The end is near for Friday Video Time, and as we prepared our penultimate list of the best songs that begin with a specific letter of the alphabet, we managed to do something never before done with our previous 24 letters. This week, not only do our top songs from the past 50 years start with the same letter, they also start with the same word: “you”.  Jump below to check out the best “You” songs from the last five decades.

Remember, next week is our last in this series—so if you want your “Z” song selections heard, comment now or forever hold your peace.

’60s: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” – Rolling Stones

’70s: “You’re The One That I Want” – Grease

’80s: “You Make My Dreams Come True” – Hall & Oates

’90s: “You Oughta Know” – Alanis Morissette

’00s: “You Know I’m No Good” – Amy Winehouse

So how do you feel, American Idolators, after Lee DeWyze clinched the Season 9 crown in what Ryan Seacrest declared was a narrow two percent difference in amount of votes? Our poll in the right sidebar shows that the majority of you were supporting Crystal Bowersox. Personally, we were supporting the awesomeness that was Daryl Hall and John Oates performing “You Make My Dreams”! (Hey, it’s better than Lee’s lackluster cover of “Beautiful Day”—which is now available on iTunes, BTW.) After the jump: we’ve got all the performances of the night—Janet! Alanis! Carrie Underwood! Bret Michaels! GENERAL LARRY PLATT and WILLIAM HUNG!!!—and, in case you missed it, the final moments when Lee won this season of American Idol.

We’ll start off with the tense moments when Ryan had Crystal and Lee on the stage before announcing the winner:

There’s no denying Lee was genuinely choked up. And, somehow, the rush of emotion enabled him to give a far better performance of U2′s “Beautiful Day” than the one from Tuesday night. But we just kind of want to fast forward to the part where he releases some original music already—so we can rant on about how much better Crystal’s album is!

Oh, we kid. We kid. (Sort of…) But before moving on to all the performances, here’s another highlight from last night—the return of Paula Abdul, and her farewell speech to Simon Cowell!

Top 12 Contestants, Orianthi and Alice Cooper, “School’s Out”

Kris Allen, “The Truth”

Siobhan Magnus, Aaron Kelly and Bee Gees, “How Deep Is Your Love”

Michael Lynche and Michael McDonald, “Takin’ It To The Street”

Top 6 Girls, “Beautiful/Fighter” and Christina Aguilera, “You Lost Me”

Top 6 Guys, “I Can’t Go For That/Maneater” and Hall & Oates, “You Make My Dreams”

Crystal Bowersox and Alanis Morissette, “Ironic/You Oughta Know”

Carrie Underwood, “Undo It”

Casey James and Bret Michaels, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”

Lee DeWyze and Chicago, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is/If You Leave Me Now/25 Or 6 To 4″

General Larry Platt and William Hung, “Pants On The Ground”

Janet Jackson, “Again/Nothing/Nasty”

Lee DeWyze, Crystal Bowersox and Joe Cocker, “With A Little Help From My Friends”

We’ve come to the bittersweet end of American Idol Season 9. Yes, this has been a spectacularly dull season full of some questionable contestants and bizarre behavior from Ryan Seacrest—but that’s all part of the fun! We’re sad to live without Idol for another year, and even more heartbroken we’ll have to live without Simon Cowell for even longer. Keep your head held high and your pants down on the ground, and follow along with our live blog as we find out whether America is Team DeWyze or has finally crowned a female winner with Mama Sox.

8:01 p.m. We begin! And Lee is dressed like he’s an extra from Dead Poets Society.

8:04 p.m. Our bad—we just caught sight of Crystal’s plaid shorts and blazer. Are they both going to the Hogwarts homecoming dance?

8:06 p.m. The Idols perform “School’s Out”… and Alice Cooper shows up! Thankfully he is spared from wearing the embarrassing uniform.

8:12 p.m. Kris Allen begins singing his new single “The Truth” and is rudely interrupted by Ryan Seacrest’s mic still being on. Live TV, folks! We only wish Ryan’s mic accidentally stayed on so we could have a moment of comedy gold where he starts badmouthing Kara or something.

