Frank Kogan

Reveals and ratings, the ratings for the lyrics as opening lines, not for the songs. Asterisks when line isn't the first, but rather is the first not to contain the title.

1. "Ya shoulda loved me baby when I was nothin', nothin' at all" - Courtney Love, "Life Despite God," starts angry, gets desperate, woman taking sandpaper to the universe just to get attention. I think the singing is masterful, though I know at least one person here disagrees. The line's anger grabs you, though barely foreshadows the destruction to come. (So not up there with Ashlee's "What's she got that I don't have?" as an opening, though I'll admit that Courtney's singing on this shreds Ashlee's on "I Am Me," which is quite a compliment from me, since Ashlee tears the temple down on that one.) 8
( Reveals 2 through 25 )

Here's my Idolator ballot. My comments are basically Thursday's post on Britney-Stooges-Aly'n'AJ-NYDolls with a few words changed and some new pretentious ones at the end.

( I get my name correct (and rate a few albums)! )

Top 10 Singles/Tracks of 2007
1. Lloyd f. Lil Wayne "You"
2. Miley Cyrus "See You Again"
3. Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons "Beggin' (Palooski Edit)"
4. Ashley Tisdale "Not Like That"
5. JoJo "Anything"
6. Britney Spears "Gimme More"
7. Yung Berg f. Junior "Sexy Lady"
8. Paula DeAnda f. Lil Wayne "Easy"
9. Linda Sundblad "Lose You"
10. Keak Da Sneak "That Go"

( Reissues, Artists, and Stuff )

( power, wantonness, viscera )

I REVIEW BRITNEY SPEARS (down at the end of this)!

The Rules Of The Game #23: Out From Under

The review obviously owes a lot to my livejournal convos earlier in the week with anthonyeaston and skyecaptain and blue_russian (not to mention Tom and Kat and Lex and Jeff and [your name here] in general).

I call Britney "The world's last real rock star." Discuss.

Also, once again I'll pose the question, "What are we trying to get out from under?"

( Links to my other Rules Of The Game columns )

Just so I'll have 'em, here are the Blackout songwriting credits (as posted by Wikipedia, at any rate):

--"Gimme More" (Nate Hills, James Washington, Keri Hilson, Marcella Araica)
--"Piece of Me" (Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg, Klas Ahlund)
--"Radar" (Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg, Henrik Jonback, Balewa Muhammad, Candice Nelson, Ezekiel "Zeke" Lewis, Patrick J. Que Smith)
--"Break the Ice" (Nate Hills, James Washington, Keri Hilson, Marcella Araica)
--"Heaven on Earth" (Michael McGroarty, Nick Huntington, Nicole Morier)
--"Get Naked (I Got a Plan)" (Corte Ellis, Nate Hills, Marcella Araica)
--"Freakshow" (Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg, Henrik Jonback, Ezekiel "Zeke" Lewis, Patrick "J.Que" Smith, Britney Spears)
--"Toy Soldier" (Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg, Magnus Wallbert, Sean Garrett)
--"Hot as Ice" (T-Pain, Nate Hills, Marcella Araica)
--"Ooh Ooh Baby" (Kara DioGuardi, Farid Nassar, Erick Coomes, Britney Spears)
--"Perfect Lover" (Nate Hills, James Washington, Keri Hilson, Marcella Araica)
--"Why Should I Be Sad" (Pharrell Williams) – 3:10

( So I'm guessing the producers would be... )

For some reason (there are glitches in the software) my column this week first went up without the final three paragraphs, making the title unintelligible. But it's fixed now.

The Rules Of The Game #16: Vaccine Protects Against New Ideas

My thoughts didn't quite coalesce this week, though as Jack Thompson once pointed out I can't do a "Hero Story" every week (or live a hero story every week, for that matter). But where my thoughts are leading to is: How do we break out into the wider world? That is, how do we - meaning you and me and the people in our corner of the livejournal galaxy - bring our ideas to the wider world, but more important how do we bring our minds to the stories the wider world could tell us, if we knew where to look and what to ask?

( Links to my other Rules Of The Game columns )

Latest column. Britney, Bowie, and the unavailability of cool.

The Rules Of The Game #14: The Death Of The Cool

Key sentence: "But where coolness - or any knowledge - stumbles is when it becomes the attribute of a particular class."

So what's been your experience with "cool"? Is there such a thing? What would it be now?

Links to previous columns. (And they've finally added the paragraph breaks to last week's column. Comments didn't make it through, however. LVW got the italics too, but missed them this week, and I'm not going to press the matter.) UPDATE: That link "to previous columns" no longer works, but I've got the whole set here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

(Also, here's a link to that Michael Ventura article I refer to, "Hear That Long Snake Moan," about the African sources of cool, and the New Orleans source of everything. Ventura cannot be accused of understating his case.)

Rules Of The Game #4: Britney Shows Brain

I quote poptasticuk, I quote Britney Spears, I mention the headshave, I use the phrase "creation myth." Comment here, there, everywhere (still don't know how consistently comments will go through on the Las Vegas Weekly site).

(Contains my answer to Jessica's question "How did you end up liking teenpop? Why don't you like what you're supposed to like?")

Apparently, LVW think "fuck" is a sacred word that cannot be spelled in full without offending the gods. Also, LVW dropped my italics, at least online, but I'll try to get them to change that.

( Links to my other Rules Of The Game columns )