Last year I started a Best Performances of the year list mostly because of the overabundance of great performances at Live Earth. Despite the lack of any major cultural event, I thought I would continue the list for at one more year. Here the live performances that caught my ear this year. I have links to YouTube for those that have yet been pulled and there are even a couple that are sold on iTunes so check out the button for those.
1. Stronger/Hey Mama - Kanye West and Daft Punk (Grammy Awards)
2. Just Stand Up - Carrie Underwood, Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, Fergie, Sheryl Crow, Nicole Scherzinger , Natasha Bedingfield, Miley Cyrus, Leona Lewis, Keyshia Cole, Ashanti and Ciara (Stand Up 2 Cancer)
3. Burning Up/Ray of Light - The Stooges (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony)
4. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room - John Mayer (Where the Light Is)
There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available, if not the link goes to YouTube where you can watch the video in full screen). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.
Another Way to Die - Alicia Keys and Jack White
It is becoming clear that Alicia Keys should stay away from the rockers. Here duet with John Mayer was the weakest track on her last album, and this track is not much better. And as a James Bond theme this may rank near the bottom.
Where I Stood - Missy Higgins
There is an other, arguably better version of this video, released earlier this year but the song is worth showing again because the Missy Higgins song is one of my favorite of the year.
Troublemaker - Weezer
This decade, for the most part the music Weezer makes is vastly hit or miss, but their videos are always at the very least entertaining.
The Resolution - Jack's Mannequin
The first album from Jack's Mannequin was solid and if The Resolution is any indication, the new album, out this week, will be worth the listen.
It should also be noted that yesterday Kanye West released his video for Love Lockdown. I could not find an embed code anywhere but you can see it on his website Kanye Univerity or you can download Love Lockdown on iTunes.
There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available, if not the link goes to YouTube where you can watch the video in full screen). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.
Lucky Japanese, they go to a Coldplay concert and out comes Alicia Keys. Although all she does is play some piano, chords that I can play (no, seriously, I can), and it sounds like she played an octave too high. Great nonetheless.
There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available, if not the link goes to YouTube where you can watch the video in full screen). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.
You think making promos and trailers would be easy, yet nintie percent of the time they actually make me want to see the things they are trying to promote less. The trailer for Pineapple Express would be in the ten percent. The movie on paper doesn’t look like something I’d watch yet thank mostly in part to the M.I.A. soundtrack to the clip, I may end up checking it out (the cheesy white dude saying, “Thug Life” doesn’t hurt things either). The song has the best use of a shotgun sample since Thug Luv.
Easily my least favorite song on the latest album from Alicia Keys. Really, most of the singles from As I Am have been suspect. Why the two best songs, The Thing about Love and Sure looks Good to Me, haven’t been released is beyond me. In fact had the former been released earlier this spring it would have easily been the Prom song of the year. Of course this is one of the many reason why the music industry will be extinct in the next decade or so.
For those always on the look out for the next big thing, here is my suggestion: Amy MacDonald. Another songstress from the British Isles but more KT Tunstall than all the retro singers that have come overseas in the past two years. Her album This Is the Life has been out for more than a year pretty much everywhere else racking up number ones in four countries. The first single here is Mr. Rock and Roll, but for my money, the best song on the album is the title track. You can expect the album to drop stateside August 19 as well as a review the same day on the 9th Green.
You can’t go wrong with one half of seminal rap group The Pharcyde, but why relegate one of the most eccentric rappers in Fat Lip to just singing the hook. Even without him spitting anything himself, Tre Hardson, whom you may know better as Slimkid3 makes up with his verses.
There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form so here they are courtesy of YouTube. I advise you to watch them before you read my reviews if you don’t want me to spoil things. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available, if not the link goes to YouTube where you can watch the video in full screen). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.
Alicia Keys in eighties garb and a nightgown? Yes please. But I’m not sure what is more out of place, the inexplicable “2 Weeks Ago” or the for no reason inclusion of the epidemic in Africa. For a not out of place public service announcement check out:
Radiohead tends not to get much talk on the 9th Green on account that I am not pretentious enough to care even if they are letting people download their album for free. But this video does highlight a very serious subject with human trafficking and should get you to thinking the next time you head down to Walmart to buy, well, anything. There are reasons to how Walmart and stores of its ilk can keep there prices so low and it mostly has to do with 70% of their products come from China where employees tend not to get health insurance or anything that resembles minimum wage in the USA. For more information check out End Exploitation and Trafficking.