8:15 p.m. We were Team Glambert last year, but we have to admit, Kris Allen has earned his Idol crown. Solid performance.

8:17 p.m. Simon Cowell Insult Montage! Can this be turned into its own spin-off show? American Insult?

8:19 p.m. Siobhan Magnus and Aaron Kelly duet on “How Deep Is Your Love.” If Siobhan doesn’t add a screech by the end of this, I’m going to be pissed.

8:20 p.m. Hey look! The surviving Bee Gees showed up to lull us to sleep. Zzzz. Siobhan’s screech will be our alarm clock to wake us up.

8:21 p.m. No screech? Fine, Siobhan, be that way.

8:26 p.m. Michael Lynche sashays down the staircase, singing “Takin’ It To The Streets” with Michael McDonald. We’re sure this was Big Mike’s absolute first choice of who he wanted to duet with and what song he wanted to sing. You know, not a gorgeous R&B number like every song he picked while on the show.

8:30 p.m. Dane Cook doing stand-up on stage right now is about as funny as if Lee DeWyze was doing stand-up with his guitar right about now.

8:31 p.m. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what just happened? Bad auditioners from seasons past and present coming on stage to harrass Simon? And it lasted all of three confusing seconds?

8:35 p.m. All the Top 12 girls come out to sing Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” like it’s a camp song. We wish Crystal had actually performed this song on the show, since it would be a change of pace from the predictable Etheridge/Joplin songs she kept picking.

8:36 p.m. Now they’re singing “Fighter.” How scared do you think Paige Miles is to perform tonight? Last time we saw her she was terrifying awful.

8:38 p.m. Christina Aguilera comes out to belt the last few notes of “Fighter” and put everyone on that stage to shame. Also she sings “You Lost Me,” and we are overjoyed she is not making us suffer through “Not Myself Tonight.”

8:40 p.m. By the by, “You Lost Me” (co-written by Sia) is one of the best tracks on Bionic, if not the best. Christina is redeeming herself right now for all the ball gag theatrics and vagina-talk she’s been doing lately. Well done, lady!

8:43 p.m. Even Ricky Gervais is having trouble being funny on this finale. Ugh.

8:48 p.m. The Top 12 Guys sing the incredibly modern and relevant Hall and Oates songs “I Can’t Go For That” and “Maneater.” Big surprise! Hall and Oates come out. We’d make another sarcastic comment about them singing “You Make My Dream Comes True,” but no joke, this song is fantastic. (Especially when it’s sung by H&O.)

8:51 p.m. Crystal dad’s is all kinds of awesome. Anyone else notice he has Mr. Bill tucked away in his front pocket?

8:53 p.m. We love Crystal singing Alanis Morissette, but Alanis has literally hundreds of other songs to choose over “Ironic.” And without an Alanis cameo, we’re not loving it—OH MY GOD ALANIS SHOWED UP. Criticism revoked. We. Love. This.

8:55 p.m. Lilith Fair is literally happening on stage before our eyes.

9 p.m. Carrie Underwood performs “Undo It,” wears leather and continues to be perfect. Ryan mentions that the song was co-written by Kara DioGuardi. Seriously, why can’t Kara write a good song for an Idol to sing? Instead they get dreck like “No Boundaries.”

9:05 p.m. Kris Allen presents Crystal and Lee with the keys to their own custom-designed Ford. They could not be less enthusiastic. Seriously, guys, try to crack a grin or something, it’s a free car!

9:07 p.m. Casey James performs an acoustic version of Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”… and the band kicks in when Bret Michaels walks in! (Sidenote: Isn’t it funny how like, two months ago Bret Michael was synonymous with skanky girls and lowest common denominator TV programming, and now he’s a celebrity musical guest on America’s most popular show? Just a thought. Discuss. Glad you’re back in good health, Bret!)

9:15 p.m. Lee DeWyze sings a medley with “Chicago” (his hometown and audition city). Um, Idol producers? Are you specifically gearing towards the 45+ demographic? Hall and Oates, the Bee Gees, Chicago? What’s with all these older-skewed choices for musical guests? Are you making up for having Ke$ha on?

