Rachael Yamagata Interview

Link to the interview on buzzine.com

Kelly Wiles: The first song of yours that I remember hearing was “Be Be Your Love.” A few years ago, it kept popping up in movies and TV shows, and every time I heard it, I kept thinking, “There’s that song again!” It was everywhere. I was always struck by how much the song seemed to steal the show from the film scenes that it was supposed to be background music for.

Rachael Yamagata: Aw, thank you. [Laughs]

KW: You’ve had a few other songs featured on TV and films. In what ways has this affected your career and/or your songwriting?

RY: It hasn’t affected the songwriting because I don’t pre-plan that. I do think there’s maybe a universality to some of the things that I tend to write about which tend to suit film and TV, but I don’t go in thinking about it. In terms of my career, it’s interesting — eight out of 11 songs from my first record got placed [in film and television]. I think that certainly has brought a new fan-base to me and given an outlet to songs that wouldn’t necessarily make it on the radio. So I think that’s a good thing, but I’m not a superstar because of or not because of it. It’s been good exposure. It’s a little tricky for me because I don’t want that to be my calling card, but I’m grateful for the exposure.

KW: You’ve divided your new album into two parts — Elephants and Teeth Sinking Into Heart. It’s clear that the two parts have two different musical personalities — Teeth Sinking Into Heart has more swagger and snarl than Elephants. Was this the only reason you decided it was necessary to divide the album, like making two different sides of a mix tape?

RY: That probably sums it up. It wasn’t a conscious, pre-planned decision. It happened during the mixing stage, when we got to hear everything we had piled onto these songs. The two vibes are so distinct, but I like thinking about the record as being a very fluid listening experience. I like to think of [Elephants] as a film score — it puts you in a trance — and the vibe of [Teeth Sinking Into Heart] is more lively and it would interrupt the trance-like quality of the listening experience of Elephants.

KW: During a show, do you play them as two separate entities, or do you mix the songs?

RY: I mix them when I perform live.

KW: On your first album, Happenstance, it seems as though the guitar wasn’t as present.  What led you to include more guitar on Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart?

RY: Well, I’ve only ever written [songs] on guitar, and some of the songs I felt would really make the record were more guitar-based this time around. Also, playing live and touring extensively really made me love a good rock song. When I started writing [the songs for the new album], they were more suited for guitar.

KW: What about your creative process; do you do lyrics first, music second, or do they arrive together for you?

RY: I usually do everything all at the same time. There are a couple songs, “Elephants” in particular, where the lyrics and the melody came first, and it took me six months before I figured out the music behind it.

KW: You started writing songs as a kid, didn’t you?

RY: Yes, I did.

KW: Did you always know you wanted to be a musician?

RY: It never occurred to me, actually. I just played piano and wrote little things as a hobby — something I loved to do. Never in my life did I actually think that I could make it as a profession. I went to this private all-girls school where the arts were certainly encouraged, but it was this Ivy League atmosphere — more like doctor/lawyer, all that, so it was almost fluke that this ended up becoming my career.

KW: What kind of music did you listen to as a kid?

RY: My parents were big into the ’70s singer-songwriter thing, so all the music from that time — people like Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, Carol King, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens…also, my mom was a big Barbra Streisand fan.

KW: What kind of music are you listening to these days?

RY: I just got the new Jenny Lewis record, which I love. The Kings of Leon record, I just got that. My Morning Jacket… I just saw Yael Naim perform for the first time, and she was amazing.

KW: Do you see similarities between your childhood influences and the music you are drawn to now? Is there a common thread, or are your tastes more scattered?

RY: I think maybe it’s more scattered. I can see influences in what I write, but as far as what I’m listening to, it’s more scattered. I am really fascinated by production right now, so I guess that’s my focus now.

KW: You wrote Happenstance as a 20-something and you wrote Elephants ….Teeth Sinking Into Heart as an almost 30-something. Were there any major differences in your creative process on the new album, due to being slightly older and slightly wiser?

