Redemption! At last.

I don't think anything else has to be said.

The Great Glee Sing-Off Vote-Off!

So finally, Rachel Berry met her equal. With a litigation team rivaling that of Lindsay Lohan, with a political team that brought Barack Obama to power, with an economic team that prevented the Great Recession from hitting Harpo Productions, Rachel Berry must be very afraid. But no, she has her entire glee club friends... wait she doesn't have friends.

The poll after the jump, with pics! And special participation from Floyd Mayweather's worst enemy!

Voting ends on the premiere of the second season, on September 21.

It's final: Charice is not pretty

The people have spoken! The results:
Yes: 21
No, but she is talented: 13
No: 11
Total no: 24

Yes, the people are sane. I thought they've gone mad last May 10, but it's not that bad.

Thank you for exercising your right! On to the next one!

On colonial mentality mindedness

I tweeted "You know there is a recession when you see Charice in TOTAL GIRL magazine." (See the cover here.) Then someone replied that Charice is talented. Then, I told the person Charice is not pretty enough to be in Total Girl magazine. Then, the person replied that I have "colonial mentality", then things got out of hand.

You can read the rest of the discussion on my Twitter (it is on the public timeline so everyone can see it), so let's just settle the issue:

Note: Someone voted 52 times for "yes". As such, duplicate votes for "yes" have been removed.

Poll will run until June 12. Every vote cast goes to my Google AdSense account. LOL.

Related post: Note to Charice

Top 10 sports TV theme songs

What better way to pump you up for a game than a heart-stopping theme song? That song you'd always associate with a particularly sporting event. When you hear the "Pussycat Dolls," that means its ESPN on ABC's crappy coverage of the NBA on air. When you hear Sandwich's "Laban Kung Laban" it's ABC's coverage of the PBA. When you hear Boom Gonzalez singing a capella, then you're probably high.

Which brings me, the sport coverage bodies here in the Philippines change their theme songs (if they do have one) every season. I'd prefer for them to use one constant theme over and over again, so when you hear that song, it's game time. Same with the graphics. Let ABS-CBN sports use the same graphic for all of their sport coverages. In their (and many others') case, they use different graphics for every league, every season. It would've been better if they used the same constant graphic for all leagues every time, perhaps the only time it'll be different is if it is broadcast on another channel. (I particularly dislike ABC using ESPN's graphics when it is aired there.)

So here are the top ten theme songs for sporting events, and no, this one isn't included.

#10: Olympics on NBC

Unlike the rest of the entries, you'd only hear this every four years. And even though you may not know it, you've probably heard this before,

#9: "Heavy Action" (Monday Night Football theme)

Forget about the Monday Night Wars, this was the thing for sports every Monday nights.

#8: NBA on TNT

This was before the now-familiar black circle with red rims logo of TNT. this was the time when MJ was burning hoops a la your favorite steak house.

#7: Premier League Anthem

No matter what TV station the Barclays Premier League matches air, they'd always use this song over and over again.

#6: "The Hockey Theme"

What's better than a nasty fight on ice? The original "Hockey Theme" on CBC. Since CBC can't pay, CTV bought the rights and remixed it to hell.

#5 "Champions League Anthem"

Again, just like the Premier League anthem, this is the only song they'd use on any broadcaster the Champions League matches air.

#4: College basketball on CBS

It's cheery, and it might be older than you, that's how great this song is.

#3: Major League Baseball on Fox

Even if you're not into baseball, you should've heard this somewhere else.

#2: "The Chain" Formula One on BBC

The bass guitar alone is sure to pump you up to drink up haterade for Fernando Alonso.
The original song by Fleetwood Mac.

#1: "Roundball Rock"

There's only one theme song for NBA fanatics the world over: this song from John Tesh. If you're an NBA fan and you don't know this song, then you belong to the "fanboy" class of fans.

Goodbye, Michael

Once every decade humanity experiences a death of an icon, a death that has touched the lives of everyone.

This decade, it happened twice. On 2005, Pope John Paul II died. As the decade nears its close, humanity sees another icon, albeit completely different, not as holy, but just as potent.

Perhaps what was different from Michael Jackson's death is that no one saw it coming, or to put it more aptly, no one expected it to be this soon, in this circumstance. People might have had expected a more bizarre death, like he fell off a hotel while dangling himself covered with a blanket, or probably of too much dizziness in riding those Neverland rides, or perhaps other more morbid things.

