Sound Advice: on Shirley Bassey’s “Get the Party Started”

For those younger readers out there, the name Shirley Bassey doesn’t ring much of a bell. However, if I were to play you her two signature tunes from the James Bond films – “Goldfinger” and “Diamonds Are Forever” – you will hear that voice and know that singer, for no one else can utter that voice that suggests images of jewels slinking their way seductively out of a velvet pouch.

Having been absent from the music scene since her heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, Dame Shirley spent much of the 1980s and 1990s focusing on charity work and undoubtedly living off the residual income from her immortal recordings. Then, in 2006, she recorded a big, brassy version of P!nk’s smash record “Get the Party Started” for a Marks & Spencer commercial. It contains a slightly halted, almost spoken-word utterance of the opening verses before belting into a powerful crescendo.

Dame Shirley, eschewing the trend of aping youth in the name of commercial art (are you listening Madonna?), instead embraces her signature sound. The cover has big, sweeping brasses with a drum machine that grooves without wearying out the listener in a frantic attempt to party! Hard! Right! Now! The effect is a bold cover that can easily be remixed and made into a dance-club smash (if you want to party hard right now). It could be played as ambience at a more sophisticated lounge or social mixer. Or it could provide the perfect soundtrack to New York Fashion Week while models float about in the latest by Tom Ford or Mary Katrantzou. Although Bassey’s version of “Get the Party Started” doesn’t have the bouncy R&B-inflected youth pop of P!nk’s original smash, it does have what P!nk’s doesn’t have: a sense of occasion.

The popularity of Dame Shirley’s recording lead to the release of a 2007 cover album bearing the same name. To round out the album and flesh out its theme, the recording is big on interpolating brass and drum machine, giving the album grandeur and sonic sweep worthy of a dame. While not every song pops the way her cover of “Get the Party Started” does, there’s plenty to accompany your evening. The list of covers includes a saucy “Big Spender”, a worthy interpretation of Grace Jones’s “Slave to the Rhythm”, a suitably earth-shattering “I (Who Have Nothing)” and yes, another Bond cover, “You Only Live Twice”. The album, in a sign that music consumers still have good taste, became a Top Ten hit in the U.K. This was when she was 70(!!) years old, looking and sounding as beautiful and regal as the day she first blasted her way onto the airwaves nearly half a decade earlier.

And laced through the recording is that big, magnificent voice. Yes, Dame Shirley is still a belter and can indeed get your party started, whatever the occasion. There is nothing like a Dame.

VIFF 2011: “The British Guide to Showing Off”

Imagine a beauty contest where the contestants do not represent nations, but totally cockamamie ideas. The entrants comprise men, women and everyone else on the sexual identity continuum. You are permitted to bring assistants to help you carry your train, which is attached to the replica of the Empire State Building you are wearing on your head as a hat on top of your bright pink wig. The entrants’ names are “Miss F*** It”, “Miss Trailer Trasher”, “Miss Beauty with Cruelty” and “The Princess of Whales”. Contestants often appear in full kabuki makeup, and some discovered the wonders of body glitter and full blue facial wear long before the Blue Man Group formed. Welcome to the Alternative Miss World.

Jes Benstock’s kooky but ridiculously funny British documentary The British Guide to Showing Off charts the history of this ludicrous but infamous slice of pop culture. Originally started as a one-off event by British conceptual artist Andrew Logan, distinguished as the only living artist in the UK with his own museum, the pageant started on a lark in 1972 and was so notorious that it attracted the likes of Andy Warhol and his Factory, Derek Jarman and Leigh Bowery, who often competed as a contestant (he was “Miss F*** It”). The initial event was so jam-packed that the hip and notorious of London climbed through the windows to enter the venue, and even David Bowie, at the height of his Ziggy Stardust phase, was turned away at the door. Logan was a man who threw the Sex Pistols a Valentine’s Day Ball. In other words, he was – and still is – so cool that the board of education officially shut down school. The film’s quirky style is best exemplified by matching narration with first-person-account interviews interspersed with pop-art graphic design straight out of old Monty Python skits and pop-up books, mixed with live archival footage.

