Pictured: Hollywood.

Why do we keep remaking things?

Not to sound like my Dad right now - a man who will really only watch movies that: 1) have dead actors; 2) or are about a historical event (preferably from the turn of the 20th century through the late 1960s); and 3) definitely do not involve Nicolas Cage or Sean Penn (though he did warm to Sean Penn's portrayal of David Kleinfeld in Carlito's Way) - but why do we keep remaking things?


And why do we let John Leguizamo be in them?

I just saw the trailer for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ("TGWTDT"). For those that don't know, this is the filmed adaptation of Stieg Larsson's very popular posthumously-published book of the same name (translated from the Swedish ("Man som hatar kvinnor") it means, "Men Who Hate Women." No joke there.).
It is also a remake.
See, the Swedes already made a movie adaptation of this book back in 2009, and it was pretty damn popular. It was like a Swedish blockbuster, if you can imagine such a thing!


Oh, I can imagine it alright....

It made a ton of money (or kroner, I guess), and had a pretty good international release to boot. So, despite the Swedes making the whole trilogy (the last one was just released, in fact) into movies and raking in the kroner, what does America do? Do we let them have their entry into psychological thriller-dom? Do we sit idly by and accept that Scandinavians might have something to offer the rape-revenge genre of movies other than the US and Korea?
Nope. We buy the rights, and remake that shit.
And here it is:



If you can't see it, it is likely that Youtube took it down for copyright infringement reasons. It looked like it was bootlegged in a theater anyway, but I will say that those iPhones sure have upped the quality of former in-theater bootleggings.

Now, this version of TGWTDT does have some things that make it appealing:

• Daniel "I'm obviously not gay, I'm James Bond" Craig as the investigative journalist hero.
• Relative unknown (unless you saw The Social Network, the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street from 2010, or some show called Women's Murder Club...which, with a name like that, should be remade) Rooney Mara as the dragon-tattooed lesbian/not lesbian/tough-as-nails-yet-shy-and-vulnerable computer hacker main character.
  
• David Fincher at the helm.
• Steve Zaillian writing the screenplay. Here's hoping it turns out better than Jack the Bear.
• That title sequence and Trent Reznor cover of The Immigrant Song which makes it look more like Se7en than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

And about the use of The Immigrant Song: Isn't it incredibly ironic that the producers chose that song? A song about Scandinavians that come to your shore to rape and pillage? The movie is about Scandinavians. Set in Scandinavia (read: Sweden). So, is this some kind of reverse-irony or inverted irony, then? Here we have Anglos pillaging a Scandinavian best-seller and bringing it to America, only to export it back to Scandinavia when it goes into foreign release, in order to re-pillage the pockets of the Scandinavians that created and supported the original work to begin with.


Pictured: Scandinavian irony. Not pictured: Vikings.

Further, The Immigrant Song itself was written and performed by a band of notorious pillagers: Led Zeppelin. If you had a song laying around in the 1970s you better lock it up because Page and Plant and going to snatch it, remake it into a hit, and snort the proceeds faster than you can say, "I'm a fan of traditional American blues music."


"Plagiarism never tasted so sweet." - Jimmy Page

But all that aside...Hollywood is remaking a movie that's two years old. Two years! That is simply not long enough before you jump into remake territory. It smacks of two things Hollywood has long been known for:

1. the naked cash-grab;
   
2. a sense of entitlement

Examples? Gladly:

1. THE NAKED CASH GRAB -


Harrison Ford's expression says, "I know you're mad, but there's nothing I can do. Did you see that divorce settlement I got slapped with?"


I know it's easy to take jabs at George Lucas, but seriously - he's been nakedly grabbing cash off this franchise for a generation.


Some cash-grabs are more smash-and-grabs, but they are naked, nonetheless.

2. A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT -


When actors decide to direct and have success (regardless of how overly-lauded that film was in reality (read: Braveheart)), sometimes they take their already inflated egos too far...by making an entire film in maya yucateco - a language spoken only in the Yucatan peninsula - that is enjoyed by no one.


