Whine & Cheese

Out of iTunes: 2010 Edition

Still have been getting slammed with work, think it is everyone trying to get stuff done/out before the holiday... so haven't had much time to get back here (mostly to keep up with those book posts).

However, this is a quickie.  Every year, I like to look at the Top 100 best-selling songs on iTunes, to see how well we are keeping pulse with today's popular music.  Typically, it seems like we own about 20 songs and this year has proved to be no different... 22.

I thought it would be more as it seemed like I was buying more music than ever, but alas not.  So here's the music we own from this year's bestsellers.  Thanks goodness for Lady Gaga or else it would have been a lot less!  And I was kind of surprised there were no GLEE tracks, maybe the don't count "cast" recordings?

#1 - Hey Soul Sister - Train

#2 - California Gurls - Katy Perry

#5 - Dynamite - Taio Cruz

# 7 - Break Your Heart - Taio Cruz

#15 - Billionaire - Travie McCoy w/ Bruno Mars

#17 - Teenage Dream - Katy Perry

#20 - Telephone - Lady Gaga w/ Beyonce

#24 - Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

#33 - Alejandro - Lady Gaga

#37 - Breakeven - The Script

#44 - Whataya Want From Me - Adam Lambert

#48 - All The Right Moves - OneRepublic

#51 - Haven't Met You Yet - Michael Buble

#60 - Live Like We're Dying - Kris Allen

#65 - Secrets - OneRepublic

#66 - Poker Face - Lady Gaga

#70 - Misery - Maroon 5

#72 - F*ck You - Cee Lo Green

#79 - Paparazzi - Lady Gaga

#91 - Raise Your Glass - P!nk

#92 - Just Dance - Lady Gaga

#95 - Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyonce

 

That Guy From The Black Eyed Peas, Shirtless

... or more specifically, "that guy from The Black Eyed Peas, who is not will.i.am or the other black guy ... and certainly not Fergie."

While channel surfing this past weekend, I stumbled onto a Black Eyed Peas concert from, of all places, the island of Malta on MTV-HD or Palladia (or whatever it's called these days).  I received quite the surprise a few minutes in as "that guy" doffed his shirt. He has always been bit of an attractiveness enigma to me... sometimes looking quite hot, other times not so much.  Either way, I suspected his bod was pretty darn good, so I was pleased to finally get confirmation of it. 

I was too lazy to figure out a way to screen cap it myself (and beside the frenetic/quick-cutting editing was borderline nausea-inducing), so I searched the Web for photos and found this one... and this appears to be the only one of a shirtless nature... so thank you Mr. Klein, even if he has to put his credit kinda sorta in the way, but I guess that is the point w/ watermarking... haha!

I have to admit that forever how long the Black Eyed Peas have been in existence to this very day, I have no idea what this guy's name is... honestly, I feel bad for "the other, not will.i.ma black guy" too, since will and Fergie get all the attention.  But alas, the "other black guy" is... are you ready for this, apl.de.ap and... drumroll, please...

The always exotic man pictured above is... Taboo!   And even if you knew that, you might not know that his real name is Jaime Luis Gomez!   So there's you cheesy eye-candy for the day along with a bit of Black Eyed Peas triva.

Jerk (Off)

John Mayer, you are an enigma to me.

I am really not into the big-time tattoos and most certainly the whole "sleeve" thing, but it seems to working here.

I enjoy your music (though nothing on your latest album has yet clicked with me), but honestly you seem like a bit of a jerk... which you pretty much have admitted after reading your own Rolling Stone interview titled "Dirty Mind, Lonely Heart.  (Though it does take two, and although I don't know her personally, I think Jen Aniston needs to discuss her choice in men with a shrink)

But anyhow nice cover and certainly a provocative interview...

By quoting some of the "dirty mind" parts of this interview, I know I am asking for serious search-engine trouble!  Though I'll encourage the following searches: John Mayer Shirtless and John Mayer Rolling Stone Cover.  But heck, I need a bit of CPR on the re-boot of this blog (though it still seemed I was getting about 10k visits a month even doing nothing for the last 6 months of last year).

I was surprised that Mayer's apparent comfort in taking things into his own hand(s), so to speak, hit the mainstream media.  The whole inspiration for this post was due to a segment on Access Hollywood that airs here at 3pm (just in time for the children to arrive home from school!).  But, just in case you were wondering, John thinks his body is a wonderland as well:

"I am the new generation of masturbator, I’ve seen it all. Before I make coffee, I’ve seen more butt holes than a proctologist does in a week… I have masturbated myself out of serious problems in my life. The phone doesn’t pick up because I’m masturbating. And I have excused myself at the oddest times so as to not make mistakes. If Tiger Woods only knew when to jerk off."

