"Last Christmas was originally released in 1984, but lost the top spot to Band Aid's single, which raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia."

"The charity made a renewed bid for the charts this year, with a 40th anniversary 'ultimate mix' of Do They Know Its Christmas, blending vocals from the various versions of the song that have been recorded over the years, But the re-release faltered after a row over the lyrics, with critics calling the song outdated and colonialist, and Ed Sheeran saying he wasn't asked for permission to re-use his voice. In the end, the song charted at number 12, nestled between Kelly Clarkson's Underneath The Tree and Andy Williams' 1963 standard It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year."

BBC gives us the latest news about this year's Christmas pop charts, in "Wham! are Christmas number one for a second time."

It's funny to think of Wham and that charity duking it out over the decades. And right now, Wham has the moral high ground, because Band Aid's moralistic posturing became politically incorrect. 

But Band Aid is still a charity. Shouldn't Ed Sheeran have registered his objection privately and accepted the flow of money to what presumably is still a reasonably good cause? Reading that linked article, I see that Sheeren cited a statement made by a rapper who, 10 years ago, declined to participate in Band Aid because things like that "perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa's economic growth, tourism, and investment, ultimately costing the continent trillions and destroying its dignity, pride and identity."

The rapper, Fuse ODG, who is British-Ghanian, said "there's a way to do things without destroying our collective pride. There's a way to do things without it costing us in tourism, in investment, you know? We could make it more like a partnership - solidarity instead of charity."

The objection is surprisingly right wing! It repels tourists and investors.

That's different from the usual criticism from the left — that Band Aid is "colonial" and "more about making white people feel good than helping anyone."

"At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shame."

I have a tag for "dogs," but only one dog breed has its own tag.

ADDED: I'm looking at the Wikipedia entry for "Poodle." It begins: "For the political insult, see Poodle (insult). For the security vulnerability, see POODLE. For the archaeological site in Peru, see Kanichi, Peru."

So I read the entry for "Poodle (insult)":

In politics, "poodle" is an insult used to describe a politician who obediently or passively follows the lead of others....

In June 2001, Colette Avital unsuccessfully tried to have the term's use banned from the Knesset.

During the 2000s, it was used against Tony Blair with regard to his close relationship with George W. Bush, and the UK's involvement in the Iraq War. In July 2002, singer George Michael infamously used it in his song "Shoot the Dog", the video of which showed Blair as a "poodle" on the lawn of the White House....

Check it out:



That's really something. I don't know if you can make it through the whole thing. (I couldn't.) But it's interesting to go back to the day — this video is less than a year after 9/11 — when George W. Bush was vilified as a dangerous war monger and a complete idiot.

The Russian National Guard would like to sing for you — "Last Christmas" (the George Michael song).

Well, that's nice. Can we all get along for Christ's sake?

I especially enjoyed seeing everyone skating without breaking into a massive fight with everyone hitting each other.

Gaga solo.

The visual balance of those 2 words has me sidetracking into my favorite song from the late George Michael: Wake me up before you gogo/Gaga/I'm not planning on going solo....

Why did Lady Gaga go solo at the Super Bowl last night?

We're used to seeing the big star surrounded by lots of other stars. Last year, Beyoncé got assistance from Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson, Gustavo Dudamel, University of California Marching Band and Youth Orchestra L.A. The year before that Katy Perry had Lenny Kravitz, Missy Elliott, and Arizona State University Sun Devil Marching Band.

When Madonna performed in 2012, she had LMFAO, Cirque du Soleil, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Cee Lo Green, Andy Lewis, Avon High School Drumline, Center Grove High School Drumline, Fishers High School Drumline, Franklin Central High School Drumline, Southern University Dancing Dolls, and a 200 Person Choir consisting of Indianapolis locals.

I was going to say that Madonna seems like the closest thing to Gaga, but in Super Bowl halftime terms, she's as far from Gaga as Gaga can get.

