My Valentine’s Mixed Bag Playlist…Ramble

What would Valentine’s Day week be without a reflection on one’s love life? Several of mine include George Michael and pop music. Let’s have at it!

1. George Michael & Queen “Somebody To Love” pleads ‘Find Me Somebody to Love’ over and over in a musical outpouring of emotion.

2. Glass Tiger featuring fellow Canook, Bryan Adams “Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone” seriously you do take my breath away with that badass 80’s styling:

3. Bryan Adams “Please Forgive Me” – yes Mr. Adams forgive you for rescheduling our interview about 16 times in 3 days. By the time he showed up I was only given 10 minutes which is the worst way to ever go through interviewing someone who’s sold 20 million albums…which you own…on vinyl.

He picked this background. My friends photoshopped wedding outfits on us.

4. Crowded House “Weather With You” every where you go you always take the weather with you …and hopefully that isn’t a maelstorm. Take a summery look at live in this one:

5. Dead or Alive “Brand New Lover” – seriously, we all like a bad boy/girl. Course, as I get older what I really need to do is find a brand new lover or at least one with a sense of humor and a steady paycheck. LOL!

6. Lady Gaga “Love Game” – tired of games? Gaga gets right to the point. And no, she doesn’t want to be friends. Sexy Cupid squeezed her ass and she is going to run with that.

7. Kylie Minogue “Red Blooded Woman” indeed I am. Meow! How can you have a pop love list without le petite Minogue?

8. Natasha Bedingfield “Single” I’m not waiting around for a man to save me but go ahead make a move…or don’t. Course, the blonde bombshell did get hitched last year “I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to fall in love..”

9. Madonna “Cherish” even though Warner’s doesn’t let a girl embed, just hearing the title of this song makes me smile thinking of Madge asking cupid to take his aim at her.

10. Beyonce “Single Ladies” put your hands up

11. Justin Timberlake “Lovestoned” one of my favorite lovesongs. I know, “she’s freaky and she knows it” is the first line but I love to dance to JT & this one is so much fun. The breakdown is sweet. And did I mention I got to premiere this video on Yahoo! JT even recorded a special intro for us. Thanks JT!

12. Coldplay “Lost” hey these are trying times and I can’t get through them without Coldplay.

13.  Arctic Monkeys “Mardy Bum” who hasn’t been there? Why can’t love be easy? Getting into fights over the dumbest crap. Ah no one captures the stupidity of young love like Arctic Monkeys:

14. Snow Patrol “Just Say Yes” to the amazing feeling of wonderment when you hear this one, embrace someone with open arms.

15. Speaking of Snow… Elton John “Nikita” – is it cold where you are? Yes my dear Elton it is. Of course, I also love the fact that George Michael sings background vocals on this one.

15. The Beatles “All You Need is Love” (and water, and a shovel at the moment, still this is just one of the best songs ever and made the movie ‘Love Actually’ so special.)

16. Bjork “It’s Oh So Quiet” hits like a thunderbolt of love. The interesting use of this song on ‘Flash Forward’ plunged the world into chaos in just four minutes. Zing boom indeed!

17. Tori Amos “A Sorta Fairytale” live and beautiful as always the Ginger Goddess delivers.

18. Janet Jackson “Love Will Never Do Without You” and really, I mean that, Eric Bana I do.

19. Ricky Martin & Christina Aguilera “Nobody Wants To Be Lonely” or do without crazy lip liner & hair extentions. How could it take me this long to add a duet?

20. Gwyneth Paltrow & Huey Lewis “Crusin'” — it went to No.1 in Australia. Woot.

21. Vanessa Amorosi “Absolutely Everybody” in the whole wide world needs love, that includes you kid!

22. INXS “Never Tear Us Apart” oh Michael you are beyond us now, but remain just as sexy as ever in this lovely live version.

23. Howard Jones “I’d Like To Get To Know You Well” and who wouldn’t that line work on?

Music Guilty Pleasures Of The Moment…Ramble

Some may call them guilty pleasures, but I never apologize for a song catching my ear. I love music loud, proud, silly, serious in all it’s glory. Yes, there is a pile of craptastic out there, but if it moves you, I’m not going to judge you. Here’s some of my ‘oh no really?’ yeah, seriously’ choices at the moment:

1. Justin Bieber “One Less Lonely Girl” I love the idea of this. There are so many single ladies I know that are truly fantastic, this is the perfect sweet cute idea. A lucky girl is no longer lonely. It’s not exactly a Miss Independant moment, but I know plenty of women who’s jaded hearts would be melted by such an approach (though probably doubt the sincerity.) It works on Justin, it’s age appropriate, although it’s still odd to me why he would be spending 48 hours with Diddy. Raw footage of Diddy is never very compelling. It always seems like Diddy is trying to sell something or prove he is ‘down with the people’ showing off Ferraris. Whacktastic.

2. Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” the often maligned Gaga takes a fantastic Haus of Gaga to the Bath Haus keeping it dirty, club worthy and absolutely absurdly over-the-top. She wants your love and she’s not afraid if it comes with STDs. An egomaniac in the vein of Madonna, she loves her unconventional hotness and has learned to avoid the rotating silver orbs that plagued her when she tried to play piano on SNL. Shake that booty!

