“I Am My Hair” – Lady Gaga`s New Single ‘Hair,’ Familiar Theme
I`m okay with Lady Gaga`s new single, Hair. The full album, Born This Way, will be out on Tuesday. Okay, I`ve heard Monday as the release day also. Hair is Gaga`s take (as I see it) on “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair!” In other words, your hair is an extension of your personality or your spirit. That idea has been around for a while,
but I`m cool with it. Didn`t Bill Shakespeare come up with it? I still listen to and love the late 1960s musical, Hair.
You`re going to have to check out Jon Pareles (The New York Times) really huge piece on Lady Gaga, published just yesterday. Lots of insight into the creative process employed by Ms. Gaga to produce this new record, that`s likely to blow the charts out to sea and off the map. The Lady`s a zany girl, and Jon Pareles gets underneath some of this unfathomable gumption packaged in this Italian Wanderlust of a Diva Pop Queen.
Much of the record was actually created while she was on tour. Apparently, she has a studio set up in her tour bus, so that whenever an idea comes to her princess-ness, she can lay it down before the muse vanishes. I do that myself sometimes, with a digital portable Dictaphone gadget I have, The only problem is, I`ve misplaced it! Therefore, brilliant new songs are lost for all time, drifting out into open air and forgotten for eternity. Boo, Huh Huh….
Top Ten Songs of 2009
Music critics are compiling their Best Of Lists for 2009 now, like the critics over at The New York Times. Sunday`s edition saw lists from Jon Pareles, Ben Ratliff (Jazz), Nate Chinen and Jon Caramanica. I`m reviewing their picks to see what they most value. I was surprised by the number of bands that I have still not experienced yet. The Grizzly Bears look interesting. As do the Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective. I`ll need to get with it!
Nevertheless, I did experience around a million other projects this year, so I`ll give you my Top Ten Songs of 2009 for now.
10. Party in the USA-Miley Cyrus This Bubblegum Ditty has been careening through the circuit board of every dude or chick that stomps the sacred soil of Mother Earth. Our Miley-Songbird has pipes that shatter champagne glasses and rattle subway platforms. Everybody is all the way with this one!
9. The Fixer-Pearl Jam-When Somethings cold, Lemme put a little fire on it. Backspacer easily had the best art work, by Tom Tomorrow. The Fixer, along with a strong cup of Java, will blast you out of the sack, and give you a shot of adrenalin to wrestle a bear with and maybe even take out the trash.
8. Baby Boomer-Monsters of Folk I picked this one up at Starsbucks as a freebie on itunes. Very catchy! I keep listening for the line about Vietnam. The way they exchange vocals here reminds me of The Travelin` Wilburys.
7. Hang You From The Heavens-The Dead Weather-Good vocals by Allison Mosshart and great guitar by Dean Fertitta. I Cut Like A Buffalo will blow you off your computer stool too!
6. Poison Arrow-Sonic Youth-Yes, I`ve included two Sonic Youth cuts. The Eternal is a must have!
5. Tomorrow Never Knows- Revolver-The Beatles-John`s reading on The Tibetan Book of the Dead along with a little pill that Timothy Leary use to promote. Simply the most original and influential Beatles song! I think of it as a new release with the re-masters! That`s not cheating. It`s not really a reissue since it`s completely remastered with new pics and documentary features. Revolver is one peak too.
4. Scumbag Blues-Them Crooked Vultures-Rock is resurrected from the dead with Them Crooked Vultures! Discover and nurture these 15 cuts.
3. Anti-Orgasm-Sonic Youth-The Eternal is maybe the best album for 2009. The return of punk is consummated. Not in an incubator, fully realized Art-Punk. Love the cover, a swirling ball of fire, right out of an astronomy textbook.
2. Bad Romance-Lady Gaga-You must include the video with this one. Arty and commercial in the same breath. Nice music, great dancing and she`s helping the economy too. Gaga is a compilation of disco, pop and avant garde art, but she`s totally original. Gaga is our Rubik`s Cube for the 21st Century!
1. Wild Horses-Susan Boyle-I would skip this track when playing The Stones` Sticky Fingers. But it`s one of Jagger/Richards best songs, really. When Susan sings it you can hear the lyrics clearly. It`s just unusual to hear Susan Boyle sing it. You immediately hit replay to see if you can figure it out this time. Highlight of the year.
Woodstock Was A Peaceful Pied-Piper Of Change!
Jon Pareles` piece in the New York Times (Sunday, August 9th, Arts & Leisure) on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, “A Moment Of Muddy Grace,” helped in summarizing the importance of this event. The Longhairs or Hippies, if you prefer, were more isolated, more scattered in local sub-cultural pockets, before that time. Woodstock legitimized the ‘counterculture,’ and maybe even commercialized it an iota. When the movie came out, and especially when it reached the more remote sectors of the nation, it acted like a distant ancestor of the internet, in terms of penetrating the social fabric of America. In Dallas we welcomed the film as a ‘Pied Piper of Change’ in a forest of wolves. The uptightness was lifted, if but for only a fleeting moment. “Well there aint no cure for the summertime blues!”
For me the true legacy of the ‘Hippies’ is Woodstock *(not the Manson Family). That 300,000 young people could assemble for three days straight, celebrating a potpourri (medley) of Peace, Love, & Music exclusively, is a miracle *(biblical, just as Jerry Garcia says in the movie). Woodstock allowed these ideas to endure, not perish from the memory of all Americans. This was a permanent change to America, and still maifests itself today, yet with a morsel of metamorphosis, factoring in natural adaptations in technology. You may want to reflect on the meaning of Woodstock for yourself? & if you can`t see Joe Cocker in his tie-dye shirt waxin` on “I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends,” as the epoch shatterin` performance of the `60s decade, then take a slow boat back to China, GOONFACE! “Following you, I climb the mountain. Let`s Go To The Hop.”