I was on the fence for this Michael Jackson remake, but after seeing this Fall Out Boy video, I think I may fall into the dislike side. John Mayer was wise to sit this one out. Unfortunately Buster Bluth didn’t follow his lead. What’s sad is I think I can find all the MJ references in the video.
Falling Down - Scarlett Johansson
Instead of using this space to talk about boring the song and video is, I would rather talk about the recent news that Scarlett Johansson is engaged to the dude from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Parlor. Wait, huh? How did this happen? I know I am not up on the high school gossip of rags like US Weekly, but wasn’t she dating the equaling boring dude from 40 Days and 40 Nights?
In contrast of award shows, The Grammy’s decided to kick off their fiftieth anniversary with Alicia Keys dueting with a youthful Frank Sinatra while MTV decided on their twentieth Video Music Awards to instead go with the train wreck that is Britney Spears. And this is why the Grammy’s keeps getting better and better why the VMA’s has slipped further and further since the last time Chris Rock hosted. And the Grammy’s were wise enough to stick their over hyped train wreck (i.e. Amy Winehouse) near the end of the show just in case it backfired. Here are some other thoughts from last night’s festivities:
- Another reason why the Grammy’s are always worth watching is because they get artists to take their songs in a different direction and that was most evident with the Carrie Underwood, doing her best Nancy Sinatra impression, being backed by Fat Albert’s Junk Yard Band and still made it work.
- Someone should have told Rihanna just because she was performing with The Time didn’t mean she had to get the Morris Day haircut.
- Performance of the night had to go to Kanye West. I actually preferred the slowed down version of Stronger than the album version and it was visually stunning as he brought the Daft Punk pyramid complete with Daft Punk inside. Then Hey Mama was just heart wrenching. Not sure why he continued to wear that glow in the dark vest all night though.
- Too bad John Legend had to slum it with Fergie, couldn’t they let him sing one of his own songs for having to stoop so low.
- I wonder if Cher and Tina Turner had a contest to see who face could move the less last night. When will people realize that you look much creepier with Botox than with wrinkles? Odd that Tina performed a song she help made famous with her ex-husband who just died without a mention. As for the guy who wrote it, I really couldn’t tell if John Fogerty liked the preference or not.
- I don’t remember the show ever performing outside the venue and not only did they have Amy Winehouse perform via satellite, the Foo Fighters performed in the parking lot. Luckily they didn’t spend as much time as last year hyping the My Grammy Moment this year but more Jason Bateman isn’t that bad. And did I miss what exactly the girl won? Aside from being at the front of the stage, it didn’t seem that much prestigious than the rest of the orchestra.
- Yet another reason not to listen to hillbilly music, the song Brad Paisley performed about searching a chick for ticks. And I didn’t think anything would be stupider than the song about how tractors are sexy. My IQ needs to drop about forty points before I can start enjoying those types of songs.
- In a rare misstep in Grammy performances, that was an odd bit from Feist. I’m not for sure, but I think they cut out a verse. Her performance on Saturday Night Live was actually much better and cooler with the massive band and choir she had with her. Really, the “whoa-o-o-o” is the best part. Less people on a bigger stage just didn’t work.
- Speaking of things that didn’t work, Keely Smith (who won the first Grammy) and Kid Rock? Umm, yeah, no.
- Just when I started to get tired of No One, the new spin on it from Alicia Keys made it better again. Performing with Frank Sinatra and John Mayer in the same night? Good work if you can get it.
- Seeing Amy Winehouse singing about not going to rehab when she is on leave from rehab (name dropping her incarcerated husband twice during the song) just makes the performance a little weird. And seeing how she reacted to winning Record of the Year making me wonder if the current treatment is taking.
- Token Old Dude Alert!: Nothing better than an old dude who probably made more last year than I’ll make in my lifetime complain about money.
- Earlier this evening, Grammy’s went to the narrator of Pushing Daisies and Barak Obama who beat out Bill Clinton. No, seriously.
- Will.i.am’s little bit was, um, interesting to say the least.
- And the Grammy for Album of the Year goes to… of, course, the oldest guy in the category. Anyone who says their shock by Herbie Handcock beating out Kanye and Winehouse obviously has never seen the Grammy’s before even if it were the second jazz album to ever win the award.