We haven't seen a fully solo halftime act since 2010, when The Who performed... and The Who are a group and hence not as fully solo as the solo performer Gaga. And The Who were the last in a line of old-school rock acts that came out and performed like a band in a stadium. The immediately preceding years, in reverse chronological order were Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Prince (who had support from the Florida A&M University Marching 100 Band), The Rolling Stones, and Paul McCartney.

If you take one step further back, you get the notorious halftime show of 2004 when Justin Timberlake ripped Janet Jackson's bodice and exposed one nipple-shielded breast. That show was also crowded with Jessica Simpson, P. Diddy, Nelly, Kid Rock, and 2 different marching bands.

So why did Lady Gaga go it alone*? I think it was to show off the extreme energy and athleticism involved. She began perched on the rooftop, courageously dropped on a wire, powered through 13 minutes of song, and ended singing while running upstairs. It was a big brag: I'm stronger than everyone!

Was that about her or about all women? I heard someone assert that it was a "female empowerment" message. Maybe it was about Hillary Clinton. Lady Gaga was a high-visibility supporter of Hillary Clinton's failed run at the presidency. And Hillary Clinton tweeted her support for Gaga's Super Bowl "message."

The very last thing Lady Gaga did in her performance could be interpreted as a statement about Hillary: She fell off her platform.


_______________________________________

* She did have a gang of dancers with her some of the time. I was a bit puzzled by what they were supposed to be in their all-white costumes, which — with strips of fabric hanging off — seemed like bandages. They weren't behaving like mummies, and there were football helmets and shoulder pads, so I wondered if it was some sort of contribution to the football is so dangerous it should be abolished movement.

"Madonna has no patience for bad wine... Madonna's house smells amazing—something delicious, maybe roasted chicken, was cooking in a kitchen elsewhere in the manse..."

"... and there was a gentle fragrance in the air, jasmine, perhaps. While I waited for Madonna, her day-to-day manager, her publicist, and I chatted while reclining on gorgeous cream-colored furniture set upon the largest rug I'd ever seen, on top of immaculate black wood floors."

The furniture is cream-colored, and the prose is purple... in Harper's Bazaar.

But I can believe that, subjected to the chatting of a day-to-day manager and a publicist, one would resort to the distraction of smelling the indoor air and speculating about what might be cooking somewhere... somewhere in the manse.

The writer of the purple prose, Roxane Gay, had to wait a long time for Madonna to show up and when Madonna finally arrived she said: "Roxane, you don't have to wear that dress tonight."

And Roxane didn't unleash sarcasm — like, congratulations on being the millionth person to say that to me — she purportedly "exhaled," because:

This was familiar territory. My name is part of a well-known song or two. I smiled and said, "No, I do not." At one point she asked me for my opinion on a particularly troublesome wine, handed me her glass, and swore she didn't have anything contagious. I believed her and took a sip. To be fair, the wine was terrible....

Sounds as though Madonna did have some patience with bad wine, just not with other people noticing how bad it is.

"Take the mediocre out of here," she tells Dustin, the strapping young man who served all the wine and apologized for its mediocrity even though that mediocrity was not his fault. "I'll go broke before I drink bad wine," she declared...

But you were drinking it, Madge. You were drinking that wine.



I think you meant: I'll go broke before I serve what other people can recognize as bad wine.

And you do have something contagious. You have dishonesty, bad taste, and tardiness.

Now, the Mayor is calling me out, so I've got to move on past this post. I've got to quit this Harper's Bazaar article half-read. Here's the Roxane/Roxanne song.



Roxanne you don't have to wear that dress tonight/Walk the streets for money you don't care if it's wrong or if it's right....

AND: The lovely George Michael version of "Roxanne":

"Lots of men messed around with masculinity..."

"And for reasons that make no cosmic sense, a few of those men — Prince, David Bowie, Prince Be of P.M. Dawn, and now Mr. Michael — died in 2016, a year in which dismaying ambivalence about aggressive, invasive male behavior was matched by the reinstatement of duller performances of masculinity in both our pop music and our politics. The Princes and the George Michaels seem as radical as ever."

