A Lot of Useless Opinions on Pointless Subjects.

"I'm Like a Bird"
Yesterday morning Nelly Furtado was on the telly and I'm sure she performed her "hot" new "hit", but she also performed "I'm Like a Bird". And she destroyed it. It was awful. I don't know what's wrong with her, but in every performance I've seen recently and even in her videos, it's like she's just posing, as if she went to modeling school and she just thinks that cameras are everywhere. You know, like Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton do: always ready for the cameras by presenting their best angles. Nelly, she wouldn't ever really move her head. I guess her new hair was real expensive and she just wants to pose in the proper way to show it off. It just makes her "dance moves" all awkward and needy for validation from, I dunno, the cooler kids.

But that's not where it ends. Her eyes were glazed over like, "Why the fuck am I singing this song again?" She knows the words, but she didn't feel them at all. AT ALL. I was so appalled by this behavior and wondered where it all went wrong. She could have cared less about performing.

La Perdida
Dude! This book was totally intense, you muthatouchas! Except the back of the book quotes someone telling the readers to "put down their copies of Love and Rockets", which is probably the worst advice you could give anyone, haha. It was nothing like Love and Rockets! The main character was pretty much as the title suggests, totally LOST in the midst of things. The female characters in L & R are fucking powerful and amazing. The character of Carla in La Perdida... well, not so much. But it brought up some interesting points about culture and "revolution" and stuff. It was also nice learning some new Mexican slang, haha. I found parts of it scarier than in Persepolis, and I wondered why. I think because Carla is from a privileged, safe background, you know it's a total shock to her that such scum roam the earth and she's stuck among them. On the other hand, war and terror and oppression permeate all of Persepolis, and we know that Satrapi, though she lives hard times, has become successful in her adopted country of France. La Perdida is not the best work I've read in terms of emotional effect, but still tells a good story.

Estudando O Pagode
I was shocked to hear this album. I thought it was gonna be real nice 'n' easy. I was expecting MPB--música popular brasileira. No chance, fuckers, just from this album I found pagode to be a very strange genre. It's the hardest album I've listened to in the past six months. As soon as the music started I was like, "Oh shit, I really should have been more familiar with this stuff before I decided to get listen to it." Not a bad album though, but it's more of a concept album and I feel like I was thrown into it without proper research. I think what I like best is that it really IS a study of the sub-genres in pagode; every track explains which kind it is. I am pissed at the liner notes, which are completely in English. Even the lyrics. Maybe it was too much to ask for English/Portuguese lyrics. Gawd.

I should mention that last week when Rachel and I went into Other Music, there was a $75 copy of Estudando O Samba, which I'm sure has been sold by now. (Went to OM again today, and the album was still there.)

Marisa Monte
Two nights ago, I listened to her voice, and I almost cried knowing that I will never have as beautiful a voice or sing in as lovely a manner.

"Warning"
For some reason I was thinking about this music video I really liked when I was in high school, Incubus's "Warning". I re-saw it recently and cripes, that song was much much worse than I remembered. I remembered it being beautifully angsty and deep. Hahahaha. It's like when I re-listened to the Spice Girls way after they were over, I was like, "Wow, these songs are actually BAD!" Likewise, the video was not as great as I recalled, but it was fun to go to songmeanings and see what people were saying about the video. People seemed pretty hung up that this girl kept screaming at 10:24; I wasn't as concerned about the numerical time as I was about the fucking post-its all over her room.

Lance Bangs
I packed this limited edition 7" for Lance Bangs at work, and Damian was like, "Hey, tell Lance to give a kiss to his wife for me". LOL!

Pitchfork
Everyone's favorite not-really-very-good-yet-strangely-very-revered online music publication did a feature on their favorite music videos. I think they just had each writer pick 3 or 5 favorites. It was a pretty good list, at least from the 20 or so videos from the list I was familiar with. I did take issue with the choice of certain videos; I could think of better ones. I just wasn't sure what they were going for, they say they were avoiding all the obvious awesome choices (er, everything Gondry, pretty much, lololol), but then they picked stuff like A-Ha and Duran Duran and Madonna. It's like, srsly? I totally wouldn't have thought of that! Pfft.

Video choices I agree with:
"Take on Me", A-Ha
"Coffee & TV", Blur
"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", Cindy Lauper
"Hungry Like the Wolf", Duran Duran
"Our Lips Are Sealed", The Go-Go's
"Move Your Feet", Junior Senior
"All Caps", Madvillain
"Gossip Folks", Missy Elliott
"Got Your Money", ODB
"We Will Become Silhouettes", The Postal Service
"Bad Cover Version", Pulp
"Trapped in the Closet", R. Kelly
"Just", Radiohead
"I Gave You", Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney
"Poney Part 1", Vitalic(!!!)

Other videos I've seen and don't get why they were included:
"Danger! High Voltage!", Electric Six
"War Photographer", Jason Forrest
"Galang", M.I.A.
"Don't Save Us From the Flames", M83
"Material Girl", Madonna
"Mickey", Toni Basil
"My Doorbell", The White Stripes

I really don't think, for example, those are the best Madonna or White Stripes videos. And I don't think that Jason Forrest video is the best animated war-related video I've seen, that would go to Pinback's "Fortress".

Video I'm conflicted about:
"Helena", My Chemical Romance
"Untitled #1", Sigur Rós

"Helena" is interesting because it matches a cool concept that is well-realized with a really good, anthem-like song. But I don't think it's the best My Chemical Romance video, I consider that video to be "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)". Yet "I'm Not Okay", as a song, is pretty crappy and is nowhere near the strongest MCR track. So which is more valuable? The solid video that lives up to the song, or the AMAZING video that makes the song more tolerable than it would have been otherwise? I love the "Helena" video, but I think the "I'm Not Okay" video will become the video that defines My Chemical Romance visually and will have a slightly better shelf life. Besides, the dead girl in the former video really creeps me out (in a bad way).

"Untitled #1" is definitely a beautiful video and very representative of not only the song, but Floria Sigismondi's visual prowess. But it's neither my favorite Sigur Rós video nor my favorite Sigismondi video. I think I like the "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" video the best; it makes me cry. And I absolutely love what Sigismondi did for "Blue Orchid", because it's The White Stripes past their prime but they still look awesome and creepy (in a good way) in the video.

The rest of the videos, I've never watched.

Videos I think should have been included, other than those I've already mentioned:
Remember, they tried to avoid Directors Label videos.
(1) "Pin", Yeah Yeah Yeahs
(2) "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut From the Team)", Taking Back Sunday
(3) "White Lines (Don't Do It)", Grandmaster Flash
(4) "No Good", Plan B
(5) "Hell Yes", Beck
(6) "On My Block", Scarface
(7) "Dream", Dizzee Rascal
(8) "Deceptacon", Le Tigre
(9) "No Tengo Dinero", Kumbia Kings, El Gran Silencio and Juan Gabriel
(10) "Sudden Rush", Erlend Øye
(11) Uhhh "The Weeping Song", Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (props to Maria for the heads up on this one)

They're all pretty awesome videos and could have had a spot on the list, I think! The only problem with my list is that I'm mostly very familiar with music videos from like 2000 and on.

Sorry for this massive, crazy ass post.