Recently I discovered that DirecTV has signed me up for free Showtime. Apparently this is something they do as an anniversary gift to subscribers who’ve been with them for a certain number of years. If they alerted me to it, I missed the note. And I have no idea how long I’ll have it.
I discovered this because my DVR, which I’ve set to record any program that mentions “Elvis Costello,” suddenly recorded his music/talk show Spectacle, which airs on The Sundance Channel (Sundance is part of the Showtime bundle). This was great news because I’ve been dying to watch the show, in which Elvis interviews his favorite songwriters and then performs with them.
‘Star Witness’ was the first song that really hit me on Neko Case’s wonderful Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. As the second track, it sets the tone early on for what’s to come — it’s my favorite song on one of my favorite albums.
I love highlighting songs featured in movies because it’s a marriage of my two great artistic passions — the peanut butter and chocolate of the entertainment world.
I don’t really like Katy Perry or her music, but I have to hand it to her. She’s really carved out a niche for herself through her outsized sex kitten persona and a batch of songs that, shallow though they may be, are undeniably catchy. Delivering her sexy-but-safe pre-packaged pop, she’s a vision of lustful innocence — the prima donna and the whore.
It’s nice to see that the YouTube age has brought back the idea of comedy through song. In the early 70s you had the Smothers Brothers. The late 70s had Steve Martin. The 80s ushered in Spinal Tap and ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic (both of whom continue to record today). But the 90s was a dry spell for comedy set to a tune.
