Category: Videos (Page 84 of 96)

Cover songs I’d like to hear: Pet Shop Boys doing “Year of the Cat”

Pet Shop Boys lead singer Neil Tennant always rolled his eyes when he did his first round of interviews after the success of “West End Girls,” and people would compare his voice to that of ’70s soft rock god Al Stewart, but the comparison was not unfounded. Indeed, I would argue that the two have far more in common than they realize. Witness Stewart’s “Running Man,” which sports a Latin beat that PSB would later incorporate into their music on 1996’s Bilingual (which, for the record, was way ahead of the whole Ricky Martin thing, for those of you who remember Ricky Martin).

But that’s beside the point. Both Stewart and Tennant write extremely literate pop songs, and the Pet Shop Boys, if they put their minds to it, could come up with a showstopping arrangement of this song, I have no doubt. Check out this performance by Stewart on “The Old Grey Whistle Test,” and tell me that they couldn’t coax Johnny Marr to pop in for a day and lay down both the Spanish guitar and the killer-but-quick lead guitar solos. Lord knows it would be a hell of a lot more enjoyable than them covering, shudder, Diane Warren, like they did on their last album, the lackluster Fundamental.

Well it’s a nice day for a…White Christmas

Okay, I’m actually deeply, ridiculously addicted to both Christmas music covers and Billy Idol…so this album should be a good idea, right?

Sigh.

What have they done to my Billy? First they cleaned him up and put him in a spiffy suit and silk shirt with nary a rip, metal stud, nor mesh insert to be found…and then they completed his emasculation by giving him the lamest track list ever:

• Frosty the Snowman
• Silver Bells
• Happy Holidays
• Merry Christmas Baby
• White Christmas
• Here Comes Santa Claus
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
• Santa Claus Is Back In Town
• Let It Snow
• Winter Wonderland
• Run Rudolph Run
• Blue Christmas
• Jingle Bell Rock
• Christmas Love
• Oh Christmas Tree
• Silent Night
• Auld Lang Syne

Seriously, does anyone ever need to sing “Jingle Bell Rock” again? Especially if they are not even going to be allowed to, you know, rock on it? And, please: Frosty the Freakin’ Snowman? Where’s Billy supposed to slip in his trademark sneer on that one?

Videos for “White Christmas” (which, no, does not feature any improvised lyrics from “White Wedding” mixed in — another missed opportunity) and the dreaded “Jingle Bell Rock” are available on Billy’s MySpace page…but if you’re looking for Christmas music with an edge, you’d be better off checking out Collective Soul’s kickass cover of “Blue Christmas” or, if you can find it, Bad Religion’s decidedly raucous “Silent Night” (which breaks into, of all things, a riff from “My Sharona” at one point).

Check out the videos and streaming mp3s if you want to. Meanwhile, I’ll be over in the corner, fiendishly plotting the slow and painful demise of whoever sanded all the rough edges off my rebel hero.

Diddy meets resistance from YouTube users

Diddy, you’re not welcome at YouTube. Go away, already. The users have spoken their minds in regards to your recent partnering with Burger King to “buy” a channel on the site with videos of their own. Ah yes, Diddy infiltrated YouTube recently after helping to whore out some BK (but we all know BK is whoring out Diddy) in a “partnership” designed to help him kick it on YouTube. Unfortunately for him, YouTube is a bit more accustomed to reality, where no one is hooked up to I.V.s filled with Cristal and someone’s bling-bling can more often consist of a Ring Pop instead of serious ice. So the anti-Diddy folks have started making a slew of anti-Diddy videos to welcome P. Puffy into the realms of cool videos. Get used to it, Diddy-O. Reality’s a bitch.

Two of the groovy response videos out there:

Weekend Video Vault for October 27, 2006

Trick or treat! Oh, it’s all tricks this week, kids. Seeing how Halloween will have come and gone by the time the next video update caresses your eyes, I thought I’d do something a little different this week. Instead of the usual professional videos gathered for your pleasure, this time I scoured YouTube for some really great clips of regular people just lip syncing to songs in front of their web cams. It’s good and good for you, and maybe you won’t find the razor blade tucked away inside the chewy goodness! So have a great weekend, and Happy Halloween to you all.

