Gaga vs Gaga

In her latest out-of-it rant, Camille Paglia -- desperately trying to cling to her bad-girl-of-feminism reputation -- "demolishes" (hardly) Gaga. The article is not online but there's more than you need here. If there's one startling thing in this embarrassing screed, it's that some people think Paglia's opinion is still relevant. Paglia keeps contradicting herself (especially when she uses Madonna as comparison) and seems to be in the con camp just to be contradictory.

A good antidote is the new book Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga, by my New York Post colleague Maureen Callahan. There's already several Gaga books on the market, but this one is particularly instructive about what it takes to make a pop star nowadays. Or this pop star, at least. It's not news that Gaga is a workaholic, but I found the book's detailed tracking of how hard, how relentlessly she toiled to get to where she is particularly edifying. Some may argue that it's too early in Gaga's career to warrant a book, let alone several. But the way she's built her act is interesting, and it's certainly not too early to look at that. And just think of what will come out of her fall, whenever that happens.

From the land Down Under, part 3

I didn't spend all my time in Oz drinking coffee and going to footy games: I also went to the theater (more on that on my NY Post blog) and caught some TV. Some random thoughts on the latter experience.

After watching most of the audition week of the local X Factor (already a hit in the UK, US version coming soon), I can only say that I'm now so hooked that I'm going to follow the proceedings online to see if my favorites (see below) make it through. The four judges are singer Natalie Imbruglia, former Australian Idol judge Kyle Sandilands (trying waaaay too hard to emulate Simon Cowell), baby-faced Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian and former Boyzone member Ronan Keating. Most striking was the candidates' sweetness and naivete — several looked almost paralyzed by shyness. This was in stark contrast to the way many American contestants show up with outsize egos and an often-lengthy history of performing.

In addition, there's four categories of candidates: groups, under 25 males, under 25 females and anybody over 25 — OMG, fogies with, like, wrinkles! This opens up the competition to seasoned people with real histories behind them. I was particularly taken, for instance, with 40-year-old Tony from Perth. His audition performance of "Proud Mary" was the epitome of rugged manliness. Also impressive was 20-year-old apprentice hairdresser Sally, with a dignified cover of Xtina's Hurt."

Another big difference: openly gay candidates (yay, Hayley). Cute.

Another TV favorite was a reality show called The Farmer Wants a Wife, which follows six country folk in various Australian states as they look for a suitable mate. Highlight of the one episode I caught was when the date between cattle farmer Charlie and equine dentist Christy was cut short after she was bitten by a redback spider and had to be taken to the emergency room. (Perhaps this is what inspired me to purchase a pair of Redback boots later on.) Note that the title is deceiving since the farmers include Becky, a woman from South Australia looking for a husband. She seemed to hit it off with an explosives technician from the Northern Territory.

Finally, homegrown pride is very important in the Australian film and TV industry. Every time an American flick starred a local, the trailer or promo blared "featuring Australia's so-and-so." A commercial for new Oz series Cops L.A.C. boasted "with a great Aussie cast!"

Swedish Glee

The Dilettante's Special Stockholm Correspondent (soon! soon!) has alerted me to the existence of a Swedish TV show called Körslaget, which is about competing choirs. Sounds familiar? You bet!

The concept was developed by a Swedish singer named Caroline af Ugglas (whose own 2009 Melodifestivalen entry was a bizarrely intense ballad titled "Snälla Snälla") and it was adapted by NBC under the title Clash of the Choirs for a short-lived run. The Swedish version was a lot more successful, with popular singers leading choirs culled from their home towns.

Aside from the age of the contestants — and having Abba songs instead of show tunes — it's hard not to see a certain resemblance in musical approach between Körslaget and a little series called Glee. Check out Abba's "Does Your Mother Know" by Team Magnus (that would be Magnus Carlsson from Alcazar), Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" by Team Lotte (dansband singer Lotte Engberg) and a car-crash cover of Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" by Team Pontare (Roger Pontare, who represented Sweden at Eurovision twice).

