"I can't believe it's a man!"

Ugh. So the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was download the Streisand/Diamond monstrosity that I mentioned yesterday. The sad thing is, I still have such a soft spot for Neil Diamond (don't ask) that finally listening to it didn't even erase it from my head, just cement it in there for posterity. So yeah, there's that. I'm not very happy about it, but what can you do?

I've got very mixed feelings about Devendra Banhart, ranging from "the fucking guy's a genius" to "that dumb, dirty hippie". No, but some of his songs just baffle me in their pointlessness. and some are so beautiful that it's hard to grasp. This is neither, but a live recording with Jana Hunter where they play a combination of one of his songs and...yes, an R. Kelly song, straight from Chocolate Factory. I love that he refers to Kelly as a "visionary prophet" in this. The only other person that would ever call R. Kelly that is...R. Kelly. I don't know, every time I hear this it makes me smile, and with the situation with my dad going the way it is, I need that right now. All this R. Kelly talk really makes me want to revisit Trapped in the Closet, which if you haven't seen, is absolutely the greatest 12 part R&B opera EVER MADE. Also Aziz Ansari apparently deos a complete reading of the story, complete with cast members from the movie, which just about sounds like the most hilarious thing ever. Anyways, I like this song.

"Little Monkey/Step in the Name of Love" (live) - Devendra Banhart & Jana Hunter
Buy some Devendra Banhart albums here.

on the complete other hand, I fucking hate this song. I adored it for about 4 months and then it just became the summer anthem of all time. It has been run and rerun ad nauseum, and no less than 5 people have covered it. I should take this moment to point out that this is exactly why pirating music is wrong, because by the time that everyone was dancing their ass off to this, I was the curmudgeonly asshole sitting in the corner grumbling about how old this song was. It's much better to remain in step with everyone else than ahead of the curve, as this scenario proved to me. All of the cover's I've had to endure, none of them did a damned thing for me except reinforce my dislike of the song. Except this one, which sorta surprised me. I didn't hate the Raconteurs album, but it didn't really do much to stand out for me, either. Muchlike the last 2 White Stripes albums. I just prefer to see Jack rockin' and wailing, and not trying to sing in tune or make a pretty melody. And somehow, he totally pulled this off at Lollapalooza, making me wonder if the Raconteurs would be a much better live show than I'd anticipated. Anyway, I found myself nodding along to this at my desk and was momentarily horrified. By the end of the song I was full on into it. So kudos to them for the rescue attempt. The other versions still piss me off though.

"Crazy" (Gnarls Barkley cover, live) - The Raconteurs