But he died via cardiac arrest. Not as creepy, but just as surprising, and mysterious.

Today's generation heard of Jackson via their parents, who were probably fanboys and fangirls of the man. They recounted to their offspring that they found their spouse at a record bar looking for the Thriller cassette tape, or at a bar while dancing to Jackson's music. He impressed your mom by embarrassing himself with his own heartfelt rendition of the moonwalk.

Another medium where today's generation learned of Jackson was via television that covered the latter years of life, away from Off the Wall and Bad – his numerous run-ins with the law, his 1993 sexual assault case that was settled out of court, his ranch turned into a theme park, his 2005 child abuse case that ended in a not guilty verdict, and now his death. We can even say the stars of today emulated him; Justin Timberlake with his grooves, and Britney Spears with her life.

We may never understand the man, nor even base it with society's standards of how a person must live, for he was different, not in the case that he was above us, but with the reason that despite we saw him everywhere, even in instances where we should've never seen him, we never really knew him.

Society treats people like Jackson differently; since he is a public figure, he should put himself above other people's expectations on how to live. Yet society overlooks the fact that people like Jackson, aside from being under the microscope constantly, had probably no idea on how to live a life worthy of society's whims; or even live a normal life.

That's why we may never understand Jackson, his logic, his morals, his life and how he displayed himself. Yet society will put those bad things behind him, and will remember Jackson not as the man who had a eccentric life, but rather as a man that was never understood, for he was an icon, who excelled in human endeavor in ways other people not scrutinized by society were never able to do.

Note to Charice

Please see song # 12.

Before this gets to be DMCAed. Or like that.

And yes, I like the title for song #1.


And yes, JoJo is hot, and since you are here anyway...

Top 10 forgotten boy bands of the 90s/early 00s

And no, Lincoln Hawk is not included. So are the Jonas Brothers, they were probably imitating the Naked Brothers Band during the nineties.

10. Boyz II Men
What's the easiest way to get to a girl's heart? Sing a heartfelt and soulful rendition of "I'll Make Love To You."

9. The New Kids on the Block
You know what's awesome with NKOTB? Their song "Step by Step" was a basis for this. Too bad they're more of an eighties band, and they probably had a feud with a band named after a dish. I'm just guessing.

8. 5ive
If you get to hang out with Queen in the early 2000s, you're something. Now if you got to hangout with Queen with Freddie Mercury, then that's something else.

7. BBMak
Get this, BBMak is a British group, and they made more money in the States than the rainy isles. Their hit song, "Back Here," even hit #1 at the adult contemporary charts, considering they were... a boy band?

6. Human Nature
Aussie represent! And no, I'm not talking about Nikki Webster who sang on the Olympics, and she turned out to be hot. You know, they sang the... I dunno.

5. The Backstreet Boys
If there was someone who didn't know the dance step for "Get Down" back in the day, either they're emo before emo was even an idea, or they were too stoned. Plus, they even spawned Aaron Carter, had a feud with NSYNC, and Nick Carter and had a feud with Aaron Carter. And Hilary and Lindsay feuded for Aaron's love. Ah, those were the days.

4. O-Town
Orlando is known for Walt Disney World (Disneyland is at Anaheim), the Orlando Magic, the Backstreet Boys and the boy band who ripped-off the first few notes of "Drowning" for their song "All or Nothing." And since "All or Nothing" is so much better, and O-Town represents the entire... O-Town (not just some place where the cool kids hanged out), O-Town wins vs. their crosstown rivals. Plus, they came from "probably" the forerunner of American Idol, "Making the Band."

3. N-SYNC
If there are several ways in which the band name can be spelled (*NSYNC, 'N-Sync), and that name is actually the last letters of their names, it is a #1 on our book unless your British with a British accent.

2. Westlife
Ah, Weslife, the boy band where girls and gays screamed their pharynges out, with the gays not realizing some of them might be their federation-mates. And if any singer can make a song out of "Bop Bop Baby" is a #1 in our book, unless...

1. A1
...they almost caused a riot at the mall that caused their supposed mini-concert to be cancelled. Even the Beatles didn't have that. All they had were the bishops running after them at the then called MIA.

