God, I wanna get my freaky dance on to this song. This should be the summer of the strict dance party. “If you’re not dancing, get the fuck out or start movin’ yo bod like any god you like intended.” The funky fun instruments in this song remind me of Yelle’s “Safari Disco Club” and I’m diggin’ it SO much.
Check out some other funky, dance-y hits at Moon Boots’ soundcloud page.
“I don’t think I want to know a six-year-old who isn’t a dreamer, or a sillyheart. And I sure don’t want to know one who takes their student career seriously. I don’t have a college degree. I don’t even have a job. But I know a good kid when I see one. Because they’re ALL good kids, until dried-out, brain-dead skags like you drag them down and convince them they’re no good. You so much as scowl at my niece, or any other kid in this school, and I hear about it, and I’m coming looking for you!
Here, take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam.”
Uncle Buck is one of my favorite movies of all time. John Candy was a saint.
Best uncle ever.
I take pop music seriously. Not creepy serious to where I’m sweating while imagining that Joey Fatone (someone recently pointed out to me that his last name is literally ‘fat one’ and I died laughing) is feeding me fruit while quoting NSYNC love songs and poking me in the eye with his dangerously pointy frosted tips. I don’t have fantasies about these people.
I mean that I take pop music seriously to the point where the songs are well crafted, feel-good, emotive and filled with choreographed dance. The compilation of choreographed dance while singing amazingly solid pop music is probably the single greatest entertainment thrill of my life. So when it comes to my favorite era of pop music, I like to take a step back and examine which albums were the best of the best.
The best NSYNC album for me was No Strings Attached. I still remember dancing for hours in my room to all the fast songs on that CD (and then slow jamming to the ballads when I was feeling vulnerable). They had some awesome dance hits on there. The title track was never released as a single, but No Strings Attached is SUCH a good early 00’s dance song. Most of the dancey songs on NSA seem like they were tailored for sick dance breakdowns. They had so many punches, dramatic pauses and fast beats that it’s impossible even as a listen to stay still.
In terms of album theme construction, NSA was an album about cutting ties with their former business partner Lou Pearlman who Ponzi-schemed the shit out of their success and finances. They got into legal battles with him and his record label and eventually were freed of contracts with shady Pearlman and moved on to Jive Records (home of B. Spears at the time.) Bye Bye Bye is written about a relationship thats totally fucked up, and in the beginning of the vid the dudes are held up by puppetmaster strings until they’re cut free.
The second release from the NSA album was It’s Gonna Be Me, in which the dudes are packaged and lined up in a store, mass produced and ready to be sold, just like they were in real life! Either it’s a scathing review of modern capitalism or an amazing product placement. Probably both. Nonetheless, NSA sold 2.42 million copies in its first week. Then on to 9 million by the time 2000 ended. The last great era of record sales for sure.
The other notable thing about NSYNC and others alike from this era of pop music is that it’s more like pop performance music. If you go back and watch videos of New Kids on the Block, they are singing live, dancing, sweating and flirting with the crowd. It’s a lot to do at one time. Throw into that mix heavily choreographed routines and often times ridiculous layers of costumes plus themed songs where you need to act as well, and you my friends have got a nice, thick piece of pop performance art.
So many times I hear from people that this sort of pop music is lame or unworthy of its success because most of the time-but not all of the time– the performers don’t write their own lyrics or music. But if you look at pop performance art like actors in a theatrical performance, it starts to shine a different light on the honest talent that it takes to be a pop performance star. Music preference and personal opinion aside, it’s always good to respect talent.
Bye Bye Bye
Digital Get Down
It Makes Me Ill
It’s Gonna Be Me
Just Got Paid
Fuck, now I want to go learn all these dances. (YESSS!!!!!!!) Check out the good ol’ days of amazing choreography and solid as fuck pop songs from the best dancers and singers of the boy band era.
Follow 20poorandfabulous on Facebook and Pinterest. Just do it. Do it for pop music.
EDITORS UPDATE:
I just came across this song off the European version of NSYNC’s first album called “Riddle” and it’s a TOTAL clubby european electronic. So obvious it wasn’t released in America because apparently we could handle clubby hits until this decade.
Ahh, the playful and often terribly misguided talent of a manufactured group. Dream! One or two hits, and then never seen again. Except I think the blonde one acted once or twice in something. Note to self: Anything Diddy touches literally turns to entertainment kryptonite. J.Lo and the club shooting incident, Dream, Making the Band everything, his own rap career, etc. He was probably even involved in every major oil spill of the last two decades. But we’ll never prove it. DAMN YOU DIDDY!!!!