The Alternative Miss World (AMW) has been staged sporadically over the years, about once every three years or so on average, with minimal corporate sponsorship (if any) and a lot of chutzpah. Anything could happen. One of the earliest pageant hosts was no less than legendary drag artist Divine. Heck, Logan’s entire family, regardless of sexual orientation, participated as judges, participants and in any capacity the show needed. (AMW developed a reputation for being all-inclusive in terms of its contestant roster, and everyone was welcome to compete more than once.) As its notoriety grew, the spectacle encouraged more and more incredulously inventive entries, and celebrity judges over the years have included the famed fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, comedian Billy Connolly, producer Brian Eno, venerable character actress Sian Phillips and Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes. As the show gained further status as one of the must-see cultural celebrations, it occupied a strange place in British art and culture as an art show never fully assimilated into the mainstream. One year, a British politician actually participated in bizarre costumes designed by filmmaker Sam Taylor Wood.

What The British Guide to Showing Off captures is the spirit of the AMW as culture evolved. This venerable yet still edgy art spectacular has survived the punk era, the New Wave-Romantic age, the outbreak of political hip-hop and the co-opting of queer imagery into contemporary culture, and is still standing. You can see its influence everywhere, from the imagery of electronic musicians such as Goldfrapp and Ladytron, to high fashion (the likes of John Galliano discovered AMW after the 1981 show and have claimed it as an inspiration) and to Tilda Swinton’s red-carpet sartorial selections. Perhaps the most popular artist who embodies its spirit and fuels her creative image with it is no less than Lady Gaga. When she emerged around 2008, few in the mainstream had seen her style before, and while one can credit her with innovation, one cannot help but view her designs and image as being influenced by the AMW. In fact, I would not be surprised to see her pop up in the next AMW pageant, whenever that might be.

The British Guide to Showing Off is one of the most joyous, raucous documentaries in recent years. It’s a little hard not to be, given its subject matter. The film is presented at the Vancouver International Film Festival by local LGBT newspaper Xtra!, and screens on October 9, 10 and 13. For ticket information click here. 

Together Again: Janet Jackson’s Number Ones Tour

[Programming note: original article ran June 11, 2011. This piece is running to coincide with the upcoming August 26 concert in Vancouver.)


The Blogger recalls his first-ever concert. On June 9, 1990, he attended Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation Tour. It became, at the time, the highest-grossing debut concert tour of all time. The Blogger didn’t care that he was sitting far in the back and watching Janet storm across the stage as a well-dressed military ant dancer. He didn’t care that production values dwarfed in the unfortunately oversized stadium (there were thousands of seats still available). He was just so darned happy to be there!

The Blogger has had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Jackson (if you’re nasty) live at least three more times since: on the janet. tour in 1994, the All For You Tour in 2001, and 2008’s RockWitChu Tour. Janet remains, Nipplegate or not, his favourite Jackson (sorry Michael). 

Ms. Jackson returned to the road this year for a scaled-down tour supporting her greatest hits double-disc set Number Ones, and showcasing her sets in a more toned-down setting. For those of us who grew up watching Janet dance out from under her brother Michael’s shadow and blaze onto the international stage on her own power, and watch her try to return from the Super Bowl Incident, any occasion to see Janet is a trip down memory lane. Here are five reasons why Janet Jackson still matters.

1. Janet dances her ass off. In an interview with her late, great brother Michael, he took one look at his sister in the 80s when she was heavier and said “lookit that butt!” Yes Michael, we can see it, but not because we’re ridiculing its size: we’re seeing it because she can shake whatever yo’ mama gave her. A Janet Jackson concert is an occasion for the world’s biggest dance party. Like Madonna before her, Janet made her name as a first-class dancer who happened to have a penchant for a great hook and melody. The fact that she has co-written every single one of her hits in her entire career speaks to her passion for the marriage of song and dance, and it’s her words – and therefore her conviction – that compels her to move. It’s guaranteed to make you move, too. 