And then people wonder why Sweden is my spiritual home…

Pets, not animal companions

My preview of the Pet Shop Boys' New York shows is in today's Post.

It'd be preposterous to introduce the Boys' music at this point — or even focus on their latest album since the tour is more of a career retro — so I decided to zero in on their stagecraft. If a band can bring together pop heads and show-tune queens, it's this one. Appropriately, their current Pandemonium tour is staged by an opera and theater designer and choreographed by someone with two new shows on Broadway this season.

Book of the year?

A few days ago I bought Vince Aletti's The Disco Files 1973-78 at St. Marks Bookshop. It's a collection of the columns Aletti (now the photography reviewer at The New Yorker) wrote for Record World magazine in the 1970s.

If you love classic disco, as I do, this is a goldmine. There's no benefit of hindsight here, and Aletti's taste is spot-on — anybody who can gush about Peter Brown's "Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me" and Claudja Barry automatically gets my everlasting admiration. I've been spending way too much time tracking down some of the songs I didn't know and that he particularly gushes about, and so far it's been one nugget after another. Undisputed Truth's "You + Me = Love"? Amazing! This is what YouTube was invented for. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Countdown to ecstasy

My preview of tonight's installment of Our Hit Parade is in the New York Post.

Modelled after the old radio and TV show Your Hit Parade, this monthly cavalcade of stars performing current chart-toppers is a real hoot, and usually includes a countdown, games, dances, audience participation (willing or not) and a certain amount of nudity.

In addition to the core trio of Kenny Mellman, Bridget Everett and Neal Medlyn, tonight's guests include the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson, Randy Harrison, Jackie Hoffman and Molly Pope. See you at Joe's Pub!

Ukraine does it again

If Ukraine doesn't win Eurovision 2009, I'll eat my hat! Seriously, this song has it all: crazy inventive production, banging chorus, delirious lyrics, nutty video (though that won't help at the contest) and babes in skimpy outfits (which I trust will somehow pop up on the Moscow stage).

Added bonus: If Ukraine wins in Moscow, the Russians are going to freak out.

Electro schocks

In today's New York Post, I stray from the theater turf for something that won't surprise readers of this blog: a piece about four women doing the solo electro-thing.

I'm surprised the influence of Peaches on the new generation of women tinkering with Apple Logic hasn't been spelled out more. The likes of Little Boots, thecocknbullkid and VV Brown, whom I talked to for the piece, may not draw from Peaches' lyrical content, but they've sure borrowed a trick or two from her sound (mixed in with much more mainstream pop influences, to be sure).

I'll go see Peaches this Saturday night, when she plays Webster Hall, and on Monday may try to take a break from the Obies to drop by the Little Boots gig at (Le) Poisson Rouge.

Of the four in the article, multi-instrumentalist VV Brown is the least electro. Here's her new single, and oh that chorus!

And the Pop Club goes on

The latest Pop Club is up on the Time Out New York site. This week, we discuss new songs by U2, Keri Hilson and Kelly Clarkson. Exciting! Still, be prepared for a shock if you click on the link to the cover of Clarkson's single.

This year's pazz & jop poll

The results of the Village Voice's annual music poll have just come out. I'm not going to spoil anything by revealing that TV on the Radio tops the album list and M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" takes the singles crown. Needless to say, they are nowhere to be seen on my ballot—though I did vote for the no. 2 single, Estelle's "American Boy."

What surprised me, however, is the bizarrely high number of records I was the only person to vote for. I simply do not understand, for instance, why only two of us voted for Girls Aloud's Out of Control or Little Jackie's The Stoop. And it's not like many of my picks are particularly obscure either: Many topped the charts…in other countries.

The wit and wisdom of Alphabeat

I've listened to Alphabeat's This Is Alphabeat a lot in the past few months. In fact, it's one of the few albums I've listened to repeatedly all the way through. While the Danes' wicked way with hooks obviously is the primary appeal, I've also come to really appreciate their lyrics.

