itsjuststephanie: "guys, the lyrics could be ‘Split Level Ranch House and Supercomputer’, it’s meaningless. that’s the point. Y’all are insane."
girlboymusic: NO IT IS A COMMENTARY ON TODAY'S SOCIETY.
girlboymusic: OBVS.
girlboymusic: BTW, let's write "Split Level Ranch House and Supercomputer.
girlboymusic: Indie girl pop twee shoegaze style.
itsjuststephanie: i was going to suggest that!!
girlboymusic: Put it out, wear adorbs outfits, get famous on the Internet.
itsjuststephanie: i was like, "i kind of want this song now."
itsjuststephanie: it can be commentary on suburban life.
girlboymusic: It will involve us harmonizing softly and ever-so-slightly off-key over a simple Garage Band and/or metronome beat, plus unskilled guitar strumming and twinkly windchime noises.
girlboymusic: Or bird calls?
girlboymusic: Our experiment with cooperative cello-playing should go in the middle somewhere.
itsjuststephanie: YES. THE CELLO IS AMAZING.
itsjuststephanie: maybe bird calls, with some of phinneas' whining scattered in, and then a train whistle.
girlboymusic: And yes, totally a commentary on suburban life! Like, nostalgia for sitting in your split-level ranch house and watching '80s young-adult sci-fi movies like 'War Games' and 'ET.'
itsjuststephanie: also watching my little pony.
girlboymusic: Let me re-cut my bangs and put on my ribbed maroon tights, and we'll do this.
girlboymusic: No, it needs to be about '80s scifi. That's why it's "Split-Level Ranch House and SUPERCOMPUTER."
itsjuststephanie: i need large bows to go in my hair.
itsjuststephanie: OOOOH.
itsjuststephanie: 2001 a space odyseey!
itsjuststephanie: we need to mention hal.
girlboymusic: And some beat-up canvas sneakers.
girlboymusic: NO. IT MUST BE CHILDREN'S MOVIES.
itsjuststephanie: no, those great high tops!
itsjuststephanie: LA GEAR.
girlboymusic: DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND BEING SUCCESSFUL AS AN INDIE GIRL?
girlboymusic: Ugh, you are totally all off in another genre.

John McCutcheon - "Mail Myself to You"
Supertramp - "Give a Little Bit"
Beach Boys - "God Only Knows"
Peter Himmelman - "Always in Disguise"
Francis Dunnery - "Good Life"
Grant-Lee Phillips - "We All Get a Taste"
Beyonce - "That's Why You're Beautiful"
MGMT - "Time to Pretend"
Elliott Smith - "Fond Farewell" (!?)
Cyndi Lauper - "Feels Like Christmas"
Craig Armstrong - "PM's Love Theme"
Howie Day - "Collide"
Elvis Presley - "Such a Night"
The Flaming Lips - "Do You Realize??"
Glen Phillips - "Duck and Cover"
Jeff Buckley - "New Year's Prayer"
Annie Lennox - "Shining Light"
Cake - "Love You Madly"
Elvis Costello - "Beautiful"
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - "Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World"
Johnny Mathis - "Wonderful! Wonderful!"
Mindy Smith - "Come to Jesus"
Paul Simon - "Kodachrome"
X-Ray Dog - "Timeline," "Mystic Knights," "Magical Mystery"

Thinking of adding Rihanna's "The Last Song" or "Fire Bomb" this year, which I'm sure will garner just as big a "!?" as Elliott Smith when I open the list back up again next year.

nalismo: girl i had the worst flu of my life
girlboymusic: Grosss.
nalismo: i was in the bathroom
nalismo: and like, just when you think you're all self-sufficient and city-suave
nalismo: you end up staring at your snotty, barf-ridden face, crying for your fucking mother
( Seriously, it's all downhill from here. )

Over on chainofknives, Paul Cox posted the "Love is a Stranger" video with the following commentary:

Occasionally, we must all find time in our day to reflect on just how ridiculously awesome Annie Lennox once was. This video, which is now 26 years old, still looks like it could’ve been made yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I love Lady Gaga… but I bet Annie Lennox has forgotten more about pop music and the art of music video than Stefani Germanotta will ever learn.

Uh, how about we find some time to reflect on how ridiculously awesome Annie Lennox still is? I mean, yes, the painfully earnest and vaguely hypocritical activism, and the cringeingly misguided charity single, and whatever the hell she's been wearing lately, and the wool has been pulled off of all of our eyes and we see what a bad dancer she is now, and the utter lameness of her recent videos. Yes. All of that. Yes.

