An impressive instant - ten years on

Ten years ago tonight, at the time I'm writing this very blog post, I had my first audience with The Queen, otherwise known as her Madgesty, Madonna. August 29th, 2001 was the night I attended the Drowned World Tour at the United Center in Chicago. I went with my good friend and accomplice in all things Madonna related, Jeff. Heidi went along too, but she didn't go to the concert. At the time, she was almost 7 months pregnant and, on the advice of our doctor, she sat the concert out.

I remember it like it was yesterday. We started calling in to Ticketmaster (who the hell does that anymore?) about 30 minutes prior to the on sale time. You hoped and prayed that you remained on hold until after the tickets went on sale, but not too long so that you didn't miss your shot at good seats. Heidi was on our cell phone, I was on our landline, and Jeff, living in Williamsburg at the time was on his phone. We all were trying to get tickets and the instant that someone got through, the others were to stop trying. The fact that I was the one that ultimately got through to Ticketmaster (after having connected 5 freaking minutes before the on sale time...back to the queue for me) was fortunate because I'm not sure how Jeff, who lived alone at the time, would have been able to call us and stay on the phone with Ticketmaster. In any event, I got through and amazingly, I got tickets.

We got seats in section 332. I don't remember the row number, but here's a map of the arena, which I amazingly and not surprisingly still have saved on my computer. Here it is.

Check out the prices of those seats! I remember blanching at the thought of spending $85 for a concert ticket and could not even fathom spending $250 even if I could have gotten one of those rock-star floor seats. Clearly, I didn't remember that 5 years later when I spent $265 for my Confessions Tour ticket in Las Vegas.

I took a couple days off work and we drove to Chicago. Since Heidi wasn't going to the concert, she got to pick the hotel. She chose the downtown Marriott. It ended up being okay because it was a pretty quick cab ride from there to the United Center. I had been regaled with stories of what a terrible part of town the United Center is in (it is kind of a scary part of town, as I was reminded in 2009 when we saw Sticky & Sweet there) The show had been broadcast on HBO the a couple of nights before and Jeff had taped it but not watched it. I was on total tour blackout - I knew next to nothing about it, not even the opening number. It was fairly easy in those days to avoid tour spoilers. Nowadays, I've totally given up and do just about everything but watch crappy fan shot video of tour and download audience recordings before seeing the show myself. Anyway, Jeff had brought the VHS tape of the tour with him and the idea was that Heidi would watch the show while we were at it. Only problem was the room didn't have a VCR. We walked all over downtown Chicago trying to rent a VCR, only to end up in a slightly frightening part of town, at which point we gave up. I don't think Heidi cared enough for us to have gone to all that effort, but she was a good sport, especially as she walked around downtown Chicago on a hot late summer day, pregnant and uncomfortable.

We hit Pizzeria Uno prior to the concert. I found these pictures which really blew my mind when I saw them. We were babies!!

Me, squinting into the sun or something with apparently rimless glasses.

Heidi is the only one drinking pop.

Jeff doing what he does best - being Jeff.

Heidi rode with us in the cab down to the show and dropped us off, then headed back to the hotel. We found our seats and, as I'm so fond of saying when I tell this story, there was nothing above us but ceiling. Seriously, we were as far away as you can get from the stage without being behind it. No matter though, we were in the arena!! We sat next to a nice couple from Chicago that were not real huge Madonna fans but the fact that she hadn't toured in so long drew them both in. They hadn't purchased the last couple albums but knew enough that they thought they'd enjoy it.

I bet they left wishing they'd have purchased those albums. The Drowned World Tour was many things. A hit parade it was not. There were only two bona-fide 80s hits performed on that tour - "Holiday" and "La Isla Bonita." The rest were primarily tracks from Ray of Light and Music. And many MANY album tracks at that. This was not a show for the casual fan, at least from a song selection standpoint. Sure we got some great recent hits - notably "Frozen," "Ray of Light," and, to my great delight, "Secret." But we also got the self-indulgent Madonna track "Mer Girl" not once but twice and the autotune mess of "Nobody's Perfect." She was also a bit cold with the audience, as if she was annoyed to be performing. None of that bothered us at the time because we were finally at a Madonna concert!

The crowd really came to live when the familiar keyboards of "Holiday" started. It's still my favorite performance of this old warhorse of a song. I love Donna's introduction - "you know they try to imitate her but they just can't duplicate her!" And the "I say pimp! You say ho! Pimp! Ho! Pimp! Ho!"



In the end, it was a good thing that Heidi didn't come with us. When we left the show, there wasn't a taxi to be found so we really had no way back to the hotel. So no problem, we called her at the hotel and she came down to the United Center in a cab to pick us up. This is notable because the cabbie, upon hearing that her husband was at a Madonna concert with his male friend, was apparently convinced that I had to work through my unacknowledged homosexuality, since obviously that's the only reason I would go to a Madonna concert with another guy. Whatever. We all got a good laugh out of it and it was just another in a long list of hilarious things that have happened on trips to see Madonna. That said, the gay guy contingent at every Madonna concert is, as you might expect, very heavy but not nearly as heavy as at the Kylie show. That show took the gay cake.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention our little trip to the Museum of Science & Industry the next day, where we re-enacted scenes from Superman II.

Heidi as Ursa and Jeff as the hapless astronaut. "I tore it like paper!"

Me doing my best General Zod.

We've seen Madonna three other times since - The Re-Invention Tour which found us jetting to Washington D.C., The Confessions Tour for which we traveled to Las Vegas and back in less than 24 hours (never again.) For the Sticky & Sweet Tour, we were back at the United Center in much better seats. We waved at the people in our Drowned World seats which were probably twice the price by the time Sticky & Sweet rolled around. And you can bet I'll be there with bells on again. Her live shows are never disappointing. Like pizza and sex, even when they're not so great, they're still better than most things.

And to the 10 years that have passed, why in the hell have you gone so damn quickly?

Happy 53rd, Madgedonna!

Today is Madonna's 53rd birthday. There's something surreal about saying that. It doesn't seem possible that she should be nearly mid-way through her fifties. Alas, she has been entertaining (and periodically aggravating) me for 26 years now so I guess it is possible.

I'm fond of saying that my Madonna fandom has worked its way into my DNA. No matter what she does, I will always be a fan until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil. I also don't have anything particularly profound to say about Madonna this morning as my blog is littered with many many posts about her, her music and her career in general. Everyone, it seems, knows what Madonna should do next and in the age of the internet, that kind of armchair analysis has finally been given a voice.

I honestly don't want to think about the person I would be today without the effect that following her career and being a fan has had on me. I still shock people a little bit when they find out I am such a die hard Madonna fan. It honestly doesn't fit in well with my Midwestern sensibility. But then what Madonna has done with herself definitely involved, if not breaking, at least re-inventing the Midwestern sensibility mold. I may not always love what she's doing, but I will always be a fan and I'll always feel like the 14 year old giddily holding the True Blue album in my hand at Sernett's department store every time she has a new release.