RY: I think that having gone through two to three years of major life changes just by being a professional musician, you go through so many extreme highs and lows, and your time is no longer your own. It’s a new lifestyle that I had to grasp, so I think that writing these songs was a digestion of being initiated into that world on a high level. When I wrote these songs, it was literally in the middle of the woods in the Woodstock area, so my writing was quarantined.

KW: So you’re not one of those musicians who writes songs on the road in the back of the tour bus then?

RY: Every now and then I catch a lyric and write it down, but for the most part, no. There are 12 people on this bus right now, so [laughs] it’s usually when people are sleeping.

KW: If you could give your younger self any career advice, what would it be?

RY: I would have said to be more brave, to not be afraid to try out my songs, even at an open mic. I was in such a shell with my own stuff, and so timid. After one bad comment, I didn’t show anyone my stuff for the next five years, but as soon as I did, it was like record label showcases, so [laughs]…I would tell myself to be braver.

KW: I read somewhere that you were a theater major in college. Could you see yourself making a foray into acting in the future?

RY: I think if the right fit came along…I mean, I’m so entrenched in music that I think that time would be a big issue, but I think it’s another creative outlet that if I felt like I could pull it off and it were challenging, then I definitely think I’d try it.

Rachel Yamagata is currently on a brief tour through North America. You can check upcoming dates on her website.

Dido’s new album

Link to the post on Buzzine.com

Eight years after her debut album went quadruple platinum and five years after her sophomore album became the fastest-selling album ever recorded by a female artist, ethereal British chanteuse Dido is back. Her third album, Safe Trip Home, is due out from Arista Records on November 18th. Recorded in LA and London, Safe Trip Home is produced by musical multi-talent Jon Brion and Ark (Dido and brother Rollo Armstrong’s company).

Directors from around the world have made a series of short films to accompany the eleven songs on Safe Trip Home. The films were shot in locations all across the globe (Mumbai, Rio, Bangkok, etc.), and each film focuses on a day in the life of someone from another country. You can catch the trailer for the first four films on YouTube. You can also pre-order the album from iTunes.

High School Musical vs. Grease

Link to article on Buzzine.com

Since the first High School Musical’s televised release in January of 2006, the Disney film franchise has spawned inevitable comparisons to the grandfather of high school musicals, Grease. 1978’s Grease was the first movie to have teenagers join their classmates in choreographed song-and-dance routines to express their collective feelings about homework and prom night and friendship. What Grease always had on the High School Musical thing was that no matter how wildly successful the first two HSMs ended up becoming (which was very), they still carried the stigma of being made-for-TV ventures. Not so anymore. High School Musical 3: Senior Year opened on the big screen last week and it logged the biggest opening weekend ever for a musical film, bringing in $42 million. Game on, Grease.

The comparisons between High School Musical 3 and Grease are appropriate, as they are the only movie musicals that have been made about the American high school experience. Stuff like Fame or Camp, or that one about Hillary Duff taking a train to LA after her brother dies in a car crash doesn’t count because those were about performing arts kids who were supposed to be performing. While there are times that HSM 3 and Grease offer self-aware explanations behind the song-and-dance routines (a televised dance-off and a spring musical, respectively), both plots center around regular American teenagers doing regular American high school things. In Grease’s case, those things include stealing booze from your mom and gossiping about your friend’s abortion. In HSM 3’s case, those things include shooting hoops with your dad and holding hands with your girlfriend in a hammock. Grease and High School Musical offer different versions of high school reality. One is Disney and one is definitely not, but both realities work, for the most part.

The High School Musical films always work when they stick to their Disney reality, which means bright clothes, big smiles, fun handshakes, and no attempts at answering the big questions. High School Musicals 1 & 2 did this easily. They took place during sophomore and junior years and were able stick inside the realm of high school, thus sticking to the safer, smaller questions, like ‘how does one balance sports and theater’ or ‘what will your friends think of you for dating some guy they don’t like?’ High School Musical 3: Senior Year, ends up confronting the bigger questions — the ones that lie outside the high school bubble, such as ‘what am I doing with my life?’ This is exactly why the third installation in the HSM franchise doesn’t work as well as its predecessors.