9:18 p.m. Who else wants an Andrew Garcia/Paula Abdul duet of “Straight Up” before the end of the evening?

9:20 p.m. Dear god, they gave Bikini Girl one more second of fame during this Simon Is Narcissistic And Horny montage.

9:21 p.m. PANTS ON THE GROUND! We knew it was coming, but we didn’t know it would be this amazing. You know it’s been a long, uninteresting season when the most celebrated and memorable performance was from The General Larry Platt during the second episode.

9:22 p.m. WILLIAM HUNG! All we’re missing is Sanjaya and Norman Gentle and we’ve got the next chart-topping boy band.

9:30 p.m. Paula Abdul shows up to say goodbye to Simon, and gets more respect now than she did during her 8 season of being a judge. Paula looks incredible, but it’s kind of awkward with her up on stage – like she’s doing open mic night. “There’s a baby backstage with your haircut, and it’s your time to change him.” Paula, you peaked at your entrance. Go sit back down.

9:32 p.m. This beyond awkward stand-up is still going on! We have no idea what Paula is talking about! Oh, how we missed how bats*** crazy she is.

9:34 p.m. Yet another Simon montage, this time set to “My Way.” Simon’s hair has maintained its square shape throughout nine years. Wow.

9:35 p.m. Wow, they got every American Idol winner… except David Cook! Where’s our Cooksie?! This is incomplete without the Season 7 champ there.

9: 38 p.m. Ack! A Justin Guarini sighting! He lives! Also, all these past Idols are all wearing white, and it’s kind of creepy…. Are they supposed to be dead?

9:39 p.m. My god, Kelly Clarkson has changed since she won back in 2002. She’s all growns up! We’re digging the short haircut, too.

9:40 p.m. Simon Cowell gets up to make a speech. Are they going to knight him right then and there?

9:41 p.m. We’re hearing David Cook was booked for a charity event, which is why he wasn’t on stage with the rest of the Idol winners. Okay, we’ll let his absence slide this time, because otherwise we are horrible people.

9:44 p.m. The Top 12 Idols sing Janet Jackson’s “Again,” and reminds us how much we effing love this song. Janet Jackson rolls out with an intergalactic geisha outfit and some seriously close-cropped hair. Seriously, that haircut makes each one of her boobs look bigger than her head.

9:50 p.m. Janet performs “Nasty Boy”—trivia! Paula Abdul choreographed the music video back in the day. Which would be slightly more relevant if Paula was still a judge.

9:52 p.m. Just so you know, Janet Jackson is 44-years old. Altogether now: DAYUM.

9:53 p.m. “Tonight is about Lee and Crystal.”—Ryan. Really? Because it seems like it’s about Simon Cowell and old people.

9:54 p.m. Did you know Lee was a paint salesman?! Or that Crystal was a mom?! Well Idol is reminding you yet again!

9:55 p.m. Lee singing Joe Cocker = perfect. (Crystal’s good, too, obviously, but when isn’t she?)

9:56 p.m. Joe Cocker just unleashed the smoke monster out of his throat.

9:59 p.m. Um, Idol? Did you let Paula ramble too long? You’ve still got the matter of who-won-first-place to get to. And about 15 more Simon montages, too.

10 p.m. Okay, here we go! We’re calling it….. Crystal. Let’s see! (Honestly, we’re just happy if the winner breaks down in tears. We love to see a good, happy cry of joy.)

10:02 p.m. Our American Idol is… (cue dramatic Ryan Seacrest-sized pause)

10:03 p.m. ZOMG THE PAINT SALESMAN WON. “This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life,” says Lee. He can barely focus. Okay, so we wanted Mama Sox to take home the big prize, but we’re getting a little teared up watching how shocked and happy he is. Aww.