( But. )

Being as cool as she used to be is a losing battle. Even if she managed to make another "Love is a Stranger," right now, right this minute, we would still be talking about how cool she used to be. Because part of the problem here is the same problem I had with people who were horrified, just horrified at Britney's 2007 VMA performance: nothing she is doing now is demonstrably different from what she did as a younger woman. (As a younger woman, more importantly, who adhered more closely to the standards of beauty set forth by fashion magazines and gossip blogs.) The activism, the charity singles, the awkward performances, the stupid clothes, the overly symbolic videos: she did them in her twenties before she did them in her fifties. But in her twenties she was exciting, she was setting the trends, she was so awesome that almost thirty years later we're digging out her old work and using it to tell today's pop stars they could learn and thing or two about art. In her fifties, not so much. Shocker! Gorgeous young girls are given the benefit of the doubt, by all of us, in a way that middle-aged women are not! The emperor was never wearing any clothes! Who knew! (Related: It was really interesting to hear her A&R guy basically admit that the label gave her zero push to radio on her last two albums, because they didn't believe any station would play a woman her age, right in front of her and to a room full of people who had paid money to see her.)

Being as cool as she is, on the other hand? It's possible, and it's interesting. It's interesting because it's not something you get to hear often -- crushes and daydreams and it's-exciting-to-have-sex are teenpop territory, but here's a fifty-something woman claiming it for herself. It's interesting because she did it, unlike Liz Phair, without actually adopting a teenpop sound. It's interesting because does it make a difference, her age and her sound? The feelings are the same, but her feelings about the feelings aren't -- the way she thinks about crushes is not the way, say, Demi Lovato and Ashlee Simpson think about crushes -- and what is it about the lyrics, what is it about the production that makes that clear? It's exciting because she's doing something new, and she's doing it well, and you can engage with it, with how human she sounds, how vulnerable, how disappointed, how confident, how amused.

But we're digging out her old work. Almost thirty years later. Fabulous.

This all goes back to that tantrum I had a while ago about how all of our conversations are about what's new -- what was just released, what we just found, what momentarily amused and distracted us before, like magpies, we darted off to find the next shiny thing. We privilege what's new now, we privilege what was new then. We privilege young. We don't talk about the progression from album to album, what they kept and what they shed. We don't talk about how this album gave us a better understanding of the last, how it surprised us or didn't surprise us, how every new release makes it easier to distill an artist down to their essence -- throw every Eurythmics album in a flask and heat them till they boil, and what rises into vapor is hope, and how impossible it is to hold on to. We make that not the domain of critics, but the domain of fans. Why? Why?

I'm going to start a Tumblr called "Albums That Came Out That Were Super Interesting, But Nobody Talked About Them Because They Were By Old People." It's going to be about albums that came out that were super interesting, but nobody talked about them because they were by old people. Who wants in?

Okay, so this is a commercial for Fulla, which is basically a Muslim version of Barbie. I was kind of into its wholesome depiction of young womanhood, but about halfway through I just...I mean, she's a lesbian, right? That's what's going on here?

Songs which did not make my Jukebox Top 20, in no particular order:
Demi Lovato - Here We Go Again
Fefe Dobson - I Want You
Cobra Starship ft. Leighton Meester - Good Girls Go Bad
Pet Shop Boys - Did You See Me Coming?
Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA
Cassie ft. Diddy - Must Be Love
Jordin Sparks - Battlefield
Nina Sky - On Some Bullshit
Lady Gaga - Paparazzi
Allison Iraheta - Friday I'll Be Over You
Rihanna - Wait Your Turn
Kelly Clarkson - Already Gone
Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind
Kristinia DeBarge - Goodbye
Kelly Clarkson - Already Gone

Songs which did make my Jukebox Top 20, in particular order:
1. Maia Hirasawa - South Again
2. Florence and the Machine - Drumming Song
3. Mr Hudson ft. Kanye West - Supernova
4. Jay-Z - Death of Autotune
5. Lily Allen - 22
6. VV Brown - Shark In The Water
7. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
8. k-os - 4 3 2 1
9. Pixie Lott - Mama Do
10. Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling
11. Kelly Clarkson - I Do Not Hook Up
12. Demi Lovato - Don't Forget
13. Rihanna - Russian Roulette
14. Britney Spears - If U Seek Amy
15. Muse - Uprising
16. The Lonely Island ft. T-Pain - I'm On A Boat
17. Milow - Ayo Technology
18. Robbie Williams - Bodies
19. Das Racist - Combination Pizza Hut Taco Bell (Wallpaper Remix)
20. Kanye West ft. Mr Hudson - Paranoid

I was just sitting smack in front of this.

You know, no big deal.

