Glee-ful, No More

Feels like I've been thinking too hard on these posts this week and I really wanted something light to ring out the year so here we go...

BACK

FRONT

I bought this shirt when Lesley and I went on the Epic Birthday Trip to California mentioned in September. Our VIP tickets included a limited edition shirt red and white baseball-tee-ish shirt but it was of a less solid material than the ones at the merch tables so I bought another.

It was a pretty successful trip by all measures. We found our way there, had a pre-show meal of various appetizers, and enjoyed the kick-ass seats down in the lower bowl. Glee was still in the darling days of its premiere season and this tour was really testing the waters as to how far the fan base was willing to go to be a part of the New Directions adventures.

Some memorable moments included: Lesley getting to high-five the Season 1 leading men, Cory Monteith (Finn) and Mark Salling (Puck) as they came running through the audience; the usherette/dancers dressed as Cheerios and handing out barf bags before the show; and the performance of their cover of Salt 'n' Peppa's "Push It" that wasn't released as a cast recording until the compilation at the end of the season even though it appeared in Episode 2.

 This is still my most viewed YouTube video to date

***January 2013 edit***

The bloom had faded from my Glee fervor a long while ago but Season One will always be a fun and positive memory for me. Sadly, Season Two made show loyalty harder to maintain with spotty writing and improbable character twists. Even the music wasn't that good. (Especially in comparison to the Smash premiere season which delivered a more satisfactory story about musical theatre and the people involved in creating a show.) Season Three has been even more silly and unappealing. I have been completely unmotivated to follow Rachel and Kurt to NYC and the fact that most of the graduated class has reappeared in the halls of McKinley makes me paranoid about my own students never moving on beyond high school.

And then, like an unhealthy and worn-out relationship where the partners hold on out of nostalgia until one or both of the partners finally cross the line - physically, mentally, or emotionally - the show-runners of Glee irrevocably lost my support and viewership when they shamelessly ripped off the Jonathon Coulton acoustic cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" in a recent episode. You be the judge: 

 

In fact, with very little effort, you could probably find the sweet spot where these two versions sync up exactly (like a couple of Nickelback songs do) but the undeniable truth is that Glee stole Coulton's arrangement, timing and lyric changes while giving him no credit whatsoever.

 

So what does Big Butt Revenge look like? Coulton has cheekily covered the Glee cover of his original cover or, as he states on his blog, "which is to say it’s EXACTLY THE SAME as [his] original version" and is donating proceeds from the online purchase to charity. 

I've bought my copy and I'm considering buying copies for all my friends who have iTunes accounts. Maybe Glee won't notice that I've turned my TV off but hopefully they'll notice that their dishonest version is getting its butt kicked by the JoCo version on the Internet charts.

Yeah, so, maybe not so light a post after all... but better late than never.

In a Metal Mood, Shirt-wise

I like to think I have an appreciation for most types of music out there. Might have come from growing up in the 80s and 90s when a listener had to gear their ear to a wide range of questionable styles. Might have come from having parents who played nothing but compilation tapes of 50s and 60s easy listening tunes in the car. Might have come from spending my teenage years surrounded by a world accepting (nay, celebrating) the mystique of New Country (older now but New then). Might have come from being more visually and literarily strong versus my brother's more significant aural skills. I've always maintained that I like to hear the lyrics.

I figure that music, like literature, is a cornerstone of culture and thereby, forms a basis for cultural references. Much as satirical writing requires the reader to recognize what style of writing is being parodied, musical parodies or cross-genre covers only work if one knows the source material. Jonathon Coulton's acoustic folk cover of "Baby Got Back" only elicits laughs when the listener starts to recognize Sir Mix-A-Lot's lyrics. The Arrogant Worms' "Carrot Juice is Murder" is funny in its own right but funnier when one is familiar with the protest songs of the '60s.

Also, this is a real thing:

I own the album. "Enter Sandman" is especially awesome IMHO but that's mostly because Metallica is pretty much my only real metal reference. I could probably recognize GNR (?) songs and, thanks to an obsession with RollerGames (written about back on Sept 7 on this blog), Warrant tunes but I'm still trying to figure out the differentiating elements between hair bands and metal bands. Not all hair bands are metal, I don't think. But are all metal bands hair?

My better half is a self-professed metal head and because of this, a few years back, I attended my first metal concert, Fear Factory at the Commodore Ballroom. Feeling like a bit of a poser, I couldn't really justify buying a concert tee from any random metal band to wear so I ordered this one:

... because Science is also awesome. And science + music = joy. Just ask the beautiful and talented Billy the Kid (<-- ho-lee ca-rap, she's got an actual Wiki page!) whose Twitter-feed and FB updates are a heart-warming and though-provoking blend of personal info, musical progress and scientific trivia.

I've posted her music video for These City Lights all over my digital footprint ever since it came out in 2009 so I'll post a different one here today:

Us Broken Hearts

Billy the Kid | Myspace Music Videos

And FYI, I don't actually own a Billy shirt to post about on Music T Fridays but I wear my Billy the Kid zip-up hoodie everywhere.
(Happy six months, Billy! Sending you lots of love and magical thinking!)