Happy Birthday Madgedonna. May you always create the kind of pop music that I can feel in my bones.

For a more inspired post than this - go here. Fans, you will eat this up with a spoon.

Seven songs from my summer (so far)

The one good thing about having a computer crash that requires you to completely reinstall everything is that, even though you lose your iTunes play counts *sob*, you find yourself in the unique position of totally shaking up the Top 25 Most Played playlist. Some of the most interesting songs are in mine right now - the top song has a mere seven plays. So I thought, what the hell, let's do another seven songs post. They're always fun and if you aren't careful, some of you might find a present in your inbox. Here we go.

1) Carrie Newcomer / Before & After
Very much in the vein of Mary Chapin Carpenter, this is so much more a fall song than a summer song. If you listen closely, you'll even hear MC squared on harmony vocals.
Choice lyric: I've lived on fumes and religious corn flakes.



2) Madonna /Run
If the "Broken" demo didn't exist, it'd be the hands down best Madonna demo out there. A nice mix of William Orbit blips and bleeps with a very rocky guitar. Straight forward vocals by Madonna make this better than anything on Hard Candy. I read somewhere once that Madonna's voice is remarkable only in its familiarity and I feel like that's so true here.
Choice lyric: Don't ask me to slow down/I don't wanna go down/You won't catch me lookin' back/Coz people like me don't live like that.



3) Annie / Me Plus One
Probably my favorite song that spells (which is a post all its own), I've never cared much for most of Annie's other stuff, but this is perfection.
Choice lyric: Mrs. D, Mrs. I, Mrs. F-F-I, Mrs. C, Mrs. U-L-T. If ever there's a girl that could rock your world/Then that girl sure is me.



4) Blondie / Love Doesn't Frighten Me
My favorite song on Blondie's fanfuckingtastic new album (I like it 100 times more than No Exit and The Curse of Blondie combined), I still can't get over how little Debbie Harry's voice has aged.
Choice lyric: All this nothing is real something/It's time spent.



5) Duran Duran / (Reach Up For The) Sunrise
I have gone on record in several places that Astronaut is my favorite DD album - heresy in DD circles, I'm sure. But there simply isn't a bad song on that album and the first single is very indicative of the album as a whole.
Choice lyric: You can touch the sunrise/Feel the new day enter your life.



6) Erick Macek / Aries Man
I have my friend Bess to thank for introducing me to Erick Macek. He's kind of a cross between Jason Mraz and Eric Hutchinson and although that's kind of the last thing this world needs, his stuff really works for me. I downloaded this on a whim because of the astrology reference. Now if someone would just do a song called "Gemini Man."
Choice lyric: You gotta learn to be patient/And feel the pride/Cuz I'm an Aries Man inside.

7) Chesney Hawkes / The One & Only
Total soft spot for this song. It feels like an 80s song even though technically it's 90s. We never heard from Chesney Hawkes again, but this was enough for me. I always love a song that makes you feel good and this one does it for me. I remember listening to it during my darkest moments trying desperately to make myself believe it. And what do you know? It finally worked.
Choice lyric: No one can be myself like I can/For this job, I'm the best man.

Madonna...at her most underrated

I have been a VERY bad blogger this summer. Too much to do, no time to do it in. However, hopefully what I'm about to offer makes up for it just a little bit.

You might remember back in March of 2010, my friend and stalwart Madonna fan Jeff and I did a podcast about what our most memorable Madonna moments were in our lives. We were clearly amateurs at it, but we had a good time and the plus side was we got to spend an hour plus talking about one of our favorite mutual interests. That podcast is still up and available so if you weren't around then and are so inclined, feel free to download it.

Last week I got a wild hair to do another podcast with Jeff. This time, I decided that the topic would be the most underrated or underappreciated Madonna songs. I split it into three categories - songs that we thought were underrated by Madonna, songs that are underrated by Madonna fans, and songs that are underrated by each other. As I say in the podcast, so much of the time, when there is substantial discussion about Madonna, it is not about her music but rather about her image and her controversy. This, I believe, does a disservice to the mammoth amount of work that she's managed to put out over the course of nearly *gulp* 30 years now.

So if you have an hour and some change to kill, I'd say definitely give us a listen. I even got all professional and added some song clips so hopefully Madonna doesn't send me a cease and desist letter (and if she does, I hope she hand signs it.) If you are a fan, you'll probably enjoy it. If you know one or (better yet) both of us, you need to download it and listen. This is what happens when you talk Madonna with someone for 25 years.

Here's the link - get to listening! I would love to hear what you think, even if it's negative. I thought about doing solo podcasts in the future, but I have no idea what I'd talk about and honestly, it's easier to play off Jeff.

Download the madness that is Jeff and me here.

The rush is neverending

It's been a long time in coming, but our date with Kylie Minogue finally arrived last Wednesday night at the Verizon Theater in Grand Prairie, TX. It's not the farthest I've traveled to see a concert - that honor goes to the Madonna's Confessions Tour in Las Vegas - but it's definitely the farthest I've ever driven to see a concert. The fact that Kylie pretty much skipped the Midwest was what caused us to resort to such measures. It was a long way to drive for a concert and the real question is - was it worth it?

In a word, YES.

For the American leg of the tour, Kylie had to tone the tour down a bit. Gone are the fountains and the flying dancers from the European dates . But even without them, the stage was amazing and the costumes as over the top as you would expect. Cher's tour may have been the Cherest show on Earth, but Heidi summed it up well when she tweeted half way through the concert, "this is seriously the gayest, most fabulous show on earth." My friend Steve who had seen the show a couple weeks prior warned me it would be the gayest night of my life and he was right.

This is the first concert I've gone to where the men so vastly outnumbered the women it wasn't even funny. There were probably 9 men there for every one woman. For probably the first time in recorded history, there was a line for the men's restroom but not the women's. And I think there were about 300 gay men there for every one straight man. But really, it stands to reason. Kylie's following among gay men is no secret and I can think of no better people with whom to see a Kylie show. The energy in the theater (which was surprisingly small - 6000-some seats) was amazing and really, the best of any live show I've ever seen. Even Madonna, but more on that later.

Kylie was fashionably late at 8:45 PM but once she started, she didn't stop once. Emerging from a clam shell at center stage like the Venus de Milo, she rolled through a solid two hours of classic hits, album cuts and pretty much all of the Aphrodite album. Only "Closer" and "Too Much" were not performed. What was most pleasant is that, despite the very obvious presence of a backing track, it was also two hours of live singing that I didn't have to apologize for the quality or cringe through the off key parts. Like Madonna, but more on that later.