2. Janet sings all her old hits in concert! Say what you will about her admittedly thin singing voice: Janet doesn’t lip-synch. She doesn’t need a back-up tape of her come-hithers and harmonies for those nights when she doesn’t feel up to it. You can hear every breath in her body and see every bead of sweat when she’s on that stage, and that’s from singing everything. This lady works hard. Janet has a vast array of nearly three dozen global Top Ten singles spanning the last quarter-century (it has been 25 years since her groundbreaking R&B album Control first stormed into the pop world). She understands that her fans have different favourites charting the span of her entire career, and she intends to give them the respect they deserve by singing every last hit, even if she has to blend them into medleys to fit them all in. 

The tour’s set list includes such early singles like “Nasty” and “When I Think of You”; iconic club-stompers like “Escapade” and “Rhythm Nation”; more mature work such as “That’s the Way Love Goes” and “If”; and sing-along favourites like “Together Again” and “Let’s Wait Awhile”. No one goes home from a Janet Jackson concert complaining about the songs she didn’t sing. And this time, with no new material to promote, the show is full of nothing but the hits! Everybody wins! 

Modern Film Classics: “Madonna: Truth or Dare”

For Dolce

Madonna turns fifty-three today. Fifty-three!

Although she has dabbled in low-key activities since the conclusion of her epic Sticky & Sweet Tour in 2009, and with Lady Gaga reigning supreme over the pop music scene with Adele and Katy Perry, the power of Madonna’s influence must be reiterated.

Madonna became one of the first contemporary pop musicians whose work has produced a sub-field of gender studies entirely onto itself. Leading feminist writer Camille Paglia wrote extensive academic essays on her. The Vatican all but called for her excommunication. MTV, back when it played nothing but music videos, at once revered her and punished her, as she has become the most-awarded MTV VMA Award winner in history and also one of the very first to have her work banned from the network (that would be the videos for “Justify My Love” and “Erotica”).

1990’s Blond Ambition Tour was the concert tour that cemented her iconic status. Intended to cross-promote her blockbuster Like a Prayer album, its follow-up I’m Breathless, and her starring role in her then-paramour Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy film, it was the cultural phenomenon of the summer. When she premiered the Gaultier-designed cone bra in 1990 for her tour, it was one of the first instances where underwear was outerwear, and proved so iconic that the garment is on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Gallery. Until then, no one would ever think of wearing just a bikini top and bare midriff as a stage costume. The tour was so controversial that it prompted protests in Rome, almost landed the singer in prison for public obscenity in Toronto, and yet was so highly reviewed as performance art that it became the highest-grossing concert tour of the year. Hell, even Gorbachev – yes, Gorby!! – went to see her show, even though the Soviet Union was still alive and well. (To this, Madonna quipped: “Warren [Beatty]’s gonna be so jealous that I met him first! Hah!”) Rolling Stone magazine named Blond Ambition, despite being released at the start of the decade, the “Greatest Tour of the 90s” in 1999. The tour has become legend, especially since Pioneer signed an exclusive contract to release the concert tour recordings on Laser Disc only, and thus it is not available on DVD. Random clips have been uploaded onto YouTube, but the only place to see high-quality clips of some of these performances are in Truth or Dare.

Madonna became the single most powerful woman in show business. And everyone has, ever since then, tried to follow or out-do her: Gaga, Katy, Britney, Ke$ha, Rihanna, Christina, Gwen. Everyone. And if you asked any of them to name a musical influence, they would each say Madonna.

