Lolly’s Top 5 Michael Jackson Songs
5. “Black or White” (1991)
“Eat this,” Macaulay Culkin says, in an “If it’s too loud, you’re too old” sort of music video. Call it ironic, call it corny, but it’s the best pro-miscegenation song to date.
4. “The Way You Make Me Feel” (1987)
Work out, groove, or make love to this song: It will provide the appropriate soundtrack.
3. “Will You Be There” (1991/1993)
Michael Jackson released “Will You Be There” in 1991 on Dangerous and in 1993 on the Free Willy soundtrack. The lyrics read like a prayer: “Hold me like the River Jordan”; “Mary, tell me: Will you hold me?” Jackson expresses vulnerability, sorrow, and hopefulness as a gospel choir sings in the background, crescendoing and decrescendoing like ocean waves.
2. The Jackson Five’s “I’ll Be There” (1970)
This love song manages to croon and groove simultaneously. Michael and Jermaine harmonize perfectly as the lead vocalists, each of their lines flowing forward smoothly and sincerely. I imagine many brides and grooms use these lyrics as an inspiration for vows. I can also vividly envision teens and preteens in the early 70s swaying back and forth to the ballad at school dances. Mariah Carey’s cover of “I’ll Be There” was nominated for a Grammy in 1993.
1. The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” (1969)
Love and/or lust isn’t as strong as you thought…until it’s gone…and someone else has a chance to do better. Young Michael sang this so sincerely that it almost seemed like he had experienced a broken heart. “I Want You Back” is naïve, honest, and groundbreaking. Like the love interest in this hit, we took Michael’s genius for granted.
I want it back.
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Vanity v. Thrift: Round 1
Q: I’m a 56-year-old woman who doesn’t look a day over 43. I work hard to look as good as I do, and I take pride in my appearance. However, the movie theater by my house has a “senior citizen” discount for people 55 and older. The SC tickets are 5 dollars cheaper! I love passing for younger, but I also love a good deal. Do I shell out the extra money or admit to my SC status?
LG: Duh! Saving 5 dollars is like 50% off!! Looking 43 instead of 56 is like…23% younger! (You do the math.) In all seriousness, you should go for the SC discount. Most businesses these days realize that 50 is the new 40, so they only give SC discounts to patrons 65 and older. Take advantage of the fruits of your…wisdom. Also, if you really look over a decade younger than you really are, then you will feel absolutely flattered when the cashier asks for your i.d. in total disbelief.
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Excerpt from “The Rental Property”
I wanted to wear something special for the SAE formal, so I asked Lera if she had anything I could borrow.
Lera was the kind of woman who thought she was prettier than she really was. You know the type: a “six” who thinks she’s a “nine,” a woman who dresses as if she’s 30 pounds lighter and 10 years younger than she actually is. She also had an inflated sense of intellect, parenting skills, and sexual prowess. In the beginning, I didn’t notice her superficial or personality flaws. Once the relationship started to sour, however, she began to disgust me in the strangest of ways.
“Try this blue cocktail dress. It’s too big for me, so you can keep it if you like it.”
The dress was a size 6, so I knew it would be too tight. I took it into the master bathroom and pretended to try it on.
“Oh, this is way too big,” I hollered. “I think I’ll just wear the one I bought.”
“Let me see,” Lera requested skeptically as she opened the bathroom door without knocking.
“Oops! Too late. Here ya go. I gotta get ready.” I casually handed her the dress and turned on the shower, hoping she’d take the cue.
She didn’t.
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Celebrating “Semi-Charmed Life”
In the summer of 1997, my girlfriends and I camped out in a backyard tent and listened to “Semi-Charmed Life” on repeat for several hours. I’m the kind of person who tires after hearing a threshold amount of even the best music (How many times can a person really stand to listen to The Joshua Tree or Thriller?), but this Third-Eye Blind hit has never ceased to astound me.
As thirteen-year-olds, we only somewhat understood the sexually and chemically charged lyrics. Also, the breezy, fast-faced tempo made it difficult to decipher what lead singer Stephan Jenkins was even singing. It didn’t help that we couldn’t just “Google” a line from the song and retrieve the lyrics. I recall mistaking “And I speak to you like the chorus to the verse” with “And it speaks to you like the birds in the forest.”