One song really encapsulates the Alphabeat style: "10,000 Nights." Disregarding the conventional verse-chorus-verse structure, the melody is plain addictive (and look at the adorably dorky dance moves in the video), but it's the lyrics that bring it all home: Such a poetic inanity—or is that inane poetry?—is rare, even in the kind of pop I love. See for yourself in this analysis of the entire song (I'll skip repeated lines):

I was not looking for arty-farty love
Hmm, arty-farty feels like a remote possibility if you're in a band like Alphabeat but okay, if you insist on stating the obvious, I'm with you. But why not artsy-fartsy instead of the awkward arty-farty? Would it have thrown off the meter? Is the gassy echo a reference to Serge Gainsbourg's cult novel Evguénie Sokolov?

I wanted someone to love completely
Someone more than weekly
We're starting to get somewhere: No pseudo-intellectual hipsters need apply, and no behaving like a Simenon character with a weekly prostitute habit.

I was looking for a decent boy
Despite visual evidence suggesting the opposite would make more sense, Stine sings this line, not Anders.

For a tender glance
For a safety dance
First meta reference to another song, ie Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance." Alphabeat slyly suggests it learned English by listening to the radio.

The wuthering heights
And the stormy nights
This is the one-two punch that slays me every single time. It could be a Bronte reference in the first line but I don't think so, meaning we've got another pop allusion, this time to Kate Bush (which makes you revisit the first line: perhaps someone in Alphabeat would like arty-farty after all). And then we have the stormy nights. No verb, just minimalist description. Amazing.

You give me 10,000 nights of thunder
But I will give them all back to you
But why will you give them back? Don't you like the other person anymore? Also do you realize that 10,000 nights is 27 years??? These two lines are bewildering and insanely wonderful.

Cause you're so ooh, you're so aah, you're so cool
This doesn't help at all. Anders is giving back the nights—and not just any nights: nights of thunder—because the object of his affection is…cool? The way Anders grasps for words before settling down for "cool" is rather endearing.

You came like a thief in the night and stole my heart
Like a solitude erasure
Like an elevator
My three favorite lines of the year, no contest. Listening to the song, I thought Stine and Anders sang "Like a solitude eraser"—referring to the thief—but all the lyrics sites I consulted have "erasure." I'm not sure which one I prefer, though "erasure" somehow has a more definitive side to it. The lines are happy but a certain darkness creeps in. That elevator thing, however, is completely cryptic—like something out of a song those bearded indie-rock kids enjoy so much. Is this an example of catachresis? Discuss.

And I know we'd do anything for love
And it is you and me
For all eternity
Whoa, Stine's going all Tristan and Isolde on us! What happened to the arty-farty safety dance?

It feels like 10,000 nights of thunder
When I've spent one with you
A-ha! They didn't literally mean 27 years. Alphabeat is in absolute mastery of all the rhetorical tools at the disposal of a pop lyricist. (Remember the use of analogy in the "solitude erasure/elevator" combo?)

'Cause you're so ooh, you're so aah, you're so cool
You're so super-supremely ba-ba-di-oh
And one of these tools seems to be nonsense, which Stine uses to express the fact that her infatuation is so strong, it prevents her from articulating her thoughts, just like Anders and his bumbling "You're so ooh, so aah." I like the use of the mirror image, plus for some reason it all reminds me of "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo" from Cinderella.

And baby baby you're irresistible and I'm insatiable
Yeah love is an ocean of sweet emotion
While Alphabeat is a PG band, the first line suggests Anders has needs, like all young men his age. But he immediately drops that sensitive subject and reassures us that he understands the real force to be reckoned with is love. All's well that ends well.