He also addresses bisexuality rumors, which kinda surprised me since he never landed on my gaydar thanks to all his womanizing (tho I guess, if true, it could have been a sign of classic overcompensation)... but alas, even despite his above-mentioned penchant for "holes" ("straight guy" news to me!), he squashes it...

“I don’t care about anything other than energy. That’s why people think, ‘Is he bi? Is he that?’ I’ve never slept with a man. But I get it. I’ve seen pictures of men on the Internet that are sexier than pictures of most women.”

... though it kinda sounds like he maybe just needs to meet the right guy, ha!

Express Lane: Issue 60

Springsteen Calls Wal-Mart Deal A Mistake - Glad to hear The Boss, and champion of the working man (and woman!), express regret and take responsibility for the exclusive deal made with the retail beheamoth for an upcoming greatest hits album release. (1/30/09)

Comeback Kid Kelly Clarkson Makes History - The inaugural Idol is the first person to ever hit #1 with a song with "suck" in the title - also, the largest jump in Hot 100 history (96 spots) and, perhaps most surprisingly, the first Idol to score a second #1. (1/29/09)

Donny Osmond Won't be on DWTS, At Least Not Until Fall - Seems like Mr. Little Bit Rock 'n Roll got caught in a lie! (1/28/09)

More of London From Above, At Night - The Big Picture - It figures the day I go back and post a re-working of one of my London pix, TBP comes out with an amazing set of night pix of London! (1/28/09)

Donny Osmond to Follow in Marie's Dancing Shoes? - Alas the first substantive (if somewhat predictable) casting rumor for the upcoming DWTS season. (1/27/09)

Chinese New Year: Welcoming the Ox - The Big Picture - I've become semi-obsessed with China since our trip to Beijing, so was wow'd by this collection (I even have a very similar - well w/out the Qing Dynasty characters - to photo #21). (1/26/09)

Is This Nadal's "Wardrobe Malfunction?" - Nike hoping to increase clothing sales appears to be the reason behind Nadal's on-court wardrobe change this year... the belief being the "average" person is not going to wear sleeveless shirts and pirate pants. (1/26/09)

3rd Annual Out of iTune(s) Post

It's that time of year again... time to look at the 100 bestselling singles on iTunes for the year and see how many of those are part of my music library.

As you may have noticed above, this marks the third year that I have compiled this list.   In 2006, we checked in with 14 songs, which I thought was pretty bad... until last year when it dropped to an anemic 8 of the Top 100 songs from 2007.

So, I figured pretty much I had fallen off the listening to relevant music wagon for good... or at least got onto the adult contemporary/"oldies" bus.  This was only further driven home this Thanksgiving when one of Todd's nephews quite seriously asked us who we thought was better: Elvis Presley or Li'l Wayne?   While we still had to pick up our jaws from the floor, the good news here is that at least I had heard of Mr. Wayne, though sampling his songs on iTunes when we got home got our jaws dropping again (amazing how many f-bombs and euphemisms for loose women can be dropped in a 30-second preview of a song!).

Anyhow, when I heard the Top 100 Bestselling iTunes song list was available, I wasn't holding out much hope or optimism... but what do you know, it ended up being a record year!   21 or 18 songs out of the Top 100 (we admit to buying 3 songs after looking on the list and realizing/wondering why we didn't have them).

Here's the list (in sales rank order):

#1 - Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis

#2 - Viva La Vida - Coldplay

#8 - Pocketful of Sunshine - Natasha Bedingfield

#10 - Don't Stop The Music - Rihanna

#11 - 4 Minutes - Madonna f/t Justin Timberlake

#13 - I'm Yours - Jason Mraz

#21 - No One - Alicia Keys

#24 - Stop and Stare - OneRepublic

#25 - Whatever You Like - TI

#27 - Apologize - OneRepublic

#29 - Say - John Mayer

#36 - Bubby - Colbie Callait

#58 - The Time of My Life - David Cook

#65 - Won't Go Home Without You - Maroon 5

#68 - Rockstar - Nickelback

#71 - In Love With A Girl - Gavin DeGraw

#74 - Don't Stop Believin' - Journey

#84 - Love Remains the Same - Gavin Rossdale

#88 - Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's

#94 - If I Never See Your Face Again - Maroon 5 f/t Rihanna

#98 - Last Name - Carrie Underwood

Express Lane: Issue 56

Cobie Smulders Is Pregnant - After a red herring this past season, will it now be unavoidable for Robin to be the titular 'mother' on 'How I Met Your Mother'?  Plus, co-star Alyson Hannigan is also preggers! (11/28/08)

