Born and Raised

Longtime readers of the blog will know that John Mayer has traditionally not been our cup of tea. We may have mentioned him in reference to Jennifer Aniston or Jessica Simpson, but we're not about to do a bunch of research while our three year old son is chucking matchbox cars at the royal puppies. BUT, we totally dig John Mayer. We saw him on Andy Cohen's show, Watch What Happens Live, and he was charming. Andy really, really was enjoying John's new album so I was like hmmmmm. Then, we were at a play date with Megan and William and she was totally like, "I love the new John Mayer album!" I was all like, "Really, I never listened to him, but....." Oh My God. Such a great album. Go to iTunes now and get it. Brilliant.

Haiti

'Hope for Haiti Now' aired on Friday night and more than $58 million was raised for the victims of the earthquake. The Hollywood celebs represented with many answering pledge phones and several performing. Justin Timberlake performed 'Hallelujah' with Matt Morris and we were moved (performance above). Madonna sang 'Like a Prayer' with a choir, but we couldn't focus because of her cheek implants. Bono, Rihanna, and Jay-Z sang something too, but Rihanna's hairstyle was too distracting for us to remember what it was. So yeah, just watch the clip.

Phish Swim Upstream

With all the media coverage of the Britney Spears comeback tour and Michael Jackson's announcement that he will soon hit the road with some sort of massive traveling freak show, spring and its accompanying rejuvenation are in the air. The whole extravaganza might make you wonder if spring is an illusion and winter will never end, because Britney's act looks about as rejuvenated as a well-manicured corpse, and Michael Jackson just looks like a dead, gay mannequin. (And we all know Justin Timberlake already took that award, albeit alive.) Despair not, our friends. Springtime is real. You just have to look a little harder. Jamband legends Phish performed three reunion shows this weekend in Hampton, Va. These guys don't need to put on some elaborate three-ring-circus extravaganza to infuse the illusion of vitality into their performance. What a novel idea: musicians reviving their career by getting together and playing great fucking music. I would have advised hiring David Weintraub as an agent and whoring themselves out on reality television, or becoming the first jamband to give birth to octuplets. We've provided a clip of their opener, Fluffhead. In their infinite jammy generosity, the band has provided free recordings of the entire weekend. Which brings us to our original point: with the music industry pushed to the verge of insolvency by the internet, maybe some high-level cororpate flack should take a cue from bands like Phish, who can actually promote the free distribution of their material over the internet and still turn a profit by putting on a great show.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely, Wii- Addicted Teenager

The Beatles earned a place in history as the voice of their generation: both voice and generation questioned commonly accepted values-including consumerism and materialism- and exalted creativity, originality, imagination, and individuality. To this day, their music remains emblematic of the dynamic, turbulent period of the 1960s. This, even after Michael Jackson's purchase of the rights to many of their songs, and the subsequent use of those songs to sell expensive electronic devices and- more broadly- maintain our societal mass-deception that consumption provides the key to a satisfying existence. The release of Beatles: Rock Band neatly absolves this tension between the values evoked by the fab four's opus and its contemporary exploitation by corporate America. For a small fee, modern technology can now bring the joy and pleasure of creativity without the hassle of learning an instrument or the risk of originality. We know that it would give John Lennon pleasure to see his life's work put to such great purpose. Next year, Wii will put out a game that simulates taking a principled stand against overwhelming opposition and established authority. It's pretty boring, (a lot of standing resolutely, etc.) but its value as an opiate of the masses is incalculable.

Seldom Turns Out The Way It Does In A Song

As you can see, the puppies are back online (below) and are now six weeks old. All of them have been spoken for and their adoptions will take place before Christmas which means that we have to start looking for another happy diversion. Luckily for us, those crazy gals in Hollywood are up to their old tricks (literally, in some cases) so we get to judge them from behind our veil of anonymity. Yummy. A big welcome home to Kara Sweet Gobron after a tough battle fought. You totally rock.

So What, I'm Still A Rock Star

The divorce of Madonna and Guy Ritchie continues to evolve as the dust settles and we try to understand the logic behind the no pre-nup decision. Seriously, if you're worth $500 million then it goes without saying that you make him sign a pre-nup. Even Brit Brit got that part right. At least Madge can console herself with A-Rod while she listens to Pink's 'So What' on repeat. Stay tuned for Madonna to tear shit up in Manhattan like it's 1989. "You deserve the best in life, So if the time isn't right then move on. Second best is never enough, You'll do much better baby on your own. Express yourself."

Superstar, Where You From, How's It Goin?