Truth or Dare, theatrically released in 1991 after a third album in a year and a half, was the document of the concert tour that burned through pop culture. In an era before the Internet became prevalent, the fact that Madonna was letting cameras follow her 24/7 to produce an all-access, no-holds-barred documentary, was unheard of. Camera phones and YouTube were but twinkles in their developers’ eyes. This was as close as we could get to reality TV at the time (asides from Cops on the Fox Network). Twenty years ago, this all-access documentary was considered the ultimate reveal. It’s still a cinematic powder keg twenty years later.

Sound Advice: Hi Fashion & “I’m Not Madonna”

Meet the new dance pop duo Hi Fashion.

Formed by the members Jen DM and Rick Gradone, this duo is a deliciously catty pop machine that may very well be performance art in disguise. Every one of their singles could have been collected from the ruminations of the most attitude-filled, delusional drag queens. A creation called “Amazing” pretty much sums up the entire “I don’t care if you don’t like it because I’m amazing” fantasia that, although could have been mined entirely from a transvestite’s internal monologue, might easily have danced out of any reality TV show’s participant’s mouth, masking a deep-seated insecurity and possible psychosis. (Why else would they agree to be on television, dummy?) It’s the duo’s delirium that sets them apart from any other dance or pop acts.

The band’s videos remind me of old 70s and 80s Japanese commercials, but acted out by gender-bending transvestites in faux Amy Winehouse beehive hairdos and Stevie Nicks’s Goth night outfits. The only proper reaction to any of these videos is the following question: “is this on purpose?” (They also remind me very much of Eurovision and most of Eastern Europe’s ideas of what is supposedly cool.)

But their crowning glory remains the dance club smash “I’m Not Madonna”.

This is a knowing, winking but extremely savvy pop single that trumps any self-referential attempts by the Jersey Shore kids. Why? Because their brand of irony is rooted in a need to self-deprecate that is hampered by the fact that they think they’re being smart. The protagonist in “I’m Not Madonna” has the delusion without the irony, and that makes the entire performance that much more exciting and accomplished. They’re not doing it to seem smarter than they already are, and the hell with anyone with doesn’t like it. It reminds me of what Amy Poehler said to Jimmy Fallon during a rehearsal on SNL, when he told her to stop a gag because he didn’t like it: “I don’t fucking care if you don’t like it!”

Before I discuss this sooner, please listen to their Soundcloud here and then join me after the jump.

Cinematically Inclined: Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2011

Now in its 23^rd year, the annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival will commence two weeks after the Pride activities in town, just ahead our own International Film Festival in the early fall (is it that close already?). An annual celebration of film, it is placed strategically after Pride on the social calendar to catch the residual excitement of the Pride events. Featuring works by and for the LGBT community, the festival is one of the largest amongst its kind in North America and features a number of hard-to-find titles that often become festival favourites, but may not necessarily secure distribution deals. It is an opportunity to show these works to a larger audience, one beyond DVD and the late-night HBO rerun schedule.

A number of films are being grouped under different focuses and titles to cater to the more discerning viewer. Younger-oriented films are marketed under the “Fierce and Under 25” category. The neo-New Wave Queer films are grouped under the heading “New Gender-Queer Cinema”, as a throwback to the 80s heyday of filmmakers such as Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes and Lizzie Borden. There is also the “Celebrate Queer Vancouver” theme which spotlights local history, and a focus on Asian LGBT cinema. For those festival-goers looking for films with a common theme, these focuses help create de facto ready-made themed viewing packages (although tickets to each of these focuses are sold separately). There’s also a tribute to queer director Bruce LaBruce scheduled for the evening of August 14.

Here are some of the noteworthy titles that are playing the VQFF, but take note that it is by no means an exhaustive list:

To Faro (Mein Freund aus Faro)

The opening night gala, this is a cross between Boys Don’t Cry and Fucking Amal, set in Germany, and tells a coming-of-age tale with a transgender twist.

