Christina Aguilera goes geek on you.

So, the interweb is abuzz about Christina Aguilera's comeback into the music scene, with her new album "Bionic" which will hit shelves June 8th (oh snap! before my birthday!) and I'm totally excited.

Aguilera, was a bit missing from the scene, as she took some time off to take care of her son Max. Aguilera's last album "Back to Basics" was basically a foray into old-school blues and soul music, and spawned some hits like "Hurt," "Aint no other man" and of course, "candyman."

The new album, has Christina taking a bite out of the Lady Gaga craze, utilizing electro --it's the new pop thing to do. Colloborators include M.I.A, Santogold, Le Tigre, Sia.Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Goldfrapp. This is going to be hella exciting. Although I'm really not feeling the cover, still excited by the album just not into the accompanying artwork, oh and make sure to check out the album trailer, it's totally sci-fi!


Album Trailer

Hater Alert: Critics attack Gabourey Sidibe

Seriously, Hollywood? Some of you are just some straight up haters with nothing better to do.

Star of "precious", and just STAR period, Gabourey Sidibe is ruining Hollywood's outdated ideals of what is beautiful and star worthy. Critics like Howard Stern (Seriously who gives a flying whoohaa what he thinks? anymore) are bashing our girl because she is "the size of a planet." Okay, no need to be mean. What does Stern and others hope to achieve by calling her big? like does that get them up in the morning? It's hard enough these days for girls to feel good about themselves, and for the first time ever, a girl who does not fit the Aryan model of perfection is doing great things and people want to hate on her for it.

It's a triple case of the isms, she's a woman, she's a minority and she's 'big'. The critics in this case are basically using "healthy" as a guideline to try and undermine her success. In other words they don't believe that if you're a minority of the sort then somehow, success should elude you. Because for heaven's sake we're not all equal....Oh Snap! doesn't it say that in the constitution??

I digress...

It's just appalling that people would make such a deal about her success.If it doesn't involve you directly, nor does it threaten you, why do you care?!
Plain ole Haterade. Stern calls it "reality," well here's the thing with reality, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Sidibe probably understands that a lot of people will never want to cast her in a film, but who cares? she has talent and talent can overcome. We don't need people like Stern with his attention to 'reality' because no has told him the reality that his Phil Spector hairdo is just god-awful. Let's keep it "real."

Obviously Sidibe has no hang ups about her looks and why should she:
I love the way I look. I'm fine with it. And if my body changes, I'll be fine with that."- Gabourey Sidibe

If she loves the way she looks, then what is the problem?
Shouldn't we as a public be celebrating someone with such high confidence? Isn't that the point of all these body positive image makeovers? Hollywood and society at large, put your money where your mouth is...and just shut up for once. Time to give someone else the spotlight for once.

Gabourey Sidibe on the Soup

Gaga watch: Telephone feat Beyonce

OOOH boy. Gaga is lighting the interweb on fire, from CNN falsely reporting that they "banned" the video (That's not a good idea MTV banning videos when you don't even show videos???)

Anyways, onto the video. "Telephone" is directed by the very great, very cool Jonas Akerlund (see: Cardigans 'My Favourite Game') with that in mind, I expected this video to be somwehat violent. If you're a fan of camp, cult, and all thats in between this video is for you.

Suprisingly Beyonce's appearance as "honey B" is a rather surprising turn, her stilted acting is kind of a plus given the context of the video. Gaga's acting is also stilted as well, perhaps on purpose?

There are more cameos in this video than you can shake an Jersey Shore fist pump at, but it's all more like "Can you spot Tyrese?"

Running at almost ten minutes, you really have to schedule yourself to watch this video. The mini movie follows a Thelma/Louise plot which is always great, "Us against the world" kind of deal---a personal favorite theme of mine.

Oh, a must, look at this Monster's review of 'Telephone'
Monster fan on Telephone

Something not so awesome. RIP...

I've been trying to write a blog about celebrity death since last year. I don't want to say that its fascinating because its not. It's the fact that you can know someone and care about them and their life without ever meeting them face to face. I first tried when John Hughes passed away, but I was too scared to do it. Then Britney Murphy died and Corinne covered which I was glad for. Recently during the Oscars memorial clip I realized just how much Murphy meant to me. She was a light in the darkness, which sadly went out too soon. Then Alexander McQueen committed suicide, after his moms death this past February. Not to mention that dude that was on Growning Pains, Andrew Koenig's suicide. Frankly I don't know whats going on in Hollywood. I've never seen this much tragedy back to back like this.

But this is different.

Corey Haim looking an awful lot like a member of Duran Duran

Corey Haim died Wednesday morning at age 38. Haim's mother claims that he passed of pulmonary congestion, and news reports are saying that he had four prescription drug bottles. Haim had complained of flu-like symptoms in the days before his death. He had battled drug addiction for years.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/03/12/corey-haim-autopsy.html#ixzz0hzdFcJRX

It's like they don't want you to forget he was troubled.

Personally, I don't care about what they want to say about Corey. He had a lot of problems leaving the 80s and it wasn't entirely his fault. Hollywood chewed him up and spit him out. Just another tragic tale of show biz.

But Corey was never a bad boy, he had a lovable squeaky clean image. He stared in movies like Lucas (1986), The Lost Boys (1987), and Licence to Drive (1988). You could expect that kind of shennantics from Haim's long time friend and co-star Corey Feldman (my other favorite Corey). But it seems like even Feldman has left those days behind him. It just goes to show you that that much success at such a young age is damaging no matter what the circumstance. CBC News goes on to say that Haim, born in Toronto in 1971, was enrolled in acting classes by his mother as a way for him to get over his shyness.

