happy festivus.

So it's Christmahanukwanzakah once again. As the daughter of immigrants I was raised to celebrate only Festivus, and resultingly the only present I received was a Facebook bumper sticker with the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus that said "Abstinence doesn't work." It rained all day in California, which is why I spent the whole day inside listening to Sufjan Stevens' excellent That Was The Worst Christmas Ever! and online shopping all the post-Christmas sales as well as reading a NYTimes article about the recession that had me making a beeline for the egg nog. Anyway, instead of doing one of those boring top ten songs of 2008 countdowns I decided to share some of my favorite winter-related songs of all time. I am clearly obsessed with snow since there is (un?)fortunately none over here.

a festivus for the rest of us.

Happy Festivus and expect a more intellectual post in the new year!

T-t-t-t-tecktonik

Well have you heard? It's the newest craze in Europe and there are officially superstars in the movement. I am not talking about Big Brother 7 or Europe's Got Talent... It's tecktonik and it has hit hardest where booze, "X" and hard trance rule the night.
I must admit, I am a somewhat taken by the the dances and the videos being posted all across the net. The tecktonik videos range from superb dance moves to the absurd; they range from serious and well thought out themes to the ridiculous, confounding and many times laugh-out-loud goodness. Listening more closely while I created the playlist for this post, I realize that tecktonik is, unlike its promoters and followers like to claim, not a new movement.

The roots of tecktonic are in the 90s hard trance/techno tracks that up to now, were considered part of the underground, to hardcore for mainstream society and many times, only followed by people entirely devoted to the music. Say, the head banger's doppelganger. So, it's sort of like drawing this parallel: The rock head bangers of the 80s and 90s are now punk rock followers
who dress the part and are an intersting mix between 'i don't care' rockers and 'i am better than you' hipsters.

Techtonik is hardly the movement of France's youth; rather, it is a style, a brand name and a image thrusted upon impressionable youths that want to be unique and different from 'mainstream'. What they fail to realize is that by trying so hard to be different and seeming like they don't care, they are part of a larger group of people and no longer unique. If everyone is unique and original then no one is unique or original. How could a techtonik follower dress in original designs and styles if Techtonik is a brand of clothes, a record label and have mainstream 'stars' and symbols.
Jey Jey, one of the most popular techtonik dancers who broadcasted his moves to the world via YouTube, was hired to go on a tour of France, serve as the spokesperson for the clothing line and signs autographs where ever he goes. In fact, check out this Microsoft Ad campaign:


That's Jey Jey and he's selling PCs... can there be a greater sell out than Microsoft? Well, being in a Meredith Grey, Harvey Weinstein, and Helena Christensen sandwich... to steal from a greater blogger, for Tecktonikers everywhere, this should be like finding out there is no Santa. Bienvenue a L'Amerique Tecktonik! Are you here to keep Europop company?

Nevertheless, my guilty pleasure is the moves and the agility, energy, flexibility and synchronization with which tecktonikers everywhere move. My hat is off to you and I will be learning moves at home while I watch a tutorial on youtube being taught by a 7 year old. An old man has got to try, right?

Here is my Tecktonik playlist followed by some videos I thought would make for a great complement as they serve as a visual representation of what I am talking about. I will most definitely follow up this post with further insight or breaking news but for now, let the raver in you free!

Tecktonik

And the videos:

shameless commercialism and you.

I was enjoying a quiet afternoon at the campus Starbucks when, horror of horrors, I saw this:



My heart broke realizing that Paul Banks, Interpol frontman, arbiter of "Sanfrooklyn" cool, was the argyle and black fur slab of pastrami in the horrific sandwich of Meredith Grey, Harvey Weinstein, and Helena Christensen (who Paul has unfortunately dated ever since I told him that this whole long distance thing just wasn't working for me). Not only did I find this distressing but the lady sitting next to me was clearly repulsed by all the spit-out Grande Espresso Truffle. It was like finding out there was no Santa.

It is easy to chide, with hipsterlike condescension, the commercial bastardization of indie music. This is a topic especially dear to my heart since I have been catching @#$% for years over my undying, unabashed adoration of Coldplay and everything Chris Martin has ever done (with the notable exception of Gwyneth Paltrow). But really, which musicians aren't commercial? Was Mozart a major sellout for writing Don Giovanni on commission? Was Andy Warhol wrong when he said that "making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art"? Was Bob Dylan wrong for telling the heckler who shouted "Judas" at him for playing electric guitar on Like A Rolling Stone "I don't believe you! You're a liar! Play it fucking loud!"? And where the hell would Arctic Monkeys be without all that nauseatingly interminable Internet promotion?

