You know, everybody says that Tori Amos has gone down. Or everybody in my circle says so, anyway. For them, it was like, Oh, Little Earthquakes was great, but since then... and then then they shrug their shoulders and look around the room, searching for the Tori they loved.

But I've been oddly faithful throughout her career, not exactly wanting to openly declare myself as a Tori Amos fan. It's the sore spot in my otherwise hip-hop-dominated collection, if you will. "Well, I really like Mos Def, and I've always been a Tribe fan, Tori Amos is cool, and I have every album The Roots have ever made." You see? It just doesn't work.

Anyway. Via Rhapsody I have again had my music ignorance pointed out to me, having totally missed the boat on Tori's latest CD. I've been listening to it all night, mainly because I discovered Suzi Suh via NPR and Tori made for a nice segue from the smoky, female voice thing Suzie has going on.

And you know what? I think I actually prefer The New Tori to The Original Tori. Less gut-wrenching, screaming, piano-bench-humping (she totally does it) and more interesting combinations of different voices and floaty, life-is-weird-but-happy stuff that makes me think of driving the car down Highway One on a day when it's too cold to have the windows open, but you do anyway because the air smells so great right by the ocean.

The end of the story is that I'm a fan. Through and through. There. Said it. Done. My one criticism would involve "Witness." It's been taken off my Rhapsody list. Otherwise, great album.

I know I've written about Rhapsody before, but I really don't think people understand its beauty.

I have and have always had a FULL-ON music problem. Some people battle various addictions, and music has always been mine (falling maybe second to books).

I used to live two blocks away from a used-and-new CD's-and-Records shop that, unfortunately, a friend of mine worked at. I spent lots of my time walking the little path to and from his job and my apartment, reasoning with myself that I really needed another Funkadelic LP. It was timely that I discovered funk and the answers it held to the mysteries of the universe while living so close by. I think I bought at least three albums per week, which is a rhythm I could not possibly keep up in France because:

a) records are way more expensive here (I got some serious steals while in California)
b) I make less money now
c) the cost of living is far more elevated here
d) I have so much other shit to buy like new glasses and trips to Peru

So anyway, Rhapsody is the ultimate answer. I don't know why everybody I know doesn't talk about it constantly. As a matter of fact, I keep introducing people to its glory. Maybe I just need new friends. Hipper ones. The kind that wouldn't correct me for using the word hipper.

So in the last months, I have resolved to buy five CDs when the time is good and ripe. Meanwhile, I am happy to listen to them on my computer (which is hooked up to my stereo, so that's convenient). Please, $75 per year pales in comparison to the $25 per week I used to spend on music.

In the last 24 hours, I have spanned from listening to Ray Charles ("Ray" - the film - no doubt had an effect), to James Brown, to Jack Johnson, to Bonga, to Omara Portuondo, to Black-Eyed Peas, to Tori Amos, to Angie Stone, to Spearhead, to Youssou N'dour. ALL are albums I would potentially buy.

It's like having an enormous jukebox at my disposal. Do you people know what HEAVEN feels like? Because I'm pretty sure it involves a jukebox (and maybe a margharita, barefeet, and puppies that don't bite so much).

My theory is that Rhapsody appeals to two types of people:

1. Those who aren't that interested in music and just want to have access to a commercial-free radio-like system to have music on in the background and

2. Those who are COMPLETELY obsessed and need to get it under control.

Obviously, you know which category I'm in. I need to thank my sister profusely the next time I see her for introducing me to it.

How many albums does a singer/group/artist have to make before coming out with a "Best Of"/"Greatest Hits" compilation?

I'm down with the four-part The Ultimate Michael Jackson because the man has made tons of albums and his career has spanned three decades. Same goes for The Artist with his three-part velvet book thingie.

But um, The Fugees? With a "Greatest Hits"? Please. They've only made two albums: one - "Blunted on Reality" - hardly sold and the other - "The Score" - was a huge success. So are all the songs on the "Greatest Hits" from album number two? Shouldn't we just call it "The Score" then?

I am so upset about Ray Charles' passing. I know he was old, and sick, and not making music any more, but I still can't help but feel like a little light has gone out somewhere.