Other times, actors choose to direct a project that is so near and dear to them, that they quite literally become the character. Kevin Spacey is a great actor, sure, but you can't decide to make a Bobby Darin movie, direct it, star in it, sing all the songs, and then actually GO ON TOUR with a full orchestra to sing the forgotten songs of Bobby Darin! And you wonder why you haven't seen Kevin Spacey in any movies lately.


And then sometimes one's own hubris becomes so all-encompassing that you believe that the public "must" have the last chapter to your saga. But you are wrong, notwithstanding Robert Duvall's absence. See also Back to the Future, Part 3 (1990); The Two Jakes (1990); Ghostbusters II (1989).

So, while it may make no sense that Hollywood is hell-bent on remaking a very popular and very recent movie, it is not surprising. Remember, Hollywood is the same place that convinced you Tom Cruise can act and that you really do like Cameron Diaz.


You do not like them together, however.

Hollywood will go back to the well as often as they can, so long as it means butts in the seats, money in the bank, and cocaine on the credenza.


Surely you saw that coming?

Even back in the day Hollywood was doing this. Now, some of that was due to the whole silent picture/talking picture revolution, but it came from the same idea: dolla dolla bill, y'all. There were multiple versions of The Wizard of Oz (1925, 1939), The Maltese Falcon (1931, 1941), and Ben-Hur (1925, 1959). Hell, Alfred Hitchcock damn near remade all of his silent movies as talkies once the technology was around. It was as if he got Hollywood to pay him for practicing movie-making.

So, while it's nothing new (get it?), it is disappointing. Not disappointing in an existential "there's-no-new-stories-to-tell-because-we're-living-the-same-life-cycle-over-and-over" or Nietzschean "eternal return" sort of way, but disappointing in that Hollywood is not attempting to try to create something new. Taking a common story and changing the characters, the setting, or the manner in which it is told is fine. In fact, it's what the art of storytelling is, right? But just lifting the same source material that was capably made into a hit movie by foreigners that already had all the trappings of an American action movie is just disappointing.

I guess I can understand the trend in Hollywood to reboot. This is the word they use to describe the process of taking a series that has been ridden so hard and putten away so wet (is that even a phrase?) that the only way they can get any more cash out of it is to start all over. The series is barren, so they must breathe new life into it from scratch. They had to, you see, for the ART! You've seen this happen to:

Batman

• In 1989, the first real cinematic attempt at getting Batman to the screen was a HUGE success (despite Tim Burton obviously never having read one single page of the comic book). A decent sequel followed. Two more were ordered. A new director takes over. All hell breaks loose and we are left with two awfully different Batmen (Batmans?) that are differently awful, the worst in costume design and art direction, and not one marquee actor cashing checks with their god-awful villainous one-liners but FOUR. Not to mention Alicia Silverstone. It is almost incomprehensible how that fourth one got made.

Alicia Silverstone - graduate of the Keanu Reeves School for Acting (1992, summa cum laude; B.F.A. in "Reactions").

• The reboot - Christopher Nolan takes over, hits reset with Batman Begins, takes a more serious tone (despite the addition of terrible female leads), and now people can't wait to see the third and final film. This is an example of rebooting that can work. They made a mint on the back of the bat, not once, but twice!

Superman

• Although it seems that reboots work best for superheroes, that's not dispositive. Just check out A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Halloweens, or the Screams. I sense a trend there.
• Anyway, Superman finally hit the big screen way back in 1978. This was a long time coming, too. It was huge! Flying Christopher Reeve, script by Mario "The Godfather, yeah that Godfather" Puzo, music by John Williams, and Marlon f-ing Brando! They knew it was such a bank-breaker that director Richard Donner was shooting the sequel at the same time. Superman was headed for the big screen!
• Like all good franchises, the Christopher Reeve Superman quickly went downhill. Superman III (which I seem to remember being played endlessly on HBO in the 1980s) had Robert Vaughn as a great villain, but the studio added Richard Pryor for comic relief (and to capitalize on the success of The Toy, maybe? or did he have some community service to do?). Now, I'm not some die-hard Superman nerd over here, but let's just say Pryor was a little out of place:

"My hat's too big." - Richard Pryor

• Then, the death knell was sounded with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, where Superman fought a poor man's Dolph Lundgren (Mark Pillow as "Nuclear Man") on the moon. Awful.