“pcp lol dumbass boring lip sync” If this is just a joke, it’s hilarious as is. If it isn’t a joke, then it’s twice as funny. It is placed in the “comedy” category, so we’ll give dakingpcp (who made the video) the benefit of the doubt. I dunno what the hell the song is he’s lip syncing to, but the hand gestures and facial expressions are pure gold.

“i want you to want me” boybandlover001 hits us over the head while lip syncing (By request, even!) to Lindsay Lohan’s cover of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me.” This one takes a little while to load for some reason, so give it a little time. You gotta love folks who look at themselves in their monitors instead of straight into the camera. Place your bets now on if you think this girl even knows about Cheap Trick.

“Lip-sync” Bendyfreak004 gives us this disturbing video of her lip syncing to Celine Dion’s cover of Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself.” The audio isn’t too good, but that video…ah…what’s the phrase for it? “Illegal in 45 states,” I think.

“Cher Lip Sync” lordhazzard (of Lord Hazzard Productions) has a few hilarious clips available, but this one is the best. A perfect send up of everyone who takes themselves seriously when making lip syncing videos.

“James Blunt Music Video – You’re Beautiful” No, it’s not the official video, but rather a video made by PetrosBakalyan based on Blunt’s overplayed hit. Why can’t this song just go away? Don’t you see, it inspires people to make videos like this? My eyes!

“Lip Sync Madness” vialyone gives us this hilarious lip sync medley. Intentionally hilarious, mind you.

“Grillz Lip Sync” Here’s NJDevilBrodeur lip syncing to Nelly’s “Grillz”! I still think Mike Rowe does it best, but this is good and plenty as well.

“sexy love lip syncing” alvisjose is really feelin’ it in his lip syncing contribution to the Internet at large. Perhaps he’s feelin’ it a little too much. So many people post these videos with descriptions saying they were just bored when they did it, but we all know this isn’t the case. People wanna be stahz, kid!

“me n pussycat dolls” And underage girls everywhere get the idea to do a little sumthin’ sumthin’ like this, yo. darkdeceiver entertains us with some scintillatingly poor pixelated lip syncing, but as she says in the comments section you can just ask anyone if she can really lip sync!

“magic_moments” All right, we’ll close out this frightfest with flight0001 entertaining himself in front of his webcam. You have to admire a dude like this entertaining himself and everyone else. It uhhh…throws a bit of cold water on they who would take themselves too seriously while attempting a similar feat.

Welcome back to 1985: Andy Taylor leaves Duran Duran, again

We should have known that it wouldn’t last. Andy Taylor is the first to leave the reunited Duran Duran, allegedly due to disagreements with the band’s management. Here’s the band’s official announcement, from their web site:

To Our Fans

We know that there has been a tremendous amount of speculation over the past few weeks regarding Andy Taylor’s continued involvement with the band and we are sorry that we’ve been unable to provide you with more information until now. The past five years have been an incredible journey for us all – and having the original five back together was something that we had wanted to see happen for some time. As of last weekend, however, the four of us have dissolved our partnership and will be continuing as Duran Duran without Andy, as we have reached a point in our relationship with him where there is an unworkable gulf between us and we can no longer effectively function together. Although obviously disappointed and saddened about this, we are excited about the next chapter of the Duran Duran story and look forward to seeing you all soon.

Simon, John, Nick and Roger

Jesus. Here we go again.

Now, I’ll tell you why this really bothers me: as much as I love Simon, Nick, John and Roger, I worry that they are overwhelming the band’s sound, and as much as they may not like Andy, they need Andy, because he brings the ROCK, baby! My guess is that he probably heard about the collaboration with Justin Timberlake and said, “WTF?” And frankly, I can see why the band wanted to do it, and why Andy didn’t. Pity. I don’t think things will be the same after this.

So, is it too early to make fun of them again, especially Andy? A Duran Duran fan actually tipped me off to these, a series of hilarious MST3K-style clips making fun of Duran Duran videos. As much as I love the band, these are awesome. Best of luck with the next record, guys…but be prepared for people to stop caring about you again. Nothing personal, just the nature of the beast, ya know. I’m sure you remember what it was like when Notorious dropped.

Episode One: A View to a Kill

Episode Two: New Moon on Monday

Episode Three: Union of the Snake

Episode Four: The Wild Boys

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