"Thriller" singles

They don't do it anymore, but nearly every song off Thriller was released as a single. I bought most of them- at K-mart, Ames, or Caldors, the department stores in my town- but none of them came in picture sleeves. It was just plain white sleeves with holes cut out to show the Epic Records label so I was interested to see what the actual pictures looked like.

I'm surprised by how boring the "Thriller" cover is, and how lame the "Wanna Be Starting Something" picture sleeve is. I do like the "Billie Jean" picture sleeve though- that's cool.

I was trying to remember is I got the Off The Wall album before Thriller, but now I remember that the first time I heard the Off The Wall track "Working Day and Night" was as the B-side to "P.Y.T.". I love "Working day and Night", just like I love the Off The Wall album. I think it's better than Thriller, or at least as good. Of course there were videos for some of those songs, but that was before they became mini-movies. In those days it was just MJ dancing and sweating in front of disco balls and flaashing lights.

"Sleepwalk" EP Tanya Donelly

Sleepwalk EP (2002) Tanya Donelly

The latest record in the RJ Battles EP Spotlight is Tanya Donelly's Sleepwalk from 2002. It came out around the same the same time as her second solo album, Beautysleep.

My only complaint is that the lead track, "The Storm", is the LP version and not a re-recording (when she put out the Sliding & Diving EP ahead of her Lovesongs LP, it featured two B-sides, an album track, but also a remix of "Bum" that was much better than the version on the album).

"The Storm", a ballad, starts out with loud electric guitar and then gets quiet and slow. The song would fit in well on Belly's debut, or even King.

Next up is another ballad, "After Your Party", a sad song about being young, lonely, and living in a big city.

Track three is one of my favorite Donelly songs, "Days of Grace". I was very excited when I read that the song was going to be re-recorded for her 2006 LP, This Hungry Life, along with one of Beautysleep's bonus tracks, "To The Lighthouse", but, neither song turned out as good as the original. "Days of Grace" is a perfect pop song, warm and catchy, but no less sad than the other songs on this EP.

The last track is the saddest of them all. "Last Rain".

"Sometime today it will rain/ One of the last of the 1900s/ Should we go out and try to save it/ Or just let it go like the days and decades?"

Sleepwalk is the perfect EP for rainy days.

Note: There are two version of this EP; one is called Sleepwalk, another is simply called EP.

Youtube comments

A little while ago I was on Youtube re-watching Countess LuAnn's (Bravo's Real Housewives of New York) video for "Money Can't Buy You Class". Please go watch it, I'll wait.

Now what can you or I say about that song?

Like most people, I first became aware of Auto-Tune when Cher used it in 1999 on her song "Believe". You know, like every once in a while her voice would sound fucked-up and robotic. But it was kind of cool and it improved the song, I'd say. I mean, I don't like that song, but it's not terrible.

Anyway, since then, a lot of singers have used Auto-Tune on their records. I think usually you know it when you hear it.

The best use of Auto-Tune is when those guys applied it to news footage of Antoine Dodson and made "The Huntsville Rapist Bed Intruder Song".

He's climbin' in your windows
He's snatchin' your people up
Tryin' to rape 'em/ So y'all need to
Hide yo' kids'
Hide yo' wives
Hide yo' kids/ Hide yo' wife
And hide yo' husband
Cause they rapin' e'rybody up in h're

Again, if you haven't seen it, go check it out, I'll be here.

As you can see, they made a really good, catchy song. I read somewhere that the guys who made the footage into a song split the ITunes profits with Dodson and he was able to buy a new house with the money.

But, back to Countess LuAnn. I don't know who actually wrote this song, but as you would guess, it's awful. It's condesending and very lame. She speaks the verses and sings the chorus and her vocals are aggressively Auto-Tuned.

I watched the video and then I read the comments because I wanted to see people really tear into the song and out of the 28 pages I looked at there were 3 funny posts.

The rest were just as lame as the song. It just got more and more disappointing. You wouldn't believe how many people posted some variation of "Money can't buy you class, but it can buy you Auto-Tune". Or, they'd say, it can't buy you talent, or a hit song, or a good singing voice, ect.

I just keep on thinking of all the people who watched the video and then said to themselves, "I'm gonna post a comment about how money can buy _____". Why didn't any of them look through past comments to see if- maybe- someone else thought to write the exact same fucking thing.

I'm telling you: Countess LuAnn is going to read those comments and feel vindicated. She's going to say, "Look, all my critics are retards".

And she's going to be right.

Can't get into the new Clash Of The Titans

I have watched so many movies over the past couple of days. I just caught the second half of Jennifer's Body and while that was on I watched Straight-Jacket on Youtube (still have to see 5/7 to 7/7).

I also watched a couple lengthy Carrie Fisher interviews from the 1980s. Plus I discovered- some guy must've videotaped every Entertainment Tonight and local news story on the Twilight Zone deaths ever broadcast. I think it goes to Part 23, seriously. Plus, I didn't realize there was footage. Or, I didn't realize the footage was out there. You don't see anything, but it's no less distubing.

So I'm watching the new Clash Of The Titans now and what I miss is that really scary-looking guy, you know the one. He looked really evil and I think they made up the character just for the movie. Also the scenes with Medusa were much scarier in the original.

The other day I was reading about Tobie Maguire- he was in Empire Records but he requested that his scenes be cut, however, he's still listed in the credit. I caught the last half today for the first place and I can say it doesn't hold up very well. That's unfair, I don't think it was trying to.

Slaphappy

Sometimes this feeling comes on. Ideally, it happens when I'm at work- then everyone's happy.

But mostly I feel this way when I'm home alone (my roommate's are home, same thing) in my room and looking for something to do.

I've got ideas but I'm not a very productive person and this place is a fucking mess.

What to do, what to do...

Post

I never really liked Post. "It's Oh So Quiet" was a good song though, but the best is, of course, "Hyperballad".

I think the whole album should've been scrapped and 'Hyperballad" should've been a stand-alone single with "It's Oh So Quiet" as the B-side.

I like the album artwork though.

Debut

Bjork's Debut (1993) is still one of my favorite records. I loved The Sugarcubes but I thought that the male singer was annoying and wrecked a lot of their songs so I was happy to see that she was going out on her own.

I would've rather she'd done more of the songs with a full band as opposed to all the techno, but, still, there are some great songs here.

The album starts with "Human Behaviour" which still sounds new and fresh all these years later. I don't care for "Crying". When my brother heard it he said, "Is she saying 'Frankenstein needs you?'"

I like the idea of doing a live song for the album- "There's More to Life Than This"- it seems so spontaneous. Things slow down with "Like Someone In Love" with the harps and everything, and then speed up again with "Big Time Sensuality" ( a lot of remixes came out later, but none improved on the LP version).

Side Two begins with "One Day", an exciting song, followed by- maybe the best song on the album- "Aeroplane". It's hard to describe it, please just buy the album.

I always skip "Violently Happy". It represents all the things I dislike about Bjork's solo carreer. But "Come To Me" and "The Anchor Song" close out the album nicely.

(Some later editions of Debut include "Play Dead". Mine doesn't and I've never heard it, but I'd like to.)

Debut was also re-released on DuelDisc and the other side of the disc has all the music videos. I like the idea; Talking Heads did the same thing with their albums, but now that you can see anything on Youtube anytime, a lot of the appeal is gone.