Just like the other two HSMs, the plot in HSM 3: Senior Year centers around Troy’s dilemma, which is should he follow his Dad and stick to what he knows (basketball), or should he follow his heart and girlfriend into the unknown (theater)? Just like the other two HSMs, the side plots deal with Gabriella’s insecurity about being smart and the havoc that Sharpay and her narcissism wreak on the people around her. These plots worked in the first two HSMs and they work again in the third one, at least for a while. For the first two-thirds, the movie soars along. There’s bubbly energy and flashy, harmless numbers about the characters at a Disney-fied version of high school and their familiar dilemmas. However, as graduation nears and the characters try to prepare for the future and life outside their Disney reality, the film leaves its comfort zone and everything loses momentum. Troy announces that he’s going to UC Berkeley, where he will play competitive basketball and study drama. Gabriella miraculously gets into Stanford’s honors program, even though she hasn’t uttered one remotely intelligent line in all three films. And scouts from Julliard are so blown away by the generic songwriting of the girl in the knit cap that they offer her a full scholarship. (They also offer a full scholarship to the rich kid, which doesn’t make any sense either.)

High School Musical 3 should have taken more plot cues from Grease. Not that Taylor should have been singing about being slutty and getting an abortion. Not that Sharpay should have stolen booze from her mom and forced Gabriella to drink it. Those details are a part of Grease’s reality, not High School Musical’s. Where Grease’s plot got it right and High School Musical 3’s plot got it wrong was the ending. Grease didn’t bother telling us what colleges Jan, Rizzo, Kenickie, or Frenchy had decided on, or if they even decided on college at all. Grease didn’t bother explaining how Danny and Sandy were planning to maintain their relationship after graduation, or if they would even stay together at all. What Grease understood was that a musical about high school is best left within the confines of its own absurd reality.

Instead of building a story around Troy and Gabriella’s future plans, Disney should have thrown them into a sparkly car and flown them off into the clouds like Sandy and Danny, who knew that reality didn’t exist after the end of their high school musical (…except for Grease 2, and who wants to live in that reality?).

Von Iva At The Viper Room

Link to article on Buzzine.com

Seeing a live band should leave you grasping at adjectives when you try to explain it to your friends the next day. It should leave you at a loss for words, wanting simply to type “GO SEE THIS BAND NOW” when you’re trying to write a concert review. The best music is just too good to define in simple words on a page (or screen).

If you ask any up-and-coming band member to define their band’s music, you will almost always get the same answer. The band member will pause, tilt their head, squint a little, maybe look at the sky with their mouth hanging open for a moment, and then they will say something like, “We don’t fit under one genre” or “We’re sort of a post-emo, hard-rock-influenced, techno-hip-hop punk band with country-type vocals,” or “We’re our own category; we’re [insert band name here]-type music!” But the sad truth is, while most bands think of themselves as unique enough to escape categorization, very few truly are that.

Von Iva, who played the 9:30 p.m. slot at The Viper Room this past Monday, truly is that original. They don’t fit under just one genre. They really are a soul-rock-new-wave-indie-glam-punk-dance band (which doesn’t even cover it, really). They’re definitely their own category, and the only appropriate name for it is Von Iva-type music.

Here are the bio facts: They are a trio from San Francisco with one album under their belt and an EP on the way (buy it on their website). They’ve been together since 2005. They’ve been in television shows, commercials, and magazine blurbs. This December, they will appear in the new Zooey Deschanel flick Yes Man. They’ve opened for The Go-Gos and they’ve played the Warped Tour. They are on their own tour right now, and Monday night they played The Viper Room.