But like any good artist who's been around for 20+ years, she sang a lot of crowd pleasers as well. The usual suspects like "Can't Get You Out of My Head", "Spinning Around", and "Confide In Me" got their time in the spotlight, but lesser known album cuts also showed up. One of my favorites was "In My Arms" from X, which featured a many tentacled Kylie on the projection screens behind her. Some familiar songs were reinterpreted. "Slow" became a flashy cabaret number until finally becoming the thumping club anthem it always should have been. "Love At First Sight" was mashed up with "Can't Beat The Feeling" and really, it didn't work for me. Both songs were worthy of being performed individually, the mash-up felt forced and in the end, it seemed to me like both songs got the shaft. They deserved better, especially "Love At First Sight" which is a huge crowd pleaser. Clearly, Kylie was not afraid to dig into her back catalog. Unlike Madonna, but more on that later.

Our seats were about 33 rows back, but really, there wasn't a bad seat in the house. Because of the size of the theater and the quality of our seats, I managed to get some excellent photos. The best of the best are below. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook can see the rest there.



This concert had the distinction of being Anna's first real concert - sorry, the Wiggles don't count. We brought cotton for her ears as I knew it would be loud. Truth be told, I used cotton too. I have walked out of too many concerts in my life with my ears ringing so bad that I could literally feel the hair cells dying. I'm not interested in losing any more hearing than I already have and it doesn't diminish one's enjoyment of the show one bit. Call me old, but hey, at least I'll be able to hear in 25 years. Even with cotton, the show was too loud for Anna. One of the ushers found real silicone ear plugs for her and then she was set. She danced in the aisle. She sang along. She's a lot more familiar with the Aphrodite stuff than she is with Kylie's immense back catalog, but she had a good time. I hope she remembers it and it doesn't become a blur to her. Concerts always seem like a dream to me when I'm in them. The fact that I got good pictures of the concert will help it seem more real when it inevitably feels dreamlike.

It's impossible to go to a show like this and not think of the queen of this kind of show - Madonna. No one puts on as elaborate of a show as she does. For American audiences, Kylie doesn't have near the back catalog or immediate name recognition as Madonna. And Madonna never never NEVER does a tour half-assed. I've enjoyed every Madonna show I've seen, but I couldn't help but notice the big differences between the two. The most obvious one was pointed out by my friend Robbie (aka ChartRigger) at the end of the show. There are just absolutely no diva airs about Kylie at all. She's always so "oh, I'm so glad you like it!" She interacted with the audience, taking a request which ended up being "Your Disco Needs You" which she NAILED. This is a far cry from Madonna whose shows are so intricately choreographed that there is no room for spontaneity at all. Madonna shows are in a league all their own, but sometimes the lack or spontaneity really shows, especially compared to a show like Kylie's which was just as tightly choreographed. For some reason, it was different.

The other thing that made it better than a Madonna show was Kylie's willingness to dig into her back catalog. Madonna always seems to do so a bit begrudgingly, as if someone is holding her at gunpoint. Stevie Nicks points out that when people come see you live, they don't want to hear new songs. Rather, they want to hear the stuff they know. While I don't think I'd go as far as to say that, you do have to have a liberal sprinkling of well known songs to please the non diehards that attend concerts. This applies less to Kylie as I don't know that there is such a thing as a non-diehard Kylie fan in the U.S. But with Madonna, there are many casual fans that may not know her most recent work. I will always feel bad for the casual fans that went to The Drowned World Tour in 2001 expecting a hit parade and instead, got a bunch of album tracks and two 80s hits.

And finally, it cannot be overstated that Kylie can actually sing the songs that she records. I always make a big deal about how being able to appreciate Madonna's live vocals is what separates the men from the boys as far as Madonna fans go. But let's be honest, she's had some moments that are positively cringeworthy. I usually chalk that up to nerves and the fact that her voice is mostly just passable. I also sometimes think that Madonna tries to sing things that are out of her league vocally and the studio magic can wipe away most of the blemishes. Not so in a live show. Why else would the DVDs of her concerts feature so obviously sweetened vocals?

But there's room enough for all the divas in my life. Seriously, how could I go on without them? I'm so glad that I got to see Kylie live. If the Rapture really had come the following Saturday, I would have gone into the tribulation a happy man. I've been to many concerts in my day, but hers will always stand out. It was worth the trip to Texas. When I was debating buying tickets and spending the money on the trip, my friend Matt said something along the lines of "I highly doubt you'll look back and say 'damn, I wish I hadn't gone to Kylie.'" As it turns out, he was right. And I would go again in a second.

(thanks to xolondon for the inspiration behind the title of this post)

The sun is bursting right out of a Paper Bag

Madonna covers are such a mixed bag as I've discussed before. Part of the trouble is that Madonna really OWNS her songs - especially her biggest hits - and anyone else trying to sing them usually comes off as bad celebrity karaoke. So I was equal parts intrigued and worried when I heard about the Paper Bag Records release of a True Blue covers album in celebration of their 8th anniversary and True Blue's *gulp* TWENTY FIFTH anniversary. While True Blue is no Like A Prayer or Ray of Light in terms of being beyond criticism, the 1986 album is home to some of her biggest hits of the 80s. Over half the album was released as singles, and three of the five singles hit number one. So some of the songs they were going to attempt to cover were going to be tough to do.

This is certainly not the first attempt at a Madonna covers album. There are the dreadful Virgin Voices albums and the better but still underwhelming Through The Wilderness. No one could really separate Madonna from her songs. Up until now, no one has attempted to cover a whole album a la Camper Van Beethoven's cover of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album. Much like on that album, the results of covering True Blue are mixed, but overall a worthwhile endeavor.

I listened to the whole thing today and imagine my surprise when there is really only one God-awful unlistenable track on the whole thing - that being PS I Love You's cover of "Where's The Party?" (or as it's known around our house, "Where's The Potty?") "Where's The Party?" kind of falls in between the cracks with Madonna songs - it's fairly well known, but since it was not a single, it's been largely forgotten. It really deserved to be a single and would have done well, but this version should be buried deep within the earth.

But getting 8 out of 9 tracks mostly right is pretty impressive. Many blog posts have been singling out Woodhands' version of "Papa Don't Preach" as a misfire. Apart from having the honor of being a cover of a huge Madonna hit that has arguably aged the least gracefully, I enjoyed their take on it. The more straight forward tactic taken on songs like "La Isla Bonita" and "Live To Tell" were less impressive. In my book, there are two rules to a successful cover - 1) put your own stamp on it and 2) be respectful to the original. "LIB" and "LTT" got the second part right, almost to a fault, while ignoring the first rule. Oddly enough, the cover of "Open Your Heart" which, by rights, should not work, ends up working out better than most of the tracks.