The most depressing list in the world

Okay, maybe not the most depressing one, but still… Stereogum has printed a clean, reader-friendlier version of Hype Machine's "blogger-sanctioned meta-list beast," which is as good an indicator as any of what indie kids listened to in 2008.

And what a sad, sad sight it is.

The top five albums are by Fleet Foxes, TV on the Radio, Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver and MGMT, in descending order. Just looking at these names makes me want to poke a stick in my eyes. And one in my ears too, for good measure.

There's plenty to say about the list, but I'll focus on one aspect of it: Where are the women? Out of 50 entries, seven bands (Portishead, She & Him, Crystal Castles, Beach House, Ra Ra Riot, Mates of States, the Kills) include women in prominent roles, and then there's a grand total of three female solo artists (Santogold, Lykke Li, Jenny Lewis). Just pathetic.

Seriously, what is wrong with hipsters that they can't relate to women making music? Nowadays, the indie charts are dominated by dudes with beards, whereas the Billboard Hot 100 is a lot more hospitable to women making smart, chart-friendly pop music. I guess that's okay in a way: Taylor Swift, Lady GaGa, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna are the ones laughing all the way to the bank. Still, it'd be nice if they could get the critical respect they deserve, too.

More Pop Club

I have to admit that my single favorite work assignment is doing the Pop Club with the fabulous Jimmy Draper and Kurt B. Reighley every other week or so. We chat about three new singles via Google Talk—I'm in New York, Jimmy in Ann Arbor and Kurt in Seattle—as we listen to the songs simultaneously; I then put up the conversation on the Time Out New York site along with the streaming tunes, so readers can see whether or not they agree with us.

The third installment of the Pop Club just came up today. Under the microscope: tunes by the Veronicas, Miranda Cosgrove and Leona Lewis.

And the hits keep on coming

Back in December, I raved about Our Hit Parade, a demented revue I saw at the Zipper. The brain trust behind the event—Bridget Everett, Kenny Mellman and Neal Medlyn—has now started a companion blog of the same name, which combines two of my favorite things: super-commercial pop songs and a twisted downtown sensibility.

The next edition of Our Hit Parade is at the Zipper on January 31. See you there.

Give Katy Perry a break

Lots of gay women have been really riled up by Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl." The main beef: Perry kissed a girl and liked it, but then she went on to say "I hope my boyfriend don't mind it."

Hold the presses: Katy Perry's not a real lesbian—she sings about hetero titillation!

And she stole the title of a song by Jill Sobule, who's a real bisexual!

And the dudes at Out magazine made her their Musician of the Year! Even though she isn't out ’cause she isn't gay!

And…and…and…those greedy sell-outs at the Dinah Shore made Perry their headliner over Indigo Girls for the ’09 edition of their annual orgy!!!

Can I possibly be the only lesbionic gal who'd rather see Katy Perry than Indigo Girls? The only one who'd trade the entire k.d. lang catalogue for "I Kissed a Girl"? (Okay, maybe "I Kissed a Girl" + "Hot ’n’ Cold," its even better follow-up.) Is it so wrong to want to trade earnestly strummed guitars for the magic of pop music, which is about style, fun, flirtation and yes, manipulation? Sometimes I really despair of my sisters' ability not so much to take a joke as to understand how power works. Frankly if Katy Perry wants to kiss a girl even though she has a boyfriend, we ladies should take advantage. So Katy won't show up the next day with a U-Haul—and that's a bad thing how?

(Also: girls' lips taste better with cherry chapstick than Karma Apple 95% Organic Lip Balm.)

In the meantime—and what really prompted this belated post—here is my new fave Perry-related moment: "I Kissed a Girl" + Britney Spears's "If U Seek Amy" = "If You Kissed Amy." Enjoy.

Just the facts, m'am

Siouxsie is an influence whose time has come, so it's not really a surprise that London's Ipso Facto sounds like Ms. Sioux on downers. Black & white aesthetics, stern haircuts, a "Louise Brooks goes to architecture school" look—hmmm, I think I'm in love. Signed to newish Mute imprint Mute Irregulars (of course), the quartet only has some singles out for now. Hopefully they also have a Google alert on themselves and will see this post pleading for a gig in New York sometime soon. Meanwhile, we'll have to do with this video for "Six and Three Quarters."

