Tina Fey
Without a doubt, 2008 was the year of Tina Fey. Entertainment Weekly put her at number two on their list of top 25 Entertainers of The Year second only to Robert Downey Jr (I'll get to him in a moment) Not only did Tina Fey pick up an Emmy for lead actress in a comedy series for 30 Rock, she also scored a trophy for writing and the show itself was named best comedy series. Combine that with her moderately successful movie Baby Mama and her hilarious and frighteningly accurate portrayal of hopelessly unqualified and woefully ill-prepared vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and there are many reasons to love Tina Fey. But my love of Tina has nothing to do with trophies, ratings or box office revenue (though I'm happy she's getting the success she deserves) I love Tina Fey because she is a smart woman who has never resorted to dumbing herself down or sexing herself up to find success. In a time where mindless twats like Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Jessica Simpson make millions from either being stupider than fuck, having ridiculously huge tits, sucking cock or a combination of all three, it's unbelievably refreshing to see a woman in showbiz make money using her BRAIN. This is why Ms. Fey will outlast all of those skanks. As soon these idiots' tits start sagging to the ground, their sun-drenched faces resemble their Louis Vuitton handbags and nobody wants to fuck them anymore, they're finished. It's already happening to Pam Anderson for whom the phrase 'rode hard and put away wet' must have been coined. But Tina Fey has a long career ahead of her because she banks on her brain, unlike the aforementioned hobags who bank on their fleeting (and quite frankly, questionable) sex appeal.
Tina Fey is not only a talented and funny writer and actress, she's an inspiration and role model. Whenever I see excited young fangirls turning up to Paris Hilton's public appearances dressed up like the celebutard and clamouring for her autograph or photo, a small part of me dies. Who the hell are these mothers letting their daughters look up to this empty-headed, no-talent, skeeze who contributes literally NOTHING to the world other than spank bank inspiration for pubescent boys with questionable taste in masturbatory material? I'm absolutely flummoxed by this. Whether or not you're a fan of her particular brand of comedy, you have to agree that Tina Fey is much more worthy of your admiration. And even without her Emmys and Sarah Palin impersonations, Tina Fey went on Howard Stern and publicly called one-time SNL host Paris Hilton a 'piece of shit' and for that reason alone, she can always count me among her fans. I love Tina Fey and I need more of that smart, funny, sexy bitch in 2009.
Kanye West
Or more specifically, Kanye West's blog.
I enjoy Kanye West's music. I have all of his CDs. Yes he's a ridiculous egomaniac but so is that mouth-breather P-Diddy and at least Kanye West has the talent to back up his ego. You can agree or disagree but the point of this post isn't to debate the merits of Kanye's music. What I need more from Kanye in 2009 is his unintentionally hilarious blogs. Whenever something doesn't go his way, Kanye takes to his MACBOOK AIR and furiously hammers out an awesome rant. Even more awesome? Nine times out of ten his blog rants are in ALL CAPS which make it appear like he's YELLING AT US. And the visual of Kanye West sitting at his MACBOOK AIR pounding out a rage-filled ALL CAPS blog through his venetian blind sunglasses is too funny. Whether Kanye is lashing out at the organizers of the Bonnaroo music festival (SQUID BRAINS!!) pondering his legacy (I AM THE VOICE OF A GENERATION) comparing himself to fellow musicians (JUSTIN WENT ON VACATION, I MADE ALBUMS!) singing the praises of his new songs (DAMN THIS IS SOOOO DOPE, THIS IS A SONG NOBODY CAN FRONT ON!) or enjoying a new fanbase (STREET NI**AS LOVE IT! STREET NI**AS CALLED AND TOLD ME THEY LOVE IT!!!) one thing is for certain; Kanye West is entertaining as hell. The self-proclaimed Louis Vuitton Don has become so infamous for his ALL CAPS BLOGS that he took to his MACBOOK AIR to address it (in ALL CAPS of course) explaining that HE'S NOT ANGRY, HE'S LAZY, HE'S TYPING WITH ONE HAND WITH HIS CELL PHONE IN THE OTHER.
Kanye West says he's going to focus less on music in 2009 and more on fashion as he undertakes an internship at Louis Vuitton in London. I don't care what he does this year as long as he is never far from his MACBOOK AIR. I can't wait for the ALL CAPS RANTS about THESE SEWING MACHINES ARE WACK and I AM THE FASHION INTERN OF A GENERATION!!! LOUIS VUITTON WENT ON VACATION, I MADE SUITS!!!
