All the Singing Ladies

Just over a year ago, I wrote of the passing of Estelle Bennett, one of the great Ronettes, and how much I love the Girl Group sound of the 50s and 60s -- and I'm not talking just Motown. As I noted, most of those ladies never really did get the rock'n'roll respect they deserved.

Today, via Buzzfeed, I stumbled on this video:

Now I understand why it all seemed so familiar.

GaGa

Okay, I am back.

Things have been pretty weird and hectic in my personal life. Lots of pressure, and  matters over which I have no control.

Did manage to catch bits and pieces of last night's Grammys.Yes, it was about spectacle, but it was also spectacular.

About halfway through it hit me hard. Women were stealing the show. Not just Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, but also the wonderfully talented Lady GaGa.

And, as for Pink, I ask you: Has there ever been a Grammy performance to match hers?

And in high heels yet. 

There's a video of her headspinning rendition of Glitter in the Air here. But it may not last long due to copyright issues.

If ratings were up 35 per cent over last year's telecast, cherchez les femme

Click here for a Star slideshow of highlights.

Let's produce a show

Regulars at Broadsides know: I'm a sucker for this sort of stuff.

Read how they produced it at Improve Improv Everywhere.

Fool You on the Hill

Not surprisingly, and probably as intended, PM Stephen Harper's ''surprise'' performance at the National Arts Centre -- a year after he denounced such galas as elitist -- got front-page and top-of-news play at the media organizations which the current government counts as friends.

But really, whose tune did they dance to?

Pale Cold reveals the man behind the curtain:

I gotta feeling that this is gonna go viral!

Awesome, awesome, awesome!

This is a one-take video, 4:54 long, starring 172 communications students at UQAM (l'Université du Québec à Montréal) during ''frosh week'' -- or whatever they call it nowadays -- this month.

The tune is the Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling.

H/t to deBeauxOs of Dammit Janet!

How lovely to be a woman

So, last night, my favourite show Mad Men started with the closing clip from the 1963 movie musical Bye Bye Birdie. Video here. 

This flick made a huge impression on my friends and me back then. We practiced all of Ann-Margret's moves and, I have to say, while watching Mad Men last night, I found myself on my feet ''throwing myself at the (imaginary) camera,'' as Don Draper said.

Yes, I was alone.

Bye Bye Birdie hit the big screen just before Beatlemania, and it came on the tail end of the Elvis worship. But it wasn't the singing idol(s) aspect we loved. It was the depiction of what we imagined teenaged life to be, the going steady, the parties, the dancing, the whole Barbie & Beach Party & Betty & Veronica thing.

Then came the Pill and pot, psychedelic music and a radical shift in pop culture.

But for just a few months, we lived in this glorious bubble, dying to be Ann-Margret, who was so much sexier than the perennial Disney star Annette Funicello.

Anyway, I am not embarrassed to admit that this bit below was my favourite scene and song, one I performed in front of the mirror, with one of my dad's sweaters. I still sing it every once in a while, just to make friends cringe.

And I still came out a feminist.

By the way, here's my treeware take of last week on the instructive value of Mad Men today.

(Jezebel and Feministing have their takes on last night here but be warned, there are spoilers.)

Hot wax

Well, I suppose this was inevitable.

Guess who.

Gag

From feministing:

The incredibly popular Lady Gaga chokes on the f-word. (FF to the 1:55 mark.)

Here's the text:

LG -- You see, if I was a guy, and I was sitting her with a cigarette in my hand, grabbing my crotch and talking about how I make music 'cause I love fast cars and fucking girls, you'd call me a rock star. But when I do it in my music and in my videos, because I'm a female, because I make pop music, you're judgmental, and you say that it is distracting. I'm just a rock star.

Q -- Are you also a feminist?

LG -- I'm not a feminist - I, I hail men, I love men. I celebrate American male culture, and beer, and bars and muscle cars...

Come to think of it, she has a view of men that is, to say the least, stereotypical.

The blues has the blues

Koko Taylor, Queen of the Blues. (September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009)

Awwww nuts ...

Some things just make me happy.

The music is Chairlift's Bruises, from their album Does You Inspire You.