Spice Girls - Headlines

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

- Posh and Emma really look amazing.
- As would Geri, if she'd only stop doing that arching back thing and making her ribs poke out, urrgggh.
- Sporty's voice is still very, um, distinctive.
- Try counting the number of times more than one of them is in the same shot.

Likelihood of this song knocking Leona Lewis off the top spot if it wasn't a Children In Need single? Zero percent.

10 best chart country singles this year:

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

1) red umbrella-faith hill
2) last dollar--tim mcgraw
3) tear drops on my guitar--taylor swift.
4) dancin' for the groceries--kenny chesney
5) rockstar--nickel back
6) nothin' better to do--leanne rhimes
7) cleaning this gun--trace adkins
8) me and god--josh turner
9) i just came back from a war - darryl worley
10) - "The Devil And The Cross"--Halfway To Hazard

(will post links and commentary tomorrow)

five thots on blackout

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

five thots on blackout

1. her vocals are protean, deepening, turning into a flotilla of electronics, thinning and thickening, they are occasionally contained by the production, often overwhelmed by the production --but the listener is always aware of the production. this album ends the transition from oops i did it again, with he perfect american bardot breathiness to the harsh, angular and almost atonal toxic.
2. this is the first album where she is not credited as a song writer, only as a producer, and much of the album is about the creation and destruction of images--combined with dated ellen van unworth photographs, it suggests the common wisdom, that she is not listening to anyone who can help her, is wrong. the opposite is true here--even with out writing any of the songs at all, she has too many people to listen to. the more people surrounding her, the less control she has. which means the album is an anthology of late post millennial trends in popular music, an inadvertent, already dated time capsule.
3. she mentions her self twice or three times a song in the third person, all of this third personing does not provide much needed critical distance, it makes her sound dissociative.
4. its also an album of paranoia--but the weird thing, is that everyone is looking at her, attacking her, so the paranoia is the wrong word, its more of an accurate example of her life, her chaos, her mental health, etc, but most importantly, her pleasure. addictive personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, its the first album made crazy not by coke or booze but an over dose of fame.
5. but the going out is documented, the songs careen wildly, crash into each other, change tempo, vocals, and instrumentation, producers and what is produced. harmonies are dropped, added, mixed in and mixed out, it becomes polyphonic and then singularly driving in a matter of seconds. it is almost a folk work--like what harold finster would do if he had a capacity for clubbing and a taste for bisexual tail. (which is my round about way of saying, it is intended as an album, a statement, a document that is 60 minutes long, ambitious for someone who's genius came previously in 3 minute bites)

i think its a brilliant album, unhinged, strange, pleasure seeking, and throughly crazy--i also don't think its traditionally good.