Sometimes my fascination with fast/junk food culture and my fascination with the "two countries separated by a common language" concept combine, and as I'm eating something, I think, "I wonder if they have this in the UK." (In case you're wondering: Kentucky Fried Chicken, yes. Cheerios, yes. Cheez Whiz, no. Wendy's, no. Universal health care, yes.)

So, this morning I was pouring myself a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats, and I thought, "I wonder if they have Frosted Mini Wheats in the UK." (The answer is yes, apparently, although they're called Frosted Wheats, but this is according to Wikipedia, so feel free to correct me, Lex & tellitslant & others. Also, is anyone else bothered by the fact that Frosted Mini Wheats now come in a "Big Bites" variety? You can't have a big version of Frosted Mini Wheats! A big version of Frosted Mini Wheats is just a frosted Shredded Wheat! Don't think we don't remember that Mini Wheats were a smaller spin-off of the original Shredded Wheat, Kellogg's! WE DO. THAT IS A FROSTED SHREDDED WHEAT. YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYBODY.)

Anyway, I typed "uk cereals" into my browser, and was taken to the Nestle / UK Cereal Partners website, where I discovered a product called Shreddies. I'll let the good people of Nestle describe Shreddies for you:

Every delicious Shreddies square is lovingly knitted by nanas. The special recipe of 4 layers of whole grain gives the perfect taste everyone loves. Shreddies need a nana's touch! For more of our nanas' secrets check out the website at www.knittedbynanas.com.

Further investigation reveals that not only is there a UK ad campaign wherein Shreddies are shown to, indeed, be knitted by adorable and friendly grandmas, but the Canadian version did a campaign advertising "New Diamond Shreddies," which were just normal square shreddies turned to the side.

WHY DOES AMERICA SUCK SO MUCH?

No, not the boy with the black, soulless eyes. The girl he's in love with:

nalismo: my boyfriend has planned this night for us
nalismo: where he's like
nalismo: "i want us to be completely unplugged and do nothing but listen to this new album, eat dinner i bring home, and give each other massages"
girlboymusic: LOL
girlboymusic: Massages.
nalismo: i know right
nalismo: i was like, "why?"
nalismo: i think he wants one
girlboymusic: This is like a tabloid article about Mariah Carey's love life.
nalismo: and is just making it a couple thing
nalismo: ROFL
girlboymusic: LOL
nalismo: DIVINE MISS M
girlboymusic: You're gonna get a 2-second massage, and then he's gonna be like, "My turn!"
girlboymusic: DIVINE MISS M IS BETTE MIDLER, YOU HEATHEN.

Should I do Yuletide? I'm already doing NaNo, and I haven't written for Jukebox in like a full month.

I woke up to find the following in my inbox:

Subject: MFJ Enterprises Inc.
From: Dad
Date: Saturday, October 24, 2009 8:35 am
To: Mom, girlboymusic

Is it me, or is the beard photoshopped?



Dad

And that was how I introduced my parents to "this looks shopped".

Food for thought: "Kicking and Screaming" appeared as a bonus track on Ashlee Simpson's I Am Me, and was then covered by Miley Cyrus for the Walmart-exclusive The Time of Our Lives. Both BMI and ASCAP credit "Kicking and Screaming" to John Shanks, Kara DioGuardi, and Ashlee Simpson. The Time of Our Lives, meanwhile, credits "Kicking and Screaming" to John Shanks, Kara DioGuardi, and nobody else.

