Let me preface this by saying that I’m Lady GaGa’s straightest fan, and I wish her nothing but the most complimentary bottles of red wine and the most glamorous inhalants eBay can buy.  But even we ridest and dyest of fans have our, “ugh ok Lady GaGa” moments.  The whole “I’m bisexual too!” thing was taxing.  I was pretty eh on the sparkler bra gag as well.  It felt like it had been done before, and I don’t care whether it Has Been Done or merely Should Have Been Done, Lady GaGa’s appeal is that she Does Otherwise Than That.

The new Fame Monster, leaked over the weekend a week in advance of its release (download it via here or here, the “DepositFiles” host site works, after you wait for the ad to time out: look I am all supportive of artists and their intellectual rights especially if those artists are Lady GaGa, but seriously one of this woman’s three-ring costumes could feed f*cking Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan does not even have that low a standard of living), is larded with the fresh GaGa, but you get scoops of the trite GaGa as well.  The bad and the good, after the jump.   Continue »

…I figured you might want to know that d*cktowel.com is now live.  My roommate Dan who also works for the internet looked up the URL last night during the show.  There was no site (“Did you mean ‘d*cktrowel.com’?”), but he checked again today, and whoa, so many MS Paint penises!  Includes a bonus video from the Always Sunny dudes.  ”A girl with the towel on works too.”

As the site exhorts, “Join D*ck Towel Nation!”  It appears you can actually order as well.

Nothing about this is safe for work: d*cktowel.com.

Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam give Halloween the full Devo treatment at a Philadelphia performance.  Classic, timeless music from great musical artists.  And Pearl Jam aren’t bad either!  Dumb as a Blog suggests a few other bands-on-bands Halloween ideas: E Street Band as KISS and Jonas Brothers as ZZ Top would be pretty wonderful, but I’d also like to see

• Matisyahu as Toby Keith
• Black Flag as the Bangles
• Buckethead as Deadmau5
• Aubrey O’Day as Slutty Johann Sebastian Bach
• Hanson as Manson

“That’s refreshing,” you’re probably thinking, “Usher has decided to make a new single about a video game rather than about his penchant for making love to women in various different venues.”  But then it turns out that “Rockband” deals less with the video game of the same name, and more with Usher and the sexual activities he participates in with women (in various different venues).  The metaphor is a little flimsy, if you ask me.  Usher’s going to beat the woman like a video game?  Uh?  He’s rocking her in the same way that he plays Rock Band?  Presumably he is good at Rock Band?  Is he comparing his lovemaking skills to the vocal abilities of the Mick Jagger avatar in the game, or to Mick Jagger’s lovemaking skills in real life?

All we can know for sure is that while it’s totally not a big deal or anything one way or the other, Usher certainly wouldn’t be opposed to appearing in the next Rock Band game, if somebody happened to ask him to.

Source: ONTD.

Rockabye Baby is a plucky little web venture that makes instrumental lullaby melodies from your favorite face-melting rock tracks.  Rolling Stones?  Yep.  Guns ‘n Roses?  You bet!  …Nine Inch Nails?  Sure, why not.  ”I want to stuff you like an ANIMAL/I want to teethe you from the INSIDE,” “Head like a hole/ Dark as my soul/ I’d rather CRY/ Than eat from my BOWL.”  Kids need to know.  I want my child’s first memories to be scored to the tunes Trent Reznor thought would match with lyrics about dehumanizing sex and intravenous drug use.

Some other fine lullaby rock includes Green Day (hey, that “Longview” bassline kicks it middle-school-band-percussion-section-style on the glockenspiel) and the Pixies.  The lullaby Pixies sound pretty identical to the regular Pixies.  Less distortion on the xylophone, maybe.  The site also has a poll through which you can vote on your next favorite band to nursery-mix.  If we all vote for Slayer, it will come true!