Justin Timberlake
Well..Kanye West did have a point when he called out JT. Kanye has released an album every year since 2004. Justin Timberlake's last release, the super fantastic awesome FutureSexLoveSounds dropped in 2006 and it's time Justin got that hot little ass of his back in the studio. I need more Justin Timberlake in my life. Yes, the occasional (and hilarious) appearances on SNL offer me a bit of a fix but I need more. Yes, he helped produce and appeared on the latest Madonna album but I need more! Too much is never enough when it comes to this hot piece who can rock a suit and some sweet dance moves like nobody else. I saw him in concert in the summer of 2007 (two nights in a row because one night with JT is never enough) but the high of that two-night stand has long since worn off and I need another hit. Bad. Hearing right now that JT is working on a followup to FutureSexLoveSounds would surely make me jizz in my pants.
Robert Downey Junior
After such a kick ass year for RDJ, it's easy to forget what an amazing comeback story he really is. In late 1997, early 1998, after the deaths of Michael Kennedy, John Denver and Sonny Bono, my friend and I toyed with the idea of starting a Celebrity Death Pool for which we'd guess which celebrity would be the next to peace the hell outta here (yeah, I'm an asshole) At the top of my list was Robert Downey Jr. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want him to die but it wasn't totally out of the question. After all, this is a man who was arrested time and time again for drugs, unsuccessfully underwent rehab numerous times and who was once so cranked out of his mind on drugs that he crawled into the bedroom window of a random house and passed out in a little girl's bed prompting her understandably shocked mother to call the cops on RDJ. Could you imagine? Why wasn't it my bed? Anyway, so by the time RDJ told a judge in 1999 about his drug use "It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and my finger's on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gunmetal," things were not exactly looking good for our dear RDJ. He had his ticket in hand and seemed minutes away from hopping on the River Phoenix Express outta here.
But after getting his act together in the early 2000s and marrying movie producer Susan Levin (with whom he seems to be crazy in love) RDJ appeared to be on a slow climb back to the top which culminated in 2008 with his awesome performances in Ironman and Tropic Thunder, the first of which was the number two grossing movie of the year behind The Dark Knight. Robert Downey Junior has been to hell and back and he lived to tell the tale.
I often rag on coked and methed out loser celebrity fuck ups who do everything in their power to destroy the fame and success they probably didn't even deserve in the first place but what sets Robert Downey Jr. apart from those losers and what makes me happy to see him come back is that he is undeniably, a very talented actor. Rent Less Than Zero, Chaplin, Home for the Holidays (an underrated gem for which most of the filming he was coked to the gills) and of course his two latest movies and you can't argue he is a true artist. Hell, just watch the Elton John video for I Want Love. The video features nothing more than one continous shot of RDJ walking through an empty house lip synching along to the song and you cannot take your eyes off him. He's that captivating. And on a totally superficial level, he dresses well and is a totally sexy bitch who seems to have taken more than a few pages from the George Clooney Book of Aging Awesomely. Girls and gays, just look at the photo below and tell me you wouldn't hit that shit in a hot minute.....
I'm so glad I didn't win the Celebrity Death Pool 11 years ago and I cannot wait to see RDJ in Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey Junior + Guy Ritchie = Yes.
New Music
For someone who claims to love music as passionately as I do and who prides herself on being a pop culture whore, I really do a piss poor job of seeking out music beyond the force-fed top 40 pop. In fact, I'm an epic FAIL. I blame a combination of being close-minded, lazy as fuck and actually liking force-fed top 40 pop music (you will NOT judge me!)
But in 2008, thanks to making some new friends, getting sick of some of that aforementioned overplayed force-fed top 40 pop and gaining the ability to snoop into other people's itunes at my old job, I discovered some new artists who helped make the awesome parts of 2008 even more awesome and the suck ass parts of 2008 less sucky.
Here are the artists who had a big impact on me in 2008 and from whom I hope to hear more in 2009. Keep in mind, these are NOT necessarily new artists, they are only new TO ME. I'm FULLY AWARE of what a lame ass I am for not being aware of these artists prior to 2008 but I'm not going to let my embarrassing ignorance trump my appreciation of their awesomeness. Here we go:
The New Pornographers
In January of 2008 I was sitting at my desk at work and after screwing the pooch for a while, started creeping into my friend Jason Lewis' Itunes. As a devout and dedicated music aficionado, I knew he would have a diverse and interesting playlist on which for me to mack. The New Pornographers instantly got my attention, probably because I have the mentality of a 14-year-old boy and the word 'pornographers' caught my eye. I had no idea what to expect when I clicked on songs from their newest album Challengers. I fell instantly in love with their folky pop jams and to my delight the band hailed from Canada. The album's title track, the ballad Challengers resonated with me immediately. I simply could not stop listening to it, so beautiful. Myriad Harbour, My Rights Versus Yours, Adventures in Solitude, and Go Places were other standouts. I was crushing hard on this new discovery. My crush turned from lust to love when Jason brought me in all of their albums to download. Soon songs like Star Bodies, The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism (which actually isn't a song about my life but it could be) Letter From an Occupant and Mass Romantic became frequent plays on my Ipod. In June I paid $75 for a ticket to Virgin Fest simply because I wanted to catch the New Pornographers. I was out of the city that weekend and had to race back to catch them and only them. It was worth it.