In defense of Chris Brown

Nothing to find here. Move along.

MMVIII: Songs that altered the course of history... or not

On my movies list, an anon said that I have crappy taste in movies. News flash: I haven't watched any of them, OK, probably the #1 movie. Just kidding.

The thing is, these lists aren't the things that I liked, these are the things that made 2008 memorable, at least for yours truly.

So in my songs list, I'd admit one thing: I listened to all of them. Like it's time-consuming to waste 3-4 minutes of your life listening to a song than watching a movie for 2 hours. So, let's dig up the year-end charts with the songs that will make the future generations exclaim with disgust, "WTF music is that?!"

10. "Sex on Fire" by Kings of Leon

This would've made it by its awesome name alone, but it is also an awesome song. It's like "I Will Possess Your Heart" condensed in 4 minutes, short but sweet. Like sex, on fire. Like, a song that is nominated for a Grammy.

9. "7 Things" by Miley Cyrus

This is my obligatory cute girl song. This can make the tweens bounce like basketballs on the New York Knicks practice, only that they don't bounce since they ball hog all practice long.

8. "Apologize" by OneRepublic featuring Timbaland

When you are doing the nasty, this is the last song you'd want to hear. But not Blair Waldorf and Nate Archibald (not the Knicks player).

7. "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry

I thought I saw Katy in that "Galaxy" film whose title was too long I forgot it already. Turns out it was Zooey Deschanel, and she was last seen on Bones' evidence table.

Now, if this song had a male version, it should be sung by Piolo Pascual.

6. "Betamax" by Sandwich

Before the Wii, there was the GameCube. Before the GameCube, the Nintendo 64 (the rest of the world played on the PlayStation). Before the N64, the SNES. Before the SNES, the NES. Before the NES, heck, I dunno. There, I just related the history of video gaming consoles.

And oh, before there was Wowowee, there was Eat Bulaga. Heck, Eat Bulaga still exists.

5. "With You" by Chris Brown

There's something with RNB acts that keep on saying the word "You". And on the video above, he sang it on Nashville, too bad he didn't country-fy it. Like this song. With you, with you, with youuuuuuu. But 2008 won't be complete without a song from Will Tutt and...

4. "Take a Bow" by Rihanna

...Kaitlin Cooper? OK, that girl from one of the Bring It On flicks. The one who like tossed the coin or something (don't tell me how I knew that.) Like I don't even recognize her.

The video above comes from her concert at Manila. Double click the video for the credit.

3. "Decode" by Paramore

I can officially say this: the song is better than the movie. The movie was gay anyway so...

2. "Always Be My Baby" by David Cook

If I ever heard this song again, I'll go mad. Really. Like it's played ad infinitum in jologs stations, Class AB stations, AC stations, CHR stations, oldies stations, heck even on AM stations. Hey at least it's better than the Mariah Carey original.

1. "Womanizer" by Britney Spears

Way back in high school, I lust on Britney all day long. I still do because K-Fed is now dating some volleyball chick. Oh Britney, how the men of the world missed you. Don't ever leave again. And tag along your little sis while you're at it.

Music review: creatio ex nihilo

One boring afternoon, I was listening to NU 107, aka the high-scale brother of 91.5 Energy FM; on their new music stinger, I heard the voice of a happy girl. Certainly NU 107 wasn't the place to listen happy songs, after all, Orange and Lemons won at the Rock Awards, which was the then darkest hour of Pinoy rock before one of the Hale people wore Manchester United and Real Madrid jerseys.

Guess what, that voice belong to Katie White, no, not that American soap star that kisses girls and likes it very much. Katie White the vocalist of British indie band The Ting Tings. Just like every indie band, it is a prerequisite for their band name to be prefixed with "The." Like The Kills, The Killers, The Bravery, The Strokes, The Virgins, Shiela and The Insects, and so forth. But the ting is, I wouldn't even classify The Ting Tings as rock, much less pop-rock, it's more of pop-electronica or pop-techno, the type of music Seth Cohen listens to when he wants to get laid by one Lou Palone Summer Roberts.

So what makes them different from the other dance acts such as Kylie Minogue and her younger clone named Hilary Duff and Madison Avenue (which reminds me, their type of music is alike, even the composition is identical, one pretty girl and the dude who does the dirty work)?