Drummer Kelly Harris was fierce and rhythm-perfect behind a regular drum kit, and then midway through the set, she jumped to the front of the stage to play the tom-toms with some sort of cloth-covered mallet. In lieu of guitar or bass, the single-moniker Bex played a driving, intense Korg synth. Lead singer Jillian Iva sounded like a cross between Aretha Franklin, Debbie Harry, and Janis Joplin, and she danced like a kid from the lunchroom scene in the movie Fame. They played techno, they played rock ballads, they played a bombastic cover of the disco hit “Hot Stuff”… Yes, all three women — the band itself — defied simple categorization. However, they had what any band anywhere should have, which is undeniable musical talent, which means that their music is undeniably worthy of respect from anyone, fan or not. They also played the way any band, on any stage, should play, which is like their lives depended on it, which means that Von Iva fans inevitably feel as though their lives depend on Von Iva’s music too.

So those are the facts about Von Iva, and an attempt at a review of the show. But really, you just gotta see these guys live. GO SEE THIS BAND NOW.

Photos by dliciouschaosphotography.com

Presidential Campaign Songs

Link to article on Buzzine.com

The campaign theme song has always been an awkward part of the American democratic process. Watching the presidential candidates wave from the convention stage while a rock song blasts from the speakers behind them is akin to watching your dad dance in his seat at a Rolling Stones concert: the effort is endearing, but the spectacle is a little uncomfortable for everyone involved. Just as it’s not your dad’s job to go to shows, it’s not a politician’s job to make mixtapes for the American voters. Can you fault the presidential candidates, then, for not knowing the lyrics to their campaign songs? (Or, in some cases, for not knowing that the musician behind the song hates everything their campaign stands for and is totally voting for the other guy?).

Here are a few musical highlights from the presidential campaign trail of the last few decades. Try not to get too embarrassed when you think about the man (or woman) in the suit doing the would-be presidential wave to these numbers.

1984 – Ronald Reagan – “Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen:

“The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog thats been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up.”
(Springsteen insisted that Reagan stop using the song.)

1988 – Michael Dukakis – “America” by Neil Diamond

1992 – Bill Clinton – “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac

1992 – Ross Perot – “Crazy” by Patsy Cline

1996 – Bob Dole – “Dole Man” (a take-off on “Soul Man” by Sam & Dave)

2000 – George W. Bush – “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty:
“Well I wont back down, no I wont back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I wont back down.”
(Petty threatened to sue Bush if he didn’t stop using the song, so Bush switched to Van Halen.)

2000 – Al Gore – “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive

2004 – John Kerry – “Fortunate Son” by John Fogerty

——–2008 ——-

Primary Candidates:

Hillary Clinton – “You & I” by Celine Dion

Rudy Giuliani – “Rudie Can’t Fail” by The Clash

Mike Huckabee – “More Than A Feelin’” by Boston

Presidential Candidates:

Barack Obama – “Better Way” by Ben Harper

John McCain – “Our Country” by John Mellencamp, until Mellencamp told McCain he couldn’t use it. Now McCain is using “Take A Chance on Me” by Swedish supergroup ABBA.

Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin:

Until band members Ann and Nancy Wilson threatened to sue, Palin was using Heart’s “Barracuda” as her VP campaign song:
“If the real thing don’t do the trick
You better make up something quick
You gonna burn burn burn burn it to the wick
Ooooooh, barracuda?”

Yes, politicians and their campaign songs are awkward, even to read about – even more awkward than your dad at a Stones show. At least when your dad does the hokey pokey to “Start Me Up,” it doesn’t go down in anyone’s history books but your own.

Straight Outta Eagle Rock

Link to article on Buzzine.com

By definition, Samantha Shelton is a singer-songwriter, but Shelton plays the ukulele instead of the guitar, and this fact alone is enough to elevate her song material above the tired singer-songwriter genre. By definition, Shelton is also a born-and-bred-in-LA actress (her credits include One Tree Hill and ShopGirl), but she grew up in Eagle Rock with un-famous parents, which lends her enough organic street credentials to defy the Angeleno-actress cliché.

Originally one-half of the hit cabaret duo If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies, Shelton is now striking out on her own with her debut album, Are You Kidding Around?, due out January ‘09 on new label Eagle Ear. Shelton’s four-song EP, Good Morning Tonight, is already available on the Eagle Ear website, and it’s a tempting sneak-peek at an artist who just might be Los Angeles’s answer to the quirky-girl soul-singer movement that’s been going on in Britain (Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Duffy) for a few years now.

