Monthly Archives: September 2010

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Sarah McLachlan – Laws of Illusion

“Here I go again,” Sarah McLachlan sings in the opening lines of ‘Illusions of Bliss,’ the second track on her latest album, Laws of Illusion.

And even that early in the album, those words ring unfortunately true. She’s singing about returning to an ill-fated romance, but she may as well be referring to her increasingly tired brand of ethereal pop rock.

McLachlan seemed unstoppable after the back-to-back mid-90s smashes Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Surfacing. Songs such as ‘Possession,’ ‘Good Enough,’ ‘Sweet Surrender’ and ‘Building a Mystery’ tapped into a seductive mid-tempo vibe that was complemented perfectly by her sweetly yearning vocals. Those albums are classics not just because of their rich sound but the solid songwriting of McLachlan and Pierre Marchand.

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Song of the Day #781: ‘Safety Dance’ – Kevin McHale

Top Ten ‘Glee’ Performances
#9 – ‘Safety Dance’ – Artie

I was a latecomer to Glee. My wife and I resisted the hype through the entire first season before we finally broke down and borrowed the DVDs about a month ago.

We gobbled up the first half of the season in a matter of days and then, faced with a 6-week wait for the release of the second half of the season on DVD, we downloaded the episodes on iTunes and hooked her Mac up to our TV. This is an indication of exactly how addictive a show this is… and that despite a wildly uneven start to the season.

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Song of the Day #780: ‘Endless Love’ – Matthew Morrison and Lea Michele

Top Ten ‘Glee’ Performances
#10 – ‘Endless Love’ – Rachel & Mr. Schuester

And here’s the moment when all the Gleeks in the audience say “Hell yeah!”

As we approach the debut of Season Two of Glee (September 21), I am counting down my ten favorite musical moments of Season One. I’ll skip the weekends as usual and finish the countdown the day of the first new episode.

Unfortunately, Fox is pretty vigilant about pulling down clips from the show, so I’ve had to do some digging to find these scenes. I hope the assortment of Japanese and indie sites I’m linking to stay in business long enough for everybody to watch.

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Song of the Day #779: ‘Baby’ – Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris

While looking for clips for my Shakira theme week, I came across her video for a song called ‘Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).’ It was written for the World Cup, which I’d probably know if I had been able to watch more than 30 seconds of the World Cup without wanting to gouge my eyes out from boredom.

Seriously, I can watch golf or tennis for hours at a time, but soccer (sorry, football) works on me like anesthesia.

What’s most bizarre is the dichotomy between the brain-numbing quality of the “action” on the field as compared to the unbridled hysteria of the most ardent fans. I mean, golf is boring… sure it is. But have you ever seen a golf fan painted head to toe tearing apart a metal barricade with his teeth because his favorite player almost got a hole in one? Jesus. But I digress.

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Song of the Day #778: ‘Men In This Town’ – Shakira

Shakira’s next, and most recent, album was 2009’s English-language She Wolf. She threw her international listeners a bone by putting out a Spanish version of the lead single (titled ‘Loba’) a month before the album’s release.

She Wolf was a departure for Shakira in that it was more tightly focused than anything she’d released before. In part that’s because the album clocks in at around 30 minutes (not counting some bonus live tracks and alternate versions) and therefore doesn’t leave much room for rampant experimentation.

But mostly Shakira was going for a dance club vibe on these tracks, utilizing every studio trick at her disposal to deliver a slick modern sound heavy on beats and bass.

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