The difference is that their songs are of the happy variety. Sure Kylie did happy songs when she had wilder hair but it seems that nobody does that nowadays. Now we hear about Russian lesbians kissing each other and Hilary Duff on a falling elevator making out with some dude, of course with love. No, the Ting Tings doesn't do that; instead they watched a lot of White Stripes videos and came up with a subtle change -- instead of triangles, use their bare hands. Touching each other. Touching their hands.

"Shut Up and Let Me Go" is one such example. The title may not seem happy but once you'd hear the word "HEY!" you'll be transported into an alternate universe where Ryan Atwood and Taylor Townsend were strangers in The O.C. Lively guitar hooks, Katie White's lively singing and a pretty short song for people with the attention span of Chuck Bartowski.

Actually their songs on the surface may not mean anything. You can listen to "That's Not My Name" and don't care about the lyrics and enjoy yourself. But a dozen listenings will give you the idea that their songs follow the basic pop song, first verse, chorus, another verse and repeat chorus until fade. Looks boring but it isn't, since Katie White's voice is coated with sugar that makes diabetic die in a matter of seconds.

So while you may have nothing else to do and is extremely bored, doesn't want to listen to boring discussion, steal a few minutes and listen to a Ting Tings song. You won't regret it, unless you're caught.

Is Avril Lavigne a Poser?

So perhaps you’ve heard about Avril Lavigne. She burst into the music scene on 2002 with her debut album Let Go. Her first single, Complicated made her household name the world over. With the release of her next single, Sk8er Boi, her songs were classified as skater punk. And since punk is under rock, the metalheads around the world accused her of desecrating the holy name of rock n’ roll.

WHAT IS A POSER?
A poser is someone who makes you believe that she belongs to a certain group, but reality, that person’s personality and character is overly different. That person claims to be a part of a group but the majority doesn’t accept that person.

O, CANADA!
Americans have animosity towards Canadians, and vice versa. Americans hate Canada. Canada used to prevent Fox News from airing on their country. And you know what? Avril Lavigne came from the Land Up North. If she was American it would take a SNL messup before she would condemned with all of her CDs burned on a large bonfire (sounds familiar?).

IS PUNK = ROCK?
There some allegations that punk is too melodic, too rhythmic. It sounds poppish. Bland. And with the long list of great rock bands of the past decades, metalheads are outraged of what they say punkers posing as rockers.

Should rock have heavy rhythms? Noisy beats? Unintelligible lyrics? Songs about sex, drugs and violence? Music for adults? Rock was as counterculture during the 1970s (Remember the Vietnam War?). However, during the onset of the 80s, rock became a part of the mainstream. Aritsts such as Elvis Costello sang pop tunes that were considered rock hits. Heck even Madonna was a rock star.

And how about Nirvana? Where were they classified? Since they come from Seattle (a few kilometers south of the Canadian border), there was some confusion of what kind of rock they were doing. As time went by, Nirvana became the pioneers of the so-called alternative sub-genre. And with Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the rest, as they say, is rock history. More alternative bands came upon the scene, each with its own personality, its own followers, and critics.

Punk arose as a lighter brand of rock. Something girls can understand. However, the hardcore metalheads saw this as an infiltration of pop into their world. Enter Avril Lavigne. She’s Canadian, she’s eighteen, and she’s from Arista. She was ripe for the metalheads’ criticism. On message boards all over the World Wide Web, when an Avril Lavigne thread/topic was created, the second reply would be “She’s a poser!” And the posts were mostly from girls (ask Hilary Duff). Girls hate each other. Dudes would join the bandwagon and voila, Let Go went multiple platinum and Avril had her own nationwide tour.

DOES IT MATTER?
Eminem is white when he started rapping. Conservatives were outraged. But where were the hip-hop guys? They embraced Eminem with open arms, even though he’s White (though Briton Craig David had a tougher time, because, gasp!, his not American!). Should I add Michael Jackson?!

The bottom line is, you can’t please everybody. And you can’t classify everyone on a single category. Even Johnny Cash is both in the Country and Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. If Avril Lavigne isn’t a rocker, then she’s something else, but to argue against record sales (or is it sales records?) is tough.

Jealousy won’t get you somewhere. And Avril Lavigne made recording executives rich. Rocker? Maybe not. Cash cow? Yes.