Whatever Reagan-remebering was being done in this house (little to none) has been usurped by Ray's death. If we need somebody to honor, let's honor "The Genius": he grew up poor, blind (after the age of seven) and an orphan, and managed to make one hell of a life for himself through music.

My Ray records will be turning in mourning.

Dolly, Kenny, Willie and I have been hanging out hard core this evening. These are my cowboy friends, my spur-wearing compadres. Two of them have beards. One of them has massive blond hair and equally massive tits. All of them are a guaranteed good time once invited over.

That's right, team. It's country music night on Odessa Street, much to The Boy's horror. Inspired by a conversation had over breakfast with some American girls last Sunday, I decided to go look up all of my favorite country stars on Imesh. It's been non-stop harmonicas and acoustic guitars in here ever since.

And you know what? Country music rocks.

Why? Country music makes it impossible to be in a bad mood. Most of it is upbeat. If it's of the sad variety, it's of the crooning, how-I-miss-my-roots variety, not the I'm-a-tortured-soul-with-such-depressive-problems type. Country music, when slightly more tame, can be very environmental: the mountains, the river, the skies. But usually, it's all about kicking ass, loving life, and getting drunk.

I'm thinking of forcing my poor, innocent high school students to learn to appreciate country. They usually coil away in horror at the very mention of the word. Maybe we should do a whole unit: Country Music - the history, the evolution, and the future of an American art form?

I'm off to go do some more toe-tapping and knee-slapping. Any of you have any must-have country suggestions? I'm especially looking for any songs with the following themes:

1. I-just-broke-up-with-my-man-and-I-can-attest-that-he's-a-low-down-good-for-nothing-bastard. I'm-gonna-go-out-and-get-drunk-with-the-girls-to-chase-my-blues-away

2. I-grew-up-in-the-mountains-and-am-deeply-in-touch-with-my-southern-roots. I-often-talk-about-banjos-and-harmonicas-wistfully.

3. Nothing-quite-like-being-a-cowboy, huh?

I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan. But man. The guy really needs some help. Seriously. I think the first pedophilia claim could have possibly been a hoax (notice, I didn't say that it was, just that it could have been), and I think the "dangling" issue got way out of line, but Christ... he's obviously in trouble this time around. And I don't mean he's in trouble with the law, I just mean the dude's got problems. And that, well, he's obviously getting his ass thrown in jail. So I guess he's in trouble with the law, too.

It's too bad such an amazing and talented performer had to go off the deep end. It really does make me sad.

And on another note: what the hell kind of parent leaves their kid(s) with him? I mean, hell, I'm one of his biggest fans, but I wouldn't leave my little one at Neverland with that wacko. I like his music, not his lifestyle. Not his insane belief that he's still a child. Not the fact that he sleeps with children in his bed. Who the hell is letting their kids sleep over at Michael's? What the hell is wrong with you people?

Sometimes what these new, fangly artist types do is just not ok.

I bought the new Talib Kweli album while I was back in the States because I was in Borders and had time to kill and why not buy four new CDs, right?

Right.

Some of you may remember what a fan I am of Talib and what he's done . In which case, you also probably remember how obsessed I am with Al Green's song "Simply Beautiful" because it might just be the best song ever recorded.

What I'm not so cool with, however, is combining the two. I'm fine with rappers using a few MJ tunes (ex Nas with "Human Nature"), as long as its done with full respect towards the parent generation in question. And I'm even cool with the cheesy use of some Bill Withers samples in an occasional Will Smith song or two (although I would never buy them). What I am NOT ok with, however, is the MASSACRE of my FAVORITE SONG EVAH! By an artist that I respect!

So the rest of the album is pretty damn good, honestly. I'm happy with it. In the Blackstar duo, I was always more for Mos than I was for Talib, but the latter has pleasantly me surprised me with his rhymes. But seriously. You just can't sample "Simply Beautiful" and make it into a rap song. What was Talib thinking?

To me, that's sacrilegious.

