Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XVIII

YouTube user MrKellsTV put it best: "This is Love Letter in version Christmas!!!" Thank you Mr SamAmidon for embedding this in your website (samamidon.com) blog:

Special Report: The Cowboy Motif in R. Kelly & T-Pain

It hit me like a ton of bricks that two of my favorite R&B singles of the past twelve months both have distinct cowboy motifs. What could be further from Hank Williams than 21st century pop R&B? (Altho, many space aliens, like in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, would argue that T-Pain's auto-tuned voice could be as equally detrimental to their brain's viscosity as Slim Whitman's "Indian Love Call".)

All year, I've been in awe of R. Kelly's yodeling in his song "Echo", which was released in 2009, with this video finally appearing in April 2010:

Let's discuss the nature of the yodel at the climax of the song. It's not specifically cowboyish. It's testament to Mr Kelly's ever expanding imaginative ingenuity in the genre of sexology. An amazing (if possibly illiterate) lyricist, he's never too deep with his metaphors (Watch Trapped in the Closet for a crash course in his symbolism.) So, when he says, at the "mountain peak" of the song, that his love-making will make you echo, followed by the titular echoing yodel, there are no cross-references to early country music. In the verses there is only the narration of the day-long sex marathon. The chorus is the narrator making the recipient girl of his prowess echo in ecstasy. Only in the strange bridge (what are those chords?) do we get any literary development of the yodeling theme:

Even though we're in this room, just you and me,
I got you sounding like you're screaming from a mountain peak,
And you don't wanna come down (noo),
And I dont want you to come down (noo-ooohh),
So, girl let's keep coming, and we gon' go to heaven from this room,
And the gates will open up when they see it's me 'n you,
Ooh, so run like a doll come back in,
Girl, I got my second wind.

Fascinating poetry. So, like I was about to say, Mr Kelly's yodel is more Swiss Alps than early Nashville. His alpine scarf in the video confirms that hunch. I'll stick to my thesis tho, that the use of it in this song is descendant from the popularity yodeling once had in Anglo-American music & what caused Tim Burton's aliens such chagrin.

A brief sidenote to give props to R. Kelly's pipes. Even if you can't stand his music or his Woody Allen-esque sexual deviance, you must admit that he is, by merit alone, an incredible artist who can back up his strange story-telling songs with a golden voice.

I also want to mention that in R. Kelly's other recent single, "Number One", he also compares his sexual genius to music making.

Now, onto my favorite eccentric who tops the pop charts, Tallahassee Pain himself (born Faheem Rasheed Najm, and a practicing muslim). The great Mad Hatter of the Vocoder generation has left the boat for the rodeo. Much more conventionally interested in developing a literary theme then R. Kelly, T-Pain has taken the notion of a "reverse cowgirl", and tries out the effects of all manner of cowboyisms into his auto-tune. In his last song "Take Your Shirt Off", he responds to his critics by asking, "Now tell me now, is Auto-Tune really dead?" In this follow-up single, he adds meat to his argument, pudding proof, with yet more excellent robotic virtuoso. I'll rephrase his question: How can a pop-music gimic be exhausted when we're still making such great music with it? Even if the fad has passed, T-Pain still has legs.

As for his thoroughly developed cowboy theme, he disappoints no one. At important moments in the song he uses the words "giddyap" & "yee-haw." The video for "Reverse Cowgirl" was also released in March 2010, the simultaneous flowering & wilting of the genre of R&B cowboyism.

R. Kelly's Sign of a Victory

R. Kelly's song is the official anthem of the World Cup 2010 in South Africa, and it definitely needs some close inspection. What was that about global warming in there? It has a strange snare-drummy yet quasi-African beat. And that key change! According to the Huffington Post, he said "It's definitely no doubt a humanity song, and I'm hoping that everybody feels the same way when they hear it. [I'm] hoping they can be as touched by it as I was when I heard it in my head."

Sexting List: "of places we still need to fornicate this summer," Part One: 1-60

This was sent as a series of dozens of text messages to my girl earlier today. Spaces demarcate a new text - - It followed a reference to a lyric in R. Kelly's song "Echo", "Sex in the morning / Sex all day," as an attempt at oneupmanship. She supplied the artwork.

List of places we still need to fornicate this summer:

1) Your car,

2) A barn

3) In a forest,

4) Abattoir,

5) Outer space,

6) Prison,

7) Underground,

8) Zeppelin,

9) Top of a skyscraper,

10) Madhouse,

11) Cheap motel in New Mexico,

12) The White House,

13) Mel Gibson's backyard,

[At this point, she texts me "i'm peeing my trousers"]

14) Macy's,

15) JC Penny's,

16) A radio station,

17) High up in a redwood tree,

18) Cave,

19) Desert,

20) Your boss's bed,

21) My boss's bed,

22) On the internet,

23) In cyberspace.

24) Online,

25) Sexting,

26) The moon,

27) Uranus,

28) Middle ages,

29) The Renaissance,

30) The Enlightenment,

31) The future,

[At this point, she texts me "ooooh! cue julia child squeal"]

32) In Julia Child's kitchen

33) In the beginning,

34) In media res,

35) Happily ever after,

36) On the battlefield of love,

[She contributed the next six]

37) On the lincoln memorial,

38) On the pieta,

39) On tour,

40) On a boat,

41) On a plastic bag island,

42) On mel gibsons chopper parked in his backyard,

[At this point, I text back "Mmm, yes please"]

43) Kurdistan

44) Boys' locker room,

44) The arctic,

45) The antarctic,

46) The anti-antarctic,

47) On the Disneyland tea-cup ride,

48) In animal costumes,

49) In sports mascot costumes,

50) In Mel Gibson's hovercraft,

51) On a desert island,

53) On a dessert island,

54) In a museum at night,

54) In a museum at noon,

55) At the beach at high tide,

56) At the beach at low tide,

57) Invisible,

58) In the road,

59) In a subway tunnel,

60) In a Subway restaurant,

To be continued...

Guess the Movie's Director: Bad Lieutenant; also, R. Kelly's Real Talk

This is a special itwaslost.org game where you have to watch the trailer for an upcoming movie & guess the director by the time it's revealed at the end. (This one is especially surprising in comparison to this director's most recent film...)



In related news, my friend Miss Lucas played this R. Kelly song for me today, in celebration of his recently announced illiteracy. It's an amazing revelation, that someone with such a gift for words could make it so far in a society where illiteracy is such a disadvantage - Mr Kelly is really one of the gems amongst our public artists. This song, for instance, doesn't seem to have a hook or any palpable rhymes:

	R. Kelly - Real Talk
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Many R. Kellys Trapped Manyly.

I can't believe I've never heard of this yet, Michael Bell-Smith's "Chapters 1-12 of R. Kelly's Trapped In The Closet Synced and Played Simultaneously" (2006)

12:16 PM Olaf: amazing that this was put togetherit is confusing
me: I can't believe it never occurred to us
Olaf: maybe this is how god showersyahme too12:17 PM it seems so obvious
me: Yes, I love that he did the video too
Olaf: exactlywe should have a showing, projecting that shitit is almost like an eskimo songlike some ancient ritual snggroup sing12:18 PM for harnessing the earth's power
me: That is trueTruer words never before twotted.twitteth
12:19 PM Olaf: the end is amazingwowi feel reborn

Photos from Harold Ave

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