OK, so maybe it's old news, but what can I say, I've already established my partiality for tots with musical moves. This one's a Brazilian dance prodigy with a taste for samba music.
Know of more hilarious (real) dancing babies? Drop a comment!
--Jason Kirk
Few things go as well together as hip-hop and science. The lexicon of bleeding-edge theoretical physics is practically overflowing with rhyme-ready particles (real, virtual, anti-, and otherwise), and from Dr. Octagon to The Sounds of Science, the rap canon abounds with more-or-less learned verses.
So if you're like me and have trouble finding enough to time in your life to nurture your twin loves of hip-hop and quantum cosmology, let Alpine Kat grab the mic for a minute. Science writer by day and science rapper in her spare time, Alpine Kat has recorded a number of "science raps," the most notorious of which serves as a primer on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), an immense subterranean machine on the Franco-Swiss border designed to slam protons together at near-light speeds in order to see what happens.
If you like what you hear, check out more of Alpine Kat's science raps.
Either way, let us know about the best science-based hip-hop we might have missed...
--Jason Kirk
No question: Look-alikes make for really cheap humor. But after ten years of enduring an almost daily barrage of strangers telling me I'm a dead ringer for a certain fictional British wizard, I like to think I've earned it. So here we go with a few favorites from the world of music...
Vicente Fernández ("The King of Ranchera") and Burt Reynolds
Enya and Winona Ryder
Meatloaf and operatic bass-baritone Bryn Terfel
Leonard Cohen and Leonard Nimoy
Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker
Susan Boyle and Julia Child
Lady Gaga and Hazel O'Connor
Keith Richards and J.P. Patches
Selena Gomez and Clarice Starling
Michael Stipe and Gollum
Brad Paisley and my brother Sam
And finally, a recent favorite from the music archives at TotallyLooksLike.com...
Adam Lambert and Liza Minnelli
Thanks to my fellow bloggers Robert Arambel, Jon Foro, and Hugo Munday for suggestions...
--Jason Kirk
Our friends over at Armchair Commentary posted this awesome video of actor Christopher Walken performing Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." I'm a Lady Gaga fan, but I have to say--nobody does it like Christopher Walken. Check out both Walken's version and the original Gaga music video below.
--Bri Nguyen
For my money, this dubious honor belongs to Five For Fighting for the first song on their new album Slice (also called "Slice"). Behold:
"Have you ready my blog today/300 million little USAs"
Honestly, I've never really liked this band, but, BARF! Really? Really?? You're going there?
Everything about this lyric makes me cringe. I dare you to tell me I'm wrong--I'd love to hear what you think is the worst lyric of 2009. Please share the not-so-poetic lines that made you hate music this year in the comments.
--Alan Wiley
Mariah Carey is the Rainman of pop music. Focused, blank faced and sometimes capable of genius. Each toothpick lying on the diner floor is a hit song; each cheese puff is a music video featuring a greased-up, jiggling Mariah bearing an expression that translates to either a)Tabula Rasa; or b) “I’ve had too much turkey dinner.” I can’t tell. My Latin ain’t so good.
It goes without saying that Mariah Carey is an undisputed talent who has achieved greatness. She has a reported 5-octave voice and has sold something in the neighborhood of, what – like 200 million records? Amazing! I used to get chills listening to she and Whitney Houston dominate radio in the early 90s with pop songs that showcased considerable soul and range. Like major powerhouse vocal business. It just knocked me to hear voices like that. Whitney disappeared from the scene and Mariah stole it, supplementing her vocal range with some kind of fantastical Hip Hop genie oil that, when applied directly to skin, creates MTV and radio perfection. A quick scan through music video history finds Mariah in all manner of locale (a school, a countryside hoedown, in water, in posh cars, on various silk beds, in her knickers, in bikini in front of Vuitton luggage, in mansions, etc.), jiggling awkwardly and touching herself prettily while wearing a bloated, vacant smile that reminds me a bit of Patrick Swayze’s smile in Ghost when his spirit left Oda Mae for the last time. Perhaps the smile is just a way of coping with the interminable breeze that seems to follow the poor woman around onscreen (it’s always windy in her videos, which is perplexing considering many of them take place indoors.). A couple vids from the early years are below, but the new ones, the really gross/awesome ones ("Don't Forget About Us," "We Belong Together," "Say Somethin'," "Touch My Body"), cannot be shown here, sadly. "Embedding disabled by request." (Sigh*).
"Someday": (School):
"Dreamlover" (Countryside):
The lips parted, peekaboo glances and self love that mark her music video performances could be almost lovable if there were something substantial -- like her shining TALENT, for example -- to anchor it. There's not. The last few albums have been produced within an inch of their digital lives, her vocals seemingly quadruple tracked and Pro-Tooled to bits, only to be ultimately sidelined by Hip Hop glitterati guest appearances. I’m all for double-tracking vocals (Dave Gilmour in Dark Side of the Moon, anyone?) and collaborating with your buddies but at some point it becomes a major bummer.
The vocal legend’s latest (with its straight-faced title), Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, provides no reprieve on the bummer front. More breathy vocal business. More songs with barely any sung words. More tiny dresses fit to burst. More indoor breezes. More self-conscious touching of the face and hair. More lazy grins. More killer song titles like “Angels Cry” and “H.A.T.E.U.” (although to be fair, "H.A.T.E.U." is one of the finest songs on the album). A quick aside: while Memoirs… came close to winning the award for Best Accidentally-Comedic Album Title, the trophy still stays safe in the harbors of Mariah’s 2008 release, E=MC2.
I know the new album has sold a quarter of a million and that my opinion may elicit derision from some, but folks - please be gentle. I am an imperfect angel; Don’t H.A.T.E.ME. Love me, love me…
--Leslie Beattie
I missed this first time 'round on NPR, but alert friends sent it my way.
Just for grits and shins.
As you play your shiny new copy of The Beatles: Rock Band, listen to the newly remastered albums, and otherwise indulge in yet another wave of Beatlemania, get excited about the upcoming The Beatles: Guitar Hero, discussed here in detail. (Disclaimer: This video is not for the reflexively literal-minded.)
Happy Monday, Monday...
--Jason Kirk
I have no idea why, but some evil genius has reimagined M.I.A's smash hit "Paper Planes" as a flapper jam performed by Al Jolson. Behold:
Apparently this isn't the aforementioned evil genius' first foray into Back-to-the-futuring songs you know and might even like. For further enjoyment, you might consider his version of Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta," transported back to the 1960s. I kind of want to send that to @seantroversy to get his take on it, but I'm afraid roughly 10,000 other people have done the same thing.
-- Jeff Reguilon