But, to end on a postive note, I'll tell you why I like the album. As with all rap albums that I like (with only a few exceptions that embarrass me), it's about postiive messages and not about guns and gangsters. So here's an excerpt from "Get By," a pretty motivational song:

We keeping it gangster say "fo shizzle", "fo sheezy" and "stayin crunk"
Its easy to pull a breezy, smoke trees, and we stay drunk.
Yo, I activism - attackin the system, the blacks and latins in prison
Numbers of prison they victim black in the vision
Shit and all they got is rappin to listen to
I let them know we missin you, the love is unconditional.
Even when the condition is critical, when the livin is miserable
Your position is pivotal, I ain't bullshittin you.
Now, why would I lie? Just to get by?
Just to get by, we get fly.
The TV got us reachin for stars
Not the ones between Venus and Mars, the ones that be readin for parts.
Some people get breast enhancements and penis enlargers
Saturday sinners Sunday morning at the feet of the Father.
They need somethin to rely on, we get high on all types of drug
When, all you really need is love
To get by.. just to get by
Just to get by, just to get by.

Of course, it loses some of its greatness when its not put to music, and it may make a lot less sense, too. But it's pretty impressive.

I entered the zone tonight, Friday, at 23.18. As part of the waiting before going out for my weekly (or bi-weekly) Friday-at-midnight dinner with the Boy, I've been sitting here since 20.30 studying Arabic. That means almost three straight hours have been spent at this desk writing "He goes to Samir's house" and "They take the bus to Baghdad Street." I didn't even realize it. I have pages of writing; it's all coming together. Strange, really. All week, I kept picking up my book only to trip and stumble over all those words. And this evening, very bizarre...it's all flowing.

The only thing that has managed to stop me is track six on Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Couldn't Stand the Weather." Total concentration, full speed a head, and I suddenly drop my pencil and listen to his guitar.

The music gave me a moment where I thought I had lost my vibe. My groove. My deep appreciation of music. It made me remember what good music really sounds like, and caused a wistful nostalgia that brought back memories of when I was discovering new tunes at an unholy rate.

Lately, I haven't found much that I dig. And it's sad. I've been listening to the same albums over and over, or new ones half-heartedly. But then Stevie's guitar started singing and my three hour Friday night study session's spell was broken.

I sit back in my new(ish) office chair and just breathe it in. And I think about how much I love people that understand great music, and how I need to meet more people who are willing to share with me so that I can expand my musical horizons.

Right then, I hear a singing, chanting voice calling out from the formerly silent living room. It's the Boy... feeling the soul too, at the exact same moment. He can't understand the words but he understands anyway. Now that's soul. Or the blues, in the case of track six.

I've been working on the mix for the trip K and I are taking down south. The thought occured to me: good 80's music is the funnest shit to put on your radio and dance around your apartment to.

But then a second thought occured to me:

For a decade with such great dance music, did any good dance moves come out of the 80's?

If you watch typical 80's flicks, the dancing is just atrocious whereas the music kicks ass in the uniquely 80's way. The inverse is the case with 70's flicks according to most people, although I am a huge disco advocate so obviously I think that BOTH the dancing and the music are top notch. But 80's dancing? Horrible stuff. People are doing that tap one foot in front of the opposing foot, shift weight, repeat with opposite foot, shift weight, repeat thing. Not a fan. How could people not have just gone wild during "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?" Shit, if youngsters found a way to dance to Nirvana less than ten years later, I take no excuses for 80's teenagers' inability to dance (well) to Cyndi.

Unfortunately, for the decade of my childhood and MTV's birth, the only dance move I could think of was the Running Man, which technically didn't even have its heyday until the early 90's. Oh, and the Moonwalk, of course, but that's not the type of dance you do in front of your mirror alone in your room to check out your mad skillz.

Not that I do that.

Do you guys remember the beginning to "In Living Color?" I so wanted to be a Fly Girl. That really, really didn't happen.

K and I are preplanning our mixes for our road trip. We require upbeat singalong songs, preferably the kind that you get really excited about when you hear them on the radio or at a bar, but not necessarily the type of song you would play everyday.

We have the following already:

Faith - George Michael
Groove is in the Heart - Dee Lite
Kiss - Prince
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson (ok, I might play this everyday)
Rebel Yell - Billie Idol
Miss You - The Rolling Stones
Sex Machine - James Brown
China Girl - David Bowie
Anything by Jamiroquoai provided its not Black Capricorn Day
Just What I Needed - The Cars
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cindy Lauper (sp?)
Everyday - Buddy Holly
Roxanne - The Police
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Anything by Bob Marley, really
Rocky Racoon - The Beatles
Baby Got Back - Sir Mix A Lot
Do You Love Me - The Contours
Vogue and other hits by Madonna

Can you think of others? We'll be in the car for six days total. We are very silly girls. We need music to bop along to.

