Omg Stereophonics. Omg David Cook. Omg I think I'm a closet Anglophile.
written: 4:24 p.m. on Thursday, May. 01, 2008

fjghasghsjdrgahjgagharght!!!!!

I LOVE STEREOPHONICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I shouldn't listen to Pull the Pin while trying to study for Chinese. I find myself looking at the lyrics booklet practically for every single song, which kind of distracts from the whole studying thing don't you think?

Anyway, because I love David and Stereophonics, I'm having nice fantasies about how awesome it'd be to hear David sing Stereophonics songs. I'm constantly thinking of what songs I'd love to hear David sing because I'm an obsessive dork like that, and the most recent addition to that list is The Clash's London Calling. I CAN ALREADY HEAR IT IN MY HEAD AND IT SOUNDS INFINITELY SEXY.

As far as Stereophonics' songs go though, Dakota and It Means Nothing are 100% off limits to my Cookie. Sorry, I love David, but those two songs are sacrosanct and NO ONE ELSE can ever do them justice but Kelly Jones, who's gonna become my sixth husband if my Stereophonics love doesn't wear off soon. (Um, it's kind of weird still, since Kelly has a daughter! But he's so sexy. And he's an arrogant bugger. And I love arrogant guys.) It'd be interesting to hear David sing those songs but that's about as far as it goes, because I'll hate it by default.

I'd love to hear David do "I Could Lose Ya" though. The lyrics go like this:

Click click then you hang the phone up
After talking late into the daylight
Telling stories how we'd like to do it
The mind can be a playground if you use it
She could go down on me in a theatre
I'd stroke her head, look round over my shoulder
We'd get kicked out we'd walk along the pier
I'd try to get my hand under her jumper

In my opinion that can't possibly get any more humble, that's the perfect ingredient for total fangirl explosion. Seriously. The song is more or less completely meaningless and it's catchy and fun and very rock and David could totally do his rock thing and send all his fangirls into a state of Cookie-induced oblivion from which they will NEVER recover.

When I say "they", I'm really only referring to myself.

But oh, Kelly Jones, you sexy bitch, I can't stand this anymore! I'm still beating myself up over NOT sticking around Fort Canning after the gig and therefore missing what is probably my ONLY CHANCE EVER at meeting them. The YouTube dude told me that they autographed his CD and I was totally seething in jealousy, and he also told me that Kelly was nice enough. Oh my gad!!! Nice enough because he has a reputation for being stuck up (hi, he's the frontman of a rock band. What kind of rockers do not have a reputation for being stuck up? This is also why I wouldn't care if David were an arrogant bugger; it's just nice that he's only arrogant on stage, and that in real life, he's nice and sweet) and if Wikipedia is to be trusted, he's said some derisive things about his fellow Brit rockers which I'll get to in a bit if I remember to.

Actually, the thought of talking to Kelly Jones intimidates the shit out of me and if I had stuck around that night, I'd probably be too scared to talk to him anyway. Not to mention - I cannot understand his Welsh accent. I was watching some Phonics interview on Stomp (some stupid Straits Times nonsense) and I couldn't catch half of what he was saying.

I do, however, massively LOVE the way he pronounces "band". He says it like, "buhnd" and it's sooooo cute oh my god. I also massively love the way he says "Dakota". Oh, and I love the way he pronounces "theatre" in "I Could Lose Ya", like, "theeh-TER".

Ugh, he's so full of attitude I can't stand it. According to Wikipedia, when Radiohead released Kid A, Kelly apparently said, people need to get back to songwriting or the "country will fall to fucking pieces".

I don't like to admit to this because it's not cool, but I honestly cannot get into anything Radiohead released after OK Computer, which I still haven't bought. They gained strong critical acclaim with OK Computer, and since then the critics have been humping their legs with practically all their subsequent releases. And to be honest? I bought Hail to the Thief and I was like, What the fuck is this? I can't even remember if I bought Kid A and as of now, the only two Radiohead albums I like are Pablo Honey and The Bends, which are also their more accessible/commercial (to the extent that they're not avant garde-weird) albums.

