Today in music history: 1991

Today, we look back to 1991, and find:



"Unbelievable" by EMF

This song is crazy.  The background, the instruments, the vocals, it is all over the place.

It's really too bad the only understandable part is in the chorus, but dang if it isn't memorable.

What did you think of this one?

Previously in 1991:

Baby, Baby

Joyride

I Don't Wanna Cry

Rush Rush

You're in Love

Bunheads: Money for Nothing(S1E5)

This episode was kind of low on action, but very heavy on character development, and actually had some lines that I wrote down as I was watching.

So we start with Michelle freaking out over a opossum in her bed.  How did it get there?  How did she get it out?  Was it as trained as it looked?  The world may never know, since it wasn’t brought up again after the open.

We then find out it’s bill paying season in Fanny’s little made up “How to run a successful  business” world.  Fanny explains she pays her bills twice a year by sorting them into four piles: have to pay, should pay, may pay, and pay if there is any money left over.

Michelle asks Truly if this is her method for bill paying: “Mine is when the bill comes in,” she replies, “but Fanny’s system works too!”

We are then thrust into the main arc of this episode, Michelle trying to get Fanny to run her dance school in a way that won’t drown everyone in debt.  It is from this we discover that of the 75 students in Fanny’s school, nine are paying full price.

Michelle decides to fix that little problem by completely borking everything up.  She essentially yells at all the parents to start paying, and nearly kills the Spring festival dance recital, which ends up being off the wall bonkers, and almost awesome.

She eventually gets most of the parents to relent in letting their children perform, mostly assuring them she will be staying far away.  That makes it all the more surprising when Fanny tries to get Michelle to teach at the school(Fanny must have not been privy to the restraining order requests), though Michelle adamantly denys her ability to teach and/or connect with children...

…As she completely 100% connects with our four main girls.

Speaking of which, Boo gets a job at the Oyster Bar, and there is a cute boy with a ridiculous name that I can’t even remember.   The other three girls spend their time trying to woo said boy, with Sasha, aka the bitchy one, running point.  She fails miserably, and is then surprised when Boo manages to catch the boy’s attention.

So yeah.  This episode was a bit strange.  The character development I mentioned earlier did occur, but it was not even that much.  I really hope the show gets to it’s conceit here quickly, because five episodes in, and we’re not there yet.  Even Gilmore Girls, with all it’s rambling, had Rory at Chilton in the first episode.

AGT: 7/17 Quarterfinal #3

Aaaand, we’re back, with twelve more acts trying to make it through to the semi-finals.

The big question on everyone’s(and by everyone’s, I mean my) mind is: will the talent pool suck as hard core as last week?

The answer?  Yeah, pretty much.  There were a couple of highlights, but mostly the show was pretty terrible again this week.  Let’s get on to the individual acts, shall we?

The Untouchables certainly were not this week.  Their act was rather boring, even the music was more exciting than they were.  They also didn’t showcase anything new.  All their moves were old news, if you are going to be a yawn-fest, at least give me new shinies to look at.

Rock Star Juggler Mike Price also didn’t live up to his name.  I don’t think juggling is a thing that can make it huge. It didn’t help that he had butterfingers through most of the act.  His fire pins on the unicycle was clearly cut way short due to his bobbling of the first circuit, and he dropped one after he jumped down off the unicycle, too.  His act just wasn’t big enough, even with dousing a poor girl with supposed gasoline and juggling fire over her.

Inspire the Fire was the third act in a row that had a poorly chosen name.  At least this time, they (poorly) chose a song to go with their poor name.  Firework by Katy Perry is a terrible song anyway, and to butcher it, and make it even worse is no small feat, though they did get an assist from the sound mixers, the kings of their craft they are.

Cristin Sandu fell.  On the plus side, his cube spinny thing was neat.

Elusive had a very tricky act.  As in, it was full of tricks, and not a lot of dancing.  It was also very amateurish, and slightly boring to watch, even with the spins and flips and whatnot.  They didn’t really connect to anything, and thus fail to connect to the audience.

Jake Wesley Rogers sang Toxic.  For reals.  It was an…interesting arrangement, for lack of a better term, and was very loungey.  Also:  his hair was ridiculous, and made it really hard to focus on just about anything else.

All Wheel Sports did their act to Bulletproof, and it was neat.  I love any act that has to do with trampolines, so they had me at hello.  Unfortunately for them, the camera people didn’t surprise anyone, and managed to bork up a fun performance yet again. 

Wordspit and the Illest! utterly failed to engage me with their unintelligible lyrics.  I couldn’t stand them in the audition round, I don’t even recall them from Vegas, and now, they tried something new:  an original song, which sucked big time.  I hope I don’t have to see them again.

Jacob William cracked me up again!  He is so freaking funny, it’s almost ridiculous.  I don’t know if it’s the nerd thing, or his supposed awkward character(I don’t think he’s playing), but I just <3 him so much.  His jokes were great, and I love a comic that can use running gags and throwbacks to full effect, which he did.  That’s also pretty amazing considering he had 90 seconds to use that throwback, and did so at least three times.