Of course, each of us might have our own style mix as well (me rap, her that weird shit she listens to), but we're looking for something both of us will enjoy...

1) There has been a grave error made on imesh (which is like kazaa but, in my opinion, better).

The legendary, friggin' unreal band Funkadelic has been terribly, horribly inaccurately credited with the production of the following songs:

- Play that Funky Music White Boy (Wild Cherry)
- Kung Fu Fighting (Carl Douglas)
- Word Up (Cameo)

Ok, ok, ok. Very wrong. I know these people on these file-sharing programs get the info wrong all the time. Most of the time I don't care.

But not only is it a crime to NOT know Funkadelic's repertoire by heart, but how can you possibly deny these three one-hit-wonders of their sole claim to fame? They're kick-ass songs. They deserve the credit.

Funk. Don't fuck with it.

2) Am I the only one bothered by the beginning of the video to/song "You Rock My World" (yes, Michael Jackson again) when MJ says "She's good." with a little laugh. It's slimy. And that chick would never give MJ the light of day in a dance club - why he is so confident that he's gonna "get her"? Well, I know, it's cause he's a multi-millionaire, so he can be pretty confident about it. But I find his voice really creepy when he talks about it. Like it's wrong to think about Michael as having any sort of sexual desire whatsoever.

3) Jay-Z made a song using a loop from Tupac's "Me and My Girlfriend." (Side note on that song: I sort of half-listened to it, oh, thirty times thinking that Tupac was being so cute. You know, how cute! A rap song about his girlfriend that he can't stand being seperated from! It was only the thirty-first or thirty-second time that I realized he was talking about his gun. Not anywhere near as cute, really.) Isn't it sort of wrong to take a loop from a song that is under ten years old? You're supposed to sample from the generation before you, are you not? Jay-Z's a dickwad anyway, so I don't see why I should expect great things from the man, but a little RESPECT isn't too much to ask. Really.

Now for a few questions, because I am not in the US:

1) Why is everybody so obsessed with Coldplay? Sounds kinda like Matchbox 20 to me.

2) Why is everybody so obsessed with Norah Jones? Sounds kinda like your typical bird to me.

3) What's the big song of the moment? The one that keeps playing on the speakers in the grocery store? We're behind, so I want to get ahead. Here, it's still "Lose Yourself." Still.

Now, to end on a positive note - something that is done right. A few words of wisdom from Outkast (I'm in an Outkast period. They come and go every four months or so, and this seems to be the appropriate moment to bring them up):

- If the dealer dealt a fucked up hand of cards you've gotta play 'em ("Humble Mumble" from Stankonia)

- Make a business for yourself, boy, set some goals. Make a fair diamond out of dusty coals ("B.O.B -Bombs Over Baghdad" from Stankonia)

- You focus on the past your ass'll be a has what ("Rosa Parks" from Aquemini)

I'm coming clean. I have had more and more people coming around Odessa Street recently, and I think I need to just get this out early so that you don't feel betrayed in the future. So that at least I will have been honest from the get-go. It has to come out some time, and now is as good a time as any.

My boyfriend and I discussed it this evening. He took it as it was and is trying not to judge me for it. He is being as supportive as he can be.

You guys have to just know this. I have been trying to keep it inside, but I just can't anymore. You deserve the truth.

I like Eminem.

God. There. I said it. I do. I do. I am going to suffer incredible insults from peers that know better of my musical tastes. They might even lose faith in my ability to properly judge music.

I know he represents everything that "true" hip hop fans hate. I know that "real" hip hop is all about the underground, and that he is anything but. That he is as mainstream as you can get. That he is even, God Almighty, one step below the wretched and talentless Jay-Z. I know all of this. And I have even been known to say this at social gatherings. I have.

But the winds of change have blown mightily in weeks past.

So it's time I fess up: I have secretly downloaded all of his number ones. And now I know them all by heart. And I listen to certain ones several times a day. And I keep fastforwarding on my MP3 player to get to them when walking out and about.