Clearly, if even Paul Banks, that coke-snorting, free-word-associating indie god of the nerd glasses, skinny suits, and endless Ian Curtis comparisons, can find himself front row at a Sean John (blech) show, with an odd black furball that I can only assume belongs to Helena between his legs, chatting up Hollywood's most powerful Jewish exec and congratulating Meredith on her 5,476,378th reunion with McDreamy, we are all going to have to embrace the fact that musical or any other type of "indieness" simply does not exist anymore, if it ever did in the first place.

In the end, all we can do is listen to what sounds good: nothing more, nothing less. And just like you shouldn't feel ashamed for not understanding why whoever bought Damien Hirst's $8 million shark tank deserved to have money in the first place, you shouldn't be ashamed to blast some Jack Johnson out of your car with the windows down every once in a while... but do check to see that you're in the right neighborhood first.

Some of these songs have been on Grey's Anatomy, Starbucks compilation CDs, in cheesy movie trailers and Apple commercials, overplayed on MTV, and pretty much all of them have been publicly repudiated (and privately adored) by cool people everywhere...

Not even Europop is safe...

I particularly don't follow pop or am up-to-date on which artist is doing which, who stole who's coke or whose lovey-dubby song is dedicated to whom. I do, however, notice when Pop in the United States is no longer pop. It seems the US got desperate, hired a 5 cent European hussy and after it was all said and done, it keeps coming back for more. We've seen it happen in movies: Abre los Ojos is Vanilla Sky and America has embraced Sean Connery, Kate Beckinsale, Heidi Klum and The Office as one of their own. David Beckham spraked a fever for 'football' and one of America's most downloaded amateur porn videos is One Night in Paris (ok, not European but it fits the theme).

Pop in the United States is now an extension of European Dance or Europop. America's innovation in Pop died right around the time Britney went crazy, N'Sync broke up, Madonna turned to Kabala and Posh Spice was welcomed to LA with open arms. For those Chronologically gifted, they will point out that those events took places months even years apart but my point is this: Pop is dead. Nietzche saw it coming and Nostradamus wrote about it in his book, between his predictions of Tom Cruise going nuts and rise in popularity fluorescent plastic sunglasses. I have included a short playlist to give everyone a little taste of what I am talking. There are three parts to the playlist: what pop just to be, what pop now is and the Europop/dance songs the new pop songs where inspired on or sound like. Bare in mind two things. First: Some of the european versions have been around for as long as Abba (literally). Second: Madonna was always seen as somewhat of a musical daredevil in the United States but by European standards, she's JC Chasez without Justin (and just like him, All Day Long she thinks about sex... poor A-Rod... or is it Her Rod...?). Anyway - 

First, what pop just to sound like:

Now, sadly for the venerable American Institution which is Pop, here is what Pop has become. 

Calabria isn't a straight up pop offspring BUT it has gained the following usually reserved for Pop in the United States.  Target used it for a revamp ad campaign. A year or so ago, this would have been Britney or Christina strutting their stuff (in all fairness, Christina Aguilera IS on the new Target ads too but can this really be consider like her old pop stuff?)

Allow me to clarify, I very much enjoy the new life pop has adopted. Pop is an adult now, it can make decisions for itself and date whomever it wants, dress however it wants. Maybe we'll find it happily enjoying i's life three years from now in a quiet suburban neighborhood basking in success OR we may find it laying in a ditch somewhere in the streets of Newark asking with mud on its face, trembling and offering itself cheap to whoever will listen so that it can buy its next hit of fame. However Pop's life evolves from here, it only fair to say that I like the new Eurodance/pop style its adopted. It is far better than staying where it was and thankfully, it did cave in to peer pressure and listen to its emo friend Punk.

I am merely pointing out what Pop has become while a tiny, almost imperceptible tear trickles down my cheek in memory of the Pop we grew up with. 

Here are the songs American Pop had intercourse with and thus resulted in what we hear now in the radio:

Everything from the electric chords, the generous use of heavy bass usually reserved for techno/house and the filtered or synthesized vocals, the 'new' pop is entirely Europop.  A simple, repetitive chorus and the 'club feel' of many of the songs marks the death of traditional American Pop. If you ask me, it all started with:

Ain't globalization a bitch Pop? Deal with it!