Here we are a week into the New Year, but I want to take one last look at 2007 (for full Best and Worst of the year, be sure to click on the Best of 2007 label at the bottom of the post). First my annual list of artists that had the most impact on be over the past twelve months:
Top Artists of the Year
1. Lily Allen (Best Song: 1, 8, 12, 18, 66; Best Album: 3; Best Video: 5, 11, 15, 23; Best Performance: 25): Just to show how much impact Lily Allen had on me this year, in twelve years of making Best Songs of the Year list, no artist has had more than two songs in the top twenty let alone four. And it looks like many of you liked her too because as you can see below, her album review was the third most viewed post of the year.
2. Kanye West (Best Song: 3, 6, 53, 72, 87; Best Album: 5; Best Mash Up: 21; Best Video: 1, 4, 18; Reader’s Poll: 2; Best Performance: 15): Even though not nearly as good as his first two albums, Graduation still ranks in the top ten best rap albums this decade. And no other artist had a better viral year thanks to his internet only videos for Can’t Tell Me Nothin’ and his remix for Throw Some D’s.
3. Amy Winehouse (Best Song: 4, 29, 50, 92; Best Album: 6; Best Mash Up: 9; Reader’s Poll: 3; Best Performance: 23): Yeah she went neck and neck with Britney Spears for most clinically insane celebrity of the year, but unlike Spears, Winhouse managed to put out a great album this year.
4. Alicia Keys (Best Song: 10, 24; Best Album: 1; Best Mash Up: 15; Best Live Performance: 1, 9, 14, 20): As I Am may not lived up to expectations, but it was good enough to land her the best album of the year. Also she ripped off some great performances to promote it.
5. Ryan Adams (Best Song: 5, 21, 42, 90; Best Album: 4; Best Video: 10): A year and a half was the longest hiatus of his career and the extra time paid off with East Tiger being his best album in a while. Of course then Adams promptly released an EP not that long after. We will have to wait to see if he goes back to three albums in 2008.
Next some self congratulatory some with the most read posts and such here on the 9th Green. I was going to have the most popular searches, but nine of the top ten were some sore of play on “Best Songs of 2006” with the only other being Megan Hauserman in the nine spot, so that seemed silly to post. But here are the other best of the best. First a note between Most Read Feeds and Most Viewed Posts, the Feeds are based on who is accessing my feed, most likely through a feed reader (but some pirated) where Posts are people who actually came to the 9th Green, and if there are on the top, it is most likely because of Google.
Lastly, for those interested in the Best Songs of 2007 (click here to download the songs) to fit on a single CD, here would be the tracklist which would come in at 78:18 (note: the songs are in reverse order as if counting down the tracks).
1. Everybody Knows - Ryan Adams 2. Dumb it Down - Lupe Fiasco 3. Love Song - Sara Bareilles 4. LDN - Lily Allen 5. Look After You - The Fray 6. Brianstorm - Arctic Monkeys 7. The Game - Common 8. The Underdog - Spoon 9. Our Song - Taylor Swift 10. Alfie - Lily Allen 11. Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen 12. No One - Alicia Keys 13. Read My Mind - The Killers 14. Oh My God - Mark Ronson featuring Lily Allen 15. Tennessee - The Wreckers 16. Stronger - Kanye West 17. Two - Ryan Adams 18. Rehab - Amy Winehouse 19. Can’t Tell Me Nothing - Kanye West 20. Dreaming with a Broken Heart - John Mayer 21. Drivin’ Me Wild - Common featuring Lily Allen
This being the Most Mediocre Year Ever, there is no band that sums that up better than Paramore. The bad got a big push from MTV and their record label thanks to being one of the first bands to sign a 360 degree deal. Yet with all the marketing muscle behind their three singles this year, the band wasn’t good enough to show up on this list nor were bad enough to land of the Worst Songs of 2007 list. So congratulations Paramore, with all the mediocre music put out by bland artists such as OneRepublic, Lifehouse, and Sean Kingston, you managed to be the most mediocre of them all. Although the problem with the most mediocre of them all, even though this is the Most Mediocre Year Ever, you will most likely be forgotten by 2009. Sorry.
Onto the songs that did make the list, the reason this is the Most Mediocre Year Ever is the great songs were really thin at the top this year. Most of these songs wouldn’t have cracked the top ten in other years. With that said, even though there was a lacking of great songs, there was an overabundance of good songs this year to the point that there were ten to twenty songs this year that deserved to make the top one hundred when most years ninety through one hundred are an afterthought most years. But here are the ones that made the cut for this, the last post of 2007. Hopefully I will see you all back here in 2008.