Yeah, I said it. I like him.

I am excited for 8 Mile to come out in France (Feb 28). That's right. I am. I'll be there on one of the first night's it's playing with all of the suburban boys with their French ghetto accents and their Nike pants tucked into their socks (That's the "tough" look around here. For clarification, the suburbs of Paris are not nice like the suburbs of New York or Chicago. The well-off people live in the city, and the ghettos are in the suburbs. So when I say suburban boys, understand that I am not talking about the rich white guys pretending to be ghetto. I'm talking about the boys that really live in the ghetto and come to Paris on the weekend. Some people might find those last two sentences horribly fucked up, but I find them representative of reality, so there we go). Me, them, and their swish-swooshy athletic pants and fanny packs.

(Did you guys know that the bad-ass, ghetto-boy look in Paris involves fanny packs? How funny is that? Could you imagine an American gangster sporting a fanny pack? One time I was alone in a particularly shady neighborhood, waiting for the bus around 22.30 when a pack of them approched me. A girl, alone, at night, in a deserted and poorly-lit neighborhood. My heart started pounding. And then the biggest, scariest of the five of them started saying something in their inversed language - they speak French backwards so that people can't understand them - and pulled out a brick of hash. From his fanny pack. I couldn't help it. I just started giggling as quietly as possible. That's just not bad-ass to me. Am I alone here? Can I get an amen?)

Anyway, I'll be there. Me, the fanny packers, and Eminem. And I will sing along to "Lose Yourself" in the cinema silently to myself. 'Cause I know all the words now.

So now you know. Do with it what you will. I just couldn't live the lie anymore.

Could we talk about Tracy Chapman for a second? I just saw her in concert last night, right up front. A respectful audience, nice seats, the works. The woman walks out, simply dressed in a black shirt and jeans (she's much tinier than I had thought!) and just...oh God....just took over the whole room. Hundreds of people...silenced by this little dreaded woman and her guitar. I still get chills. She's singing this song off of her new album ("In the Dark"), and it's a very haunting, chilling song, and I just start crying. My Mom used to cry when the choir sang in church on Christmas, and I never understood why. She would say, "It's just so beautiful." Last night was the first time one little voice moved this big girl to tears.

Tracy's singing is clear and strong, and it carries up to the last person in the last row of the concert hall. When she began singing a cappella "Last night I heard the screaming..." I didn't dare breathe for fear of missing a moment of the song.

Everybody was moved. I have never seen the French take to a performance so well. Even by the end, once the serious, solemn songs were over and the fun began, they were dancing and clapping and stomping their feet. It was like they were finally released from whatever cocoon they have been stuck in for the last three hundred years.

What I appreciated about Tracy was her simplicity. She spoke - telling little stories before singing a song or two - talking to a fairly large sold-out audience as if she was speaking to each person individually. She never played up the fact that she is a multi-platinum, grammy-winning star. She giggled sheepishly from time to time, showed her nervousness at others, and jokingly made fun of her band members throughout.

At the closing, for her second encore, she said, "This is a song by one of my favorite songwriters. It's a song about standing up for what you believe in. It seems appropriate given the present climate; France seems to know something about standing up for what it believes in. This is for anybody that believes in peace."

It was a groovy version of Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up."

What a beautiful human being, and a beautiful evening.

Pop music promises a morbid future for us musicphiles. This is my gut feeling. So do not ask my further opinion of any bikini-clad pop star if you are not prepared for a heated argument about the shortcomings of today's pop scene.

I just popped into a recent post on dooce.com, an entertaining, well-written site that was, perhaps, the first weblog that I took a regular interest in reading. It helped that at the time I discovered it, I was doing an internship for an online film magazine, spending many hours in front of a computer with internet acces. But whatever...the facts are there: it's a great site and there are plenty of people who would back me up on this.

The proof: Dooce's post yesterday called in 198 comments, the highest amount I have ever spotted online. Today's post is (only) in the 90's, but I found it more fascinating than yesterday's. Little Miss Dooce spoke, in part, of her contempt for the new artist Avril Lavrigne, whose music I have yet to hear. I have, however, read a Newsweek article that eluded to her as being the icon of a growing Spice-Girls-style girl-power-movement-gone-grunge. Grunge, it seems, because Avril prefers sneakers, t-shirts, and - oddly - neckties to tight skirts, breast implants, and tube tops.