As far as cred goes, the sentiment on the street is that Thom Yorke >>>> Kelly Jones. But you know what? I don't care. 'Cause I read that Wiki quote (no citation though) and I was like, "OH MY GOD, YES YES YES YES YES, I TOTALLY AGREE." I'm all for bands that push the boundaries, but once they go overboard, I'm sorry, but I'm just utterly lost and uninterested and indifferent.

What I like about Stereophonics is that they don't pretend to be what they're not. Half the songs on Pull the Pin are nonsensical fun and I love it. Why would I want to listen to an album full of depressing, emo-scheemo, avant garde, weird-sounding, un-melodious songs that I just cannot get into no matter how hard I try? For me, then, Stereophonics >>>> Radiohead, and wow, I think I just committed rock music blasphemy, but I don't care. I'm also quite sick of The Bends and Pablo Honey anyway, after listening to them for so many years, so...whatever.

Along a similar vein, I'd also like to discuss a sneaking suspicion I've had about myself for a while. I think I'm a bit of a closet Anglophile. I was making some Top 5 lists a few days ago, one of them being Top 5 books, and I realised that 3 out of those 5 books are by British writers, and not a single one is by an American writer. (If anyone's interested, from 5 to 1: Brave New World, Lolita, Great Expectations, Candide, England England.) I was also thinking about the bands that I've listened to over the past 8 years, and at least half of them are British bands: Stereophonics, Radiohead, Placebo, Bush, Coldplay (for a while, at least), and now I kind of like Athlete. I also just bought Arctic Monkeys and they're British too. And I honestly think that Brit rock >>>> American rock, especially what's popular in American rock today, namely Fall Out Boy (YUCKS), My Chemical Romance (if David really listens to them, there's a flaw I've been desperately looking for), bloody Daughtry, bloody Nickelback, etc. I read a review of Daughtry's album by a British magazine and the writer was unabashedly bashing America's rock music scene and I found it hilariously true. He also said something to the effect of how importing Daughtry into the UK is more or less polluting their music scene. HAHAHA.

Not to mention: British accent totally pwns American accent, hands-down, no question about it. The British accent (I'm referring to the BBC accent) sends my heart aflutter, while the American ones does nothing for me. British humour is also tons funnier and more sophisticated than American humour, which, half the time, thrives on crass toilet/sexual humour which is just...crass. And yucky. And I just don't get the appeal.

Of course, I'm making a lot of generalisations here and there are always exceptions, but all I'm saying is that I've noticed a trend within myself whereby I tend to prefer British things to American things. I think I definitely prefer British writers to American ones though. To me, Britain = Taiwan, America = China. (In my opinion, Taiwan is arguably more cultured than China, but this cannot be helped; Taiwan didn't lose ten years trying to stage a "cultural revolution". Stupid Communists.)

Okay, more generalisations, and this isn't making sense, so I'm just gonna abandon it.

Before I get back to Chinese, can I just say that I really, really, REALLY hate bands that don't include lyrics in their thick-ass CD inlay? The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, I'm looking at you. The Arctic Monkeys CD inlay contains nothing but their pictures, which is great, but seriously, why the FUCK would I conceivably want to look at their faces when I flip through the inlay for the lyrics which are, of course, non-existent, since it's supposedly not cool to contain lyrics anymore? Pieces of shits. The Strokes, too. I hate having to go online to get lyrics when I bought the freaking CD expecting the lyrics.

I so miss the 90's when bands included most, if not all, of their song lyrics in their CD booklets. I just bought Foo Fighters' The Colour and the Shape and it comes with lyrics; Pearl Jam's Ten also comes with lyrics (released 1991); Nirvana's Nevermind came with lyrics, albeit only for half the album. SERIOUSLY, WHAT'S WRONG WITH TODAY'S BANDS? NOBODY WANTS TO LOOK AT YOUR FUG FACES; I WANT MY LYRICS.

Hence, Stereophonics pwns the world. All their albums come with full lyrics for all songs, AND notes from Kelly about every single song (when they were written, why, how, etc). They're not super detailed notes and mostly don't talk about the story behind the lyrics, but at least he provides some insight to his creative process.

Have I mentioned I love Stereophonics?

That YouTube guy hasn't uploaded Pull the Pin/Language songs which I really desperately want. I'm going to beg him to upload them!

