Out of This World

I might as well just call this blog What Would Sasha Fierce Do? because everything I seem to write comes back to her.

Sasha Fierce has been out-fierced twice in the past week. First by Lady Gaga's crack cocaine outfit (and her latest fashion choice, the plastic boob shield), and now by the Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers, whose Power Rangers: Bird Flu outfit in the new video for Spaceman put all the single ladies to shame.



Sasha needs to a release a new video for something (I recommend "Radio"), because right now, the only things she has going for are the fact that Obama's youngest daughter is named Sasha, and perhaps this video right here. Sasha Fierce would give her left leg to be a member of the Obama family, although I don't know if the world could handle the creation of Sasha Fierce Obama. That'd be like nuclear fusion technology -- dangerously high temperatures, unstable ingredients, increased entropy, and only about four pounds of hot helium air as a waste product.

I'm going to try really hard to stop talking about Sasha Fierce right now by showing some blog love to Flowers and his guy-liner-fancying crew. It takes some serious guts to do Bowie-inspired cinema when most of the people listening to you won't get the Bowie reference until after a pretentious hipster goes, "That's so Bowie," and the rest suddenly see the connection like they knew it all along. Anyways, the Killers need to feel important every once in awhile, because, even though the second season of The O.C. would never be the same without "Smile Like You Mean It," they get a lot of undeserved criticism. Their first album, 2005's Hot Fuss, struck many critics' and listeners' fancies but got flack for being perhaps too inspired by various 80s bands. Sam's Town, the quartet's 2007 sophomore effort, faced even harsher criticism with Rolling Stone's two-star rating and inevitable comparisons to that Bruce Springsteen song "Born to Run." Although nobody seems to mind that Sasha Fierce's "Diva" is basically the exact same song as Lil' Wayne's "A Milli." Damn it! I talked about Sasha again. I should just start a money jar and put a dollar in every time I talk about her.

So as I was saying, even though the Killers haven't reinvented the wheel as they kept the tradition of their favorite 80s bands alive, they've always had some solid songs, and more and more people have been coming out of the Killers closet since Vampire Weekend openly expressed their love for the anthemic songs of Sam's Town. There are plenty of moments on Day & Age where a song's potential is aurally apparent, like the second verse of first single "Human," the blinky chorus on "Losing Touch," and even those stuttering synthesizers on "Spaceman."

The band's sound was a little more all-over-the-map on Day & Age, though. Flowers told Rolling Stone that Day & Age was like looking at Sam's Town from outer space, and while songs like "Human" sonically could be in a space-age dance party alongside a Madonna remix album (actually, Stuart Price, who produced the album, also did most of the work on Madge's Confessions on A Dancefloor disc), tracks like "Joy Ride" and the stripped-down (relative to the Killers, at least) "I Can't Stay" bring the band right back down to earth back to the sleazy Vegas Hawaiian-shirt hotel cocktail lounge from which they came.

I'm going to continue to hide out in that sleazy cocktail lounge with Brandon and company because it's the only place I'm safe from Sasha Fierce. She would just poof right out of her boots from all the sub-fabulous people in her presence. They'd use up her oxygen.

When I Say "Bad" I Mean "Good"

"We really like pop songs like Justin and Nelly Furtado, Gwen and Kylie Minogue. This is what put us together, all those pop songs. We used to have a party and we used to play all those songs, like Eurotrash. I think that's what put us together. This is our main influence. Like Dance crappy songs and pop music. I say crappy but I really like it. I know you do, too."

That's basically the story of my life right there, as told by Lovefoxxx, my BFF and front-woman of Brazilian electro-rock outfit CSS (or Cansei De Ser Sexy for the acronym-challenged) at the Indian Summer Festival in 2006. With people like her in the world, I have no need to educate the masses on value of pop music. This blog may be called Bad Pop Music, but who am I kidding? You know just as well as I do that there's no such thing! I call it that just to rope in the skeptics before I hit them with the one-two punch of sparkly glitter and bubble gum and show them the error of their ways.

And just so ya'll know, Cansei De Ser Sexy is Portuguese for "Tired of Being Sexy," which is something our very own Beyoncé actually said in an interview back in her "Crazy In Love" days. You know, before Sasha Fierce took over and started calling the shots (UPGRADE). Sasha Fierce never gets tired of being sexy. Duh.

Here now is one of the highlights of 2008 for pop songs (and while we're at it, music video direction -- this is like a low-budget, acid trip version of "Single Ladies), CSS's Left Behind:

Divas Gettin' Money

I like Lily Allen a lot. I get very defensive when people talk smack about her because deep down inside I wish she was my BFF. She's back with a new album next month, It's Not Me, It's You, but the first single, "The Fear," which has been floating around on her MySpace for quite sometime, is enough to keep me busy until then. I have to say, Lily kinda works it in this video like Wednesday Adams at a gay bar, with a lit bit of Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka thrown in for good measure. It doesn't get much better than that. And look at those bangs! You could cut your hand on them, that's how sharp they are.



Sasha Fierce could kick Beyoncé's ass in a second. Beyoncé doesn't have shades like these -- I wonder, when Sasha turns her head too fast, does she poke her eyes?. I should probably wonder if she can even really see through them. Anyways, "Diva" doesn't have the massive coordinated dance routine that "Single Ladies" did, nor will it spawn probably as many spin-offs, but it does have two faceless back-up dancers straight out of Santogold video. Of course, I can't help but remember that Lady Gaga did the no-pants cat-suit and the shoulder pads way before Ms. Fierce forced herself out of Beyoncé's ego, but who's keeping score?