It is so difficult to ignore Chris Brown, who everyone besides teenage girls and other pop artists seems to be completely disgusted with, when folks like Nicki Minaj keep insisting on collaborating with him. So we kind of expected to see Brown taking up space in her video for “Right by My Side,” although we couldn’t predict that he and Nas — who doesn’t appear on the track — would be dividing Minaj’s affections in it. She makes the right choice in the end, and the scenes between her and Nas are just as sweet as the syrupy song requires. The only problem is that their romance has to share the stage with Brown’s overtures to Minaj — which has us thinking that we’d like to see a fan edit of “Right by My Side” that cuts him out and replaces him with pictures of cats, stills from Kitty Pryde’s “Okay Cupid” video, or even just TV’s classic color-bar test pattern. Seriously, if there is a reader out there ambitious enough to do this, we would be thrilled to post your video.
Devastating news: TMZ is reporting that Donna Summer died of cancer this morning at her Florida home. She was 63 years old. Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines and known as the Queen of Disco, Summer was a five-time Grammy winner whose hit songs — including “Love to Love You Baby,” “Last Dance,” “MacArthur Park,” “Hot Stuff,” and “She Works Hard for the Money” — defined a genre and dominated the charts in the ’70s and ’80s. The singer’s battle with cancer was not widely reported, apparently because she was attempting to keep it a secret.
We’ve seen far too many music icons pass away before their time in the past few months, so here’s hoping this is the last untimely death we’ll have to report for a while. Meanwhile, we’re going to take a moment to watch her excellent 1979 performance of “Bad Girls” and scatter some sequins in her honor. Join us after the jump, and leave your memories of Summer in the comments.
They say music moves in 20-year cycles, and the surfeit of ’90s-influenced bands on the scene at the moment seems to suggest that maybe they’re right (whoever “they” are.) It also seems that there are plenty of original ’90s bands playing at the moment, both renascent (Garbage, Pulp) those who never went away (Pearl Jam, for instance), or those who have no right to actually exist either way and are yet somehow touring together. Anyway, with all this in mind — and, specifically, because the new Garbage album is out this week — we thought it was high time for another of our stereotyping posts. Obligatory disclaimer: this is all in fun, so don’t take offense — and also, as ever, our stereotype is in there with the rest. See if you can guess which one it is!
“Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility — unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it — that goes by the cult name of ‘Camp.’”
- Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp
The 57th annual Eurovision Song Contest kicks off later this month, and it’s no a secret that a lot of participating nations aspire toward a little American coverage of their perennially campy offerings. But America’s always had a contentious relationship with camp. It’s unfortunate, really, that despite living in a nation where the president now openly endorses gay marriage — albeit with a few caveats — our cultural consciousness remains so camp-ophobic. We are, after all, the people who failed to give Mean Girls an Oscar, John Waters the big budgets of Jerry Bruckheimer, and B*witched a chance at a career here that spanned more than one single.
Perhaps that’s where Eurovision steps in as our forbidden fruit. It’s distant enough that American audiences needn’t feel debased by (or risk identifying with) the camp, but simultaneously, it satisfies our curiosity. It’s not that we have no appetite for camp — it’s that our pop consciousness needs to be tricked into appreciating it. (Hello there, Lady Gaga.) Eurovision, then, is a delightful, drawn-out yet comfortingly foreign opportunity to revel in camp.
The new Beach House record is out this week, and while we’ve always thought the band’s name was more wry irony than genuine summeriness — Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally’s music evokes the atmosphere of boarded-up resorts and empty beaches, as far as we’re concerned — we’ve got no doubt that Bloom is gonna be the soundtrack to many, many people’s summers. And, indeed, every summer needs a good soundtrack, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to take a look at some of our favorite indie summer anthems — songs that celebrate the sun, or just do a fine job of capturing the atmosphere of the season in all its complex, sweaty glory.
After a few months of interchangeable summer festival lineup announcements featuring ’90s alt-rock reunions and trendy indie acts, it’s always refreshing to hear what traveling hip-hop celebration Rock the Bells is planning — and this year’s just-released roster doesn’t disappoint. The biggest news, as far as we’re concerned, is the return of Missy Elliott, who will appear alongside longtime collaborator Timbaland as “very special guests.” Also on the agenda is Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s 20th anniversary reunion, for which they’ll play their classic 1995 album E. 1999 Eternal in its entirety. Other noteworthy bookings include Salt-N-Pepa, Kid Cudi, Nas, Wiz Khalifa, Ice Cube, A$AP Rocky, Deltron 3030, Slick Rick, Yelawolf, and just about as many Wu Tang members as you’ve come to expect from Rock the Bells. In 2012, the festival will visit three cities, hitting OS Events Center in San Bernardino, California on August 18th and 19th; Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California on August 25th and 26th, and PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey September 1st and 2nd. See the full lineup after the jump.
It’s graduation week, and we guess that means at least some of you are preparing to leave college behind for good. If you’ll allow us to get a little misty-eyed for a minute, we remember when we were in the same position, and it’s both exhilarating and frightening — suddenly the future is a big empty space, just waiting to be filled in. Happily, as ever, there’s at least some solace to be found in music, and there’ve been plenty of great songs written over the years about life and how to live it. So here’s a playlist of some of our favorite tracks with something to say on what life’s all about, and how you go about negotiating your way through it. Let us know if there are any lessons you’d like to share, too.
The recent death of Adam “MCA” Yauch is something that hit most of us pretty hard here at Flavorpill, so we were happy to come across this wonderful tribute that Portland-based filmmaker James Winters shot with a group of kids over the weekend. While there’s certainly no touching the original, we’re fairly sure that Yauch would have approved of this remake of the “Sabotage” video, because really, what’s not to love about a bunch of adorable children in ridiculous wigs and aviators?
Welcome to another edition of our regular Monday stream-a-thon, wherein we hunt down the best and/or most notable records streaming for free over the Internet. This week, there’s the arrival of the new Abba-inspired Gossip album (but wait, it’s better than that description might suggest). There’s also a new record from Flavorpill faves Cornershop, a surprisingly deep and interesting new album from Simian Mobile Disco, reflective melancholia from Mount Eerie and Cold Specks, and a proper stream for the Garbage album. Click through and listen to your heart’s content!
As we reported last week, apparently Ke$ha is collaborating with her “idol” Iggy Pop for a song on her upcoming album. Our initial response to this was pretty much like everyone else’s, involving a combination of the letters “W,” “T,” and “F,” but the more we think about it, the more we’re coming around to the idea that the track could actually be pretty great. After all, it’s hardly the first pop/rock collaboration, and some of the results of pairing up pop singers and rock stars over the years have been thoroughly excellent. We’ve pulled together a few of our favorite such collaborations after the jump — as ever, let us know (nicely) what we’ve missed.