In a story I broke last week, 2007 is the most mediocre year ever. Case in point, last year’s Best Albums of the Year list had fifty albums on it, this year it was hard to scrape thirty this year. Yeah there were a couple albums that could have gotten on this list but I never got around to listening to the whole thing and thus never reviewed (Linkin Park, Jay-Z), but for the most part I got hold of most everything I wanted to review, it was just not that much music this year and of those that I did review there really wasn’t anything great.
Two albums you definitely won’t be seeing on this list are Konvicted by Akon and T.I. vs. T.I.P. even though I got both for Christmas. Should I be offended that someone thought about me, “Now there is someone who would like listening to Akon”? But anyways. If you are interested in reading my original review of these albums, check out the link below the album and if you are interested in buying them on iTunes, click on the album link. If you want to buy the physical CD, head over to Scooter McGavin’s Amazon Store where you can order them there:
While watching Live Earth earlier this year with all the great music, it crossed my mind to come up with the greatest live performances of the past twelve month. And with the Grammy’s, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the thousands of other pat themselves on the back events that the music business throws for themselves, it wasn’t hard to populate a list. I did throw out the talk show performances because 99% of them are just boring rehashes of their album versions. But here are the best of the best of 2007 with links to YouTube where available (and if you have the mp3 of any of them shout me a holla because there are a couple I would like that I haven’t hunted down yet):
1. Gimme Shelter - Keith Urban and Alicia Keys (Live Earth)
2. Crazy - Gnarls Barkley (49th Annual Grammy Awards)
3. Check the Rhyme/Award Tour - A Tribe Called Quest (2007 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors)
4. Like a Star/Coming Home/Gravity - Corrine Bailey Rae, John Legend and John Mayer (49th Annual Grammy Awards)
5. Darling Nikki - Cee-Lo and Foo Fighters (2007 MTV Video Music Awards)
6. Big Bottom - Spinal Tap and an Army of Bassists (Live Earth)
There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form so here they are courtesy of YouTube. I advise you to watch them before you read my reviews if you don’t want me to spoil things. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available, if not the link goes to YouTube where you can watch the video in full screen). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.
I wonder if Ever Ever After had any problems with her cartoon version being totally anorexic. Seriously, Cartoon Carrie makes Courtney from Survivor look like defensive lineman in comparison. But anyways. Too bad Carrie didn’t put this on her latest album because it is better than half the songs (see Here’s to You Hairbrush Singers and Dashboard Drummers). Of course knowing record companies, they will release a special edition version of the album in six months with this, three other songs and a DVD, screwing over anyone who actually bought it when it first came out.
For those keeping track at home, this would make the third video where Alicia Keys has cast a rapper to player love interest with Common joining Mos Def (You Don’t Know My Name) and Method Man (If I Ain’t Got You). I hate these time mash-up, granted it is more annoying when television shows and movies pull this, because it takes me a few viewings to piece together the story. Luckily the video didn’t have much to it to figure it out.
There are very few things in this world that we need less than a Spice Girls reunion. Yeah I was heartbroken when Old Spice originally left the group just as they were embarking on a world tour of which I went to anyways despite her absence (have I ever told the story about the time I pissed off Posh Spice at that show?), but in the decade since their demise I have moved on to crappier, more disposable pop like Rihanna and Fall Out Boy. And with their reunion, what do we call Baby Spice now? Do we just refer to them as Old Spice 1, Old Spice 2, Old Spice 3, Old Spice 4, and Extremely Old Spice?
It is a rarity these days when the local radio station plays anything good. Yeah I am ambivalent to hearing The Sweet Escape as much as the next clinically deaf guy, but do we need to hear it every hour on the hour? One of the few songs that is actually good and they don’t overplay in recent months is this song by Emerson Hart and since the evil empire that is Viacom has successfully deleted ever copy of Kanye West’s Good Morning from every steaming site on all the internets (you know, because low quality embedded videos are destroying the music business, not record companies pushing crappy music on the public) I thought I’d share this video instead of one that will likely be deleted by the time you see it. Now you may not notice Emerson’s name, but if the voice sounds familiar, he is (was?) the lead singer of Tonic.
didn’t follow his lead. What’s sad is I think I can find all the MJ references in the video.
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