But my far and away favorite of all the songs is Born Ruffians' version of the much maligned Madonna album track "Jimmy Jimmy." Poor "Jimmy Jimmy." All it ever did was be produced in the 80s. It's Madonna fluff, to be sure. But as is the case with most of Madonna's fluff during that time period, it was pretty awesome fluff. Hear for yourself.



Well, Born Ruffians took all the 80s production out of it and I don't know how to describe it, but really you have to hear it. It's all dressed up for a new generation. Listen here - it's track #8. Although I have to say that I was ticked that they did not include the "oop shoo boop oop boop shoo la la la" part (about 3:17 in the above video) that made the original so endearing as well as ridiculous. It's like if they decided to cover Madonna's "Stay" and left out the "then we can scoop scoop scoop scoodlye bee bop." Blasphemy. Oh well, nothing's perfect.

The best part is you can download the whole shootin' match for free at Paper Bag Records web site. If this bunch of Madonna covers gets my stamp of approval, you know it must be worthy.

Now excuse me while I go shake my head in disbelief at True Blue being 25 this year.

The case against reflexive Gaga hating

The blogosphere is abuzz this morning with everyone and their pet rock weighing in on the relative worth (or lack thereof) of Lady Gaga's new single "Judas" and her recently unveiled cover for her album forthcoming album Born This Way. Maybe it's just me, but could people be any more negative?

I get where they're coming from. I, too, was once a reflexive Gaga hater. I don't know what made me dislike and resist her, but I did. I found her persona simple and her music lacking and I felt very much that she was nothing more than a Madonna rip-off - another in a long line of pretenders to the throne of her Madgesty. I think that, as a long time Madonna fan, I felt that giving in to Gaga would be akin to cheating on the icon I've followed for decades. But eventually, I gave in. I can't quite pinpoint where I started to come around to Gaga. It might have been in the San Rio store in L.A. in 2009 when I finally paid attention to "Poker Face." It might have been when Heidi used a lot of Gaga on her story soundtrack for Double Blind. Or maybe it was with "Bad Romance" and The Fame Monster - a point at which she really did "level up" a la Madonna with True Blue. Whatever it was, it happened. As my sister pointed out to me, it was only a matter of time.

Even though I know where they're coming from, I really don't understand it now and frankly, it's starting to really piss me off. Everything that Gaga does now is somehow dismissed out of hand by most people that should, by rights, be giving her the biggest chance. Instead, they seem to be steering clear of her almost out of some principle, dismissing every new song or look or piece of artwork out of hand and not giving it any sort of chance. I don't know that Gaga cares much, but I think that hating something on principle is not all that different (or misguided) than the opposite reaction - declaring a blinding love for when an artist really does turn out shit.

In many ways, this is where the Madonna comparison is most apt. The reflexive hatred of Madonna in the 80s and 90s is legendary. So little of it had to do with the music - most of it was based on perception and image. Admittedly, Madonna courted the controversy in much the same way that Gaga is. I think what bothers me the most about Gaga hatred is I feel like, in hating on Gaga, we're all turning into the worst version of our parents. You know what I'm talking about - the "would you turn that noise down?" and the "back in my day, there was REAL music." I was lucky in the fact that my folks really didn't do that too much - they're worst version of that was disliking remakes of 60s songs - but I feel like the sentiment against Gaga really seems to stem from that source a lot, especially amongst people my age. I feel like if we react like that, we're no better than the Madonna haters of yesteryear.

The thing is, good pop music is in short supply these days. I was listening to a genius playlist that I made based off of Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" and on that 50 song playlist were so many classic pop songs from the late 80s and even from the 90s. I feel like pop fell out of favor with the advent of grunge and while it had a bit of a renaissance with Britney Spears and the boy bands of the late 90s, it has never made a true and full comeback.

I was reading the Billboard Hot 100 the other day and, as has been true for nearly a decade now, every other song was "featuring" some rapper. Yes, we have Britney and Katy Perry charting in the upper echelons. But is anyone turning out pop music in its truest form like Gaga is? Is it a crime for something new to have something borrowed as well? So quickly we forget how Madonna co-opted other parts of the pop culture and brazenly made them her own. Sure, she might have been better and subtler about it than Gaga, but every time someone accuses Gaga of stealing something I just can't help but think that. With Gaga, I feel like there's a future for pure pop music. I don't feel like the future of pop music is in the hands of Britney Spears of Katy Perry. Each Britney album feels more and more forced and Katy Perry still has to prove herself to me. I'm man enough to admit that I like songs by both Spears and Perry and I'm also man enough to admit that Gaga is the one carrying the torch forward.

I'm used to the music I love being put down and hated on by most people - specifically, most men in our society. That doesn't bother me nearly as much as it used to. What does bother me is hating something on principle when, by rights, it's filling the void left by a Madonna that doesn't care about music anymore or a Whitney Houston whose voice has been trashed by drugs. Insert any other example you like, but for me, the fact remains that Gaga is making music that remains true to that which I have loved my whole life. She doesn't always succeed, but she comes closer than most.

The one point I will concede to the Gaga haters is that she is dreadfully overexposed at this point, and I do feel like she's bungling this album release a bit. But who really knows? The rules for releasing an album and singles are as clear as mud these days, so perhaps she really knows what she's doing? What she does need to do is disappear for a while, a la Madonna in 1988 and release NOTHING so that we don't gorge ourselves on Gaga and then puke it all back up.

I know this is not a popular opinion and I fully expect to be skewered for it. However, I stand by it. Gaga is imperfect and flawed. She's been controversial for controversy's sake, pushed buttons and stood up for herself and others that can't or that society has marginalized. She's also produced some amazing music. In these respects I find the comparison to Madonna to be most valid and why I feel like there's room enough for both in my life.

Perhaps Tori Amos is right when she said “She’s what I call a meteor — singers who entertain people for a while. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that… She wants to entertain people. Right now, half the world is depressed and they need to be entertained. So her timing’s perfect.” Maybe Gaga will flame out in a year, but I will guarantee you that when I'm in the nursing home, they'll be asking me to turn her music down.

Butts, farts and bad days: a report from the front lines of parenting

I've had some interesting discussions with my daughter over the last few days. Well, discussions might be the wrong word. Judge for yourself.

1) I have recently taught Anna about the hilarity that ensues by replacing the last word of any song title with the word "ass." (except in her case, I chose the more kid-friendly "butt") She, of course, finds it boundlessly funny. One of her favorites is a song from Kate Bush's Aerial album "The Architect's Dream" which becomes, naturally, "The Architect's Butt." She's probably the only 9 year-old that knows ANY Kate Bush song. Anyway, on the way to her piano lesson the other night, she was applying 9 year-old logic to the game - that is, changing the last word of EVERY song to "butt" whether it made sense or not. I was about to bring this up when she said to me "Dad, everything is just a little bit funnier when you add the word 'butt.' It doesn't even have to make sense!" Now, who am I to argue with that?