10:04 p.m. We’d like to think that Lee’s off-key vocals on “Beautiful Day” is because he’s just too excited to deliver some killers vocals, but sadly, we know that’s not the case. Congrats, America! This is your American Idol Winner we’re going to have perform back on the show pretty much every year til the show gets canceled! (ie. 2012)

10:07 p.m. And it’s over! Are you guys disappointed? Elated? Leave your thoughts of Lee DeWyze winning—the third male winner in a row, mind you—in the comments. Thanks for joining our live blogging! We’re going to go mourn the loss of both Simon as judge and Crystal as Idol champ over a glass of Merlot.

While we think it’s great that Glee creator Ryan Murphy sees some seriously potential in an all-Britney Spears episode of his hit musical dramedy, why stop at kooky blondes? We figured there must other artists who would be a perfect fit for New Directions. We got our Glee-gears spinning and came up an all-star list of pop artists who have more than earned their own Madonna-style Gleek-ing. Sadly, Mariah Carey and Phil Collins did not make the cut, but check after the jump to see the seven stars we’d like to see with an “L” on their foreheads.

#7. Beyonce

Glee already rocked “Halo” this season, but now we’d love to see some “Independent Woman/Survivor” action from Beyonce’s Destiny’s Child days, and the cherry on top would be the New Direction girls doing “Irreplaceable” (above).

#6. Green Day

Does it get more perfect than a Green Day graduation episode, complete with Finn doing “Good Riddance” on the acoustic guitar?

#5. Gwen Stefani/No Doubt

Where do we even begin with this one? “I’m Just A Girl”, “Cool”, “Hollaback Girl” complete with the Cheerios dressed up like Harajuku girls? The only thing more perfect would be Rachel Berry belting out “Bathwater” (above).

#4. Justin Timberlake

We’d love to see another episode filled with Madonna-esque obsessiveness, only this time with Mr. Schu narrating, journaling, and discussing his love for all things JT (see also: Mr. Schu’s wardrobe for complete Timberlake admiration). Perhaps (yet another) scorned lover episode complete with a “Cry Me A River/What Goes Around” mash up?

#3. The Beach Boys

Why? Because it would be fun, fun, fun. The real reason why:  “God Only Knows”.

#2. Hall & Oates

Daryl and John are back in the zeitgeist (did they ever really leave?). We want to see some New Directions choreography to “You Make My Dreams Come True” that completely squashes Vocal Adrenaline.

#1. George Michael

A touch of “Careless Whisper”, a dash of “Faith, a sprinkle of “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, and of course a healthy helping of “Freedom 90″ would make for the ultimate Glee episode.

Got another artist in mind? Disagree with our choices? Chime in below. We welcome all comments from the peanut gallery.

Did you hear?

:: Ke$ha unveiled the glitter-gel artwork for her third single, “Your Love Is My Drug,” which looks like she made it her summer camp arts-and-crafts class. [Just Jared]

:: Check out a preliminary list of the Best Songs of 2010 so far. How come “Pants on the Ground” isn’t on this list? [Spinner]

:: Still reeling from the Auto-Tuned-to-death “We Are The World” re-recording? It could be worse. Here’s 20 other horrible charity singles. [Stereogum]

:: Nicole Scherzinger denies that she is romantically involved with her Dancing With The Stars partner, Derek Hough. If she wants these rumors to stop, maybe she should reconsider her less-than-modest wardrobe. [Wonderwall]

:: Remember Coolio? Well, even if you don’t, the law does—the “Gangsta’s Paradise” rapper has been hit with a $10,000 bench warrant for failing to appear in court, stemming from an incident from March 2009 when crack cocaine was found in his luggage at LAX. [The BoomBox]

After the jump: whoa-oh, here he comes—it’s John Oates’ birthday.

Music On TV Today:
:: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (NBC) – Corinne Bailey Rae
:: Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC) – Public Image Limited
:: Last Call with Carson Daly (NBC) – Angels & Airwaves

VIDEO REWIND OF THE DAY: It’s John Oates 60th birthday today, and we’d like to take a moment to put the spotlight on the mustached musician. Although John has released solo material in recent years, he’s still best known as one half of the rock duo Hall & Oates, which has had a resurgence in pop-culture lately—their song “You Make My Dreams” was featured in a memorable dance sequence in last year’s 500 Days of Summer, and The Bird And The Bee released an entire tribute album covering of Hall & Oates’ biggest hits (we exclusively premiered the duo’s quirky take on “Kiss Is On My List” here on Idolator).

