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sooooooooo. went to check out MJ’s ‘This is It’ last night. i guess i don’t have to worry about spoiling the film because we all know how it ends 
there’s actually not too much to say about the actual film footage. it was what it was: a nicely edited collection of video recorded rehearsals of what was to be his sold out 50 performance show. it is edited in such a way that you feel like you feel like you’re being taken through the show, starting at the first song michael wanted to do and ending with the song he chose to close. mike says that he’s not really singing because he has to save his voice, and it looks like he’s putting forth little effort when it actually comes to singing. but light singing for mike is normal singing for anyone else, and i didn’t realize that he wasn’t really giving it his all til he said so. we get to see what the set design would have looked like and the vignettes that would have been shown throughout the show. it was neat. and it was sad, because u do know how the story ends. its sort of like watching captured video of the first 8 months of a woman’s pregnancy, all the excitement and preparation, all the while knowing that that baby would never ever take its first breath.
i can’t freakin believe this show is still on. how awesome is that. a lot has changed since i was a kid. they done had muppets with HIV and everything, and now they’re prolly teachin kids how to not get molested on the interwebs. amazing. anyway, in tribute, i wanted to do a short list of 5 of my favorite songs that i remember from the show. i was going to do my top 10 faves, but the pressure was just too great
my affinity for funk, r&b & 80s music has clearly dominated the top 3/5s of the list. it starts two traditional faves though:
5. ‘Rubber Ducky’ – Ernie - adulthood taints everything. in listening to this as a 27 year old, i felt some kinda way hearin Ernie sing about findin somethin ’short and yellow and chubby’ in the tub. :-/
4. ‘C is for Cookie’ – Cookie Monster
and then… THE PARTY STARTS!!
3. ‘The Word is No’ – Maria and Gina – lol. remember this?? i mostly remember the chorus. id sing it everytime my mom would tell me no for something. i totally didn’t know how 80s this joint is though! i love it!
also in retrospect, Maria was kinda Claire Huxtableish, wasn’t she?
2. ‘Down Below the Street’ -Take 6 – vintage Take 6!!! i dare you to find somethin about this that kicks ass. dare you. you can’t do it. don’t even try.
i still think of this song when i’m out and about and i see a manhole or sewer drain.
**bonus: The Number 6 and the Alphabet Song, also by Take 6.
1. The Pinball Number Count Song – The Pointer Sisters – im sure nobody is surprised by this takin the #1 spot. this joint is TOUGH.
40 years. Jesus, we’re OLD.
so i was up late for video surfing at youtube for no real reason at all last night. while searching for Boyz II Men’s acapella version of ‘can you stand the rain‘ i came across some pretty cool stuff! these are essentiallyglee club-style renditions of some good classics. warning: the audiences are annoying and the sound aint so great.
here’s a nintendo acapella, complete with interpretive dance:
a Nickelodeon medley(whatchall know about The Beets??):
‘thriller,’ also with interpretive dance:
outkast’s ‘the way you move.’ i will admit to doing my own interpretive dance to this:
& this is my fave of the day, largely because of the singer’s fro and because whoever did this arrangement knows enough abt music to be able to link curtis mayfield’s ‘move on up‘ and kanye’s ‘ touch the sky:’
shout out to ‘glee‘ for makin this shit cool again.
so after finishing up my ridiculous moments in new jack swing post however many years ago, i seem to have become sensitive to all ridiculous moments in music. i noticed very recently that my subconscious has been compiling a working list of ridiculous moments in r&b, all of r&b, not just the 90s, so i sat down intending to do a quick purging. turns out this quick purging is too long for just one post, so i think it’s gonna be a 3-parter as of now. so! without further achoo and in no particular order, let’s get part one started right!