2) On that same trip to her piano lesson, we carried on a long Cullinan tradition of changing the words of songs and making them about something gross, funny or both. Our victim this time was Madonna's "Sorry" from Confessions on a Dance Floor. The chorus of the song went from "I don't wanna hear/I don't wanna know/Please don't say you're sorry." to "I don't wanna smell/Your stinky farts/You'd better say you're sorry." It's not Shakespeare, but we sure laughed our asses butts off.



3) On a more serious note, Anna and I have a saying between the two of us that goes something like "don't let one bad thing ruin your whole day." We certainly didn't come up with it, but since we both deal with varying degrees of anxiety, it's a helpful thing to remember when the turkeys try to get you down. On the way to school this morning, she said "Dad, remember that 'don't let one bad thing ruin your whole day' thing we say? Well, I think I figured out what it means. It means that there's going to be bad things every day and you shouldn't let them ruin your life." Indeed. Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.

I swear I won the kid lottery.

Revisionist Ray

I was looking at Slant Magazine's 100 Best Singles of the 90s with quite a bit of interest today. The biggest reason for this is I've been on a huge 90s kick recently, which culminated the other day in the purchase of Deee-lite's World Clique album. Famous for the infectious (and #11 on Slant's list) single "Groove Is In The Heart," I'm happy to report that the rest of the album is just as good. It'll sit along side the La Bouche, Corona, and Real McCoy in my iTunes library quite nicely. The whole list is a fascinating read and while I more appreciate the #1 song than enjoy it, I certainly can't argue with its right to be at the pole position for the decade.

There are - count 'em - FIVE Madonna songs on this list, more than any other artist on the list. I found this really odd because, for all of her longevity, I tend to think of Madonna as an 80s artist. The Immaculate Collection, released in 1990, contains some of her best known hits and some of the best known hits of the 80s - period. I tend to think of her 90s work as more mature but less popular and certainly less well-remembered as the songs from her glory days of the 80s. A lot of this was self-inflicted as the Sex/Erotica/Body of Evidence backlash really hit her hard at the beginning of the decade and she never really recovered from it until Evita and Ray of Light. The five songs listed on Slant's list are as follows:

#42 - Secret (1994)
#36 - Deeper & Deeper (1992)
#34 - Erotica (1992)
#16 - Ray of Light (1998)
#10 - Vogue (1990)

Looking at that list, it's hard to deny "Vogue" the #10 spot and the highest ranking of any of Madonna's 90s singles. It's practically an 80s single anyway and there's no denying the lasting impact its had on pop culture. You need look no further than Glee's shot-by-shot reenactment of the "Vogue" video to see this. I was a senior in high school when "Vogue" came out and I was **this close** to getting our class motto changed to "Strike a pose!" (we ended up with "today we follow, tomorrow we lead." BORING.) I also loved this line from the "Vogue" entry in the Slant article: If disco died a decade earlier, what the fuck was this big, gay, fuschia drag-queen boa of a dance song sitting on top of the charts for a month for? Because it was 1990 and Madonna was at the top of her game, that's why!

I also think that "Deeper & Deeper," "Erotica," and "Secret" are all deserving of their spots, but my big gripe is that "Ray of Light" outranks all of them, and true classics like "Frozen," "Rain," and "Human Nature" are omitted completely. While I have no quarrel with the Ray of Light album aside from the fact that sometimes it took itself a little too seriously and was a little too earnest in spots, was "Ray of Light" the song really that popular? As I recall, the record company had to work especially hard to get this song to chart as high as it did. The first week that it was on the Billboard chart, it debuted at #5 and went no higher. It is lauded as "Madonna's highest Hot 100 debut" but the late 90s were a time during which #1 debuts were more the rule than the exception. It was also the time in which singles were deeply discounted as record companies blew their wad all in the first week of chart eligibility to guarantee a huge splash on the Billboard Hot 100. If I recall correctly, "Ray of Light" was the first of Madonna's singles to receive this kind of record company PR push. The week it debuted at #5, I distinctly remember thinking to myself "there's no way this song is the #5 song in the country right now." Pretty sure its radio airplay was abysmal (Chart people, feel free to back me up or refute me on this.) So if this is the case, why is this song so fondly remembered when "Frozen" doesn't even get a nod?

For what its worth, much like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Ray of Light" is a song that I more appreciate than actually enjoy. It's always been a little too spastic for my taste and for all the awards that the video won, I find it to be one of her least inspired of the decade, certainly from that album. I think its elevation in the Madonna canon may be in part due to efforts of Madonna herself. She can't seem to resist an opportunity to haul it out on tour, probably because it serves as one of the "okay breathe now" songs during which she plants her feet and plays the guitar for 5 minutes. It was great to hear on the Drowned World Tour, a surprising choice on the Confessions Tour but an appallingly boring choice for Sticky & Sweet, especially since it was basically a retread of the Confessions Tour performance. It was also performed at both Live 8 and Live Earth. The one live performance of "Ray of Light" that I really love is the one from The Oprah Winfrey Show. Although clearly singing with a backing track, has she ever sounded better? (not to mention that she looked fantastic.)



Watching that performance and listening to her belt it out make me want to reconsider my harsh position of "Ray of Light" but no. I only need rewatch the Sticky & Sweet performance of it and I'm reminded all over again.

But really, for my money, this is probably my favorite version of "Ray of Light." When Anna was in preschool, we watched this over and over and over again. I thought of it again as I was getting ready to write this post. "The Wheels on the Bus" vs. "Ray of Light."



So Madonna fans, casual and not-so-much and especially those that really don't follow her career - I'm curious. Am I alone in my assessment or is "Ray of Light" really not all that?

Best of 2010: Songs of the Year

I'll admit that I kind of didn't want to do this post this year. Reasons for that stemmed almost exclusively out of laziness (it takes forever to write these), but then I decided my year-end best of CD which I give out every Christmas was too fucking good not to share. The first round of CDs go out to close friends this weekend so I figured that now would be as good a time as any to reveal the contents. Many of these songs came from the summer which was a fantastic summer for music. This list is 17 songs long, I'll keep my comments as brief as I can. The final CD will have one more song - the retro song of the year - but that post is proving harder to write than I anticipated and will probably see the light of day next week sometime. So without further delay, here we go. (Sorry pop children, no Robyn. I just can't do it.)



1) Get Outta My Way / Kylie Minogue
Usually, these lists are in no particular order, but the #1 song on this list is the #1 song of the year for me. No other song even came close to defining 2010 like Kylie's "Get Outta My Way" did. I was obsessed with this song in the late summer and I still play it like it came out yesterday. It fit Kylie like a glove and I predict it will be a Kylie classic despite its poor chart performance even overseas. The lyrics were empowering and kiss-offish in just the right way. It also had a video that I dissected in a late summer post that reduced me to a screaming fangirl in a way that only Kylie can. Not since 2007 when Debbie Harry's "Two Times Blue" dominated my listening has a song come so close to wrapping up the whole year in 3 and a half minutes. "Get Outta My Way" did just that and for that reason, it is 2010's Song of the Year.