Our favorite music video in the Hall & Oates’ canon has to be their seductive clip for 1982′s “Maneater,” featuring one sweet saxophone solo… and a jaguar. Thankfully for Hall and Oates’ safety, the jungle cat was not literally a man eater on set.

Today the fancypants Hollywood site The Wrap ran a lengthy piece on what author Dominic Patten saw as the demise of the soundtrack, using as evidence the weak performance of the Linkin Park-led tie-in album for Transformers 2; lousy sales for the 500 Days Of Summer soundtrack compared to Zach Braff’s Garden State juggernaut; the lack of soundtracks Bruno and Obsessed (the latter of which starred Beyoncé); and the generally crummy atmosphere for album sales this year. But despite having a bit of reportage and a few statistics sprinkled into its stew of bad news, the whole article felt kind of off to me. I asked Courtney Smith, a sometime music supervisor and writer for the music-in-movies blog The Playlist, what she thought of the piece. Our back-and-forth, after the jump.


My query:

Seems odd that none of the Disney soundtracks (Hannah Montana, Camp Rock, etc.) were mostly glossed over in this roundup. And there have always been sorta-crappy tie-in soundtracks that haven’t sold very well—the cutout bins at the Princeton Record Exchange would seem to bear that out!


More specifically… the Linkin Park song from Transformers 2 wasn’t as big of an event this time as it was last year, because a) that was their first song in a while and b) the new song sounded a lot like it was conceived as a single to the first one. And isn’t making the Twilight soundtrack album-only, which one of the sources said was not a great idea, a savvy way of capitalizing on a rabid fanbase? There’s a reason Paramore’s “Decode” keeps winning every voted-by-fans award, and it certainly isn’t the quality of the music relative to other pieces of Paramore’s catalog. I suspect the Diablo Cody movie’s soundtrack will do well, too, because it’s pretty focused to people who are into the whole Fueled by Ramen thing.


Anyway, any thoughts you might have would be great! This article just smelled like a heap of “reported” bullshit to me, especially since last year we had the Mamma Mia! soundtrack, High School Musical, and Camp Rock all finishing the year relatively strong.

Courtney replied:

This article is incorrect—the main reason soundtracks are not sold as a la carte downloads on download services is because publishers and the labels who own the master rights don’t want them sold that way or demand a high premium for that licensing usage. They’d rather the movie drive to album sales for the artist than the soundtrack, especially if they aren’t the label releasing the soundtrack. It’s very typical.


A lot of this article strikes me as looking at it the wrong way. A lot of the movies they’re talking about are not music-driven films. In fact, most of the past examples they site as releasing seminal, best-selling soundtracks—Titanic, The Bodyguard, Hannah Montana movie, Twilight—these are chick flicks, and the latter two are heavily invested with a music element. The proper comparison is Mamma Mia!, whose soundtrack did gangbusters. To compare them to Watchmen or Bruno is silly.


Also why would I or anyone buy a Bruno soundtrack? That movie failed to meet monetary expectations at the box office to start with and it has a soundtrack full of things everyone owns already. It would have been flatly dumb for a studio to bother releasing a soundtrack to that film. I’d ask the same thing about a Transformers 2 soundtrack—why would anyone buy that? The target market, young men, are less inclined than any other audience to rebuy (or buy in the first place) stuff they already own (or can get for free). Also, that Linkin Park are leading the soundtrack is folly—it’s playing it safe. The Pew Internet Study of 2008 said people’s No. 1 place to discover new music was in movie and TV soundtracks. That is, not to discover artists they’ve known about for 10 years. New music. Honestly, how can your soundtrack not fail if your lead marketing tool is a band who have been fizzling for the last five years.