Brit Brit released her video for "Womanizer" last night and we are rather pleased with the results. ABC News premiered it after the 20/20 interview featuring Barbara Walters and Peter Cook of Christie Brinkley fame. Coincidence? Probably not. We're guessing Baba had it planned all along. Rather than strangle Elizabeth Hasslebeck on 'The View,' she channeled her disgust into a subtle slamming of Cook and his douchebag ways. While Peter may be a Womanizer, at least he's not a Republican. That's something. And somewhere in Vegas right now, K-Fed is rejoicing in his revisited relevance. Who? Exactly.

Leavin' Never To Come Back Again

Our loyal reader Melissa in Camden mentioned to us that she would like more celebrity snark and less music videos, so we apologize for posting Leavin' by Jesse McCartney here. But we'll make a deal with you...for every one radio song that gets stuck in our head during the daily commute, we'll write two snarky posts. Speaking of, holy Lohan as of late.

The Kids From The Block

We wonder what The Kids on the Block are trying to resurrect with their new music video. Whatever it is, they missed the appropriate window for "sexiness." First, they were a bunch of mildly homo-erotic kids clearly too young to be sex icons. Now, they look like a bunch of creepy older men hanging out with younger women and singing songs that recapture their idyllic homo-erotic youth.

As the female perspective on this subject (Princess Nobody) we declare Baron Bubba to be wildly off. But what would you expect from a straight 20-something male? Regardless, we kind of dig the video for "Summertime" and it reminds us of our freshman year roommate, Liz Liddell, and her love for the New Kids. Yes, Liz was from Boston.

Recycling Music....Al Gore Would Be Proud

So Kid Rock released a "new" music video. While it lacks the musical energy or inspiration to excite the purists among us, the singer(?)-songwriter(?) must have targeted the niche of people who like a little scandal with their rubber-stamp-bubble-gum-pop......

OK...let's grant him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he included words, music, and background vocals from "Sweet Home Alabama" as an homage- not as a desperate attempt to provide some soul to a song as devoid of life as the corporate boardroom in which it was probably written. (We would question the wisdom of paying homage to a song whose lyrics contain thinly-veiled old-school states-rights, segregationist lyrics, but that involves a variety of different debates for a different day; We are not in the business of analyzing Lynyrd Skynyrd songs.)

Even still: Didn't anybody on the song assembly line notice the striking resemblence of the piano part to "Werewolves of London?" Didn't Vanilla Ice get torn apart for doing the same thing? Maybe we should stop villifying Robert van Winkle and give him the respect he deserves: as a groundbreaker who cleared the way for talentless hacks who want to substitute public persona and cheap imitation for creativity and originality.

A Warm Welcome For Baron de Bubba

We would like to assure you that any funkiness you notice on our blog in the near future is not accidental. Baron de Bubba has arrived in town, with a mission to lay the funky grooves down. Word to ya mutha. Okay, that last part was added by Princess Nobody (our editor), but we presume that you already knew that.

When I Ruled The World

How much cold could a coldplay play, if a coldplay could play cold?

Music In The Morning

Happy heat wave. We love this song, "I'm Yours," by Jason Mraz. Enjoy.

My Morals Got Me On My Knees

Duffy is our new favorite Brit. Think Winehouse sans the wine.

Au Revoir, Senator Clinton

Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone

When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. Enjoy.

This Is Love, Redux

Our favorite singer of all time, Elza, rocks it out live at the Bitter End in NYC in the above clip. In recent Elza news, she just had identical twin girls, Savannah and Ashley (named after rivers in South Carolina where Elza grew up). The ABC documentary entitled, Hopkins, will feature several of Elza's songs so definitely tune in. A preview commercial for the film debuted during the Grey's Anatomy finale 2 weeks ago. While we never developed a love for Grey's due to our relationship with the Sopranos...we're all about loving Elza. She's our new Amy Winehouse. Plus our boy, Ben, attends Johns Hopkins. Six degrees, yo.

Jailhouse Rock

Amy Winehouse has become the modern-day Keith Richards and we can only hope she divorces that gross husband of hers that is still in jail. Nice marriage. He's in jail. Weird. The latest gossip has her hooking up with the assistant to her manager. (above...the asst.) Anyway, Winehouse was supposed to record the title song to the next Bond film, but her friend and producing partner, Mark Ronson, said she's "not ready." Amy was also arrested twice in the past month, once for head-butting a guy in a pub, and once for smoking crack on that video. Ouch.

Suddenly It's Spring

Happy Spring! Apologies for our lack of interest lately...it's finally spring and we've got gardens to tend. Hopefully, you're all enjoying whatever weather you're having wherever you are in the world. The above song is called Foundations and it totally rocks. Enjoy.

Go Green Or Go Home

Go get your Irish on, yo. We (along with Mary J. Blige) guarantee that on this very special day, everything is gonna be just fine. Happy St. Patrick's Day!