Hole: Nobody's Daughter

I feel bad for Courtney Love. Hole's new album, Nobody's Daughter, isn't exactly making critics happy, but the truth is she would have to be pushing record of the year material to make up for past transgressions. Some critics even panned it before it was released.

I have a complicated relationship with iconic '90s figures. I spent my late teens and early twenties during the part of that decade when the alternative became the mainstream, but I avoided a lot of dark, plodding grunge music coming from the Northwest. It was all so dire and bleak. I like my punk happy -- or at least to kind of sound that way even if its lyrics aren't. Needless to say, I was never a much of a Hole fan, but I'm a stealth defender of Courtney Love. I love her "warts and all" approach to both her music and her personal life. Plus, she was one of the first female artists I knew to use the "F" word -- you know, feminism. Pretty brave thing to do in rock's boys' club atmosphere. I'm not ready to discount her just yet.

Nobody's Daughter isn't the mess critics are making it out to be. It's probably not going to win any awards, but it's a pretty decent rock album. On songs like "Honey" and "For Once in Your Life," it sounds like her voice is aging into a Marianne Faithfull-esque croak, but the old howl is still there. She says the record is about "greed, vengeance and feminism." And you can't argue with that.

Well Isn't That Smurfy?

In case you haven't heard, there's a Smurfs movie under way. When I first heard this, I thought "Bad idea! Kids today don't know the Smurfs!" But then I thought that about Alvin & the Chipmunks and that flick made a ton of scratch. Like Alvin & the Chipmunks, The Smurfs film is a hybrid live-action/animated flick. And the cast they've been lining up is ridiculously huge.

Earlier this week, Deadline announced that Paul Reubens (A.K.A. Pee Wee Herman) has signed on to be the voice of Jokey Smurf. Check out the list of people that he will be joining on this project:

Furry Vengeance: A Review in Haiku

Oy! Furry Vengeance.
Ninety minutes of my life
I'll never get back.

My daughter and I
Caught it at a free screening.
We paid way too much.

Brendan Fraser stars,
Is hoodwinked by animals.
Eddie Murphy booked?

Predictable plot.
Heavy-handed green message.
See Nightmare instead.

But if you must go
(You have kids or you're crazy),
Here is some advice.

When end credits start,
RUN! Or you'll hear a crappy
"Insane in the Brain."

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Sleigh Bells, "Tell 'Em"

If you need help waking up today, listen to this.

From, um, two days ago or something, here's Sleigh Bells with "Tell 'Em."

Enjoy!



[source]

An Ode To Kyle Reese

Let's all climb aboard my red velvet covered time machine (yes, I try to go in style) and travel back shall we?

Oh look! It's 1984 and I am sporting some calf strangling knee socks along with a full mouth of metal, hair that defies gravity and heavy purple Cover girl eyeshadow.

I'm now a total movie buff due to the advent of the mini bus which is sort of on the same level as the holy grail for young teens. It has handed us the ability to get to the theater minus parental constraints or interference and it's the first real taste of freedom any of us have ever had.

Something To Believe In

Unless you've spent the last few days hiding under a rock, you've heard about the massive brain hemorrhage that former Poison frontman Bret Michaels suffered late last week. A lifelong diabetic, Bret had barely gotten over an emergency appendectomy earlier this month before he was rushed back to the hospital with a brutal headache.

I kept my eye on the news all weekend - I admit, I was sort of expecting a tragic update. I mean, I'm all for positive thinking, but the initial reports sounded pretty grim, what with words like massive, brain stem and subarachnoid being thrown around.

Imperial Drag, "Boy or a Girl"

This is the second song I played last night on Culture Brats Radio. It's my favorite song about cross dressing.

Do you have a favorite song about cross dressing? You should.

From 1996, here's Imperial Drag's "Boy Or A Girl."

Enjoy!

Joni Mitchell On John Kelly, Bob Dylan, And More

Last week the Los Angeles Times had an interesting interview with folk legend Joni Mitchell, and John Kelly, a dude who does a Joni tribute show (in drag). The Times got both performers together to see what Joni thought of the tribute and she talked about it, along with a number of other things. The whole article is worth a read, but here were a couple of things that lept out at me:

Joni, on her catalogue:

Lots-o'-Huggin'

Remember this toy from the '80s?



If you don't, that's okay. 'Cause it didn't exist. It's part of a brilliant viral video campaign by Pixar for the upcoming Toy Story 3.

Those guys absolutely rule.

Keep Feeling... Charcoal?

So I saw the following ad yesterday. Listen carefully:



In addition to being a horrible cover, it's a terrible song to use to sell charcoal. Couldn't they have used "Light My Fire?" "Start Me Up?" But no, they had to reboot, remake, and regurgitate The Human League's "Fascination," one of my favorite songs from the early '80s.

So here's what we'd like you to do for this week's Your Say Hump Day: list the commercials which contain the worst uses of rock music.

Go!