"Mariah Carey takes the next step from Whitney Houston... the way-over-the-top vocals that almost exist outside of a song."

"Influence wise, I certainly get it. My problem is I don’t care for much of her music. From the start, she was an industry darling.... There’s only a handful of singles I really like and I find each of her albums are a bit of a slog to get through. She’s not getting my vote...."

And: "I’m excited to see her name. The Rock Hall has been trying to put these 'pop singers' more on the ballot these last few years, which freaks out some of its constituency. I think those types of artists belong. Mariah’s not going to get my vote.... But, my God. The talent and reach. Look at how long she sustained her career and what she means to people. If Whitney Houston is in, Mariah Carey is in.... She’s worthy. I always love it when women pop singers are on the ballot in a way that pisses people off. It’s not rock! It’s always fun when you get some people to yell that."

Say 2 unnamed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voters, quoted in "'It’s a Brand, Not a Band': Two Rock Hall Voters Reveal Their 2024 Ballots" (NY Magazine).

Have we stopped calling it the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? It's just the Rock Hall now? The whole thing is one mistake after another — just swapping in new mistakes.

I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2005 and blogged 7 things about it. The 7th is the best:

Did you watch the Golden Globes last night and hear what the entertainment industry people had to say about Trump?

"The most memorable part may have been at the beginning, when Mr. Fallon’s Teleprompter went out. He vamped for a bit, and after the commercial break he returned with a joke — likening his mishap to Mariah Carey’s singing disaster on New Year’s Eve — that it seemed half of Twitter had already made at that point."

From a NYT review of the Golden Globes show last night, "Trump Was the Elephant in the Ballroom at the Golden Globes."

Jimmy's a nice man. I like him. But I find celebrity talk about presidential politics so compulsively avoidable these days. The celebrities all backed Hillary Clinton. They — in their reeking privilege — seemed to have had their hearts set on 8 more years of glamming it up in the White House.

How many of them were at Obama's Last Party — the one that raved on until 4 a.m. and ended with waffles?

8 years ago, Obama demanded the freedom to "just eat my waffle," and last Saturday, the most elite and celebrated people celebrated the last of The Presidency called Obama with waffles in the White House.

And then they jetted back to L.A. to dress in even prettier clothes to celebrate themselves with awards — golden globular awards — and to take shots from their La La Land* at the new celebrity President, the one whose opponent they all backed, and somehow they think we could care what nastiness they lobbed at Trump.

Did it hit? I don't know. I don't care. We were in the heartland — the frozen heartland — watching another channel and hailing Mary.

____________________________

* "With a 'La La Land' sweep, Hollywood once more falls in love — with itself."

Happy New Year's Day — pre-dawn, quiet-house looking back on New Year's Eve.

Some of you spent at least some of the annual-nonsense evening at this blog's New Year's Eve post. I'm up working on what I can't really properly tag written strangely early in the morning. It's just not strange for me to be writing early in the morning. Maybe there are some topics that are strange to blog early in the morning, but the comments that arrived while I was sleeping isn't one of them.

MadAsHell said:

Haven't you used this video....er, pardon me....movie in an earlier post?? 

Yes, here. Back when I was editing home movies and posting them as I made them. But I never put this up on actual New Year's Eve before.

Charlie Currie said:

Wait, these are my family home movies...ha...I really need to work on getting mine digitized.

It's easy to get them digitized. I was happy with Legacy Box. The hard part is figuring out what belongs in a watchable edit and not getting distracted by thoughts about how they should have used the camera. It's pointless to say hold the camera steady, pan slowly, and stop showing people opening Christmas presents.

EDH said:

Did any children coincidentally arrive 9 months after that hootenanny?

My parents already had their 3 children, 2 of whom you see in bed in the beginning of the clip. As for "hootenanny," I'm sure the music was not folk. I'm guessing, since it was danceable, it was some kind of big band jazz or Latin music.

BJM said:

Great video Althouse! My folks had a Tiki party room with bamboo furniture, jungle floral drapes, a palm thatched roof over the bar and a pair of red & white conga drums ala Ricky Ricardo... corny as all get out now... but it was magical to an eight yr old creeping down the stairs in the dark to watch a very similar scene of merry making on New Year's Eve 1954.

Yes, everybody loved Ricky back then.



Lucy always wanted to get into his act, and she embodied all of America's desire to get up and dance. Americans really wanted to be happy.

rhhardin said:

Traditionally, I just go to bed on new year's eve and the dog wakes me up at midnight when the rural gunfire starts outside.

At 9:31 PM, Peg said:

I'm sitting here reading Ann's blog. You can imagine how thrilling my evening is! ;)

I outdid you by being asleep.