2) King of Anything / Sara Bareilles
I wasn't sold on Sara Bareilles' first album, although I did like "Love Song." I picked up her second album Kaleidoscope Heart on Amazon MP3 for $1.99 on the strength of "King of Anything." If there's anything I like, it's a defiant kiss-off song, and "King of Anything" delivers that in spades. Intelligent lyrics and a piano driven melody don't hurt it either.

3) Telephone / Lady Gaga & Beyonce
Is Lady Gaga backlash about to start now that I've finally given in to her charms? My daughter and I adore this song - we sing along to it in the car all the time and she knows the lyrics better than I do. It does what every fantastic pop song should do - burrow into your brain and never leave. Easily the best phone song since "Hung Up."

4) Shame / Robbie Williams & Gary Barlow
It's kind of fashionable to hate on this song, but I really really like it. I think it's the fact that it's a duet between two men which I feel is something of a rarity. The song is not going to cure cancer but it's catchy and cute and sometimes, with pop music, that's all you really want. I also enjoyed the Brokeback Mountain-ish video. Those two guys (who are, for the record, both straight) really just need to get a room.

5) Jona Vark / Gypsy & the Cat
My friend Steve is the only reason I know about Gypsy & the Cat. He thought I might like "Jona Vark" since it was "very Fleetwood Mac-ish." He was right and I've played the hell out of it in the last quarter of the year. G&tC have an album out that is only available in Australia and I think I'm going to have to figure out how to procure a copy. Cool electronic music that doesn't leave your head hurting when you listen to it.

6) Rocket / Goldfrapp
What if Goldfrapp had recorded the soundtrack to Xanadu? I think that with their album Head First which was one of 2010's first perfect pop records, you get at least an idea of what it would have been like. I heard "Rocket" very early on in 2010 and it has stuck with me all year.

7) Oh No!/ Marina & The Diamonds
Another song that Anna has really taken a liking to, Marina Diamindis is one of my favorite new artists of 2010. This isn't surprising as she has a big female voice most people are used to me loving pretty much instantly and she is classically beautiful as well (check out the "Shampain" video if you doubt me - or better the "Hollywood" video.)

8) Hormones / Tracey Thorn
"Hormones" is the most bittersweet song on this list (quite a feat considering Mary Chapin Carpenter is represented here as well.) A mother's ode to her daughter whose hormones are "just kicking in" while hers are "just checking out," the bittersweet is surrounded by a great melody and other lyrics that can cause dads to see the women in their lives with respect. As the dad to a daughter who is "only half grown up," it sure resonates with me.

9) Wonderful Life / Hurts
Hurts is so hard to figure out. I like their odd Pet Shop Boys meets Johnny Hates Jazz sound, but a little bit of them goes a long way. Their song "Better Than Love" made my summer list, but when it came right down to it, it was the more melancholy "Wonderful Life" that's had more staying power. It is kind of a cousin to Black's "Wonderful Life" in that you almost believe that it really is a wonderful life.

10) The Way I Feel / Mary Chapin Carpenter
So many good songs on The Age of Miracles, so little space. "The Way I Feel" is perhaps the most authentically Chapin song on the album in that it highlights her uncanny ability to marry her smarts and way with a lyric with a country-pop hook. This is a perfect driving song and whenever I listen to it in my truck, I just want to hit the road and drive for the horizon.

11) Broken / Madonna
There were enough Madonna leaks this year that it was almost as if we got a brand new album. Most of the leaks were of dubious quality and many were cast-offs from American Life (read: not very danceable) but "Broken" was a notable exception to this. Recorded during the Celebration sessions, this song is classic latter-day Madonna. Her voice is low and commanding and the chorus is as memorable as anything she's done in a long time. Miles better than just about anything on Hard Candy, I'm glad this saw the light of day.

12) History / Groove Armada (featuring Will Young)
Bubbling over with sexual energy, "History" is what Will Young really needs to be recording now. As has been pointed out by others, his songs seem oddly neutered. Not so with this. It was another January 2010 song that survived 12 months of really good music to earn a spot here. Here's hoping Will's rumored all-dance album takes a cue from this song.

13) Raise Your Glass / P!nk
I am oddly resistant to P!nk. Even though I like most of what I hear from her, I always feel like she's the token female artist that people that don't like female artists very much feel okay in liking. Why I let that perception keep me from enjoying P!nk's pretty good music is probably my loss. That said, "Raise Your Glass" is my favorite P!nk song since "Don't Let Me Get Me."

14) You Haven't Seen The Last Of Me / Cher
As the first new Cher song in almost a decade, it could have been 4 minutes of cats screeching and meowing and it would have made this list. Happily, it was a solid ballad the likes of which we haven't seen Cher do in a while. Complete with dance remixes, this whets my appetite for the long awaited new Cher album (no release date yet.)

15) Be My Thrill / The Weepies
I didn't like The Weepies Be My Thrill album as much as I liked Hideaway, but this is definitely a standout track that has got a lot of play as summer turned into fall this year.

16) Turn On The Radio / Reba McEntire
This is the second year in row that a Reba song has made this list. Do I dare declare that I am in the midst of a Reba renaissance? Time will tell, but this song had me at with the cheeseball line "Try to call, twitter me, text until your fingers bleed." And when the video ended up featuring Reba as the ultimate cougar, I knew this song would end up here come December.

17) Any Which Way / Scissor Sisters
Half a year after it came out, I'm still kind of warming up to Night Work. I don't know why - it's really everything I love about cheesy pop music and the Stuart Price factor which made Confessions on a Dance Floor and Aphrodite so appealing is hard at work here as well. That said, "Any Which Way" was an early favorite. It's also the only song from the year (that I know of) to mention L'Eggs pantyhose. That kind of obscure reference more than earns it a spot on this list.

And besides, I just wanted another excuse to post the picture of the Scissor Sisters' Night Work album cover - the album cover that launched a thousand "that was my senior picture" jokes.

Many of you can be expecting the CD with these tracks (plus one) so you can get your 64 minutes of Dan at any time you so desire.

Agree? Disagree? I'd love to hear it. Keep it clean. Or don't.

Gone before it happens

This is usually the kind of thing I would throw up on Facebook with a one sentence commentary. I was on my way back from Ankeny tonight after finally watching the season finale of The Walking Dead. I had my iPod shuffling random Madonna songs. The first thing I will note is that it picked a hell of a lot of live shit. Do I really have that much live Madonna on my iPod? I didn't really think so...I only have one copy of each tour on there, something you can't say for my iTunes library with its five Blond Ambitions and two Girlie Shows and three Confessions Tours and 6 Re-Invention Tours. But one song that played was "Gone" which I have not heard in forever.