Hmm, well this is a little disappointing.  In my manic-depressive relationship with Top 40 music, I can usually count on Timbaland, Lil Wayne, and Shakira to serve some smiles, and one would imagine that a collaboration including all three of them would yield at least a little dash of tinsel.  But unfortunately, they all got in the studio together and found that each and every one of them had forgotten to bring the wow that day.  Shakira was getting kind of defensive like, “Timbaland, you said you were going to bring the wow.  I was under the impression that I would not need to bring the wow on this one.  Lil Wayne, I’m going to assume you left the wow at home in your codeine cup right?”  ”Wait, what?  I just woke up.”  ”Exactly.”

So on “Give It Up to Me,” there are three very talented musicians, each one giving the song at most 70%.  Lil Wayne’s contribution to this song, pen to mic, did not take more than 45 minutes.  Shakira sings like she’s just trying to nail an adequate take and get back to the pool, and Timbaland clearly polled everyone in his crew, asking, “‘Say It Right‘ was three years ago – no one remembers that anymore, right?  Terrific, just throw those instrumentals on again.”  After the jump.   Continue »

Venice, jewel of Europe, peaceful siphon of American tourist dollars, target… for DISASTER.  In a continuing attempt to slake the moviegoing public’s ravenous appetite for dangerous animals in unlikely places, Hollywood has offered us Sharks in Venice, now, as FilmDrunk notes, available on DVD.

The seemingly tranquil waterways of Venice are terrorized by the perfect killing machine. In search of his father who has mysteriously disappeared diving in the city [Ed: three guesses], David stumbles across the cryptic trail leading to the long-lost fortune of the Medici. As the unwitting pawn in a Mafia plot to recover the treasure, David’s girlfriend is kidnapped at gunpoint, plunging him into a desperate race against time…

It is important to note that David is played by Stephen Baldwin, the one who baptized Spencer Pratt in the holy rivers of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! If the trailer above isn’t enough to convince you to buy the movie, be sure to admire the special effects, plus a sneak peak at the next “organisms where they aren’t supposed to be” films in production, after the jump.   Continue »

Michael Jackson’s latest (/last?) single “This Is It,” which was to be released later this month in conjunction with This Is It, the Michael Jackson movie, got leaked early on the internet.  Whichever of his estate’s managers runs michaeljackon.com had pretty limited options, so he posted the song on the site early and chased other versions of it off YouTube.

You can also order it in vinyl next month, despite that Jackson’s big years were really situated more in the Paleo-CD era.  Song, after the jump.   Continue »

Hot new track burning up the British charts here.  “Don’t Shank, Just Skank” is a tune by rappers Donaeo, Rollin’ G, and a few others, and it is, in addition to being a certified club-bumper, also a certified Public Service Announcement Against Knife Crimes.  If you weren’t aware, the UK has a bit of a “citizens stabbing each other to death” problem, enough so that there is a governmental taskforce (TKAP or “Tackling Knives Action Programme”) and an active campaign to reduce knife-carrying “among 10 to 16 year olds.” (!!)

The campaign is called “It Doesn’t Have To Happen,” which is completely sensible.  By no means do senseless stabbing deaths have to happen, and yet it took a catchy hip-hop song to teach all of us that (us = you, over on that dystopian, gin-soaked, knife-crazy island).

Remember, kids: not so much with the shanking, definitely as much as possible with the skanking.

Source: BBC via The Awl.

Innuendo in rock music and videos?  What is this, 1894?  This ain’t your grandpa’s “Let Me Put My Love Into You,” folks.  This is Rammstein.  Excuse me, RAAAAMMMSTEEEINNN!!!  This is a band that named themselves after an airshow disaster that killed 71 people.  Their new single, released yesterday, is titled, simply, “P*ssy.”  Can you guess what the song is about?  You don’t have to, because the video explains it for you.

The vid was shot by Jonas Akerlund, a very respected director who has worked with everyone from Madonna to Metallica.  (He did Lady GaGa’s “Paparazzi” video earlier this year.)  Jonas Akerlund was probably in the studio pitching his video idea to Rammstein, when one of the Rammstein guys interrupted him.  ”Look, I know you are very respected director dat hast vorked vith everyone from Madonna to Metallica, but I am not thinking American audiences to understand what is meant by ‘bratwurst in dein sauerkraut.’  So how about instead of making a music video, we just film ourselves having sex with a bunch of models?”   Continue »