The 500 Days of Summer vs. Garden State argument is more interesting, although the piece could have swapped in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Juno—why does one do better and the other flop when they should essentially be the same thing in terms of how and to whom they were marketed? Because the first one to the market wins. An idea is only original once, so to remarket basically the same concept and expect it to have the same social impact the second time is a faulty plan. Plus, maybe in both those cases the originals were just better and had a more lasting impact.

Indeed, comparing Transformers 2 to something like Titanic seems like something of a stretch, and if anything the Linkin Park song is not doing that badly on the Hot 100 (it’s currently No. 19) for being a fairly lackluster song by an older-than-most band that doesn’t really slot in well to the increasingly rhythmic direction of current chart-pop. And the success of Garden State and its attendant album, if I remember correctly, was a much slower burn than that afforded to 500 Days at this point—the Zooey Deschanel vehicle may seem like it’s been out for months because it’s been marketed from here to next week, but it only went into limited release in mid-July, as did its very oldies-heavy soundtrack, which has scanned 12,000 copies through last week’s charts. It kind of makes sense—after all, who wants to buy another copy of Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams (Come True)” when there are Michael Jackson retrospectives to get, am I right?


Slumping CD Sales, iTunes Policies Take Their Toll [The Wrap]

Those copyright cops at YouTube deleted the account of Trunks6, a genius at combining peculiar pop songs with clips from Disney films, late last year. (They must hate love.) But the man is back—and he’s brought back his greatest hits for us to enjoy again. If you love romance and the somewhat icky feelings that watching animated dogs and cats frolicking to a particularly erotic Marvin Gaye song arouse in your soul, you’re in for a treat today.

Steven, the man behind the TrunksXV username, enjoys Metal Gear Solid, both All Dogs Go To Heaven films and, of course, love. And he’s working towards a career in the film industry! How could someone not snap him up with clips like these?

Marvin Gaye, “Sexual Healing”:

Daft Punk, “Digital Love”:

Hall & Oates, “Kiss On My List”:

The La’s, “There She Goes”:

God bless you, TrunksXV. Sure, I hadn’t spent much time thinking about The Aristocats recently, but when I see out-of-context clips of the lead characters set to a Hall and Oates track, all those great memories come rushing back.

TrunksXV’s Channel [YouTube]

If you enjoy baseless festival lineup speculation, the “Who is playing at Coachella 2009″ blog is good for laughs thanks in large part to its heavy reliance on “personal sources.” As of the last update, Fleet Foxes are 75% certain to be performing, and I’m 99% likely to be looking for water bottles to recycle while they’re on stage. But the 50% chance of Hall & Oates performing in Indio? That made my day, despite my personal disbelief in even a coin-flip’s chance of that occurring. [Who is playing at Coachella 2009]

Someone just came to this site looking for “John Oates Halloween costume.” Really, guy? You mean you need to figure out exactly which frizzy black wig and big moustache to wear in order to impress your pals? Say it isn’t so! Oh, OK, fine. Here. Just don’t wear a suit, and don’t put on a stupid accent, and maybe find a faded T-shirt that doesn’t have sleeves. Or rip one you already have, I don’t know. (And in case you really need help, here’s a suggestion for your Hall.)

Daryl Hall was originally slated to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Game 5 of the World Series last night, but a bout with the flu resulted in the other half of Hall & Oates stepping up to the mic and ably filling in. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks the outsized bombast that accompanied Oates’ performance was a sign that Philadelphia was really planning on sewing everything up last night, before the rains came and blew the last 2 1/2 innings of the game away. (Wait–does this mean that Oates is going to reprise his performance whenever the game eventually starts up again?) [YouTube]

It’s arty, instead of cartoony like this guy’s “Weird Al” Yankovic tattoo. It’s subtle, unlike the full-back Adam Duritz tattoo. But still, there’s something a little unsettling about the new tattoo sported by Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy, which depicts Hall & Oates on each hand. “I guess my obssession with H&O has gotten a little out of control…..Fuck it, They’re my idols,” he writes of his new ink, which he got while he was I guess bored on the Warped Tour. Which is all well and good, but won’t that make the “so, what’s new?” chitchat during his next visit to Hall’s house just a little bit awkward? [Travie's Blog]

The likes of The Singing Office and the show where they lend babies to people have shown that the wellspring of creativity at this nation’s television stations is running even drier than usual these days, so anything that shows even the slightest flicker of inspiration is greatly appreciated. Which is why you should know that it’s OK to get excited by Primary Wave Music Publishing’s announcement that it’s shopping an animated program starring John Oates’ mustache.

