My Brief Love Affair With Miley Cyrus

It all started one hot summer night while driving home from a Swampbats game with Sebastian. The local pop station was playing a saccharine tune I had never heard but instantly liked. Sebastian, always a wonderful back seat critic chimed in with his approval as well. Something about this over produced gem just set the night on fire. Take a listen:



My initial feelings quickly turned to loved as I heard it a few more times on the radio along with a fantastic cover by The Mae Shi. As awesome as that version is, it still can't touch the original. I put the song on a mix for Hott Mama and upon hearing the line "She's just being Miley" she turned to me and said, "Is this Miley Cyrus?" with a mix of confusion, intrigue and disdain. "Yes, yes" I replied, "I know she's a horrid little girl who represents and perpetuates things that make me ill but this jam is too hot to handle, too cold to hold." The power of the song cold not be denied and the family cruised down the highway, all blissed out on Hannah Montana.

Recently Hott Mama was telling others about my little obsession and always got the same disgusted reaction. Why were people so shocked? I have no power to resist shiny pop magic like "See You Again" and neither should most free thinking Americans. Forget all the crap you're handed about this tween superstar and just soak in the glorious end results of the modern day hit machine running on all cylinders. Why are so many people quick to hate her? Can she really be as horrid as they say? I was starting to become filled with painful self doubt but then I saw this clip from the AMAs.



She scores again! What a song! She's got that Kelly Clarkson-esque rock power on stage and knocks it out of the park on this one. Miley, throw your leather jacket to me! And what about those creepy silver people? A stunning performance.

So now I'm thinking she just may have a start to finish mind blower of an album sitting out there, waiting to be consumed. I read a few reviews of it, decided to check out "Wake Up America" and instantly lost all interest in pursuing this infatuation. It's a facile song riding the green chic movement and is as obvious and embarrassing as "We Are the World." It's Miley's call to arms to stop throwing Funyuns bags out of your car windows and wrapping Christmas presents in Styrofoam and the lyrics just kill me, especially these lines:

"Everything I read is/'Global warming', 'going green'/I don't know what all this means/But it seems to be saying/Wake up America"

So she's not willing to do the tiniest bit of research into the topic of the song but is willing to sing about it passionately for 2 1/2 minutes? I question her motives and her sincerity. And then there's this little treasure buried in the bridge:

"I know that you don't wanna hear it/Especially coming from someone so young/But in the backseat, yeah/They wanna hear it/So come on, turn it up"

Bleh! Screw you mom and dad! You're too old and too lame to care but that 10 year old in the backseat shows a commitment to recycling, composting and communal living that is so radical it will blow. your. mind. Oh, Miley! I had such hopes for us but now I fear it's over. Although, upon second listen, I did find "Wake Up, America" strangely attractive. Maybe I'll just take this relationship slow.

Justin Dances the Carlton

I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of The Darkness lately. You'd think after posting 5 videos from them the other day I'd be satiated but no. I kept searching to see what other gems I had missed and came across this wonder. It is a video from their first album that apparently wasn't even released in the UK. Instead it was sent out to other European nations who know a good club banger when they hear one. If this was the 70s, this would have been a smash for ABBA. Even if you hated the other videos or didn't watch them at all, as I suspect you may have, I beseech you to check out these 2. They are so bizarre and wonderful and completely unlike the other 5. Trust me - they have the Gamera seal of approval.

Friday Night


Drug use can alternately help or hurt musicians. With The Darkness it seems mostly to have hurt them. First off, they lost their Village People like bassist and his glorious moustache due to internal strife most likely brought on by drug problems. Secondly, Justin Hawkins, not a handsome man to begin with, lost some of his charisma and gained a bit of a paunch. He also looks odd in this video but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is. He looks pale and unhealthy but then again he's British.

It saddens me that Justin's substance abuse led to the dissolution of the band because no other musician has a falsetto like his and no other group made videos like this. From their second album, One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back!, this is the surprisingly disco-influenced "Girlfriend" with the equally shocking Flash Dance-inspired video featuring the greatest keytar solo I've ever seen. Laugh it up.

Girlfriend

The Glory of Lurv

Damn you Dirty Dancing! You have cast your spell on me and I can't get you out of my head. Some films you miss out on and as others grow attached and obsess and trade lines you sit idly by and figure you have lost your chance. You will never feel the same way about it that they do. Those jokes are so deeply embedded in those who were there from the beginning that they are part of their DNA. You have arrived late to the party and can either scramble to play catch up or abandon ship. I figured I was in the latter camp when it came to Dirty Dancing but when I finally got around to watching it, the masterpiece of 80s filmmaking sank its claws deep inside of me and has yet to let go. I get it! I see why this film is a classic of escapist cinema. I may have missed out on 21 years of good times and giggles watching these two star crossed lovers circle each other like carnivorous birds but it didn't ruin the experience for me. I'm just surprised how quickly this film took over my psyche.