Ok. I don't see what all the fuss is about. She looks like Axl Rose to me, and haven't we done that already? And wasn't that called "heavy metal" at the time?

Regardless, Dooce's argument comes partially out of her love for Britney Spears, which is admittedly (albeit not overtly) based on Britney's image more than on her questionable musical skills. And she despises Avril for cashing in on all those girls that want to rebel in response to Britney's flashy red space suit, lustrous blond hair, and beaming sexuality out of a need for a more "safe alternative" to Britney. That is to say, maybe for those girls that aren't as cozy with a little bit of skin and sex, well, Avril is a welcomed quasi-asexualized option in the sea of young pop stars. In reality, both stars are doing the same thing: selling an image and not music. At least, to some degree, Britney is honestly superficial without trying to suggest outrageous things like actually having some sort of musical talent.

As Dooce said in her post: "Those people are bragging that Avril is writing her own music and playing her own instruments, and I'm like, since when did our pop stars need to do anything of that sort? If a pop star wrote her own music or played her own instruments she wouldn't be a pop star. She'd be a musician."

Unfortunately, I agree with her.

And then I got to reminiscing. Do you remember when pop music was actually something meant to last? Pop meant simply "popular," but not necessarily "popular for the under 25 age group with lots of money to spend" aka "profitable market" aka "flash in th epan." Let's face it: to teenagers, image counts. And part of one's image is defined by his musical taste. The majority of teenagers don't get into the complexity of music, nor do they appreciate Italian opera or Celtic chants. Most of them are just looking to listen to what their friends are listening to, to establish some sort of communal music taste, and to go out en masse to buy the stuff. They are a marketer's dream.

But why does that mean that said "stuff" has to be trash? Let me cite some well-known earlier generation pop examples: the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Doors. This is music people still listen to today, and it was also geared towards the younger, rebellious types of their day. Yet I highly doubt that a 24-year-old Cleveland undergrad student of today is listening to the Rolling Stones because he or she thinks Mick Jagger is hot. We've all seen him age. There must be some sort of musical talent stuck between those platinum vinyl grooves.

So when did we make the switch? When did pop became a word synonomous with "massively selling crap based on music videos and sex appeal"?

I'll give you my opinion, and then I want to hear yours: I think Michael Jackson signals the fossilization of the pop-still-equals-music era, and Madonna represents the beginning of our beloved pop-is-all-based-on-bra-size modern day. Coincidentally, their careers began and have slowed at approximatly the same time, although one can argue that Madonna has saved a bit more face (in more ways than one) than MJ has while in decline. Conclusion: we started going wrong in 1983 and hit the point of no return by 1996. Ah, an unlucky thirteen years.

To begin, nobody can say that Michael Jackson is not an excellent musician and artist, a man who has managed to revolutionize both music and dance at a time when it was stuck in neutral. Let's be honest - Michael was pumping out early hits "Rock With You" and "Off the Wall" against stiff competition like Devo's "Whip It." His songwriting is varied, complex, creative, and, often fun. The highest selling artist of all time, there is a reason why is known as The King of Pop. Experiencing his explosion just before the birth of MTV, Jackson made what has been hailed as one of the top music videos of all time - "Thriller." More a film than a music video, "Thriller" is unlike any other video that has followed since. Just watch "The Making of Thriller," my own personal favorite film from childhood (not a joke - it's about an hour long) to fall even more in love with the already fabulous video. Additionally, Michael Jackson is a true performer, gifted on stage as well as in the studio. Or watch footage from when little Mikey was five; his inherent talent could not be more clear. Some people are just gifted from the get-go. The man was born with music, raised with it, and has lived in it ever since. And despite being The King of Pop, he also deserves the honor of being called a musician.