As a resident and die-hard fan of Los Angeles, I’m always excited to discover new artists who share my love affair with this place. For that reason, I always wanted to jump on the Rilo Kiley bandwagon, but Jenny Lewis’s voice was always a bit too self-conscious and serious for my tastes. When Are You Kidding Around? is released in January 2009, LA may have found its answer to the Brits, and I may have found my answer to Jenny Lewis.

Love May Not Keep You Together…but The Chain always will

Link to article on Buzzine.com

Recently, I’ve become addicted to the June-released album All Or Nothing by garage band Brit-punks The Subways. I think their first album was technically a better one; their 2006 release, Young For Eternity, delivered the brazen, cohesive punch of a spanking new band, whereas All Or Nothing seems a little insecure and lost in the identity crisis of the dreaded sophomore-album slump. However, it is for those exact reasons that I find All Or Nothing a more interesting album.

I’ve always been interested in the inter-band dynamics behind an album’s creation. The Subways’ All Or Nothing was written around the time that guitarist Billy Lunn and bassist Charlotte Cooper ended their long-term relationship. There are plenty of songs that deal with failed relationships between a band member and some heart-breaking stranger outside of the band. Listening to All or Nothing, I found myself thinking about what happens to the success of a band as a whole when the romantic relationship between two of its members fails.

What did Gwen Stefani’s break-up with Tony Kanal do for No Doubt? It gave them Tragic Kingdom, the album that skyrocketed them to multi-platinum fame. Same with Fleetwood Mac; though they already had t 13 albums to their name, it wasn’t until two nasty inter-band break-ups took place that Mac produced what is now universally known as one of the best-selling albums of all time, Rumors. When Carrie Bronstein and Corin Tucker broke up, Sleater-Kinney got popular. After Jack and Meg White got divorced, The White Stripes were formed. The list goes on.

In 1975, the husband-and-wife duo Captain and Tennille released their trademark hit, “Love Will Keep Us Together.” This piece of lyrical advice may have worked for “Captain” Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille; they are (a bit unbelievably) happily married to this very day. All the other lovers doubling as band-mates out there might do better to listen to Fleetwood Mac, who stressed that it was not love but “the chain” that would keep them together — “the chain” meaning the band.

Although the music might be over between Billy Lunn and Charlotte Cooper, it has only just begun for The Subways…which is a good thing. All Or Nothing might have been hailed by a lot of critics as lackluster and not as good as their first album, but the more encouraging adjective I’d like to use to describe it is “transitional.” Who wants to be “Young For Eternity” anyway? Just as a chef can’t make a good omelet without breaking eggs, a band can’t write a good album without a few broken hearts. The Subways are on the right track, and although Charlotte and Billy may have broken up, rock history points to the fact that The Subways most likely won’t. (The inter-band relationship that’s proven more likely to screw things up for everyone involved is not of the romantic persuasion. It’s called sibling rivalry. Just ask one of The Subways’ Britpop precursors, Oasis).

Pop! Goes The Avalon

Link to the article on Buzzine.com

One of Pop Art’s founding fathers, Andy Warhol, once told an interviewer that, in his opinion, “everybody should like everybody.” The interviewer then asked Warhol if liking everybody was what Pop Art was all about, to which Warhol replied, “Yes. It’s liking things.”

In a paper explaining his study on what he titled the “Mere Exposure Effect,” R.B. Zajonc tells us that “repetitions of an experience…are capable of producing a diffuse positive affective state.” The crux of Zajonc’s argument is that seeing familiar images puts us in a better mood — a “liking things” kind of mood. The crux of Pop Art is arguably the use of familiar images, so it makes sense that Pop Art is, as Andy Warhol said, all about liking things.