Stars
Stars is another Canadian band. They were introduced to me by my friend Matthew after I turned him onto The New Pornographers. Their music is simply amazing. Like the New Pornos, Stars features the vocal stylings of more than one singer. Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan share the singing duties and the result is a collection of beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking songs. I was lucky enough to see Stars live recently, in the front row no less and songs like The Night Starts Here, Bitches in Tokyo, Take Me To the Riot and Undertow are even more stunning live as they are on the CD.
Kings of Leon
I am a total whore for celebrity gossip. I eat that shit like it's sushi and I'm Jeremy Piven. So when I heard sometime in the late summer/early fall that my newest celebrity crush, Ed Westwick (aka Chuck Bass) was making out with Drew Barrymore at a Kings of Leon show, my first thought was 'Wow that Drew Barrymore is one lucky slut." My second thought was 'who are Kings of Leon?' So I set about finding out. Is it pathetic to seek out out a band simply because Chuck Bass likes them? It sure is! But it's not important why or how I came to be so horny for Kings of Leon, just that I am so very horny for them. KOL is made up of brothers and a cousin from Tennessee, they're named after their grandfather, Leon (how adorbs!) When I found them, they had just released their fourth album, Only By the Night. One listen to the track Sex on Fire and I was hooked. I was Amy Winehouse and Kings of Leon was my crack rock. Only By the Night really should be called Songs to Make Out To because that's what it makes me want to do. Actually all of their albums provide some pretty good sexy time soundtrack material. Tracks like Use Somebody, Frontier City, Fans, and Slow Night, So Long make me want to have a good 'ol fashioned southern barbecue on a steamy hot Tennessee afternoon complete with grits and ribs dripping in barbecue sauce. When the sun goes down, turning that hot summer day into a steamy Southern night, songs like Closer, On Call, I Want You and the aforementioned Sex on Fire make me want to sneak away into the bushes for a hot makeout session in the back of a pickup truck with some good 'ol boy named either Joe Bob or Jimmy Ray.
I'd like to think that Rolling Stone magazine's recently released list of the 50 Best Albums of 2008 on which Kings of Leon placed number 20 would have eventually encouraged me to check out the band but the truth is, as it stands, I have Chuck Bass to thank and I'm totally fine with that.
Bloc Party
Unlike Kings of Leon who had released four albums before my ignorant, lazy ass found them, Bloc Party only had two albums under their belt before I finally clued the fuck in. I checked out their first album, Silent Alarm, because of the Genius setting on Itunes, you know that feature on the right side of your Itunes that offers up suggestions for music you might like based on your current playlists. Yeah, that feature has cost me a pretty penny but regardless, I'm thankful for it. Bloc Party is simply amazing. Songs like Banquet, Modern Love and Like Eating Glass are perfect driving tunes, songs you want to belt out while banging against the steering wheel causing fellow drivers to point and laugh. After checking out their followup A Weekend In The City and loving that too, I was eagerly awaiting the 2008 release of their album Intimacy. The standout song for me on this latest album is Signs which coincidentally was featured in a particularly Chuck Bass-focused episode of Gossip Girl. Sigh. It all comes back to Chuck Bass doesn't it? Answer: Yes.
MGMT
I don't feel like as much of an epic fail for not clueing into MGMT until 2008 because these New York dudes were pretty underground before then. In late 2007 Rolling Stone magazine named them one of the bands to watch in 2008 and the magazine was right. Their debut album Oracular Spectacular was well, spectacular. With songs like the sexy, slinky Electric Feel, the super catchy Kids, the anthemic Time to Pretend and the slower The Youth, each track on this album is seemingly more awesome than the one before it. Their videos are like acid trips featuring the guys doing a multitude of weird things like riding cats. That alone makes them awesome. I started listening to MGMT in May of 2008 and I've been listening to them nonstop since and I have not tired of this album. Easily one of my favourite albums of 2008.