Madonna, however, is another type of artist. It would still be fair to call her the Queen of Pop, although I believe nobody has ever officially bestowed her the appellation. She is the product of extreme dedication and determination as opposed to natural talent. I have never heard her sing a cappella, I don't honestly know if she can sing. Still, I would never say I am against her music - I find it fun, sing-alongable, and catchy. But I would also never dare describe her as a musical genius. Instead, let's just say that she knows how to get your attention and hold it. Madonna's cameleon-like personality is part of what keeps us interested. Like a virgin, dominatrix, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Booby-Coney Thingy, Generic Asian Chick, Generic Indian Chick, Random British Accent Girl, cowgirl - what will she think of next? It should be obvious to you by now - this is not about her music, this is about her image.

Despite this, I still give Madonna credit as somebody worth my time. Maybe it's because she was the first of a seemingly endless series of 95% (or more) imaged-based "musicians," or she at least seemed first. Or maybe just because I used to always pretend to be her when I was seven because, hey, that's what you did when you were seven. So should I worry if today's seven-year-olds are just pretending to be Britney? That instead of walking around their bedroom singing "Express Yourself" and coyly looking at imaginary cameras while dressed in an imaginary feminine suit, they are walking around half-naked seducing those little imaginary cameras while chanting "Hit Me Baby One More Time!"?

I guess not. I just hate to attach the word "music" to something that doesn't merit having one of the most beautiful words in the language - after bohemia, xylophone, and Darwinian - anywhere in its vicinity.

*** editorial note: this post originally had a truly unreal performance by Michael Jackson - his first as a solo artist ("Billie Jean") - that served as some sort of testimonial to the once high culture of pop music. I have since taken it down, because that thing is pretty damn heavy, and I am having some serious storage issues. However, I recommend to anybody and everybody to check it out, it is absolutely amazing. Send me an email for details. I still have it around, and would be happy to share.

Today qualifies as a bad one for two reasons:

1) I just listened to a De La Soul interview from npr's audio archives that took place when they released their newest album (2000). Two of the three members were there. One of them sounded semi-alright, the other was a complete moron. Overall, the interview was extremely painful to listen to. How do I come to terms with the fact that I have been respecting a group of "intelligent rappers" for years who are actually not that bright? They sure had me fooled for, oh, twelve years.

2) My favorite audio cover site has shut down. Zip, zerio, zilch. The tragedy of this situation cannot be expressed in words. I wasn't even given the proper weening period. I have checked numerous other audio cover sites. They are all out of commission.

Is this the beginning of the end of free music? What about those of us that live, breathe, and sleep the stuff?

In light of all the recent bruhaha going on concerning Michael's alleged 'dangling' affair, I have spent some time looking up MJ info. I am also teaching myself Page Maker, because I have some spare time on my hands this weekend. As one needs a subject, and I don't want to do anything complicated, I chose Michael. And I unfortunately stumbled upon this link. You have to wait it out a second...it's a little "movie" so make sure you see the images changing.

I try and I try and I try to defend the man. But the evidence keeps stacking up against him.

Just because Michael Jackson has lost his head, we are under no sort of obligation to drive the man even further into insanity. The tendency to sensationalize anything containing the two words Michael and Jackson is getting out of hand.

When reporters said that Jackson "dangled" a barefoot baby out his hotel window, I imagined a crazed, surgical mask-wearing Jackson literally dangling a baby by it's little innocent foot. I thought to myself, "Oh no, now he's really gone off the deep end."

I just watched the video. You can, too, here. Click on the "Jackson: Baby Was a Mistake" link from Reuters and choose your player.

He certainly did not DANGLE.

I *somehow* got a handle on my favorite musical performance of all time. For those of you that have checked my profile in the forum, you know that I am referring to Michael Jackson's first performance as a solo artist: the Motown performance of "Billie Jean" (also, possibly, the best song ever).

This concert performance originally blessed my path via a documentary that I special-ordered while living in California. It has since remained the only cassette tape I have kept in my possession. His performance is, quite simply, mind blowing. Watching it today, I couldn't help but relive the fascination I have always had for this man so obviously born a cut above the rest of us. I was caught up in the magic of Michael for a long time thereafter, complete with my own personal soundtrack to finish up some tasks around the house.

An hour or two later, while working on the site, I stopped by the Movable Type main page, and had a look-see at a certain young man's site.

Unfortunately, I stumbled across this:

Click it. The horror only gets worse.

Not only was the coincidence slightly bizarre, it was also very painful.