Grown Up Movie Star

A selection from the Sundance Film Festival, this feature tells the tale of a dysfunctional father-daughter dynamic: he is a disgraced, closeted former NHL star, and she’s dangerously rebellious. This is presented as the Centerpiece Gala and is accompanied by a party at The Helm lounge.

Different from Whom? (Diverso Da Chi?)

The closing night gala presentation is an Italian comedy about the efforts of an openly gay human rights activist and a fiercely conservative politician running together for public office to stop the mayor from erecting a wall to encircle and enclose their beloved city.

Going Down in LA-LA Land

Made by the director of last year’s festival favourite Violet Tendencies, this is a romance between an aspiring actor and a famous but closeted TV sitcom star. Hilarity ensues.

Judas Kiss

Starring Saskatchewan native Charlie David, this is the story of a failed film director returning to his hometown to judge a student filmmaking contest and falls in love with one of the contestants. The plotline alone echoes Thom Fitzgerald’s 1997 masterpiece The Hanging Garden.

The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

It may surprise you to learn that there is a secret trade in the country where orphaned youth and young men are acquired for sexual purposes by older businessmen, politicians, and military officials. This bold documentary exposes the hypocrisy of Taliban and post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Close-up: the Chosen Family Portraits at the Museum of Vancouver

I like to think that I spent the summer of 1995 in a Russian country home with my own banya. Sadly, that wasn’t the case, but I came awfully close by spending it reading Anna Karenina as part of my advanced summer reading for an IB English literature class. I was immediately struck by the epitaph Tolstoy uses to open his magnum opus:

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Every family may have its own quirks and dysfunctions, which in and of itself doesn’t make a family unhappy. What makes a family unhappy is the inability to live with those quirks and dysfunctions, forgive transgresses, and accept each other wholly and completely. This is especially true for the queer community.

As the LGBT community is comprised, like all other social groups such as immigrants, political and religious communities, from members of all backgrounds, the concept of community must naturally extend to form a de facto family structure. The idea of family must by necessity lend support, guidance and unconditional love to each of its members.

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival, which will be held from August 11 to 21, 2011, recognized this. In 2010, they organized a large-scale art project called “Chosen Family Portraits”. Led by photographer Sarah Race and journalist Sarah Buchanan, the project is a series of photo essays featuring local members of the queer community posing with those they consider their “chosen family” members. These are not their biological family, nor do these subjects by any means reject their blood ties. It is simply a project calling attention to the fact that a lot of queer youth wouldn’t have survived had it not been for the love and support of those nearest and dearest to them. The labours of this project can be seen from August 3 to September 30, 2011 at the Museum of Vancouver. Chosen Family Portraits will also be exhibited as part of the Queer Arts Festival at the Roundhouse Arts and Recreation Centre, from July 26 to August 13. A select number of portraits will be posted on commemorative streetlight posts throughout the city. The project is supported by the City of Vancouver’s 125^th Anniversary, the Arts Partners in Creative Development, and the Government of Canada. Seems this family is getting a lot of love.

The subjects of this project include a number of the Blogger’s close personal friends – gay, straight, bisexual or otherwise – who have gathered the members of their own “chosen families” to pose for the portraits. The one I’m fondest of features a certain bow-tied gentleman, posing with a few of our mutual friends, including his (straight) best friend, who married one of my own long-time friends not too long ago. Everywhere I go, whenever I see the picture on the cover of the festival flier, I stop strangers and tell them about these special people. And I wonder how many of the haters are secretly jealous at how happy our own chosen families are, seeing as we’re all alike. In fact, our families might be just like your own biological kin (the ones who still owe you money for that failed business venture and won’t return your calls).

You will find more information on the exhibit here. There are a few more of the 28 portraits after the jump. (Although I’d love to have participated, the sheet number of my chosen family would have been what they called in old Hollywood movies “crowd scenes” and require a stadium.)

Modern Film Classic: Milk

[Programming note: this article first appeared on June 28, 2011, and is being re-published today to mark Vancouver Pride. Happy Pride everyone!]

