Generic, Viral, Exploitive, and Career Making: #Thicke

From time to time, as a public service, I post viral videos that most of us in the, ahem, grayer demographics are most likely unaware of. Most of my tips come via my teenage daughter and other millennials (as was Gangham Style and Fatty Boom Boom).

Such as the case with Blurred Lines (below). Watch a snippet of the first vid below—the YouTube edit—for comparison purposes and then go to the second version. (When the distance between the G and R rated versions is only a click away it does seem kind of silly.) What would a culture look like if it'd been raised on free and easy porn and Seth McFarlane grade humor? The second video could be the answer. It's a place, apparently, where subtlety has no currency. Why don't we do it in the road seems abstract by comparison. The do it just leaves too much room for interpretation. (Oh, and Robin Thicke says he has a large package. Just in case you're interested.)

And what about Feminism and the Objectification of Women? What year is this? Ah well, that's another discussion. Otherwise, the exploitative video did exactly what it was designed to do: So far 46.1 million hits on YouTube alone (clean version) and counting.



Honestly, the boobs are the video's only redeeming feature. It was probably made it on their lunch hour. (Though, stylistically it looks more like Happy Hour.) The video was recently brought to my attention by a young Frenchman. Hearing it for the first time I said, "It sounds awfully generic." He didn't understand the word so I explained: "It sounds like Pharrell has a machine that makes these." Apparently, this confectionary earworm was assembled in the studio on the fly by Thicke and Pharrell in about an hour. Paul McCartney claimed he took as long on Live and Let Die, but even C-level Sir Paul this ain't. 

Of course, none of that matters. The song is going mad viral (the 20-teens version of a hit record) and is apparently blowing up Robin Thicke's career. It'll probably net Pharrell another sick stack too. The song is catchy, I'll give you that. Pharrell is probably nearing the crest of his peak now. He's 40. If he's as smart (I think he is—his blog is cool too) he should be banging this muse for all she's worth. Soon, she may be too dry to hump out those destined-to-go-viral one hour songwriting sessions. 

Romanian Sexy

Romanian Sandu Ciorba has his own vision of sexy and he's going to show it to you.

Apparently, his sexy is also going viral. Check YouTube and you'll see that his video output is loaded with similar lycra-wrapped cheesecake. On this one he seems to have gone slightly more pansexual with the addition of some tattoed beef to go with the cheese. Musically it sounds like a low-brow mix of the Middle East and Mexico which may have something to do with his native Romani culture (it was the Romani that brought us Flamenco. The music of the Romani (also more derogatorily known as Gypsy) contains strains of India, Turkey, Greece, and Eastern and Western Europe. Slurring notes are a trademark (technically called glissandi). The ponytailed Ciorba's particular aesthetic—equal parts Borat, MTV, & telenovela—would be right at home in the trailer parks of middle America (though I suspect rednecks would find his rhythms about as acceptable as a black president). 

The Gipsy Kings Ciorba ain't but I'll take Dalibomba over a Flamenco Hotel California anytime. 

If only she could...

From The Sourpuss and Dangerous Minds.

The Late Train

Daft Punk's new vid for Get Lucky features a nostalgic compilation of Soul Train line dances of a 70s vintage. Kind of makes me yearn.

I used to love Soul Train. I admit I probably never watched an episode to the end. The show's arc tended to drop in the bucket during the last two-thirds, especially when the B and C list featured guests were cycling through multiple lip-synchs. (Cornelius wasn't the most dynamic of interviewers.) On rarer occasions the show did feature just about every likely A-list guest in history––Stevie Wonder, Arethea Franklin (singing live, including miscue), Public Enemy (they can't even rap live?), David Bowie, Marvin Gaye, Al Green––but it was the dancing that made the show. To my then adolescent biology, I found some of the dancing to be downright aphrodisiac. It seemed to get only hotter in the 80s when the ladies dropped their baggies and wedgies for the spandex and short skirts. Aside from the erotic element for the overzealous, without the dancing, Soul Train might've been a slower jammed version of Solid Gold, albeit far more funky. And hip.

The iconic theme song, redolent of wide lapels, platform shoes, and beach ball afros:



Many of Soul Train's dancers were, if not professional, of a professional caliber. Many of them—e.g. Jody Watley, Rosie Perez, Toni Basil, Cheryl Song, and Paula Abdul—found fame beyond the Train. Despite the raging dynamism of the style changes, one thing remained consistent (at least until the twilight of the show's run), Don Cornelius. He remained its epitome-of-cool figurehead. You'd think with his Paul Robeson baritone and his ever present Xanax chill, he was imperturbable. But as we saw near the end, apparently this was not the case. (To his credit, he did have a physiological brain deformity.) Sadly, he'd eventually take his own life.

Here's a funky time capsule of almost an hour and a half of non-stop Soul Train line dancing. You definitely need this: Consider it like an audio-visual and inguinal Red Bull and plate of oysters, if you know what I'm saying.



If you hunger for more, there's now a Soul Train Cruise.

Rockin' The Lord's Prayer

Not only the first Australian recording to sell over a million in the U.S., this rendition by Sister Janet Mead also brought the gospel to the top of the Australian charts in 1974. (This is the second top ten smash in history by a nun, though Sister Janet's story is a far happier one than Sister Smile's. Sister Smile did have the distinction of blocking Louie Louie from going to #1.) Here, The Prayer limbos somewhere between post-Psychedelic folk and a kind of Broadway gospel cum proto-Disco. (I love that she chose the Anglican version with its use of the awkward forgiving trespasses wording. It kind of drops like a mouthful of whipped frappé which doesn't happen in the more musically streamlined forgiving debtors version.)  

Anyway, it's much better than anything you're going to hear on a Christian rock station today. (Not that I'd know firsthand...)




And then there's this: My kind of flava and more than a wimple's-full of subtext:



Knocking on Heaven's door/ Who's that knocking on my door/Let me in! Let me in!/Ding-a-ling/Ding-a-ling/Ding-a-f**kin'-ling-a-ling

There's More to Dudley

For those who don't know, the Most Excellent* Dudley Moore (d. 2002) was known in the U.S. primarily as an actor and comedian with a few hit movies and several tall girlfriends. His comedic work on British telly in the '60s was legendary and would influence another at least one other similarly inclined outfit, Monty Python.

*The Queenie did bestow upon him the rand of Sir but did pin him with the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire honor.

Larfs aside, Moore was also a musician with some mad skills. In fact, music was where he started as his professional began at age 14. In college studied the organ on scholarship and would play with his own jazz trio for many years. The career that he would be famous for began while working as a musician, producers noticing his impeccable comedic timing. He was soon pulled from the stool to go toe-to-toe with British comedy's "leading light" Peter Cook. 

But as you'll see here, Moore also knew his way around a long hair tune and could put the feather to an otherwise dour Schubert lieder. See here as he "plays with himself":

AladDon Sane, Etc.

Some things dredged up from the interwebs:

Stranger still than this was that there was once an America where you could buy this album at Kmart for $3.57.

The peanut butter reference is apt. See why here: 

Not all shitty local bars are the same, of course: I've lived in the New York's East Village and done my time at Spaceland so I may be a little jaded. 

Jimmy Page's record collection:

Lemmy and Samantha Fox: There may be a perfectly good reason for this I just can't imagine what it'd be.