"Gone" is one of those songs that I always forget about, but it's right up there with "Nothing Fails" when I think of songs to counter the argument that Madonna "can't sing." No, she is no Sarah Brightman, but what she lacks in range she makes up for in heart. Sadly, it's that heart that's missing from most of her latest music. I'm hoping that she finds it again when she comes back with her new album whenever that may be.

Even though Jeff hates it (it is the last song on a Madonna album after all), I do kind of have a soft spot for it (and its sister song "I Deserve It") She even did it justice on the Drowned World Tour.



How I miss those (relatively) unaltered vocals.

They wrote the book

Every year, we get together with our closest friends on a weekend before Christmas and celebrate the holidays in style. We always get Christmas crackers from World Market and Heidi makes a big dinner. People bring food and presents and we all really get into the Christmas spirit. And there are always many many pictures of us looking ridiculous in the paper crowns that come out of the Christmas crackers.

Heidi had been on my case to make a Christmas list this year because we all exchange gifts each year. She took to publicly shaming me in an e-mail loop between all of us to get me to do it. I finally did it this morning before we left for our Thanksgiving travels. We have a great time with our little gift exchange because finding unique items that match the other people's personality is really the challenge. Anyone can buy a summer sausage or a popcorn tin. Making the gift match the recipient is the really tough part.

One of the things I really want this year is something that I denied myself for the last couple of years. In 2008, at the Sticky & Sweet Tour, I bought the Guy Oseary's Confessions book which featured hundreds of shots from Madonna's 2006 Confessions Tour. It was a lot of money and is basically a photo book (not much text to be had) but the photos are brilliant and a good way to remember the actual tour as the tour book you buy at the concert never has any photos from the show in it. Well, after the Sticky & Sweet Tour, Guy Oseary was at it again and released Sticky & Sweet early last year. It's not something that I can justify buying on my own, so what better reason to put it on my Christmas list? I am really hoping that I get this this year as it will be such a good companion piece to the already purchased Confessions book. I really enjoyed that tour and having some high-quality professional photos of it just seems right.

Another diva has a book out this year but as far as I'm concerned, she can keep this one. Barbra Streisand has written a book. I was talking to my friend Jeff about it the other night. Streisand is at the point in her life where she really needs to write her memoirs. So many books have been written about her life - all of which have been unauthorized to the best of my knowledge. I think that hearing her talk about her career and life in her own words would be fascinating. So when I heard that she was writing a book, I was pretty excited. When I found out that it was about interior design, my excitement level dropped to a negative level. Instead of writing the story of Streisand by Streisand, she's written My Passion for Design. It seems like the ultimate in narcissism and Jeff and I laughed about it uproariously on the phone the other night.

Seriously? Barbra may be an actress who sings, but now she designs as well? Maybe she'll still write her memoirs, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a missed opportunity. I've followed her career for a long time and I haven't even the slightest bit of interest in it. She's foisting this $60 doorstop on a market that I don't think really exists. I certainly would never buy it and I can't think of many people who would.

But the one thing these women have in common is their dogged determination to do whatever the hell they want. So if Madonna wants to continue to not record music in favor of filming a movie that no one will see, far be it for me to stop her. And if Streisand wants to write about the carpets and architecture of her homes rather than writing her memoirs, well, I guess that's her business.

Make no mistake - I'd rather look at photo after photo of Madonna's tour than Streisand's home.

Two years in the framing

After today's mouse debacle, I'm totally getting a jump on today's blog post. We're 27 minutes into Sunday and it's going to be done before I go to bed. Really, Saturday was kind of a wash. I got nothing done that I wanted to. Heidi was at a NaNoWriMo "stakeout" which basically amounted to an all-day write-in. Anna and I were on our own and I was a complete fail. I didn't get the fish tank cleaned out, nor did I get the laundry folded. I even forgot to feed Anna lunch. That sounds terrible and it clearly didn't faze her. She was probably glad to not have someone harping on her to eat. I didn't get Blair his antibiotic this morning and then, when I got it all ready to go tonight after getting home, he must have heard me prepping it because I couldn't find him when I went to give it to him. Bastard cat.

But today was not all lost. I went to Matt's and had fun at his Rock Band/Guitar Hero party. I also, after over 2 years, finally got my Sticky & Sweet Tour poster framed.

I bought the Sticky & Sweet Tour poster off of fanfire.com prior to actually going to the tour so as not to have to worry about getting it home from the concert without it getting all dog-eared. When I got it in the mail, it was immediately smaller than I wanted it to be and when I went to find a frame for it, the search was fruitless. I don't remember the actual dimensions of it, but there was no frame on Earth that matched it. I would look periodically and always come up with nothing. So it sat, neglected, rolled up on the top shelf of my closet.

Well, Heidi had gotten a print of the cover of her first book, Hero, and had our friend Rick McCubbin frame it for her. It cost a little bit, but he did such a good job that I decided to entrust him with my Sticky & Sweet poster.

Tonight, I picked up the poster and, what can I say, this is a work of art and exceeded my wildest expectations.


I can't believe I still had my ticket from the show, which of course, I had him put in with the poster.


I don't think that the poster itself is as iconic as some of her other tour posters, but it'll do. In hindsight, if I had it all to do over again, I'd get this one, if for no other reason than it's more colorful than the one I got. But, as I said, it'll do.

Rick did a fantastic job and I can't thank him enough. I may not get it hung up tomorrow - especially considering my track record on how today went - but it will be up soon. I have just the spot for it on the wall in my office and it will make a fine addition to that very Dan space.

You can relive my account of the tour, where I met not just one but two fellow bloggers, here. It's riveting reading, as is pretty much anything that is in this space.

Now to go try to find that cat one last time before bed to give him his antibiotic. And then, sweet sweet sleep.

Massacre on QVCUK

To be honest, today was a bit of a misfire. Up too late last night, up too early today. No nap. Lots of work to do - some of which I did, most of which fell by the wayside. I did end up taking Anna out to the dollar theater to see Toy Story 3 which was pretty damn amazing. Mostly, I just liked being there with her. I hope she still will go see movies with me when she's 13 and 15 and whatever. Who knows if she will. A dad can hope though.

I had a post that I really wanted to write but I simply ran out of time today, so it'll have to wait for another day. That's okay, really. November has plenty of days! So in the place of a real post, here's the most horrifying thing I've seen all day (courtesy of P.Viktor.)



Yes, that is Elaine Paige massacring "Take A Bow" - one of Madonna's biggest hits. As a friend of mine said when I sent him the link - MY EARDRUMS ARE BLEEDING.

Tape needs - satisfied!