So if Pop Art is all about “liking things” then “Pop Universe,” the latest art-music-fashion showcase event from the folks at Project Ethos, certainly lived up to its name on Friday night. From the moment I walked in the doors of The Avalon and saw the Star Wars, Frank Sinatra, and E.T. posters on the walls of the lobby, I caught the “liking things” bug. I had a hunch that “liking things” at “Pop Universe” was going to be unavoidable, and my hunch proved correct. Over the course of the evening, my taste and judgment sensors got lost in the Pop enthusiasm of the 18+ crowd and the young artists, designers, and musicians showcasing their work at what Project Ethos called the “Sundance Film Festival of fashion, music and art.”

Upstairs, the art rooms were jammed with loud colors, bold texts, and cheeky, familiar graphics — Janet Leigh from Psycho, Kim Kardashian, Mona Lisa, and even the gymnastics rings at Venice Beach. I made the rounds and talked to the folks responsible for the likeable mayhem on the walls.

As anyone who has lived in LA long enough knows, this town is full of slashes (artist-slash-musician, actor-slash-model), so I wasn’t surprised to find that every artist I talked to was quick to inform me that art was not his or her only form of self-expression. Photographer Heather Petrey is am FIDM graduate and aspiring designer, and artists Linelle Schultz and Nick Gusz make films and music respectively. The artists seemed reluctant to label not only themselves but their artwork as well. When asked if she would consider her work Pop Art, Heather Petrey said she preferred “Abstract Realism.” Linelle Schultz told me she’d rather be classified as “Contemporary Mixed Media.” When I asked Nick Gusz the question, he replied, “I’ve never been that big of a fan of the word ‘Pop.’ At first, I’d say graffiti, but I only ‘tag’ canvas, so Expressionism with stencils! How about that?”

Part of me wanted to point at the painting in the corner by Thomas Hannsz, a take-off on the Warhol soup cans, and say, “But come on, guys, give credit where credit is due. Aren’t we all just under one big Pop Umbrella here? One big ‘Pop Universe,’ as it were?” I didn’t end up saying this because a) I’m a writer-slash-musician, so my creative knowledge is fairly limited in the fine arts arena, and b) The presence of Pop had put me in the “liking things” spirit, so I felt no need to dislike or disagree with what anyone said.

The same goes for the fashion show: Okay, I did like some designers slightly more than others. Eva deVore’s line, Spooky, was subtly stunning with its original combination of earthy-ethereal and geek chic. Another stand-out, demonstrated by models in silver lipstick, was Jen Garcia’s Vim Trousseau, a retro-futuristic line that called to mind The Jetsons with its ’60s-style shift dresses made of shimmering “space age” material. (It didn’t hurt that the full moon décor hanging behind the catwalk was a perfect backdrop for Garcia’s designs.) So yes, I liked those two a tad more than the other ones, but only a tad. Now that I have shaken off the “liking things” bug, I can tell you, in retrospect, about two of the designers I actually really did not like. Looking back on it, I find their designs to be unoriginal faux-punk Hot Topic imitations. Looking back on it, I can also tell you that I found one or two of the artists a little too Venice Beach Boardwalk-y for my taste. However, on Friday night, under Pop Universe’s likeable spell, I liked every single piece of clothing up on that runway, and all of the art on the walls.

Prior to the fashion show was electro rap duo LMFAO. They were good at ironic cheek, at one point sampling Handsome Boy Modeling School and yelling the line, “I am not a whore” on repeat. They were also good at irony-free encouragement, prefacing another song by asking the crowd, “How many of y’all got goals? How many of y’all got dreams?” With their danceable beats, hysterical lyrics, bright outfits, and all-over-the-place-in-a-good-way Millennial Generation outlook on life, LMFAO’s Red Foo and Sky Blu were intensely likeable and a perfect musical fit for “Pop Universe.”

If Andy Warhol and Zajonc’s “Mere Exposure” theory are to be believed, Pop Art inspires the positive in us because of its familiarity. What seemed to sum up the attitude of the artists, audience, and entire “liking things” energy that was “Pop Universe” is one of the most familiar and positive words in the English language, and this single word was on Red Foo’s hot pink T-shirt with an exclamation point after it for emphasis — that word was “Yes!”

With the economy and the country in their current depressing states, couldn’t we all use a little Pop enthusiasm, a little more “Yes!” in our lives? I know I could.