nalismo: he was just riffin lyrics
nalismo: for no reason other than he “didn’t want to stoop to learning the real ones”
girlboymusic: THERE ARE NO REAL ONES
girlboymusic: Have you heard her new song?
nalismo: bad romance?
girlboymusic: YES.
girlboymusic: THE LYRICS TO IT
girlboymusic: IN THE BEGINNING
girlboymusic: Ra ra ra a a a ro ma ro ma ma ga ga ooh la la
nalismo: it's amazing
nalismo: it is AMAZING
girlboymusic: LY BAD
nalismo: ASS
girlboymusic: Of course I DL'd it last night, immediately after hearing it for the first time.
nalismo: :)
nalismo: the last minute and a half of the song is the best
nalismo: vocally at least
girlboymusic: I actually agree.
nalismo: that's what pisses me off. all that glitchy electronic-y shit ruins her, catchy as it is. it does her voice no justice. she's got a fantastic voice.
girlboymusic: I was reading something about how The Fame was about the hunt for glitz and glamour and all that, whereas The Fame Monster is about personal demons...and I think more personal shit serves her well.
nalismo: yep.
girlboymusic: Because her voice is good.
girlboymusic: But her image is such fucking bullshit. She needs to chill with the talk about how she's creating great unprecedented art.
nalismo: but see
nalismo: that's the thing
nalismo: whether she's right or wrong doesn't really matter
nalismo: because she's like, a character
nalismo: but she's never "off"
nalismo: like, marilyn manson is all leather thongs beautiful people shit
nalismo: but then you'll see him at smoothie king
girlboymusic: I wish she would turn off.
girlboymusic: You know the one time I genuinely liked her?
girlboymusic: When she was on SNL and sang that little song about how she still just wants to go eat cheap hot dogs with her friends.
nalismo: i admire how freaking weird she is. lol
nalismo: but i agree that she's better when she's simpler
girlboymusic: I mean, I do admire that, and I admire the thought and planning it takes to come up with her costumes and good pop music and all that.
girlboymusic: I think she's smart.
girlboymusic: The thing that pisses me off is that she's all, "Yeah, I'm proving that pop music can be art," except she does it by like...trying to justify it, which actually accomplishes the opposite.
girlboymusic: If pop music is art, just let it be art. Don't give me this shit about how it's a gift from God and you started the Haus of GaGa and it isn't important unless it's inspiring a movement, so your VMA performance is going to be so stunning and brilliant that it will inspire a movement and the world will never be the same.
girlboymusic: Yeah, the VMA performance inspired a movement.
girlboymusic: It inspired me to move my hand and rub my eye when I saw that fake blood all up in her contacts.
nalismo: oh i know, ouch
girlboymusic: I mean, I would fucking LOVE her if she just went out there and was like, "Look, this is art. I put a lot of thought into it, it took a lot of skill to create it, it makes you feel something and it says something, and I don't need to justify it to you just because it isn't what YOU think art should sound like or talk about."
girlboymusic: LOVE HER
nalismo: i know, i wish i had the willpower to resist
girlboymusic: But as it stands, I just listen to her music and feel really guilty for fucking loving it.
nalismo: hahahahahhaha
nalismo: YEAAAAAAAAAH
nalismo: WELCOME TO MY WORLD
girlboymusic: I FEEL DIRTY
girlboymusic: I NEED A BATH.
girlboymusic: THERE'S NOT ENOUGH SOAP IN THE WORLD TO MAKE ME FEEL OKAY ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS SONG.
girlboymusic: Every so often I wonder if this is how people felt about Eurythmics when they first came out.
girlboymusic: If so, I want to like, retroactively personally apologize to each and every one of them.

This morning's path through Wikipedia: La Roux > Yazoo (band) > Sirius Satellite Radio > Outlaw country > I'm Jessi Colter > Jessi Colter > Stevie Nicks > "Crash into Me" > 2001 Clear Channel memorandum > "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" > "Sideshow Bob Roberts" > Bob Roberts > Brian Murray > Brian Murray (disambiguation) > Brian Doyle-Murray > Weekend Update > Jane Curtin > Kate & Allie > Ari Myers.

Points for figuring out -- without going to Wikipedia -- how I got from one article to the next.

There were also detours to "The End of The World," 50,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong, and Nudie Cohn, among others, that my browser history doesn't reflect. Bonus points for figuring out which articles directed me to them, and how.

I bit the bullet and joined a love meme. Go tell me how much you love me.

In honor of Fake Thanksgiving, furies and I have compiled a list of things that make us thankful Canada exists:

1. Geese.
2. Robin Scherbatsky.
3. Being between us and Sarah Palin.
4. Allowing girlboymusic to coast through her social life sophomore year of college on a bit that basically consisted of doing a Canadian accent and saying the words "hockey" and "brew" a lot.
5. The word "mounties."
6. The first four seasons of The X-Files.
7. Most of the cast of Battlestar Galactica.
8. The MuchMusic Tree Toss.
9. Cities that look vaguely like New York in the movies.
10. Barenaked Ladies.
11. Victor Garber.
12. This video:


Happy Fake Thanksgiving, Canada!

Miley Cyrus - “Good-bye Twitter”

Girl’s got a point. I recently spent six hours on a plane, and I can’t tell you how many times I reached for my phone, wanting to tweet some random thought — and every time I realized I couldn’t, I would feel this frozen instant of existential crisis. It was like, if I can’t post this thought to the Internet, then why am I having it at all? If this moment is going to be lost, if once it passes I will be the only one who remembers it, then does it even exist? What did I do, what were my experiences like, when Twitter didn’t exist and I had to have them alone? I am not even kidding. I actually thought these things.

By the end of that flight, I was pretty sure I needed to cut back on my twittering.

Not gonna lie, every time I get dressed, I think about this.