Do you know how I know the sickness has invaded my every pore? It's because when I watch the video for "She's Like the Wind" I don't gawk and roar with laughter at Swayze the singer's over emoting. No. Instead I swoon as Baby and Johnny practice dance moves, jump on a log and swim in a lake. What kind of voodoo has kicked me in the head? Take a gander for yourself. If you have a soul, you too will find yourself flooded with conflicting emotions as you watch this. It's like viewing home movies starring someone else. The feelings this stirs up make me feel like I was there, like I was Johnny or perhaps Baby and lived through this magical summer at Kellerman's. I am converted and it feels so good!



I feel about Dirty Dancing the way I felt about The Karate Kid. I left the theater after that one ready to do some serious kicking and since having my life altered by Swayze and Co. I want to lift my dance partner over my head and smash a car window to get to the keys I locked inside. I want to help carry a watermelon into a party for sweaty minimum wage slaves. I want to live dammit!

And of course, thinking about The Karate Kid makes me think of Peter Cetera and how he is one of the guiltiest of pleasures. "You're the Inspiration" and "The Glory of Love" are inescapable smash hits that will echo through my skull for all eternity but what is the deal with the way Cetera sings? It's really odd. Check out this story about a throwdown he was in back in 1969 at Dodgers Stadium: "Four marines didn't like a long-haired rock 'n' roller in a baseball park," Cetera recounts, "and of course I was a Cub fan, and I was in Dodger Stadium, and that didn't do so well. I got in a fight and got a broken jaw in three places, and I was in intensive care for a couple of days. The only funny thing I can think about the whole incident," he says, "is that, with my jaw wired together, I actually went on the road, and I was actually singing through my clenched jaw, which, to this day, is still the way I sing." He's so much cooler than I thought. What a badass. Set the wayback machine for 1986:

The Musical Fruit

No radio show last night due to post-vacation exhaustion but I have returned to the land of posting. I was in Costa Rica for 5 days last week and hoped to have some music to comment on but instead I've got nothing. Not a single Costa Rican song or story to tell you about the music of the wonderful country. All week long, we were driven around the rolling hills and windy streets of La Fortuna and beyond and not once did our driver put on the radio. I had hoped to hear what Costa Rican radio would sound like. Would there be a lot of national flavor? Wall to wall classical guitar music? The greatest hits of the 80s, 90s and today? I still have no idea since we rode in silence and it was torture for someone like me who craves background noise because we rode a lot. Once, one of us piped up and asked for Heiner, our incredible friendly driver, to turn on the radio but this idea was silenced by the majority who wanted to be able to talk and listen to the sounds of the jungle, which admittedly were amazing. I woke up every morning to a unique symphony of sounds that involved some if not all of the following: Toucans, Scarlet Tanagers, Howler Monkeys, Cicadas, Finches, Goats, Farm Workers, Dogs, Cows and more. It was absolutely cacophonous and so overpowering, I never made it past 6 am before being woken up.
Since we had no music to fill our ears, my brain started recalling song at random to give me some free entertainment. It started slowly but by the end of the week, my head was buzzing with non stop hits including some really odd selections. This is the first song that decided to appear from the void I was living in.

I have no idea why that was my brain's debut but it wasn't unwelcome. I love discovering new pop hits to latch on to and this one is so wonderfully cheesy that I can't help but give in.

One of the special treats of being in Costa Rica was eating fresh fruit directly from Luna Nueva's farm. For each meal we had fresh pineapples, papayas and mangoes as big as small children picked from the grounds. It was heavenly. On Wednesday, we ventured into the rainforest and our guide Robert pointed out a Guanabana tree to us. The fruit is large and bumpy but the flesh is white and juicy. It's almost chewy like and oyster but incredibly delicious with a flavor unlike anything I've ever eaten. We passed around pieces, marveling at the taste of this strangely names fruit. The sun was shining down, the forest was chattering away around us and things were pretty perfect. Until someone decided to pipe up and sing, "Guanabana" to the tune of the insidious classic "Mahna Mahna." At that point it was all over. For the rest of our trip, we couldn't go more than a few hours before someone would call out "Guanabana!" and before you know it, we'd all chime in "Do-Dooooo-Do-Doo-Doo." Ahhhh, the sounds of the rainforest.