Ending Up Where We Started

I may yet do a proper Grammy recap post (Raising Sand, really?), but probably not. I didn't even watch this year's ceremonies. I probably could have found them down here in Buenos Aires, but you know, life's too short sometimes. Especially when you can catch all the good bits later on youtube anyway. I am definitely amused by the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow introduced Radiohead (or, at least, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood--didn't see Ed, Colin, or Phil) and the USC Marching Band. I especially liked it when Paltrow called Radiohead incredibly influential. Essentially the subtext of her statement was: "Radiohead is so cool that I married the singer of a band who desperately wants to be Radiohead (or U2)."



And why don't pop artists play with marching bands more often, anyway? Is it just me or is it way awesome everytime these collobarations happen (see also "Jesus Walks" from Dave Chappelle's Block Party).

There's some discussion over at Slate about M.I.A. and her fashion choices. The headline is "What Should a Hugely Pregnant Sexpot Pop Star Wear, Anyway?" And, I'm sorry. Maybe I was out of the room for this (or out of the country, one), but when did M.I.A. become a "sexpot"? Cath and I saw her this past (northern hemisphere) summer in Philly and had an interesting conversation about how she represents a very interesting kind of stage performance for a female performer in which sexuality (at least as conventionally thought of) is about the 7th or 8th most important element in her performance. If that. (In case this matters, by my calculation she was about a month pregnant at the time of the concert.) The people at Slate bat around the term jolie-laide, but I'm not even convinced that applies to M.I.A. I'd buy that for Missy Elliot, maybe. But M.I.A., no. Is it sexist to insist that sex is a big part of every female pop performer's image/persona/success. Or is just naive to assume that it isn't? And how do issues of South Asian orientalism work in here, too? They did get the "hugely pregnant" part of the headline right, though. That part is pretty inarguable.

I'm also not terribly convinced by people calling M.I.A. a rapper and leaving it at that. Clearly rap is one element in the bag for her. But so are about a million other things that I'm not even close to understanding (nor are most of the people who write popular press articles, it seems). I will repeat my call for someone smarter and with more time than I to write something about M.I.A. and break it down for the rest of us.

At Last?

File this one under, "Snap."

Etta James is apparently going to whup Beyonce's ass. I haven't seen Beyonce's version of "At Last" from the Inaugural, nor have I watched really any of the events from the Inauguration. I guess maybe I should at some point, and I imagine they are all up on youtube for all to see.

Anyone see Cadillac Records, yet? What's next, anyway, in this line of movies, after Dream Girls and Cadillac Records? Is there gonna be a Stax movie? Or (closer to home) one about Philadelphia International Records? (It's pretty obvious what this movie should be called, right? It's gotta be Love Train.) Or one about Def Jam?

Anyway, Cadillac Records is on the list of movies I need to see when I get back to the states. Other movies on the list include:

Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
The Wrestler
Che
Gran Torino
Frost/Nixon
Tropic Thunder

Am I missing anything obvious?

And while we're on the topic of asses getting whupped, here's some classic Wesley Willis.

A Long, Long Time Ago

Anniversaries, anniversaries. Just last week was the 40th anniversary of the Beatles's last live performance together, their rooftop lunchtime concert at the end of the "Get Back" sessions. And today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. I have something of a slight connection to this event, as I'm originally from the town they were on their way to when their plane crashed: Fargo, ND. This article from my hometown paper does a good job explaining Fargo's place in rock 'n' roll history. It ain't quite "George Washington slept here," but one Elston Gunnn (really, with 3 n's) did live in Fargo during the summer of 1959. If you don't know who he was, you may want to look him up.