Sound]
After the jump, find out which music acts are performing on the tube today. More »
10 Out Of ‘10: Idolator’s Favorite Albums Of The Year
Toby Keith Way Too Much Of A Bad-Ass To Be A Leader
In today’s wrapup of headlines: Toby Keith isn’t ready to make nice with voters, Elton John says “goodbye” to Las Vegas’ 10-karat-bricked roads, and Gregg “Girl Talk” Gillis is thinking about maybe engaging in the art of songcraft! More »
William Safire Writes A Mash Note To Mash-Ups
William Safire’s “On Language” columns have gotten a lot more enjoyable since he stopped writing op-eds for The New York Times, but when he steps into a field with which he is not entirely familiar, the results cross that fine line between charming and cringey. Of course, it’s also hard to tell when he’s kidding—he self-consciously begins one sentence here with “I recall a letter written to Gov. William Scranton…”—but, well, he’s writing about “mashup.” And “remix.” You can probably tell where this is going.
New Muxtape Offers Exciting New Chance To Listen To Middling Indie Rock… In Bright Colors!
No. 24: Girl Talk, “Feed The Animals”
The non-music media loves to write about mash-ups, because it allows them to talk about the niche concern of pop music without much discussing music at all. Because mash-up artists use existing songs, journalists trade the difficulty of understanding new artists for reliable classics. They can talk about all the non-musical aspects of music—MP3s, piracy, copyright, major labels, downloading, iPods, etc—and they don’t look like the kind of old fuddy-duddies who champion bands that sound like the bands they themselves loved when they were young, such as Dr. Dog and Wilco.
Stephen King Takes A Shine To Girl Talk And Al Green
Last year, Stephen King could only pick seven albums that he liked from the year’s offerings, but 2008 has apparently been kinder to King’s ears: Not only was he moved to pick a full top 10, he placed two albums—Buckcherry’s Black Butterfly and the Pretenders’ Break Up The Concrete—at No. 1. Whoa, don’t get too crazy now!
THE GOOD: Hey, I liked that Al Green album too.
THE BAD: The gallisticle (my new term for those pageview-inflating lists that are presented as galleries: feel free to pass it along!) is peppered with “dancing about architecture” punnery and “aw, gosh, EW, you don’t have to give me space in your mag” bloviation like the following: “Of all the things I write about for EW, pop music’s the hardest, because a columnist doesn’t get paid for saying, ‘I dunno, I just like it.’ But can I really explain why I love ‘I Kissed a Girl’ by Katy Perry and would be delighted never to hear Taylor Swift’s ‘You’re Not Sorry’ again? No. All I can say is that I find ‘the taste of her cherry ChapStick’ in ‘Girl’ entrancingly sexy, while everything about ‘You’re Not Sorry’… makes me sorry.” That’s the sort of wordplay that gets Uncle Stevie the big bucks! Suck it, layoff victims!
THE WHAAA? “This is as dense and allusive as James Joyce’s Ulysses, only you can dance to it.” Guess what copyright-busting PC user he said that about? Somewhere, some dude who gets paid to write about rock full-time (well, at least most of the time in this economy) is sobbing for not having thought of the Joyce allusion first.
“Paste” Inspires Many A List-Watching Music Fan To Ask, “She & Him??”
Paste’s 2008 best-of isn’t unlike the magazine itself: largely predictable, but with a few surprises seemingly thrown in to confuse or distract. The list hews rather closely to their adult alternative aesthetic, but as likely obligated by law, they threw in Lil Wayne (No. 29). He’s not quite as good as MGMT, in case you were wondering.
THE GOOD: It cheered my heart to see that Ida Maria’s Fortress Round My Heart placed highly (No. 13); the odd, but charming acknowledgment of Torche (No. 34) elicited a similar reaction. For the Christian rock enthusiast portion of my heart, seeing Sandra McCracken buried near the bottom of the list was nice, although almost a wink and a nod to those who wonder if Paste is a undercover Christian rock mag. They may recommend Lil Wayne, but don’t worry, true believers. They still have room for Jesus rock.
THE BAD: Im sure any Idolator reader could pick out a record they don’t particularly care for and go all critically nutzoid, but Girl Talk at No. 7 seems like an odd slap in the face to the parade of “real musicians” who fall afterwards. I like Girl Talk; I downloaded the disc, and it stayed in my car stereo for a few months. But the question ends up being whether these best of lists are really running down the “best” of the year, and that the idea of lasting value and meaning is taken into consideration, or whether a disc’s inclusion just means that it was awesome to hear at parties.
THE WHAAA? Although I was surprised not to see Al Green on the list, and to note that Santogold’s Diplo mixtape outranked her actual album, nothing could top my shock to see She & Him at No. 1. The magazine defends the selection: “Maybe it’s just a sweet little folk record—a tiny, flawless diamond. Or maybe it’s a pristine distillation of harmony and craft; 50 years of songwriting experience served up on a spinning silver platter. Either way, it’s our album of the year.” To my ears, neither assertion is true. Volume One is a cute novelty record that has more preciousness than innovation, skill, or any other sort of metric people tend to judge great albums by. Last year’s number one was the National’s Boxer… this year’s pick is a long slide down in quality.






















