For Your Consideration: Ukulele "Creep"

Radiohead has become a recent obsession for me, which I seem to be pre-primed for; according to the masters at Pandora, you're more apt to be a Radiohead fan if you like Coldplay. But anyway. My modest opinion is this: Radiohead should totally bust out a ukulele on the next CD.

But seriously.

Radiohead is one of the most experimental bands out there. They got the USC Marching Band to back them up at the Grammy's on "15 Step," which very few can get away with and still be awesome. You can hear them in the background of a lot of MTV shows, and in the Pretty Brit music spectrum, they fall to the far left of Coldplay (which gained some ground in the experimenting with the "Viva La Vida" album, which employed Radiohead producer Brian Eno to get there).

So it seems only natural that at some point, Thom Yorke would pick up a ukulele and go to town, and make all of the rest of alternative music wonder why they hadn't thought of doing it themselves. As motivation for Yorke to do this? I give you this dude, in one of the few "Creep" cover attempts.

Hey, that's MTV Background Music!

Do you ever listen to your iTunes on shuffle and find songs that you've never really listened to?

Do you ever do this and hear a song that you've heard in the background of a television show and always wanted to know what it was?

I totally just did both with "Idioteque" from Radiohead's Kid A CD (which I've grown to love since Danielle gave me that and Hail to the Theif). Turns out that I've heard it a million times before and loved it, but never knew it was Radiohead.

It's been in the background of every other episode of True Life that MTV has made. You know, when MTV was still kind of respectable.

Killing Russell Brand, Trent Lane Plays Miles, Hotel California, and 5 Reasons Why Chang Should Be On Lost

See, now this is what happens when I watch Lost with Kristyne, Allie, and KellyPaul (one word).

First off, there's a dead body on Lost. I don't know who it is, but it really looked like Russell Brand. Which I would be really upset if it was, because I love that crazy limey.

Logically, I knew it wasn't him. I mean, this isn't 30 Rock, there are no crazy celebrity cameos, no matter how much they're rumored.

Furthermore, young Miles was a BAMF. We all agreed that a few piercings on a guy were okay (maybe one in the ear; supposedly, an ear piercing on a guy means he'd be a good husband. He knows pain, and he's good at picking out jewelry), but all over your face? No thank you. He had them in his ears (all up in, up and down the ridge), in his nose, in his eyebrow, and three making an odd face on his chin.
So basically, he looked like Trent Lane from Daria. Not that this is a bad thing, I thought Trent was pretty hot for a cartoon character. And I sort of have a thing for Asian guys, so to me, Miles is pretty sexy (more without the piercings than with, I gotta say).

Somewhere after talking about the Miles/Trent resemblence, Kelly Paul mentioned that the people on the island "can check out any time you like/but you can never leave," which I never noticed before, but is totally legit. The island is totally Hotel California.

Funny, never thought an Eagles reference would make it onto this blog...

Moving on. We also decided as a group that beloved film professor/Korean chef Chang should totally make an appearance on Lost. Here are our (Letterman rip-off) Top 5 Reasons Why Chang Should Appear on Lost.

5) He would make way better Dharma Initiative videos than the crap-ass director they have employed now.
4) He would beat up the polar bears with his wooden stick.
3) Writers already established potential family members with Dr. Chang and Miles.
2) When everyone on the island gets sick of boar meat and fish, he could make kim-chi quesadillas.
1) In Kristyne's words, "It's Chang."

Outkast, But Better

I generally think that acoustic covers of rap songs are stupid or funny. But as I was flipping channels tonight and came upon Ted singing "Hey Ya" acousticly at a wedding? I was in love, and had to find the song. And I did. Turns out Mat Weddle of Obadiah Parker did a killer cover, and it's romantic and sweet sounding. It's the key signature.

So suck it, Andre 3000. Someone was even more innovative than you.

And for the record? I think Sam Lloyd (Ted on Scrubs) did a better version. But I couldn't find it.

Cover Wars: The Good, The Bad, and Madonna

As discussed in the last post, cover songs are a varied bunch. They can be awesome and better than its predecessor. They can be mediocre and not worth remarking on. More often than not, they flatline the very song they're trying to revive.

For the record, Don McLean should never be revived. I'm looking at you, Christiansen New Years Eve gathering. No more. And quit it with the Bohemian Rhapsody, while you're at it.

So here's a few good ones to keep in mind. The Fugees did a good job with "Killing Me Softly" by Roberta Flack (although they could do without Wyclef's ONE TIME! in the background). I attribute this to Lauryn Hill's voice sort of sounding like Flack's. And Fountains of Wayne earned cool points for "Baby One More Time" as mentioned in the last post (Travis too, kids). I am also a big fan of The Killers doing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." And this one's a little more obscure, but Editors covering Gorillaz's "Feel Good Inc." And check out Cake's "I Will Survive" and Aqualung's "Somebody to Love." And sheerly because they took a Stevie Nicks song and made it sound good, The Dixie Chicks for "Landslide."

The ones I thought were average are versions that people seem to like more than me. While Michael Buble's "Fever" holds a special place in my heart, I feel like Peggy Lee's original is just as good. Frickin' A covering "Jesse's Girl" is okay, but not necessarily better than Rick Springfield's 80s anthem. This goes for The Ataris covering "Boys of Summer" too. And The Donnas made a good attempt at REO Speedwagon's power ballad "Keep On Lovin' You," but I wouldn't say it's better than the original. I want to say that Coldplay playing "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Kylie Minogue is superior to the original, but really, it's about equal—Coldplay has the advantage of Chris Martin's voice and the band backing him, but Kylie Minogue has the advantage of synthesizers and her own voice.

As far as the bad ones go? I would vote Mariah Carey covering "Bringin' On The Heartache" by Def Leppard was a crime against my ears. Sheryl Crow covering "Sweet Child O' Mine" is also not right. Rihanna is not M.I.A. and should not sing "Paper Planes." Furthermore, the Counting Crows should not partner with Vanessa Carlton to sing Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi."

Any others?

Evening the Score

Today's News I viewing of Wall-E got me to thinking about a few things. First of all, I couldn't believe that we convinced our professor to watch the whole movie based on the importance of tone of voice. Your tuition at work, parents!

Second (and more significantly), I think that Wall-E really got robbed for best score. Hear me out.

This is nothing against Slumdog Millionaire and A.R. Rahman. The movie and the score were divine, and regular readers/skimmers of this blog already know that I gave it much praise and respect. The score is brilliant to that movie, and really enhances the story and enriches the cultural viewing portion of it.

But without the score, Wall-E would fall flat. The story (which should have been nominated for Best Picture overall, not just Best Animated Picture) has virtually no dialogue, and the first verbal interaction is almost 40 minutes into the movie. Would it really be the same without music? I think not.

So here's to the Oscars re-evaluating what a score means to a movie. Slumdog Millionaire was brilliant and deserves all of its awards. Except for this one, in which Thomas Newman and Peter Gabriel got robbed. Come on, how can you resist those little robotic eyes?

I Need To Stop Doing This

I have a confession to make: I tend to rock out at my desk with my headphones in, completely oblivious from the whole world around me.

So I didn't hear the knock at the door, and I didn't even notice that Monica was looking at me. She wanted to know if I wanted to go to dinner, but I was just shaking my ass for all it's worth in my broken desk chair.

This needs to end. It's at least the 3rd time people have seen me doing this, and it's kind of embarrassing.