Burgernoodle

This is a sad day.  Not because I’m suffering from a ruthless upper respiratory infection that might just leave me without a lung, but because American Idol winner, Jordin Sparks, made a disappointing appearance on the Billboard charts this week.  Her debut album (self-titled) wound up in the 10 spot, the lowest ranking for any debut album by an Idol winner.  It sold a mere 119,000 copies (to give you some reference, the unpopular winner of Season 5, Taylor Hicks, still sold about 298,000).  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the video to her new single “Tattoo” and let’s just say it definitely isn’t en fuego.  In fact, I’ve seen it several times now and I couldn’t even hum the chorus to you.  I still have Clay Aiken’s “Invisible” running through my eardrums.  And he didn’t even win!

Anyway, I’m genuinely saddened by this news. According to this article on CNN, Sparks wants her image and music to reflect who she is - just a wholesome girl who’s not ready to sing raunchy, sexy love songs.  Like Britney back in the day, except in her case we all suspected that someone different lay just beneath the surface.

Big shocker here. After talks with her management and tour bosses in London, Amy Winehouse decided she just can’t continue touring without her husband, Blake, who is currently in jail awaiting trial for whatever crazy thing he did. I still think he’s hiding in her beehive and this is just an excuse to leave the tour before she looses what few fans she has left.  People have been walking out of her concerts halfway through, utterly fed up with her stumbling, slurring, poor performances.  Winehouse claims she’s a mess and can’t perform well without her jailbird husband, and I’m pretty positive ”husband” is a code word for crack cocaine and heroin.

So I can sort of understand why Backstreet and Bo Bice fans berated burgernoodle on previous posts, but I dare you Amy Winehouse fans, I just dare you.

This news may be a month old, but the James Blunt parody was a year old and still burgernoodle-worthy, so here goes…

Apparently, back at the end of September a new Avril Lavigne web site popped up called www.perezlavigne.com.  It seeks revenge on celebrity blogger/basher Perez Hilton for all the mean little things he’s written on his site about Avril.  Although the author claims to be Avril herself (attempts to contact the Webmaster of the site have been unsuccessful), a spokesperson for the singer said she has nothing to do with it.  I would probably believe Avril and her spokesperson had I not read this little excerpt from the site:

I mean, he thinks in his own little world that he is the best and he makes everybody look silly on his Blog. But in reality he is the biggest stupid person I’ve ever seen!

Now if that wasn’t penned by the same person that wrote ”Sk8er Boi” then the joke’s on me, I guess.  Anyway, there’s a poll on the site trying to collect enough signatures to “make Perez disappear from the Net with his stupid Web site.”  As if that’s the way things actually work. Sounds like somebody spent too much time running for student counsel in jr. high.

Avril’s imposter is still at large.

A fun little factoid before you run off and gorge yourself with turkey and butternut squash.  The No. 1 hit that was written 40 years ago is back on the singles chart with a little help from the Boston Red Sox, who play the tune at every home game.  And now we finally know what inspired Neil Diamond to write the single largest hit song of his career.  Caroline Kennedy.  Mum was the word for many decades, but when he had a chance to perform (via satellite) at Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg’s 50th birthday party last week, he decided to divulge the secret.  Diamond said he had “never discussed it with anybody - intentionally.”  He had hoped to tell her in person (or via satellite) someday, and he finally did.  According to the Baltimore Sun:

Diamond was a “young, broke songwriter” when a photo of the president’s daughter in a news magazine caught his eye.

“It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony,” Diamond recalled. “It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there.”

Years later, holed up in a hotel in Memphis, he would write the words and music in less an hour.

It’s pretty wild that the song has returned to the charts after 4 decades.  The Red Sox, of course, have since become the singing legend’s favortite baesball team.  Smart, smart guy.

For those that don’t remember, Bo Bice was the American Idol runner-up the year Carrie Underwood took the crown - and God couldn’t have gotten it more right. Here is Bo Bice doing his very best impression of Lenny Kravitz.  And no, it’s not a cover song.  The single was written by Bice - so what if he wrote it at a Lenny Kravitz concert while “Are You Gonna Go My Way” was ringing through his eardrum.  Grow some Alanis Morissette-length hair and throw on some hippy dippy clothes and no one will be able to tell, right? Wrong.  Watch his new video for the single “Witness.”

Because of the holiday week, Monday’s mix is just 5 songs long.  But they are 5 essential pop tunes that everybody should be listening to right now.  Dare I say they’re the best of the best.  I could have added some fillers - about 7 from last week’s VH1’s top 20 video countdown come to mind - but what’s the point.  Let’s come together and give thanks to those pop/r&b/rock artists who sneak catchy little melodies into our heads each and every day.  Listen now.

Since it’s considered fashionable to be late, I decided to show up 1 hour and 13 minutes late to Sunday night’s American Music Awards, which aired on ABC.  Whatever happened in those first 73 minutes is a big ole mystery to me, but I’m sure it included a couple of bland performances and a handful of presenters who hail from ABC prime-time dramas.  For the full list of winners head here.  Here is the quick and dirty of what I witnessed:

0:01 (that would be 9:14pm) - Sure enough, Dr. Karev and Dr. Grey (not Meredith) introduce the next performace -  the biggest pop/R&B song of the last 12 months.  The song? “Irreplaceable.” The performers?  One of country’s biggest acts, Sugarland.  Wow, pretty sure this song was never supposed to be sung with a southern twang.  Beyonce joins a minute into it, but sadly, it’s a minute too late and the song can’t be saved.