Oh yeah, I was gushing to my mom yesterday about It Means Nothing and going on and on about how I was totally crying my eyes out and how touched I was (and am) by the song, and she was all, "Let me hear it", so today I let her listen to it and she was like, "What's the name of this song?" Oh my god, not a flat-out dismissal!? Colour me shocked. She knows Dakota and Maybe Tomorrow, which she refers to as the "song on TV" (from Crash's ending credits, when my dad was watching that piece of shit movie), and she totally likes those two songs.

My mom also thinks David's talented overall, though she hated Music of the Night and called it "primary school" which pissed me off. Like hello, if you can find me a primary school kid who can sing that song with his level of technical expertise, I'll chop off my head and hand it to you on a silver platter. I mean, I get that David didn't emote the way Brad Little did and his rendition wasn't dramatic at all, but he was on Idol, not Broadway. If he'd gone all Broadway it would've been hell weird, I guarantee you. And this week, my mom hated David's first performance, but agreed with Simon that his second one was "brilliant". My mom also loved David's Billie Jean; after he sang, she was all, "David and Michael Johns for final 2!"

She was devastated when MJ was eliminated hahaha. But she likes ArchuBot which is damn gross and I seriously question her taste level. ArchuBot completely botched his two songs this week and my mom was still like, "He sang very well!" Excuse me while I roll my eyes in disgust. How is it that she's not hearing the exact same treatment that ArchuBot brings to all his songs? If you play his performances back to back, they'll all melt into one long-ass, never-ending song that's incredibly torturous in its utter lack of excitement.

Argh, thinking about ArchuBot makes me want to stab my eyes out and rip my brain from my skull. I feel sorry for David, I really do. If only Carly and Michael were still around; that would be a real competition, not this joke of a show that we're left with. At this point, David doesn't even have to try anymore; all he's gotta do is show up, open his mouth, let sound escape from his mouth, and he'd still be way above everyone else. He makes everyone on that show look like entertainers in a theme park or a cruise ship (thanks, Simon) and it's completely boring watching him "compete" against those people. Can those people make him work for his title, please? Because at the rate things are going, David can do Innocent for the next few weeks and he's still going to win. His performances this week weren't his best at all, and yet, even while he's not at his best, he still kicked everyone else's asses.

And if ArchuBot wins, there's truly NO JUSTICE in this world.

For what it's worth, I checked iTunes' top 100 this morning and David's studio recording of I'm Alive was the only Idol recording that charted at all. It was at 90, but it was just released, and did I mention that it was the only one that charted? And I'm Alive wasn't even his best performance last night.

Okay, I really have to get back to Chinese, but I just want to rave about the studio version of I'm Alive.

At first I was DEPRESSED that we're not getting All I Really Need Is You which was the performance I preferred, but after I listened to I'm Alive? FUCK THAT SHIT IS BRILLIANT.

Now I'm glad we didn't get AIRNIY; he's had a few ballads already and only a couple of rock-ish songs (Day Tripper doesn't count; that song just bugs the shit out of me. It goes on and on and I really don't like listening to the studio version AT ALL, but the live performance is perfect), and I'm Alive is suitably rock and upbeat. I LIKE AND I APPROVE, and his voice on that song - OH MY GADDDDD DAVID MARRY ME PLEEEEASE!

He's just NOT HUMAN. I thought he was so cute last night when Paula criticsed the song that Jason hasn't sung and she was all, "Oh my god, I thought you sang twice!" and the camera somehow went for a close-up on Cookie's face and he was LAUGHING HIS ASS OFF. Okay, he wasn't laughing his ass off, but he was laughing quite hard and he looked like he was completely digging the whole thing.

Since I'm talking about Paula's snafu, I watched the Star World repeat just for that moment and it was HILARIOUS. When she was going off about Jason's second song, the six people on stage were looking at her with this blank, WTF is going on look on their faces, and I couldn't stop laughing. And I didn't catch what she was saying last night, but basically she covered up by saying that her clairvoyant critique of Castro's second song was for David Cook.

Um, sure, if "you weren't trying at all" is somehow synonymous with "David, you were fantastic".

CRAZY DRUNKEN PAULA.

DAMN HILARIOUS.

I wonder if they're going to fire her this season. If they replace her with someone else for next season, that'd be a good reason for me to tune in again.

Okay I REALLY NEED TO STUDY.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010