3. John Mayer audio live version of ‘Half Of My Heart’ Yeah, we all know John is a “douche.” I can’t stand that term but it fits him. Whatever for his insanity as the loveable jackass who is a player and screws over any famous woman dumb enough to date him. He did immortalize J.Love Hewitt, break Team Aniniston’s dirty bird needs and keep Jessica Simpson guessing which end was up. The point is, after Continuem I was like, ugh Mayer is getting lame musically. What happend to ‘Room For Squares’ which got me through the month after Sept. 11th. In a live vs. recorded Taylor Swift version, this one wins. Tay’s vocals don’t even show up til the last 1/4 of the song and he certainly doesn’t need her guitar skills but he is playing Madonna and courting a younger audience so go for it Johnny Boy.

4. Leighton Meester feat. Robin Thicke “Somebody To Love” makes me giggle. In the video, the offspring of a mother who served prison time, looks like any other vapid club girl who is terminally bored, uses sex as a way to pass a few minutes and is all bones. Mr. Thicke , oh yeah, we love Robin, actually sings that she is approaching him like a PUDDY CAT…..no, Robin WTF? Well, he even makes that sound smooth and then goes on to promise to buy this club wench a pair of shoes! Shoes? Well if that isn’t proof of true love then hell what’s a fornicating club rat doing wrong?

Poor Britney, she should take note that her lackluster video for the equally lackluster cast off single ‘3’  the only new song on her ‘Singles’ offering, should have been club and limo writhing like this instead of trying to be a dance routine where she hangs on a bar and badly lip syncs. You are the master of the lip-sync…..sigh, I’m too bummed out by that video, let’s get back to Leighton. Sing in French Baby Girl.

5. Miley Cyrus “Party In The USA” this just won’t die for me. Every time I hear it, I gotta swing my hips like WOAH get to a chiropractor!

I am also a HUGE fan of Ms. Pixie Lott, who I’ve mentioned before and the girl has a great set of pipes. She totally dresses sparkley, fun and reminds me of my dear friend, Sam who lives in London. I think some stylist must follow Sam on Facebook and stole her look for Pixie. “A good beat never hurt no one” and that’s damn right in the song “Boys And Girls.”

Finally, if you haven’t said “Yes” to Snow Patrol’s latest single? WHY NOT? It’s superfanstasical.

All I can say is I’m dancing now. Happy Hump Day!

Cover Songs…Ramble

The advent of YouTube speed up the process of immersing yourself in user-generated content. It turned into ripping off protected content, reuniting us with video we hadn’t seen in years from the archives, made TIVO less necessary and put the user in control.

In the last couple of years it’s also excelerated the process of covering songs. Artists used to pick older, popular hits to get the attention of the public, reinventing them or not in some cases. I am obsessed with cover songs. One of my favorites is Travis’ version of ‘Baby…One More Time,’ which they have been performing for years. It’s a B-side from back in the day (yes it’s still in my physically alphabetized collection.)

Another favorite, for a different reason, oh I can’t even write this with a straight face, was seeing listening to Ray-J butchers “Clocks” by Coldplay. It was coming through the walls for hours when I was still working at Yahoo! I couldn’t stay in the studio for more than a few minutes listening to him. He was looking at words off of his sidekick.

What’s not to like about the distracted, hired musicians who are wishing they too could “go home” when Ray J puts his own spin on this by screaming out “You…you…I don’t think you know what I’m talking about…” yeah, and neither did you fool. It was funny how many artists wanted to come in and cover Coldplay. Poor Natasha Bedingfield lost out because Ray J had recorded his version of “Clocks” first. No doubt, Natasha is a true pro, regrouped and then killed it covering Maroon 5 “This Love.”

I love you NB, but my favorite cover in the time I was Head of Music Video Programming for Yahoo! Music was Mandy Moore’s cover of ‘Umbrella’ which wound up hitting radio, gettings over a million plays on YouTube and getting tons of press.

It’s cool when established artists, play music they didn’t write to show their abilities (cough thanks Ray J bwahahaha.) Who hasn’t blasted Jimi Hendrix’s version of ‘The Star Spangled Banner?’ (Really kids, you don’t have a version of this in your collection? WTF?)

Loving Coldplay having fun with “Billie Jean.”

Aside from YouTuber’s and semi-established covers, now we have brand new artists covering hits to get our attention. If you haven’t already fallen in love with the wonderful GaryGo, you will get his sense of humor, along with his talent with his cover of Lady Gaga’s “Let’s Dance.”

It’s really amazing when artists humanize themselves by covering songs that we all love. There are endless covers to amaze us. Rolling Stone picked Cali native, Anya Marina as one of their top ten artists to watch. I like watching her new video which has a cameo from Daniel V. and some dude from Weeds (I haven’t seen it so I don’t know, as well as a dude from Cloverfield) in NY’s Babeland,sex shop version of T.I.’s “Whatever You Like.” I love when artists tackle a song already a hit in it’s own right, and really do more then just cover it, they own it, they interpret it, making it their own.

In case you missed the hyperlink for it, check it out by clicking on this sentence!!! or just watch the entertaining live version:

I have to include my fave new popstar this year, Pixie Lott. She is absolutely fun, talented, and she reminds me of my friend Sami Fitz, especially when she wears sparkling shorts!

Of course, nothing can beat the timing for this classic:

There are dozens of examples, some that I’ve already mentioned by Pearl Jam covering Hunters & Collectors, Coldplay covering A-ha, Robbie Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow, George Michael did an entire ‘Cover To Cover’ tour……yes, this could take all day. Tell me your favorite cover songs.

Love, kisses & pop glitter!