(link to article)

nice full moon

New Kids Take The Block Less Traveled

Link to the article on Buzzine.com

By: Kelly Wiles

With 40th birthdays creeping up, and nine children between them, it’s understandable why the members of New Kids on the Block have done exactly what all disbanded bands do after a decade or so hiatus…which is to put their differences (and solo attempts) behind them and give their all-growed-up-now fans what they’ve been waiting for: a reunion tour. However, the New Kids have hit the road with not only their suitcase full of well-worn hits but also the 14 new tracks that make up their 2008 album, The Block. Fourteen new tracks that the New Kids, for the most part, have written themselves — a new concept for the kids, whose original success was achieved by singing tracks written, for the most part, by pop songwriter and master producer Maurice Starr.

If I were a New Kid On The Block, the one most important question I’d be asking myself, before dusting off the old vibrato and climbing back on that bus for the reunion tour, would be: Does anyone really want to hear this new album we wrote?

An old band’s new album is not always a tricky sell. For instance, when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers played a few new tunes at the Hollywood Bowl in July, people clapped just as loudly as they had when they played “American Girl.” While Petty’s melodies were new, his song remained the same in that he was just doing what he’d always done: playing jangly guitar riffs he’d written himself on an instrument he’d played for years. Likewise, pretty much any Cure fan will buy pretty much any new Cure album out of appreciation of the fact that Robert Smith and his lipstick have been setting ethereal depression to music for over 30 years now.

As far as the New Kids (and most pop “bands” like them) are concerned, it’s a bit of a different situation. Their fans loved them for their faces, voices, dance moves, and stage presence — not for their songwriting. You could say that the New Kids fans loved the New Kids for other people’s songwriting. So it’s going to be very interesting to see how fans react to the reunion tour this fall. Will the 30-year-old women who danced to the Maurice Starr-penned hits like “Cover Girl” or “The Right Stuff” back when they was still wearing BodyGlove leggings still be dancing when they hear the new Donnie Wahlberg penned groove “Sexify My Love?”

I’m not sure, but the one thing I’ll say for the New Kids is that I admire their bravery. Regardless of whether or not they’ve got the right stuff to write their own songs for their reunion tour, they’re at least giving it a shot…which is more than can be said for The Spice Girls, who played it safe by giving their fans what they wanted (what they really really wanted) — a reunion tour with no risky new material.

What Has Katy Done?

Link to the article on Buzzine.com

By: Kelly Wiles

During the Video Music Awards’ pre-show on Sunday, MTV VJ Sway informed Katy Perry that “I Kissed a Girl,” Perry’s PG-rated ode to lesbian experimentation, had come on in a club a few nights prior to the VMAs…at which point Sway reported to Perry, “Every guy in the building stood up and started applauding.”

Perry giggled a little and replied, “What have  I done?”

To Perry’s fans, the question sounds like more of the harmless cheek they’ve come to expect from their cherry-chapsticked princess of lesbian lite. To Perry’s detractors, the question sounds like another straight-girl-gone-wild oblivious insult to the actual homosexual community. To me, Perry’s question sounds like a much more personal one, coming from a young woman whose worldwide approval has earned her the disapproval of her parents. You see, Katy Perry is a pastor’s kid. Not one but both of her parents deliver sermons every Sunday to the born-again Christian crowd. Mom and Dad Perry have told several media outlets that they are ashamed of their daughter because they find the message of her chart-topping song disgusting and disturbing.

Maybe Katy Perry’s “what have I done” was directed at herself, as she’s realizing that she’s gotten wild approval from tons of faceless strangers and wild disapproval from the people who are supposed to love her the most.

I’ll tell you what you’ve done, Katy: you’ve stirred yourself up enough inner conflict for some great song material. Your raspy contralto vocals make you sound unlike anyone else on pop radio right now, and you can play your own guitar. I hope you will use those instruments and the emotional motivation of your familial conflict to write a sophomore album that will outlast your 15 minutes of VMA-carpet fame.

Nice Lipstick, Katy