Now, of course, I realize that “Semi-Charmed Life” is the seminal anthem of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. It was also my brother’s theme song. We played it at his memorial service, and it was awesome to hear “Doin’ crystal meth will lift you up until you break” and “How do I get back there to the place where I fell asleep inside you?” blast in a room full of relatives, young people, old people, Christians, atheists, and floral arrangements.
I went to Newport Beach this past weekend and had a great time slowly running my bare feet through the sand. I thought, “I believe in the sand beneath my toes / The beach gives a feeling / An earthy feeling / I believe in the faith that grows.” I thought about how hard it really seems, sometimes, to get through this bittersweet, ironic, defeating, gratifying, semi-charmed life. I thought about how I can’t not believe that there’s life after death. I simply cannot accept a reality in which I will never see Alex again.
I’m not listening when you say goodbye…
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“I’d Rather Keep the Trash and Throw You Out”: Feminine Angstiest Songs #3
See also Feminine Angstiest Songs #2 and #1
“Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)” samples Carly Simon’s quintessential song of feminine angst, “You’re So Vain.” Janet Jackson sings, and Missy Elliott, a veritable hip hop guru, raps. The music video, clearly alluding to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” stars a fleet of undead women. Janet dances in the midst of the ghouls as she stalks her former lover through a creepy mansion, bathroom, and parking garage. She wields a baseball bat, strutting her svelte figure in a sexy outlaw getup. Missy accompanies Janet and the zombie women on this hot pursuit. In an eerily erotic scene, Janet seductively swallows a black spider and growls, “I’d never be your lover / I’d rather make you suffer / You stupid motherfucker.”
Basically, don’t fuck with, lie to, cheat on, steal from, or disrespect these women…unless you want to end up in a “show down, knock down, drag down, gun slugger, shoot ’em up” with demonic damsels. But this post isn’t about you anyway, is it?
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Lolly Gaga’s Weight Loss Tips
- Go on the two-finger diet – that way, you can have your cake and not eat it, too! (Says Lolly Gag-gag)
- Contract mono, pneumonia, or the bubonic plague.
- Scrape off your taste buds with a straight razor.
- Get hooked on crack, speed, or methamphetamine.
- Chop off a limb or two, but make sure to purchase dismemberment insurance first. The larger the limb, the greater the weight loss.
- Squeeze out massive pus tumor on your back.
- Remove excess organs: appendix, tonsils, one kidney, etc.
I have one query for those who find these tips extreme: How badly do you really want to be skinny?!
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Lolly’s Top 5 Hip Hop Hits of 2009
See also Lolly’s Top 5 Hip Hop Hits of 2008
Runner-ups: “Birthday Sex” and “Imma Star” by Jeremih, “So Sharp” by Mack 10 featuring Lil Wayne, “Best I Ever Had” by Drake, “Obsessed” by Mariah Carey, “Girls on the Dancefloor” by Far East Movement
#5 Omarion featuring Gucci Mane (or Lil Wayne) “I Get It In”
This song is cocky (pun intended) as hell: It’s about fitting really big things into tight places. Omarion brags about how his girl “fumble(s) when it hangs down,” and Gucci Mane is hooking up with gal who has “done fired” her panties. In the Lil Wayne version, Mr. Carter quotes Beyoncé’s “Ego” to make the same boast: “It’s too big; it’s too wide; it won’t fit, but…I get it in.” Ironically, the most phallocentric song of the year has a video that’s about as phallocentric as last year’s “I Kissed A Girl” by Katie Perry. Omarion has moves that would make most ABDC teams jealous, but he doesn’t save them for the few ladies in the video. Toward the end of the three-minute clip, the rapper forms a human seesaw with a male dancer. This quasi-homoerotic display is almost unheard of in hip hop videos. Perhaps the compact “parking spot” is unisex.