I grew up loving Corey Haim through his movies. It's hard to know that somebody that awesome is gone. Slowly, he was building up his career one movie at a time and even had two movies in post-production this year. So regardless of what's happened, it would be nice to remember Haim for what he gave to the world.

Something awesome this way comes

June 30 is going to be the best day ever. Now that I've watched the trailer for The Twilight saga: Eclipse four times I think its only fair to share.

Good job to the make-up and hair crew, can't even tell the actor switch for main vampire villain Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre to Bryce Dallas Howard). I know what critics say about the younger cast acting abilities but--if your a fan of the series-- how could you not get choked up when you hear what Jacob says. This is going to be so awesome.

The Woody Allen Effect ** Now with extra analysis! part one

If you're like me, and you're an avid consumer of all media...you have probably run into this problem.

"Can I hate the artist and love the art?"

Whoa gee golly whiskers! The answers seems to be a simple, close/shut case : Yes. But, as human beings nothing ever get's a simple resounding no, unless you're trying to get Watchmen made into a live action flick (Oh SNAP! that already happened!)

bringing us to a good point: can consumers of an artist, really separate the artist from their art?

The question is complicated, and so we need to pull layers from it and look at it closely.

1) That artist just makes really good *fill in the blank*
Beck, Tom Cruise, and a host of other Hollywood-de-liters, are all "outed" when it comes to Scientology. If you don't agree with Scientology does that make "Loser," "Mission Impossible" unbearable to watch? What if you grew up watching/listening to it? What then?
Or in another case, Michael Jackson, while it was never proven that he molested children, the taint of the lawsuit followed Jackson to his death, and during his unstable career with the public overshadowed his music. And let's be real about the situation, "Thriller" was not a college-radio hit, it was one of the best videos EVER.

Personal example, I love Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life," but for the life (hahahaha excuse the pun) I can't get over allegations that he dropped the N-word during his younger years. My dislike of his using the word, does not change "Lust for Life," at all. The song is still great....which goes to the next point

2) If such and such is really a horrible person, how can I enjoy such media?
"Lust for Life" will technically be a killer song, because it's just awesome. As I mentioned earlier my dislike of the song will not change Iggy Pop nor will it change his views. Some people argue that, we should separate the artist from the art...but that's harder than one would imagine.

In the case of Roman Polanski, he is a 'great' director, who receives much critical acclaim even toted as a 'hero' in some circles. But, his personal life is not that damn great. Another example, the Rolling Stones are pretty cool for having music that pretty much dips into racism, sexism, isms.....and yet music magazines often point to them as being heroes. Every time I walk by a "Classic Rock" magazine in Borders, I feel a pinge of irritation when I see who is on the cover. Upon research, most of us will discover at some point that our favorite artists...more than likely are jerks. But the degree of jerkiness is not the same for everyone.
Lou Reed is a pain in the ass, but he donates time to music philanthropist organizations, does that pardon him?

What do we expect of our artists? do we expect too much?

Say it aint so :(

My Chemical Romance's drummer Bob Bryar left the band.

The band announced on their website yesterday, March 3, that Bryar and My Chemical Romance parted ways four weeks ago saying that they "wanted this news to come from us and not some bullshit gossip site."

The post was written by guitarist Frank Iero and went on to say, "This was a painful decision for all of us to make and was not taken lightly. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours, and expect you all to do the same."

No reason for the departure has been stated by either party and there seems to be no replacement drummer yet for My Chem. Bryar joined the band in 2004 after original drummer Matt Pelissier quit.

Not to be sidetracked by the bad news, My Chem went right back to the studio. The now foursome have been working on yet even more songs for the TBA new album that's due out later this year.

ABDC Lady Gaga Edition

Watching America's Best Dance Crew on MTV right now. I've been watching this show since it first started, and every season I utter the words "This show is dirty."

Not dirty in the way that it's filthy, but the politics of the show get in the way. I can count plenty of times when less than stellar crews were allowed to stay while awesome, unbelievable groups had to watch their banners fall. The show can never be completely fair as it is a show that places a lot of responsibility in the fans hands.

So far the show is okay, with a couple of stand out performances. I think the main reason why it's lacking this week is because I love lady gaga as much as the next monster, but, her music is not really suited for high intense energetic crews. The choreography is just hard to interpret. Also, sometimes who ever picked the videos for the crews is definitely picking with an agenda.


I don't like hating on the crews, but Saltare needs to go home right now. It's not "America's Best Jump Rope Crew." I respect what they did on the stage, but their choreography is still in "baby" stages while everyone else is ahead. It's awesome that they have jump rope skills, but it's a dancing show. Plain and simple. That puts all the other crews at a disadvantage because they don't have a "gimmick" that they have to "overcome." Whatever. The best crew will win that is a definite.

to blog or not to blog: a quick blerb

~First still from upcoming Gorillaz music video for "Stylo" was released. The video will debut on YouTube March 5.

http://www.nme.com/news/gorillaz/49975

The song is awesome, featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack. Clearly the slow lead up is adding much needed excitement for the animated music groups upcoming album

In other news:

~Seth Green, 36, proposed to girlfriend model/actress Clare Grant,30, around new years (news of engagement were just announced this month). Nerd girls everywhere shed a tear.

~NeverShoutNever added to Bamboozle Left lineup. The lineup is still very small and sadly unimpressive compared to east coast Bamboozle lineup. With only 4 weeks left until the festival, there isn't much time to find out the rest of the lineup and actually get excited about it.