New mash-ups… First up is one that perfectly defines the power of a mash-up. Take a track from a band I couldn’t give a crap about (Stereophonics) and something from a group that’s completely overplayed (the Supremes) and then create something that proves the sum is greater than the parts. English producer/remixer fuTuRo (a.k.a. Houseman) [...]
“Hey, Marty — sexy cardy.”
I first heard The Cardigans‘ song “Lovefool” in September of ’96 and immediately fell in love with it, long before it became a hit single, as part of the soundtrack for William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. The band is from Sweden, so one might assume a poppy lightness, given the country’s reputation (based largely on [...]
Cutting remarks
Fans of slasher movies may be interested in the announcement that Starz Entertainment Group and indie film distributor THINKFilm have begun production of a new documentary called Going To Pieces: The Rise And Fall Of The Slasher Film. In a previous post, I mentioned that the Italian giallo genre led to the American slasher film. [...]
“Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.”
This is unbelievably old (created in February ’05), but still amusing. Spell with flickr, thanks to this guy: Click here to do it. If you like that, then you won’t want to miss the Church Sign Generator (also old).
“Dialogue, duologue, diatribe…”
Here’s a fun new timewaster for you: Dictionary karaoke. As the site says: “[It] features parodies of popular songs using karaoke-style backing music with vocals provided by audio pronunciation samples from online dictionaries.” There’s plenty of good ones here, but I’ll suggest starting with the version of King Crimson’s “Elephant Talk” (The original version is [...]
Best in show, worst in show.
Had you noticed that sit-coms got rid of their opening titles? They ruined flow-thru from sit-com to sit-com. Instead, at the end of each program, there is some funny sequence or outtakes over credits (run with the world’s smallest type) so that you’ll stay to the bitter end, and then it immediately switches to the [...]
Stop making sense.
Ah, the late, lamented Talking Heads. For a few years there, they were really amazing and there’s been nothing like them since. Today, you get two cover versions of T-Heads tunes, from two of the band’s three phases. My classification system would be as follows: NYC art rock band (Talking Heads: 77, More Songs About [...]
Under the Big Top
The unfortunate situation with the riots in France is certainly helping to demonstrate just what can happen when a society doesn’t believe in The Big Tent Theory of culture. For example, read this editorial from Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post. As he points out, multiculturalism has been a pretty easy target in this country. [...]
6-story building
I think we’re all aware that the television landscape is changing, but I’ve just come across an effect I’d never thought of before: How the increase in advertising has affected story structure in hour-long television dramas. In today’s Weekender edition of the Cynopsis newsletter, Karen Woodward has a short piece called “Act-out” (Click here, scroll [...]
Committing religious thinking.
I previously posted the lead single from Madonna‘s new album Confessions on a Dancefloor. At the time, I made passing reference to the controversy surrounding the song “Isaac,” which is supposedly about Rabbi Isaac Luria. Madonna has claimed that the song title is actually the English translation of the first name of Yitzhak Sinwani, the [...]