While it seems like much of the show’s material might be lifted from episodes of Yacht Rock, hey, it’s stil la cartoon about a singer’s facial hair.

As laid out in a two-minute trailer, Oates is portrayed as a modern-day family man and finds himself enticed back to the rock star life by his mustache, which is voiced by comedian Dave Attell…

It will portray Oates opening a new wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that focuses on mustachioed musicians.

Suddenly, a dying David Crosby appears and with his last breath warns Oates of a mysterious secret group of mustache wearers bent on killing other mustache wearers. As actor Tom Selleck attempts to escape from the latest murder scene, Oates summons his own mustache with a fist pump that simultaneously changes his clothes from conservative attire to pink pants and white boots.

“This could go straight onto a network or we could launch it on the Web and then take it to a network,” Duby says. As one network executive who has seen the trailer says, “These guys are approaching the publishing business from a new angle. They’re taking rich copyrights and doing something innovative with them.”

Something about the proposed pilot makes this entire news story seem like somewhat of a kayfabe, but we can dream of a day when an animated, pink-pants-clad version of John Oates is wrestling Tom Selleck. Wait, maybe I don’t want to actually dream about that. Either way, this has the potential to be my favorite cartoon since the Ed Grimley Show.

In honor of this development, here are a few videos where the Oates mustache really shines:

Rich Girl:

She’s Gone:

Oates, Mustache Make Cartoon Crime-Fighting Team [Billboard]

BMI, catch up! I was praising “Lips Of An Angel” in 2006. 2006! A year and a half later, now you want to say Hinder’s anguished take on the temptations of an ex-lover’s vagina was 2007‘s song of the year? I know you’re basing this on airplay counts and such, but waiting till now to acknowledge this just makes you look behind on the times. Today it’s cooler to pretend you have no idea who Hinder is. Giving Polow Da Don Songwriter Of The Year is nice, though. And getting Hall & Oates up on stage for a set and a Lifetime Achievement Award is a good way to make hipsters, emo kids, and old folks equally happy. “Soul music is not about race,” said Hall. Fine, but what about “Maneater?”

Polow Da Don’s resounding claim to the BMI Songwriter of the Year title stems from penning four songs among the year’s top 50: the Pussycat Dolls’ “Buttons,” featuring Snoop Dogg; Fergie’s “London Bridge” and “Glamorous,” featuring Ludacris; and “Runaway Love,” recorded by Ludacris and featuring Mary J. Blige. Fergie’s emphatic shout, “Polow!” in “London Bridge” embedded Da Don’s first name in the pop culture psyche, while his hit-making expertise catapulted him to behind-the-scenes impresario. Polow Da Don’s first BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year win arrives on the shoulders of his first four BMI Awards, underscoring his unparalleled breakout success in 2007.

Hinder’s “Lips of an Angel” garnered Song of the Year bragging rights thanks to generating the most airplay of any tune on BMI’s most-performed pop song list during the designated award period. Co-written and recorded by BMI songwriters and Hinder band members Blower, Cody Hanson, Mark King, Michael Rodden and Austin Winkler, along with producer Brian Howes (SOCAN), the wistful tune climbed to the no. 1 slot of Billboard’s Pop 100, Hot Digital Songs and Top 40 Mainstream charts, achieving broad crossover success. Country artist Jack Ingram’s recording of the song also resonated, reaching the top 20 tier of Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart. Published by EMI-Blackwood Music, Inc. and Hinder Music Co., “Lips of an Angel” also earned the Internet Song of the Year win as the most performed song on the Internet during the award period.