Anyways, Dream had a fun song or two. The girls desperately lacked personality though. Having a good voice is cool, but not necessary. You need to be a STAHHHHHH. Sorry ladies. But we’ll fondly remember you always as that girl group that had that one okay song from around when Britney was an untouchable. Hugs!
This is roll down your windows on the highway en route to your friends’ barbecue on a Saturday afternoon. New summer jammy jam plus cute dudes to think about. It could only get better if there were free drinks involved, courtesy of youtube, 3D printing and the future. A girl can dream.
Now is about time to change up the dingy, mousy, winter-worn hair and make it bright and beautiful for summer. There’s just something about winter that makes everyone’s hair look gross. Maybe it’s the cold weather or the fact that we’re so lost in winter depression stupors that we forget that roots exist and colors need to be kept up. Here are a couple of tips to get your hair looking summatime fly.
As it’s typically the trend to go dark for winter and light for summer, think about getting highlights. Sometimes people make the mistake of what I like to call mall highlights. Mall highlights are when the highlights are thin, frequent and about 50 color shades of different from your darker hair color. Don’t get mall highlights, even if your hair gets colored at the mall.
Second, highlights don’t have to be blonde-blonde. I see so many girls with strictly “blonde highlights” that it gets boring as shit, and they all tend to blend together like a fucking blonde Ashley parade. No thanks. If you have darker or light brown hair, try to lighten up your hair with warm metallic tones, like bronze or gold. They still give you the lighter hair fare without bleaching your hair within an inch of its life.
If you have blonde hair, fuck off. Just kidding! You can have your blonde Ashley highlights and your not-as-noticeable-roots cake too. Jealz!
Bangs are awesome. But for summer? DON’T DO IT. Seriously. Imagine: You’re sitting on the beach. You’re on a date. He’s cute. His wavy hair is blowing in the wind as he lights up a cig and offers you a drag. You’re thinking about cookies, but take the cigarette anyways. He looks over at you and gasps, as your newly cut bangs are frizzy, curling and halfway up your fore head in a sweaty pile of “never take me out in public again because I clearly can’t handle it.”
Ok, that guys a dick if he’s judging you for frizzy bangs. Dump him. Regardless, it’s such a pain in the ass to style bangs in the fall and winter, let alone a much sweatier season. Throw in a ton of outdoor fun, a tan line down to your eyebrow and constant hairs dangling drips of sweat in your eye while you’re learning how to bike in traffic. You’ll die looking like hair-do roadkill, and your family will be shamed forever knowing that you were the girl with frizzy summer bangs who died tragically at a four way stop. True story.
Maybe you’re one of those people who has stick straight hair and who doesn’t sweat. Then it’s really only down to the weird tan line and sweat trapping a ton of blackheads and new zit friends. Bangs are fun!
The most important thing to remember about summer hair is ease. You wanna be able to go to the beach, get in a river or day drink (that turns into night drinking) and know that your hair doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. Keep it simple, keep it fresh and if anyone tells you your hair looks frizzy, you fucking cut them, steal their wallet and run. Trust me. They deserved it.
This is just SUCH A GOOD song. And Darren Criss is the least doofy looking person on Glee, so it’s good that he’s the one to cover Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know.” Amazing. My interest is piqued with this one. Way to go, Criss. You’re dramatic, an amazing voice and a cool performance of a killer song.
Awesome. “Yo bigots, boycott us. It’s really good for business.”
As I already blogged, I am super excited for HBO’s new series “Girls” starring creative triple threat Lena Dunham. The new Sex and the City except I’m guessing way less fabulous and way more anxiety-ridden “where is my life going” and “why aren’t they paying me for work,” with the same amount of “why didn’t he call me back?”
Except, what the fuck 20 something has HBO?! Unless HBO hasn’t caught on yet from the subject of their new show or straight hard facts, 20 somethings don’t have money. They barely have jobs and their own apartments. They especially don’t have money for cable and ESPECIALLY don’t have money for premium channels.
So when it comes to ratings and keeping this hopefully awesome new show afloat, I’m not sure if their 20 something demographic is going to be reached at all. Sure, people are super excited about the show, but they’ll be excitedly streaming it from some Eastern European website since HBO doesn’t stream their episodes either.
I almost feel like it’s going to be a one season wonder, or maybe two, like our fave Party Down. Sometimes it’s better to have a short series because then it doesn’t get drawn out like the shit hole that is The Office, Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, you name it. But still, this series looks awesome. Let’s hope there’s more than one season and that people with money and HBO watch the show!
UPDATE: Maybe all the kids/20 somethings forced to live at home with their HBO-subscribed parents are who HBO is banking on watching. Let’s hope so, because there’s a lot of ’em! Thanks, economy!
Holy shit. I NEED THIS DRESS. You could rule the world in this dress. Or at least the party.
2PF 