Yet Another Year In America January 14, 2010

I get the feeling that if I call Ke$ha a "bimbo" she's somehow won, since it's not like she isn't absolutely, emphatically, gratingly self-conscious about her commitment to the most hackneyed and reductive ideas of wildness and partying and fun (and note that I'm a guy who loves Asher Roth's "College," so it's not like I can't get behind hackneyed ideas of wildness and partying and fun, but artistry is also a useful ingredient; enhances the fun, even). In any event, our desperately vapid young woman is in the forty with a new single and a well-downloaded album track, but has she risen as high in my esteem? Look under the cut.

( Ke$ha )

( Ke$ha )

( Black Eyed Peas )

Boney Joan Returns!

Sometimes the 'Net is a great place. I received this email the other day from someone who'd found her way to my old Las Vegas Weekly column about the Boney Joan Rule:

Email from Diana from NYC:

Dear Frank,

I came across your amusing article about the Boney Joan rule by chance on the 'net.

Maybe you dislike Joan Baez's singing not because of your parents but - because she's the WORST SINGER EVER?

My two cents.

Truly, I have never heard such bad singing, ever. And I've heard a lot of singing. She doesn't sing the song - she sings her voice. Every goddam song it's the same thing: "listen to my gorgeous voice! Listen to my amazing vibrato!!"

Well her voice isn't gorgeous and her vibrato sounds like Tiny Tim on acid. I have no idea what anyone "heard" in this voice.

My suspicion is that she came along at the right time and the right place and had the right look. She was very beautiful when young women were sick of teasing and spraying their hair. In that her impact was exactly the same as Mary Travers, another bad singer. But the flowing blond natural hair was gorgeous.

Regards,
Diana from NYC

( Boney Joan: The Conversation Continues )