Earnest Prole said:

If I recall from years ago, it's your mother sitting in someone's lap showing off her garter -- remind us of the story.

I had to edit something out of that part of the video. But there's no "story" to tell. I don't know who the man is.

robother said:

God, the memories! Even in the mid sixties, girls had garters holding up nylons, the flash of which was an instant turn-on. Pantyhose didn't off[er] anywhere near the titillation, and presented whole different logistical issues in seduction by dashboard light.

If only you knew the struggle in the sliver of time when miniskirts overlapped with wearing stockings and garters. Stockings had a dark band at the top, and, when sitting, you had to take care not to let your "stocking tops" show.

Andy Cunningham said:

I like how everyone used to look so nice. Back when, men wore suits, ties, hats and pocket squares even while robbing a bank. People dressed up for meals. Singers and comedians dressed up. You could often discern a man's job since it came with a uniform (and hat). Now with the 60's riff raff running things we are all under-dressed even to paint a garage.

Here's a 39-second edit I made of home-movie clips of my father. Check out — at 6 seconds — what he wore to install patio bricks.

Big Mike said:

Happy New Year to Professor Althouse and the irrefutable Meade.

Irrefutable?! I'm going to use that.

Sane_voter said:

2016 ended wonderfully with Mariah Carey's epic fail live on ABC just before the ball drop....

Ah, yes. A bad start for the year for Mariah Carey....

Shit happens 😩 Have a happy and healthy new year everybody!🎉 Here's to making more headlines in 2017 😂 pic.twitter.com/0Td8se57jr

— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) January 1, 2017

But what are you going to do? Shit happens.

Is this Mariah-Nicki thing going to work?

Is anyone watching?

We watched the first hour last night (with the rest saved on DVR), and, well, it seems the problem is that Nicki Manaj came to play. She's prepared. She's like the Tracy Flick of "American Idol." She's studied, and she's ready. If this reality show were "Survivor," she's be voted off immediately, because she wants it so bad. Meanwhile, Mariah Carey obviously believed she could simply swan in and be Mariah. That's enough in itself. How awful to have to be one of 2 women, when the other woman wants it so bad. It's like the wife and the mistress.

But there isn't even a husband. Unless America is the husband. But America, in "American Idol," is a whole lot of young girls. And what do they care about a wife and a mistress clawing it out? Poor Mariah! Don't tell me Keith Urban/Randy Jackson count as the husband who will step up — in this exaggerated TV sitcom — and choose the right woman, the true sweetheart, the wife, Mariah. These men are oblivious to the psychodrama. They're floating along aimlessly as if the only thing really happening is a talent show, where various young people try to sing as well as they can, and modestly knowledgeable judges give honest assessments.

Oh! My heart breaks for Mariah. But I must say, Nicki has won it all. She came to win and she crushed the competition in the first hour. Congratulations! But... is anyone watching?

"Do youuuuuuuuuu have this in a sizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzze SIX?"

"Gingham is my jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAmmmmmm."

Gingham style.

Mariah Carey becomes an "American Idol" judge.

Which means Randy Jackson is staying (since he is her manager).

Carey was a guest mentor on "American Idol" in 2008, and she did an excellent job. I see I wrote: "Kudos to Mariah for doing the show the Barry Manilow way." The link goes to a post of mine that criticizes Dolly Parton for not guest-mentoring the Barry Manilow way. Here's the really old post, from 2006, praising Barry Manilow:

I just want to say how much I like Barry Manilow. Not his music, which isn't to my taste, but him as a person. Unlike Stevie Wonder and various other guests, he did not do the show to get the kids to sing his songs, and he took his role as a music teacher seriously. He really analyzed each performance and came up with concrete help and never seemed to be at all about self-promotion. I know you could say that this nice-guy thing is just his gimmick, but if it is, it works well, and maybe more people ought to try it.

I don't know who the third judge is going to be in the new "American Idol," but I'd be perfectly happy to have Barry Manilow.

Mariah Carey tells the world that she waited until after the wedding to have sexual intercourse with Nick Cannon, her second husband.

Link. Possible responses:

1. You're 38 and it's your second marriage, no one cares about your pretentious chastity, and this is lame publicity seeking.

2. When you're old enough to be jaded about everything, this is a great way to make your wedding exciting.

3. She may be a publicity hound and she may even be lying, but she has influence over some people, and I love seeing her use it this way.

4. No one cares, and it just embarrassing to act like she thinks anyone cares.

5. Hey, why can't I have an adorable husband with a cool name like Nick Cannon?