0:05 - Three random presenters announce that the Best Contemporary Artist award goes to…Daughtry!  Hmm, I don’t know about this.  Daughtry is about 27 Josh Grobans away from belonging in that category.  I’m utterly confused.

0:13 - Jimmy Kimmel (AMA host) actually introduces Josh Groban!! Amaaazing! I swear I wrote that last tid bit before this happened.  The real adult contemporary artist introduces Celine Dion, who is embarking upon a new world tour now that she’s conquered Vegas.  Snore.  I know I’m only 16 minutes deep, but I’m already paging someone from Seattle Grey to come by with a defibrillator.  Continue Reading…

This little video has caused a ripple of gossip across the internet, but now we have confirmation that it’s not what everyone thought it was.  Amy Winehouse did not snort an illegal substance off of her shirtsleeve at her last concert in plain site for all to see (that kind of unruly behavior only happens backstage).  Here is the questionable clip:

It turns out she was merely wiping her nose, a common gesture that one would make when suffering from a regular case of the sniffles.  Given her ongoing struggles with drugs and alcohol, it would be easy to assume otherwise, but this next video pretty much confirms the whole cold theory.  She so clearly wipes her nose with a kleenex right before she sits down to take a sip of water.  Mid song, of course.  The Rehab singer, who’s husband is currently in Prison for conspiracy to fix a trial, was booed offstage in Birmingham this Wednesday as a result of her sloppy, seemingly-drunk performance.

According to E! Online, Britney Spears has run over her third paparazzi foot in less than a month while pulling into the Four Seasons Hotel the other night.  It’s perfectly safe to assume that the pop star has never benefited from the AAA “good driver” discount, but what we don’t know is why these cameramen even dare go near her vehicle without steel-toed boots these days.  But even if she’s more of a hazzard to the road than 3 feet of black ice, I’m siding with Brit on this one.  Shame on the paparazzi, they should know better.

Although there’s no documented footage (sorry) like the last time she squashed a photographer’s toes while exiting the doctor’s office, the cameraman (after ingnoring a hotel security guard’s warnings to “back up! back up!”) did scream out when she drove past.  At that point, she actually stopped the car, but no charges were filed.  Probably because it was just a ploy to snap a few more shots.  Because what the internet really needs is more pictures of Britney behind the wheel.

I know what you’re thinking - boy bands are all but extinct in the year 2007.  That’s what I thought too.  But we were all wrong, like we’ve been wrong so many times before.  Fifteen years after the birth of the ensemble, the boys are back with a new album and plans for a new world tour, which will kick off in Tokyo this February.  The band memebers talk to Reuters about their 6th album “Unbreakable” and the lessons that they’ve learn during their years off.  Unfortunately, the only one they didn’t learn was that you don’t do the whole boy band thing when you’re in your 30s (Nick Carter, the youngest member of the group who joined when he was 12, is now 28).  I’m just worried that their concerts are going to seem more like Hello Kitty conventions since the average age of a BB fan is around 13.  Maybe there’s actually a genius behind this - for every pre-teen ticket sold, there’s one going to a chaperone as well.  Nah bad marketing. 

One of the lessons they did learn?  Give people what they want (even if those people also want pink rinestone phone cases from Claire’s).  According to band member Howie Dorough, who is getting married next month:  “This time around, we made a conscious decision to go back to what people know us best for, which is our live entertaining shows, vocal harmonies, good, easy pop listening songs, up-tempo songs.”

Today New York Post’s Page Six insinuated that Jon Bon Jovi may someday run for governor in the state of (guess) New Jersey.  The clues?  He’s keeping his home in Red Bank even though he’s moving him family to SoHo.  He also performs regularly at fundraisers for John Kerry and Al Gore, and apparently hired some new p.r. person that used to be the chief of staff for ex-Mayor, David Dinkins.  The governor’s office seems like the logical next step for someone like Bon Jovi.  A pop-metal icon goes from penning popular power ballads to signing state legislation.  And nothing says powerful political figure like a superman tattoo placed prominently on a muscular shoulder.  Watch out, Governor Jon Corzine.  A steel horse-riding cowboy is about to swoop into town.  And you know what you’re going down in…

Jessica Simpson has been accused of dating someone famous in order to drum up publicity for her upcoming country album.  Gasp! Mark this day down in your calendars, folks, this may be the first time in the history of Hollywood that someone’s ever faked a relationship to boost their image [see: Tom Cruise and the relationships that have spanned his lifetime].  Apparently the daisy duke and Owen Wilson have gone on several recent “dates” - dates that be the brainchild of an extraordinary publicity stunt!  He’s a fellow Texan recovering from a suicide attempt, and she’s a floppy pop star who’s putting out her first country album.  In the end, it doesn’t matter if it’s real or fake.  All celebrity relationships are silly fabrications.  When was the last time you read an US Magazine and then filed it away into the non-fiction aisle of your mental library?  Probably never.

Even though this is close to a year old, I find that it just keeps getting funnier with every viewing.  MAD TV’s Nicole Parker puts on a disturbing fake chest and imitates James Blunt in this hilarious parody of his “You’re Beautiful” video.  It’s so much more effective after witnessing the original so if you’ve never seen it then suffer through this first.  It’ll be so worth it.

This week’s mix was inspired by the 2008 

election and kicking it off is a sweet little tune

dedicated to a certain candidate’s bushy brows. 

Listen now! 

Burgernoodle has gone all podcast on you.  Booyah!  Check it out.  There will be a new weekly mix every Monday, maybe with a theme, maybe not.  And yes, today is Thursday, but I’m just now getting around to the things that should have been done on Monday.