All Beef Patty was terrible, as I expected he would be from the auditions and from Vegas.  No movement plus a terrible singing voice equals no chance.

Spencer Horsman decided to buck his image, and went for an illusion instead of an escape this time, and I think it may hurt him.  If he does go through, it will be based on his previous performance and screen time.

Lightwire Theater got a huge standing O, and I can see it, but I don’t get it, personally.  They just don’t do anything for me.  They supposedly had a story, but what it was, I could not tell you.  “It’s new and exciting!” the judges tell them, completely ignoring Team iLuminate and Fighting Gravity.  The glowing light shows are getting old, I think we need a new form of technological based entertainment, but I just don’t know where it will come from.

And those were the acts!  Let’s check out my predictions for tomorrow.

Should Go                                           Will go

Jacob William                                     Jacob William

All Wheel Sports                               The Untouchables

Spencer Horsman                            Spencer Horsman

Cristin Sandu                                      Lightwire Theater

Kind of slim pickins this week, and I’m not terribly confident in either of my choices, but I guess we’ll find out tomorrow!

Today in music history: 1999

Today, we go back to 1999, and find:




"Bills Bills Bills" by Destiny's Child

Ha!  This song is fantastic, even if two of the four members of Destiny's Child are unrecognizable(mostly cause they quit/were fired/were evil voodoo monkeys?  I dunno).

I love singing along with it, and the beat is great as well, even if the outfits totally aren't suitable to wear while styling hair, but what do I know?

What did you think of this song?

Previously in 1999:

Livin' la Vida Loca

Today in music history: 1993

Today, we look back to 1993, and find:



"Weak" by SWV

This is kind of generic R&B hit #102.  Sounds, looks, and reminds me of just about every other smooth R&B song.

Though I do now have the urge to find out what SWV stands for...and now it's gone.

What did you think of this one?

Previously in 1993:

Informer

That's the Way Love Goes

Pomplamoose, for your viewing/listening pleasure

Enjoy!

Today in music history: 2000

Today, we go back to a year we hadn't seen in a while, 2000, and find:



"Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon

This is is the first song I remember thinking, this is gonna be huge, the first time I heard it.

I can still sing along with it in it's entirety, so there's that.  The video was a titch pretentious, and very late 90's, but it was fine for what it was, nothing truly embarrassing.

What did you think of this one?

Previously in 2000

Maria Maria  

I hate the original...

But this parody's fantastic!



Cookie Monster is the best!

Today in music

"Ho Hey" by The Lumineers

Enjoy!

AGT: 7/11 Quarterfinals #2 Results

We open on the show with a recap of last night.  The biggest focus was on Howard’s dust-up with Howie, obviously.  It really seems the producers had a big talking-to with Howard, as he backpeddled all his statements from last night over the course of the show.

We had a couple of acts and one segment beside the results, and two of the three were pretty meh.  Howie did his disguise schtick, and attempted to fake out the contestents.  It was old yesterday, so it didn’t do too much for me.  Gavin DeGraw sang, in an utterly forgettable performance.  The only really good piece was an acrobatic number by the group Threads, who I think was on last year, maybe?  They said something to that effect, but I honestly don’t remember them at all.  There was lots of flipping, and catching, and jumping Asians through really high hoops, so all in all, a fun act.

Anyway, on to the results.

First up, we had Tim Hockenberry and Turf.  Nick took an exceptionally long time to tell us that…BOTH went through.  So now, we only have two spots left for the rest of the ten acts, so not good odds for a very weak field.

Next we had LCD, The All Ways, Aurora Light Painters, and Big Barry.  No matter what they did, the group of none going through would be in the middle; to have it as the third group out left absolutely zero surprise, so I assumed this was the ‘they all go’ group, and it was!  Bye-bye Big Barry, you will not be missed.

Third, we had Tom Cotter, Lion Dance Me, and Hawley Magic. There was no surprise here as Tom Cotter went through, sending the obviously inferior acts home.

Finally, we had Donovan and Rebecca, Ben Blacque, and Danielle Stallings.  I was really hoping Danielle Stallings would be the auto-go home, but alas, it was not meant to be as Ben Blacque was sent packing.  We then had to dilly dally with the judges, first with Howard taking a million years to finally spit out Donovan and Rebecca.  Sharon tried to take a pass, but Nick wouldn’t let her, so she finally decided to go with Danielle.  The deciding vote came down to Howie, and he blathered on about apples and oranges, when in reality it was more like amazeballs chocolate(D&R) vs. boring broccoli(Danielle).  Anyway, he went with Donovan and Rebecca, so yay!

So, I was only wrong on Ben Blacque and Turf, otherwise I was correct, so my should go through stands at 5/8, and my will go through is rocking at 6/8.

Next week, twelve more acts, hopefully with a bit more talent than this week.