The Blogger noticed, in the month of Gay Pride worldwide, a striking difference in gay rights in the world. Late Friday evening, the New York State Senate elected to allow same-sex marriage in the state. At the exact same time, in St. Petersburg, Russia, a small group of Russian gay rights activists were beaten, harassed and imprisoned for a peaceful demonstration. The gay pride parade in Moscow, a city fast priding itself on becoming more open and cosmopolitan, remains illegal. The juxtaposition of joyous reaction from New York and Tweets from Russian gay rights activist Nikolai Alekseev from prison showed in stark and real-time contrast the rights we enjoy and take for granted. The struggle for gay rights may for some be a distant memory or simply a part of history. 

This past weekend also marked the 42^nd anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the first major battle in the world where gays and lesbians fought back against oppressive authorities and asserted their right to live freely, openly, and without shame, just like everyone else.

Milk's campaign headquarters in the Castro,
taken by the Blogger on a visit in the fall of 2010

We live in a time where political cinematic art is almost nonexistent, at least in the West. This doesn’t meant that there are no exciting works out – one does not need to be political to be cinematically merited – but you’d be hard-pressed to find the next Spike Lee, Derek Jarman, Lina Wertmüller or Oliver Stone. It was indeed rare to find political film made by a major studio, the NBC/Universal-backed Focus Features, in Gus van Sant’s 2008 masterpiece Milk. This was a project that deserved a time and a place when the culture was ready to embrace (or at the very least tolerate in peaceful coexistence with) gay rights culture.

Penn, left, with Victor Garber as Mayor Mosconi

Everything about van Sant’s passion project works brilliantly. There’s Sean Penn’s uncanny Oscar-winning turn as the pioneering Harvey Milk, the world’s first elected openly gay politician. Penn’s sensitive embodiment could have been simple mimicry or a caricature, but what he captures is nothing less than lightning in a bottle in the performance. Some criticized the film slightly for not providing a portrait of Milk before he became a politician, but Milk himself acknowledged that he was nobody before his political awakening. He was just an insurance salesman without any idea of who he could have become. Penn captures the tireless energy seen here and in the Oscar-winning 1984 documentary on the same subject, The Times of Harvey Milk. The man was indefatigable and passionate, but he never let ego get in the way as he fought for the collective whole. 

Road Show: Wicked in Vancouver & Western Canada

Update: ticket information for Wicked in Calgary and Edmonton is now available. The show stops in Calgary from June 29 to July 17, and in Edmonton from July 20 to August 7.

The Blogger never fell in love with The Wizard of Oz. I’m not certain if it was the product of my immigrant upbringing, a complete lack of interest in the film as a child, or a total unawareness of what it means to so many others that allowed it to pass me by. I didn’t even see the actual film until after I turned 30, although by the time I saw it, so many people had told me what happens in it years before that I knew the entire story before viewing it and felt that I had already seen it.

Strangely enough, my trip to Oz was presaged by a reading of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, a revisionist novel from the same source material. Turning the story on its head, the novel charts the Wicked Witch of the West’s history, including her tortured birth and her time at Shiz University, where she meets Glinda the Good Witch (then named Galinda) and they become unlikely friends. Also, Maguire gives her the name Elphaba. It turns out that the Wizard was not so wonderful. Enchanted, anthropomorphized animals integrated into society and, like humans, held down jobs and were highly educated.

The Wizard, in a form of ethnic cleansing, instigates a systemic eradication of these magical creatures and gives them lobotomies, thus robbing them of their faculties and higher functions. Elphaba, as a fierce defender of these creatures, watched helplessly as her favourite professor, an enchanted creature, was reduced to a shadow of his former self under the Wizard’s rule of law. Elphaba declared war on the Wizard and was thus named the Wicked Witch of the West, since she was only wicked to the Wizard and the citizens of Oz who fall under his rule. (Her sister was the Wicked Witch of the East, hardly a fair assessment given that she was herself confined to a wheelchair and seemed to be “wicked” purely by political affiliation and genealogy. Named Nessarose, she is a powerful politician in the novel and the musical.)