Writes Wesley Morris in "George Michael Mattered Beyond the Music."

The Princes and the George Michaels — sorry, there is only one of each — let's put them to the side now. I give Prince and George Michael all the love the deserve — which is a lot — but I want to focus on what Wesley Morris said about the "performance of masculinity" in the music and politics of 2016. I almost had to diagram that one sentence to understand it. But clear out the stuff about artists who died this year, and you have a statement about the keeping-on-living men of 2016.

These  unnamed men of 2016 showed us 2 different masculine presentations: 1. "aggressive, invasive" and 2. "duller."

And we were ambivalent. Dismayingly so.

Presumably, Morris thinks the dead radicals — Prince, George Michaels — marked the path away from the unappealing choice between the 2 styles of masculinity — ugly or boring — that prevail among us the living. I say "presumably," because the sentence I want to talk about is a sign for an exit ramp Morris zooms past.

Who are the Masculinity Style #1 men and the Masculinity Style #2 men of 2016 that Morris didn't bother to name? It seems as though he had 1s and 2s for both politics and pop music. I don't follow pop music enough to know who the men of 2016 are and whether they are "aggressive, invasive" or "duller." There's Justin Bieber, I know. Which is he?

Politics, I follow. I'm sure Donald Trump was the whole reason for the words "aggressive, invasive." And yet... "In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, 'I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.' I took her out furniture...."

Trump's "performance of masculinity" is just as complicated as Prince's.

Fake news from Bob Dylan: "Britney Spears is dead by accident! We will tell you more soon."

You can't believe Bob Dylan's Twitter feed about a pop star death the day after the Christmas-day death of George Michael?

If you think you can, your grasp of the internet is not yet adequate.

"Britney is fine and well." The Twitter account was hacked. The idea! Right after Christmas. Hitting with the loss of the best pop star left after the last best pop star passed. Discrediting Bob Dylan, right after his incredible over-crediting by the Nobel Committee.

All our hopes and dream punched out on Boxing Day.

Goodbye to George Michael — You made the sun shine brighter than Doris Day.

“It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother and friend George passed away peacefully at home over the Christmas period."





ADDED: A post from 2006: "Don't you have anything from the 80s in that stack of unplayable 45s you won't throw out?/Why yes I do:":

And I will stand by this recording as one of the best pop singles ever. ...  "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"... what a brilliant song! You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day.

Don't you have anything from the 80s in that stack of unplayable 45s you won't throw out?

Why yes I do:



And I will stand by this recording as one of the best pop singles ever. Nice video too. And it holds up over time so much better than that other song + video we enjoyed so much in the summer of 1984, when we moved to Madison, Wisconsin and got MTV for the first time: "The War Song." ("War war is stupid and people are stupid/And love means nothing in some strange quarters" -- remember that?)

But "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"... what a brilliant song! You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day.

And for all you B-side fans, wondering what's on the B-side. It's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (Instrumental)."

"Gay unions, what is that about?"

Says Boy George. "I haven't been invited to any ceremonies, and I wouldn't go anyway. The idea that gay people have to mimic what obviously doesn't work for straight people any more ... I think is a bit tragic. I am looking-forward to gay divorces."

He's got his point of view:

He dislikes George Michael, and wishes Will Young "would go back in the closet. He is a common or garden homosexual, he is NOT a queer."

George has very distinct ideas about whether people are the proper kind of gay. George Michael is the wrong kind, according to George, for being caught in a California loo and thus enforcing the reputation that gays are "rampant". He remains furious that Elton John performed with homophobic Eminem in 2002 at the MTV awards.

ADDED: Are George's opinions offensive? I think it's just fine for him to have a bohemian outlook and to cast all conventional persons outside of his preferred group. But do gay people have a special obligation to unconventional? The answer should be no, and I don't see that he's saying yes. But, then, I've always liked Boy George and naturally tend to construe his remarks in a positive light.