According to my dad, my mother has the house torn apart, cleaning every little nook and cranny. In the process, she is uncovering tons of crap that apparently would have been lost to time had this deep clean not occurred. Last week, when he came over to Ames to pick up my mom's computer from Best Buy (after a couple of months, it STILL wasn't ready), he showed up at my door and announced that he was going to start clearing weeds in the backyard. More about that in a blog post later this week, but he brought some stuff my mom had found that she thought I might want. That or she was just trying to transfer some of the tonnage from their house to mine.

I mentioned in my Toni Childs post how, during high school, I had "tape needs." Well, I think that all of these were tape needs at one point or another.

Now what in the world am I going to do with cassette tapes in the day and age of mp3s and iPods? I wondered the same thing (after I got over the excitement of seeing them again.) I mean, how awesome is it that it's the ORIGINAL cover of Taylor Dayne's Tell It To My Heart? I tell you, I totally loved that album. I remember buying it on the Carroll High Jazz Band's trip to State in 1988. Everyone mocked me for buying it, but those hypocrites were probably dancing their asses off to "Tell It To My Heart" at 80s night at their favorite college bar not 5 years later, so the joke's on them. And the two Madonna ones? You know, they were the only two Madonna albums I ever bought on cassette. Everything before You Can Dance and Who's That Girl I bought on vinyl and everything post-Like A Prayer, I bought on CD. And the Grease soundtrack? Shit, that was probably the most purchased album in our house during my childhood and adolescence. That sucker didn't sell 28 million copies worldwide for no reason.

So back to the original question, what am I going to do with cassette tapes in 2010? Well, my truck has only a cassette player. I usually hook my iPod up to it via a cassette adapter, but I put all four of those tapes out in my truck. We listened to Tell It To My Heart this morning when I took Anna to school, leading her to say "Dad, she sounds kinda like Cher." And she kinda does.

Here's my favorite song from that album and what you might hear coming from the open windows of my truck in for the next few days.



(Too bad her last album was so bad I couldn't even listen to one song!)

Get up on the dance floor

I've been watching Madonna videos on YouTube, trying to wash away the anger and anguish I feel over the Tyler Clementi story. It's sort of working. I started watching the HQ leaks of the Re-Invention Tour and wow, I had forgotten how good that show was.



There's something about this performance of "Vogue" that really beats all others. Don't be fooled, it sounds live, but it's actually Memorex. She's lip syncing to a newly recorded version of the song. You can always tell - whenever her voice is high and nasal like that, it's a recording. But for the longest time I thought it was live. She had never sung "Vogue" live before (the rap part is ALWAYS lip synced) but when I started downloading various bootlegs of the tour and all versions of "Vogue" sounded identical, I knew something was up. Still, there was a kind of magic about this song being the opening song on what has been her most hits-driven tour of the last 10 years. Being in an arena full of 20,000 Madonna fans all singing "GET UP ON THE DANCE FLOOR" sent shivers up my spine and the memory of it still does. It was a thrilling moment - one of those "moments" in my Madonna fandom I will not soon forget.

And as good as "Vogue" was, with Madonna surrounded by her troupe of dancers, who knew that she'd blow us out of the water with an album track from the critically maligned American Life?



"Nobody Knows Me" was the first of many WOW moments on that tour. Yes, she's still lip syncing. It wasn't till the next song ("Frozen") that she actually sang, but really it hardly matters. As I have said before, when you go to a Madonna show, you go for the entire package and sometimes, you put up with prerecorded vocals. What blew me away during this performance was her dancing. Even as fans, we tend to forget that Madonna was a dancer first, and her performance of "Nobody Knows Me" was proof positive that she still is a dancer. When you're at her show, she commands your attention, but this is one of the most attention-commanding performances she has ever done.

The video of "Nobody Knows Me" is from the I'm Going To Tell You A Secret documentary which contains a handful of performances from the Re-Invention Tour, most of which were poorly chosen or so heinously chopped up you wish they had just not teased you at all. The full concert remains unreleased on DVD and while the leaks are as good as we'll get, I can't help but think about the DVD that wasn't based on the "Nobody Knows Me" clip. I can't quite get the final burn to work on the leaked files I have, but someday...

Get out of her way

Darren Hayes tweeted the following tonight: Rather than criticize something terrible, here's praise for something wonderful. He went on to talk about Arcade Fire's album. I can't talk about that since I haven't heard it, but he's right. It's so easy to trash something that fails to live up to expectations or disappoints.

I thought, since here we are four days into September & I haven't done a blog post yet, I'd follow Darren's lead. Of all the things to be born this week, nothing BUT NOTHING is more wonderful than Kylie's "Get Outta My Way" video. It is not embeddable, but click here to see it in all its gloriousness. Kylie has some good videos, but none that I would consider "classic" in a Madonna sense. But Kylie has out Madonna-d Madonna on her last two videos. Sure, Madonna has barely shown up to her last few video shoots, but with "Get Outta My Way" Kylie hit it out of the park. I've watched it probably 20 times since Friday and it is not old yet.

So what's so great about it? Let me show you.

1) Kylie herself
I am unable to explain why this little Australian can reduce me to such tween expressions of fandom. It wasn't until I was in my early 30s that Kylie even resurfaced on my radar after over a decade of silence. But whatever it is, she has it in spades. If I were to venture a guess, it goes beyond the fact that she is amazingly beautiful. It has to do with the fact that, unlike Madonna, she seems to genuinely enjoy making music. She is having fun with this and it shows. There is nothing more beautiful or sexier than Kylie in this video.

Even though she could fit in my pocket, she's bigger than life

2) Wolverine-like brass knuckles
I mean, seriously. Is this the most dangerous accessory we've seen yet?


3) The glittery heels from the America's Got Talent performance are back
Need I say more?


4) Kylie as superhero during the bridge
Aphrodite is full of songs with amazing bridges, and the bridge in "Get Outta My Way" is perhaps my favoirte on the album. And Kylie in her thigh-high red boots and cape surrounded by her minions as she's about to take off is an iconic moment.

5) Kylie vogues
Blink and you miss it, but it's there.


6) Chairs
Last, but certainly not least - this is what really pushes the video into "classic" territory for me. Chairs make everything sexy even sexier - or at least more interesting. Madonna knew this in the "Open Your Heart" video and during the Confessions Tour performance of "Like It Or Not." Kylie learns from Obi-Wan Madonna and uses chairs to maximum effect in this video.

If you look closely, you can see me in that last shot. The bleached hair took quite a bit of explaining at work but hey, it was worth it.

I always admire it when any artist bothers to even make a video nowadays. They certainly aren't the promotional tool they were back when I was a teenager. And when visuals like this are married to what is probably the most stellar song on Aphrodite, well, it makes this guy wonder when Madonna is going to wake up and smell the coffee and remind everyone how it's done.

We're waiting.

(and may I personally recommend SnagIt! for screen captures. It made this post a thousand times easier than Shift-Prt Scrn!)