Julianne Hough Hangs Up Her Dancing Shoes ... to concentrate on her singing... (hopefully) it will just be for the next (Spring 2009) season of DWTS, but if her music career takes off, it sounds like we may have seen the last of her! (11/20/08)

Journey Song Most Downloaded Catalog Track - "Don't Stop Believin'" becomes the 1st song on iTunes to top 2 million downloads, guessing the infamous truncated version of the song in the last moments of 'The Sopranos' helped out with a bunch of those sales. (11/12/08)

Old Men On The Corner?

These days we seem to be edging away from going to concerts, but I am still on the e-mail list that notifies me who is coming to town.

While I heard rumblings of the reunion of this band, this still has me scratching my head on several counts...

As alluded to in the post title, the band's name has become a bit of a stretch... as they are neither "new" or "kids" ("Discuss!").  A quick bio check shows most of the band's members are pushing 40... which I am pretty sure makes the collectively older than even Backstreet Boys.  Let this be a gentle warning for musical acts who have intentions for any kind of longevity to perhaps avoid references to being youthful.

Next, up that header tells us "Wait No More!"... in the immortal words of SNL's Seth & Amy... Really!?!?  I am guessing the "Kids" fan-base is right around my age and I can't quite imagine that folks, I am guessing mostly moms w/ kids in high school (or... gasp!... college) have been pining away for the last decade or so waiting for the band to roll thru town again.

Finally, there's the venue... if there is this unbeknownst demand for this act, I still can not imagine it is enough to fill up an arena.  There are plenty of smaller, theater-ish venues in town that I would seem more than adequate for a group that last notched a song on the pop charts more than a decade and a half ago.

Express Lane: Issue 49

Flight of the Conchords Soar on U.S. Chart - The pseudo-fictional New Zealand folk duo debut at #3 with their debut album... guessing Ashlee Simpson at #4 is not amused. (4/30/08)

China Marks 100 Days Until Start of Beijing Olympics - Yikes!  It's coming up quick! (4/29/08)

Adam hedges on charity donation; James knew gay porn would come out - Finally some news about the two of the biggest "out of the house" stories from 'Big Brother 9.' (4/29/08)

'Idol' Singers Who Sing First May Not Last - Heck, I forget some of the early performances were from the same show... and now statistics show "kicking off" the show is the most frequent "kicked off" slot.  (4/21/08)

Express Lane: Issue 48

'Brothers & Sisters' Star Comes Out - Coming out stories are always good, but have to admit I would have been more surprised if Luke Macfarlane (Kevin's BF Scotty) had announced he was straight. (4/16/08)

Does TiVo Predict 'Idol' cast-offs? - If rewinding or fast-forwarding is correlated to the voting, David A is in great shape and Syesha maybe be waving goodbye tonight.  Update:  Wrong!  Michael Johns went home in arguably the first "shocker" elimination of the season. (4/10/08)

Joey Fatone, Mel B. to Co-host TLC Show - The DWTS alums set to head a show that sounds like 'Idol' meets 'The Office.'  (4/7/08)

'Idol' Download Rankings Appear On iTunes - It's the second time the "to remain anonymous" sales rankings have leaked... and once again it is good news for the guys ... David A, Michael, David C, and Jason were the highest pre-orders for Dolly week. (4/4/08)

Mariah Carey surpasses Elvis in No. 1s - Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this one of the signs of the apocalypse? (4/2/08)

"Rent" Extension - Due to high ticket demand, the Broadway hit gets one more season of love as closing night shifts from June 1 to September 7. (3/26/08)

Let It Be

While I thought Brooke White did a great job on "Let It Be" last night on Idol, it reminded me how much I am in love with another (and quite different!) version of the song from the movie Across The Universe.

I haven't seen the movie (though I'm guessing I would like), but saw this version of the song performed on the Grammys last month... and I immediately got it over on iTunes.

While some will think it's a bit bombastic, this gospel-infused take never fails to give me goose-bumps or even a lump in the throat.  I am sharing two videos here...

The first one (I take it) is straight from the movie and thus a spoiler warning... but it certainly makes it even more emotional.

The second is merely movie poster and the recorded version.