Underground Paris

Paris in the 1970s is an object of endless fascination for me, particularly the punk, gay and clubbing factions: Le Palace, Bazooka, Mathématiques Modernes, Alain Pacadis, Jenny Bel Air—all names that set off a thousand fantasies for the provincial girl I was. That scene was in its death throes when I landed in the capital in 1982 to attend college, but the agony was still glamorous enough to project a mystical aura. A number of books by and about luminaries of that time have been published in France in the past half-decade, including a collection of Alain Pacadis's writing (he roughly was the Gallic version of Michael Musto), François Jonquet's lovely biography of Jenny Bel Air, and the reissue of NovöVision, Yves Adrien's new-wave cult classic. Music-wise, the compilation Des Jeunes Gens Modernes is absolutely essential.

For a thorough overview, however, check out a site created by a man named Bernard Bacos, who lived in that city—or perhaps I should say he lived that city—and celebrates it at Paris dans les années 70. If you don't read French, I suggest going randomly, as Bacos has unearthed a treasure trove of great photos and provides sound samples of several of the bands. And if you do read French, I guarantee hours of fascinated clicking.

Bacos starts off with the late ’60s and early ’70s, covering the "baba cool" (ie hippie) bands; check out, for instance, the page about the 30 ans d'agitation musical en France box set, complete with streams. (Here, Gilles Deleuze reads a Nietzsche poem, backed by a band called Schizo. An entire era is summoned…) But his coverage of is extensive, each section shooting out into numerous nooks and crannies. The page about Fabrice Emaer's Palace (Paris' answer to Studio 54, and newly reopened) is delicious, for instance, linking out to other classic clubs such as cold-wave temple Les Bains Douches, and the one about the punk art collective Bazooka reminded me of how brutally prescient they were. (Watch this TV doc on Bazooka.)

Bacos is straight so the gay underground doesn't get as much in-depth coverage as the hippie one, but he still has fascinating stuff about the likes of Les Gazolines, a gender-queer group that ran parallel to the radical-leftist FHAR, ie Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire. (See Le Rose et le noir, Frédéric Martel's page-turner about the history of contemporary homosexuality in France.) It would have been hard for Bacos not to deal with Les Gazolines anyway, since its members popped up at Le Palace, wrote for Libération, etc.

One for the road: Taxi Girl's stone-cold classic single "Cherchez le garçon," from 1980. The band released only one album, 1981's sepulchral Seppuku, produced by Stranglers bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel. The lanky guitarist on the right in the video is Mirwais, who would go on to produce Madonna's Music. As for singer Daniel Darc, he of the bee-stung lips, his career was derailed by drugs but he resurfaced in 2004 with the rare superb album that also happens to be a commercial hit, Crève-coeur.

The Pop Club returns

Did you miss us? The Pop Club is back for another chat about current singles on the Time Out New York site. This time around, we scrutinize new songs by M.I.A. and A.R. Rahman, Eve and Lady GaGa.

We're at the tail end of a lovely snow storm here in New York. I have the luxury to find it lovely because I'm not stuck in an airport and only have to travel a few blocks south to see The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Atlantic Theater tonight.

Track listing

Time Out New York has just published its year-end lists and I contributed my top ten favorite songs of 2008. Scroll down the link for my tunes, which you can stream as well. When I have some time (ie, over the weekend), I'll post additional tracks here.

Welcome to the Pop Club

I'd been waiting to do a singles panel for a long time and the time has finally come.

Head over to the TONY blog for the debut of the Pop Club, in which I discuss new tunes with fellow scribes Jimmy Draper and Kurt B. Reighley. That Google Talk thingie sure is fun…