I Have Nothing to Give But Miscellany

1) In an ongoing attempt to clear the skeletons out of my closet, I find it good to cop to some guilty pleasures every now and then. It's almost like making myself your blood brother, showing you I mean it and am both stupid and unafraid, giving you good dirt should you ever need it down the road. That said, the new Fergie song is disgustingly catchy. Her verses are questionable (obviously), but if you can just ignore that and get to the chorus, you'll start to feel it in the pelvis. It's kind of an M.I.A. rip, but at least she's stealing from the right people.

Also, I had this enormous, technicolor crush on her when she was on Kids, Incorporated, BTW. Stacey!

UPDATE: Looks like I somehow missed Pitchfork trashing it yesterday, which is actually a relief. It means this is an actual guilty pleasure, and not a bullshit one (see "Since U Been Gone," "Promiscuous," "Ain't No Other Man," et al).

Next, Evanescence. The new song is a thunderbolt. It's rhythmically complex, not as glossy as most nu-metal but still a clean production, and the video looks gauzy and rich. Even the lyrics are kind of good, with a great modern rock title, "Call Me When You're Sober." (Side note, however: can we call a moratorium on dramatic, choreographed dancing in rock videos? Yes it looks pretty but now it’s been done, so let My Chemical Romance have their thing. Unless of course you dance on treadmills.)

2) Has a song ever been made worse by the addition of a horn section? I would say, for the record, no. Never. Therefore, if logic follows, horns ALWAYS make songs better. Can't we just add horns to every song we ever loved? Couldn't somebody pay Danger Mouse to do that?

I'll put it to you then, dear reader: I dare you to name a song that would have been better without the horns. It's music's version of naming a sequel that was better than the original movie (actually that answer's easy: Back to the Future and Ghostbusters). Still, I defy you to name one song that should have been stripped down.