#4 Drake featuring Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Eminem “Forever”
The line-up doesn’t get much better than this. Unfortunately, some radio stations abridge the 6+ minute song by removing one of the rapper’s verses. In ascending order, here’s how I would rank each rapper’s rhymes: Eminem (“He ain’t had a real buzz like this since the last time that he overdosed”), Drake (“Labels want my name beside the ‘X’ like Malcolm”), Lil Wayne (“My mind shine even when my thoughts seem dark”), and Kanye West (“You would think I ran the world like Michelle’s husband”).
#3 Mario featuring Gucci Mane & Sean Garrett “Break Up”
Breaking up never sounded so good! It seems Mario would do just about anything for his girlfriend (“Don’t I lace you with the Gucci? / Don’t I deck you in the Louis?”) except, of course, be faithful. And, for him, it isn’t so much about getting back together but, rather, having one last midnight rendezvous (“If you leavin’, baby, don’t leave me till tomorrow / Tonight we gon’ get a lil’ tipsy with a bottle”). If the break up is final, Gucci Mane reminds us that “girls are like buses: Miss one, next fifteen, one comin’.”
#2 Keri Hilson featuring Lil Wayne “Turnin’ Me On”
Miss Keri, baby! This song should be renamed “Pleasing Women for Dummies.” Keri stresses the importance of “recogniz(ing) a real woman,” and Lil Wayne brags about his oral prowess (“I’ma kiss the spot for ya…I turn you on like a handle / Like a television on the Weather Channel”). Sporting “on” and “off” brass knuckles, Keri rocks the music video that’s full of dichotomous imagery.
#1 Kid Cudi featuring Kanye West & Common and sampling Lady Gaga “Make Her Say”
“And we can have one hell of a night / Through the day,” promises the casual (hetero)sex anthem of the year. Kid Cudi wonders, “When it’s said and done, will she spit it up or swallow?” Kanye West wants to hook up with a shorty, but he doesn’t want to make it “statutory”: “Hold up…Born in ’88. / How old is that? / Old enough.” Common reminisces about a girl whose “head was gooder than the music.”
And each wants a ménage à trois the only socially acceptable way he can have it (XX/XY/XX). To emphasize this common goal, each rapper begins his verse with a version of “She wanna have whatever she like / She can if she bring her [girl]friend.” Cudi wants a dominant girl with a “fat ol’ ass.” Kanye makes me wonder why I didn’t love college. Common likes to take charge – even if he has to pay for it.
That which is explicit in this hit is misogynistic at best (Cudi and Co. sample Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” to the tune of, “I make her say, ‘Oh…Oh-Oh-Oh…Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh’ when I p-p-p-poke her face.”). That which is implicit, however, is compelling and provocative. Just as most novels have autobiographical inspiration, lyrics often reveal aspects of artists’ personal lives. Each performer in “Make Her Say” shares more information on sexual preferences than would most hip hop artists. It’s one thing to talk about getting “brain on the train.” It’s another to express as-yet-unfulfilled desires, previously secret reflections, and subtle sociopolitical commentary to boot.
The melancholy undertone of an upbeat song that’s entirely about sex seems strange. The subject matter, however, isn’t as lighthearted as the music video’s balloons and peaceful scenes would have you think. “Casual sex” is a misnomer: There is nothing casual about sex. As a society, we take healthy sex lives for granted, and yet sexuality influences most of us in some very problematic ways. Whether they realize it or not (I think they do), all three rappers express this tension between carnal desire, heteronormativity, and mainstream constructions of masculinity. Lady Gaga, who defies gender norms, genre, and Jehovah, creates the backdrop for this musical dialogue. The final product is far from a “Bad Romance.”
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Shades of Grey
He stared into his cup, noting that the black coffee was not black, but deep brown. Not many things of the world were really black, not even the night, not even mines. And the light was not white, either, even the palest light held within itself some hint of its origins, in fire.
– James Baldwin, Another Country
brown, not black,
is the antithesis
of white.
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Feminormative
el, los, don, señor, padre
not qua doctor
or professor
lawyer
boss
President
lover?
No
not in any
of those capacities
will i consult
you (Uds.)
Unless i have to
Why do i so often have to?
The Lollygabber 
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