If The Wizard of Oz were a historical chronicle of the wars in that place and time, then it was a history written by the winners: the Wizard, the Munchkins, and the unwitting Dorothy, an opportunist who only used the Wizard to return to a barren hinterland. Wicked is a witty, sinister novel that tweaks with our notions of good and evil by asking critically, what is “good”? Does “evil” exist? Is either of these simply a moral or a philosophical concept signifying social values, or is there anything intrinsic in either? Do they only have value in relation to one another and, when you remove that contrast, is there nothing left but a series of categorical imperatives? How do you assign value to a life?  Maguire’s text gives dignity to Elphaba’s story.

Sound Advice: Lady Gaga, Born This Way & the Fame Project

The Blogger was a longtime fan of the seminal TV series Lost. Part of its appeal was its unabashed affinity for the supernatural, in particular numerology and the number 23, which appears in much of the series. The Blogger noted that its creator, JJ Abrams, intended that there be no coincidences.

The Blogger thought fondly of Lost when he heard that Lady Gaga’s long-anticipated new album Born This Way was to be released on Monday the 23^rd of May. This is 18 months to the day and date that her previous work, The Fame Monster, was released … also on a Monday, the 23^rd of November, 2009. This is no mere coincidence. Given that Born This Way’s release was touted as far back as the fall of 2010, the selection of the date was not incidental.

Planning and executing like a Roman general is exactly what Lady Gaga seems to have been doing. Since entering the public eye in 2008 with her experimental fashion and unbeatable hooks, there’s a calculated strategy all along to crest and eventually dictate the cultural zeitgeist. Gaga’s first album, The Fame, was a concept album that proudly, nakedly announced her intentions to become famous. It also appeared to be part of an ongoing, living cultural studies thesis studying the intricacies and effects of fame as they happened to her. She was her own living experiment, with no control group against which to gauge her progress, although that element presented itself by virtue of her record sales and the work of her peers. It is no accident that her follow-up disc was titled The Fame Monster, as her Gagaship had sufficiently explored fame to the point that she could write about its dark underbelly in coded metaphor. Every song was about a figurative monster representing some hidden pathology, begging for analysis even while you dance to it. 

Kylie Minogue: the Aphrodite Tour 2011

Dear Kylie Minogue,

You are in the final leg of your current North American tour, which has been playing to packed houses and received effusive praise. The Aphrodite Tour is scheduled to wrap up with a pair of celebratory blowout shows in San Francisco and Las Vegas this coming weekend. In celebration of your most recent triumphs, I am writing to tell you, in no particular order, ten reasons why I simply adore you. I know I speak for more than myself.

1. Your music.

I still know all the words to entire albums of yours. It doesn’t matter how bad a day it is, there is always, always a Kylie Minogue single to lift me from the bitch of living. Thankfully I have more good days than bad moments, and even on good days, hearing the warmth in your voice on so many of your dozens and dozens of still-danceable hits (which I murder with absolute glee and wild abandon at karaoke) can turn a good day into a great one.

2. You are Australia’s national treasure and its de facto cultural ambassador to the world at large.

I used to live in a graduate student’s resident and we had a number of visiting students every year from the University of Wollongong. This was around the time you made that blazing comeback with Light Years and especially Fever, but until “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”, people were skeptical about whether you could cross over back to this side of the pond. Then that song with that video hit, and you were the toast of America once again. Through all that, the Australian housemates and I kept tut-tutting and telling the locals what exactly they were missing. No one will ever forget you now. 