1. chante moore clearly hates her friends. ladies, close your eyes and imagine this. well, read this first, and then close your eyes cause it’d be kind of hard to do the other way around. okay. it’s a friday night. you and some of your girlfriends gather together to have a glass of wine or 4 and do some theraputic venting about your man problems. love is a battlefield, and sometimes even the mightiest of warriors get weary, and tonight, all you wanna do is find some strength in your girls and forget that men even exist for awhile.
soooooo. MTV’s Video Music Awards wrapped about 30 minutes ago, and unless you’re living under a rock or are otherwise not well-versed in Internet, you’ve probably heard about all the controversies. Kanye’s new storming of the stage and the hissyfit he brought with him. Lady Gaga’s torso having it’s period in the middle of her performance. Pink goin’ Cirque du Soleil on all you bastards. since those big events are all the buzz, i won’t spend too much time on them. i do wanna say a little somethin about the show tho. overall, it actually didn’t suck. i didn’t walk away from it feeling that i had totally wasted 5 hours of my life that i will never get back. that’s typically my feeling after this little shindig. and after each BET Award show. and the Source Awards (lmao. remember when the Source had an award show? lol. horrible idea). it was actually a fairly good show… it held my attention beginning to end thanks to the MJ tribute in the beginning and all the stuff that wasn’t supposed to happen/no one expected thereafter. these, in my opinion, were (some of) the highlights of the evening for me:
the good homie dseals at high speed dubbing reminded me of how amazing this song is today. ‘a toast to the people’ by brian jackson and gil scott heron. enjoy!
i really do. i think she’s got a great voice. but wtf was goin on in her life when this happened?
good thing she was singin this in a church cause it sounds like sister was in great need of some blessing. its like she just learned the song 15 mintues before she went to sing it. i have a feeling that the pianist kicked in not for effect, but to help her find the melody.
but, still nowhere as bad as o-mazing grace. she at least knew the words!
okay so yall remember when shakira could dance?
turns out that was all just lies and propaganda. or maybe we just assumed that all the hip rolling and shaking stuff she did meant that if she ever had to do any other dancing, she’d be good at it.
well. i just watch what i think is her latest video, ’she wolf,’ and…
before i continue with my hate, let me point out the great things about this video. she looks GREAT. and the stuff in the cage (for the most part)? very sexy. okay, that’s all the good there is.
she looks INSANE!! lol! did someone choreograph this?? like take time to actually map out and time these moves? i think maybe she just had everybody so fooled by the hip action that they were like ‘okay so for this video, we’re gonna have shakira dancing. that’s pretty much it, she’s just gonna dance. maybe we should get a choreographer? nah, she’s shakira! she can dance! we’ll just let her wing it!’ and this is what they got. now ive taken the liberty to point out some of her best moves.
at around the 0:35 mark, we get a good 5 seconds of the Vagina Slice
at 0:55 we get some kind of bizarro crazy modified version of crumping
we get a little more at 1:12
2:48 gives us some kind of weird arm action that i cant even think of an inventive name for
and as a big finale we’re treated to some batshit interpretive dance of some sort.
…if i ever walk in a club and catch one of yall dancin like this, ima whoop your ENTIRE ass. promise.
oh and also the song is ass. what’s with the tired little ‘awoooooooo’ wolf noise? lol. shakira, i hereby sentence you to a nap in hopes that you’ll wake up with some good sense.
the new jack swing obsession continues!
maybe im getting old, but given the bullshit that’s passing for r&b these days, im ready to declare the late 80s/mid-early 90s the new golden age. today im escaping from the absolute utter madness of what has become my everyday life enjoying some me-time, and have a playlist of NJS stuff (defined here if u need it, for some odd reason) that ive been playing while i get my uber feminine girlness on, and i noticed… there was a lot of ridiculous stuff that happened in/with/concerning these songs and their artists. i made mental note of a short list, and in no particular order the winners are (this will be a long one, but at least it will be full of good music for u to listen to):
so, im still on this new jack swing kick, right, and ive been on youtube doin the wop down memory lane for the better part of the last two weeks and i randomly remembered a girl group that nobody else seems to remember: V.O.I.C.E.S, also billed as The Voices, apparently.
so okay, you know how on sister sister, tia and tamara were always freakin singing on the show? they had okay voices, but really u just wanted them to stop with the catterwauling and yell at roger to go home? weeeeeeeeell guess what! they were in this group! well they were kind of in this group. apparently they were in the video for the first single, ‘yeah yeah yeah,’ and did background vocals, but according to wikipedia, they werent actually in the group.
check my man’s ducktail around the 2:30 mark. lmao. also, the random african wardrobery for no apparent reason. i love it.
in addition to those songs, i also remember two more: ‘m.m.d.r.n.f. (my mama didn’t raise no fool)’ and ‘cloudy with a chance of tears.’ nobody else does but me
anybody??!
