Music Like everyone else online I've been watching Alanis Morissette's stunning parody of Fergie's My Humps. Not since Nina Gordon's version of NWA's Straight Outta Compton has something quite so wierd sounded so right. The video is the preverbial icing, simply mocking exactly the kinds of fashions and poses that turn up in said videos. Frankly its mesmerising and it's certainly made me fall in love with her all over again.
Sometimes readers of the blog will know that I've had something of an on-off listenership with the woman who once played God. For every time I've felt compelled to karaoke Ironic I've had to endure the more wrong headed cover versions and her last album of original material. To be honest I probably never got over Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, for reasons explained here.
But I've kept the faith. I wouldn't say Jagged Little Pill changed my life but ironically considering its rocked out sensibilities it still has an ability to reduce me to a nostalgic residue and I still harbour a small hope that the genius can return. I mean contrary, to popular belief the acoustic version of her earlier work wasn't all bad. Apart from You Oughta Know redux which sounded like the MOR virus had infected the monkey in Outbreak and gone airborne.
It's a couple of years old but the b-side Polyanna Flower was evidence of that and now this cover version suggests that something really interesting is coming. It's the intent, the appreciation of a certain sensibility at the heart of it, and it just doesn't look like something you'd simply knock up as a joke. But then as her mate Kevin Smith found out (and descibed on his An Evening With... dvd, Prince has a stash of music videos no one has seen in a bunker somewhere in case people want to be entertained after the apocalypse -- so it's possible Alanis was just having a bit of fun. The reaction has been massively positive, so if nothing else its rehabilitated her image and not just in my eyes.
Sweet General Galtieri! It's like a round of ISIHAC's One Song to the Tune of Another. Always thought that Barry Cyrer could pull that song off masterly.
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