3. You keep me thin.

The Blogger grew up, shall we say, corpulent. Exercise is important to me. I still have the belief that I can swallow only air and gain weight. So whenever I hear you on my iPod, I automatically move faster on the streets and I smile real big. See? Endorphins are a happy drug! There’s a rush and I keep thin! Plus, whenever I am on a run and just. Can’t. Go. On, the shuffle magically delivers a blast of sugar candy dance pop from you straight to my ears and I have the will to carry on for that final push to the finish, or that extra bit to keep me running just a bit longer. That, and every time I hear you in a club, I go completely bonkers and will dance with whoever or whatever is in front of me: guy, girl, bar, speakers, wall, etc. The most important thing is that every time I hear a Kylie song, I am convinced that I can stave off the inevitable thickening of my waistline that comes with aging for just a few months more. 

Guilty Pleasure: Eurovision Song Contest, 2011

UPDATE: the results of the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest are in and the recap is available here.

Eurovision 2011 Logo

Disclaimer: despite his proclamation and adoration for high art, the Blogger, like everyone else, has a guilty pleasure. His is the Eurovision Song Contest. Think of it as Martha Stewart having the occasional cheeseburger after eating healthy all week. No judgment.

 

Originally conceived in the mid-1950s by the European Broadcasting Union to unite a warm-torn, still-divided Europe, the Eurovision Song Contest was meant as a one-off light entertainment program. Fifty-five years after that first contest in 1956, the program has evolved into an annual international celebration of song showcasing the best Europe has to offer. It has also, in several corners of Europe, been met with much derision due to the rather, shall we say, extraordinary song choices. What may be considered hip, cool and cutting-edge in one part of Europe may be considered to be déclassé or outright vulgar. In North American urban nomenclature, one denotes this with the scathing words “Try Hard”. 

ABBA winning with "Waterloo" in 1974

Nevertheless, the Eurovision Song Contest has been indomitable and survived the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Prague Spring of 1968, international incidents at the Olympics, Perestroika, the fall of the Iron Curtain, the formation of the EU and the rather alarming albeit mercifully temporary ubiquity of Fabio. The contest introduced the world to ABBA and showcased a teenaged Quebecois singer named Celine Dion who competed and won for Switzerland in 1988. The show has also, with the inclusion of several former Soviet republics, expanded to become more inclusive and focus less on the western part of the continent. Individual countries spend the winter months choosing their entries via popular vote, and this is undertaken with considerable seriousness and a surprisingly high degree of gravity. It is this writer’s opinion that the contest may be taken more seriously than many actual elections. In the end, the winner represents the nation to the world at large.

A Gay Old Time: Vancouver Men's Chorus Spring Concert

The Artful Blogger is a sucker for a song and a dance, preferably together. He didn’t have a high school glee club to join (it must be an American thing) and he never had the gift of song, so he must live vicariously through others. In particular, he only wishes that there could have been a chorus like the Warblers on Glee to have joined.

This is why the Blogger is very much looking forward to the Vancouver Men’s Chorus upcoming series of spring concerts. “Duets: Two Fabulous!” is exactly as it sounds: a series of duets starring talented and vocally inclined Vancouver men. The concept of this year’s show is duets performed by the Chorus and another local vocal group known as Pandora’s Vox. For the Glee fan within, this is a bit like watching two hours of dream duets between New Directions and the Warblers.

The Chorus is a non-profit group that showcases local gay and gay-friendly musical talent. They host a fall concert and a Christmas show, in addition to numerous events such as Big Gay Sing, World AIDS Day, AIDS Walk, outreach events, and Singing Can Be A Drag. The Blogger attended last year’s fall drag concert, where the “Telephone” duet was first performed by two intrepid members of the Chorus with copious amounts of glitter and suitable amounts of theatricality. The Chorus includes many of the Blogger’s personal friends, who have taken turns slaughtering him at karaoke night and making him look like the sad movie star warbling drunkenly in Lost in Translation. (Mercifully, the Blogger will not be allowed to castrate songs in front of a paying audience, not even as Yoko Ono in drag.)