I feel so ahead of my time! There was little bump in the songwriting royalty love-in, though, when Babyface had the gall to acknowledge that the authors of “Sara Smile,” which he perfomed, were

“Soul music is not about race,” Hall said, after he and partner John Oates were presented with Icon Awards during performing rights group BMI’s annual Pop Music Awards ceremony. “There ain’t no ‘blue-eyed soul’ … Keep that in mind, OK?”

Minutes earlier, Edmonds had performed the duo’s tune “Sara Smile” after jokingly recounting his youthful assumption that “blue-eyed soul” — an approbatory term used to describe soulful white singers — meant “black guys with blue eyes.”

You tell that uppity Babyface what’s what, Hall! You’re right, there’s no “blue eyed soul,” just “adult contemporary” and “Van Morrison.”

Daryl Hall and John Oates Named BMI Icons at 56th Annual Pop Awards [Business Wire]
http://uk.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUKN2134548620080521 Hall & Oates see red over “blue-eyed” term [Reuters]

Anyone who’s read their share of REM interviews knows the tale in which a young Michael Stipe buys Patti Smith’s Horses, plays it over and over while eating a bowl of cherries and decides “hey, I think I’ll find a record store clerk with a guitar and mumble over his arpeggios” before vomiting. It’s one of those anecdotes that helped establish the lineage of underground cool, along with the immortal adage “everyone who heard the Velvet Underground started a band.” Now Stipe has given a self-professed “exclusive” to Death and Taxes magazine, admitting that Horses wasn’t the only album he bought that day. “One of them was Hall & Oates, one of them was Foghat, Fool For the City.” Have a field day, popists!

It’s a part of my little corner of history that I went at the age of 15 and bought the Patti Smith album [Horses] the day it was released. And I sat listening to it all night, and it changed my life–I decided to be a singer in a band. What I’ve never told anyone, and this is exclusive, is that I also bought four other albums that day. One of them was Hall & Oates, one of them was Foghat, Fool For the City. I don’t where I got all that cash from–records were kind of expensive at the time–but I think I bought five records altogether that day. I gravitated towards one over all the others. But all the others were still there, and still in my consciousness.

That was the backdrop of me being in high school: Ted Nugent, Foghat, Styx, REO Speedwagon and these were the bands in the Midwest that resonated with regular kids and what was on the radio. It was rock. Pathetic, but there it is.

Will this revelation allow Foghat to join Hall & Oates in the ever-evolving Pitchfork canon?

Probably not.

The Mysterious Mr. Stipe [Death + Taxes]
FOGHAT-FOOL FOR THE CITY Live 1981 MTV Concert [YouTube]

We’re not sure what’s more unnerving: the idea of a mustache-less John Oates as a rancher in Colorado (“I’ve got llamas, emus, turkeys,” he told the SF Chronicle‘s Aidin Vaziri a few days ago) or Oates and longtime vocal partner Daryl Hall becoming cogs in the Gym Class Heroes machine. At least we’ve got those late-night Time-Life soft-rock infomercials featuring clips of the duo performing “She’s Gone” to keep us warm.

From the inbox:

For every Daryl Hall and John Oates fan who grew up lip-synching one of their hits in front of the mirror, this is the chance to make their “Dreams Come True” by expressing their “Method of Modern Love” to the band by submitting a homemade video to the “I Can Go For That” contest at www.hallandoates.com to earn a chance at a grand prize to see a headlining performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Sept. by the RIAA-certified best-selling pop duo of all time.

We seriously thought this was a joke when it came across our transom–after all, the YouTube user who inspired this foray into user-generated content was named “suicidegirl.” (Come on.) Anyway, whatever genius came up with this stunt’s name obviously wasn’t too familiar with the Hall & Oates catalog; after all, our first, inevitable response to wondering if this idea may be a good one was a definitive “No Can Do.”

Hall And Oates [Official site]

This post comes with two caveats: 1) That the Hall & Oates/T.I./Amerie combo you’re about to see completely falls apart by the end, and 2) the “Hall & Oates is actually cool” retro-revival notion is pretty damn dated at this point. That said, the first minute and forty-one seconds of the clip are awesome.