Maybe more Harry Hamlin than Dolph Lundgren.

• The reboot: after many (like many - including one by Tim Burton and Kevin Smith starring Nicolas Cage (my Dad would HATE that!) that is hilariously recounted at the above link) attempts to get Supes back to the big screen, Warner Bros. decided to hand it over to Bryan Singer. At this point, he had had a little success with The Usual Suspects and the X-Men franchise (another example of these trends, in itself). The result was a no-name Superman in a forgettable movie. Well done.
• Either way, you're glad you didn't see that Tim Burton one get made:

Like, really glad.

And this rebooting trend is continuing. It's as if this is the new plan for Hollywood - take what the public already loves and sell it back to them, because times have changed and this product really needs to be updated so we can play on nostalgia for the original while introducing the same old thing to a new generation, paving the way for a third reboot 5 years from now!

Some reboots in the works:

• Total Recall - but this time with Colin Farrell. As if the plot wasn't confusing enough, now you've got Mumbles McGillicutty to watch for 2 hours.
  
• Teen Wolf - MTV is turning this into a TV show. Why? Were all the best elements of the story not mined in the 186 minutes that make up Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Too?
  
• The Amazing Spider-Man - again, with the superheroes. The last entry in this series was 4 years ago. They've taken the Batman reboot doctrine and sped up the timeline considerably.
• Judge Dredd - maybe this one is ok. Judge Dredd might be an interesting character, but I think the stigma of the Sly Stallone/Rob Schneider shitstorm of 1995 is still looming.
• Footloose - because Hollywood hates your memories. Directed by Craig Brewer of Hustle and Flow fame.
  

So, there's just a few examples for you. Make what you will of Hollywood's intentions, but I think it's lame. I can understand remaking a movie that was not widely seen, or taking a new look at a classic to get different results (see True Grit by the Coens). And I can understand the notion of tapping into a collective nostalgia for the movies of our youth, or to take the reigns of a once-great franchise and make it great again. People can really appreciate it when it's done well, and it's not like great art hasn't been remade ad nauseum before. But the naked-cash-grabbing of most of these titles just makes me lose what little respect I had left for the movie business.

But it's not like they have a complete lack of conscience, right?



Not pictured: restraint.

A Very Serious Look at the Second Amendment

[*Author's note: I must give props (or a terrorist fist bump, if you watch Fox News) to D. Eric Setterlund for the subject of this post. It was our conversation and his info that put this into my head.]

As law school semester 4 draws nigh, I figured it may be time to write a law-related post.


Not to be confused with this law-related Post.

No, the issue we at Boss Blog would like to tackle is one of much more importance, one of much more gravitas, one that is much more topical:

The Second Amendment.

Now, perhaps you've heard of the Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Sure, that sounds familiar. Popularly, the Second Amendment is constantly being overshadowed by the First Amendment, who perpetuates the idea among all the other Amendments that the Second Amendment is just the "first loser." That First Amendment sure can be a dick. It's like he just gets to say whatever he wants.


Except "tits."

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the Second Amendment's meaning or anything (you can enroll in law school or join the NRA for that), but I do want to talk about a particular ruling from the Supreme Court and how that could affect the Second Amendment's application, and how that could potentially ruin your world. Now, don't worry, this isn't going to get political - we're all going to laugh along the way, and maybe at the end you'll have learned something, too.

NOTE: for all you legal-types that might be reading this, you can skip ahead to the part below about the Second Amendment specifically, as I will be discussing the Citizens United case and how rights are incorporated for the uninitiated. Or you can read it, and then call me out for my oversimplification of what is probably a very complicated issue...

We turn our attention first not to the Second Amendment, but instead to the prevailing notion that corporations are treated like people under the law, receiving many of the protections citizens have, because of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Notwithstanding a compelling argument that this is not case precedent, but instead an erroneously over-cited headnote to a case (see Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886)), the modern American system of jurisprudence does extend many rights to corporations as if they were people.

See, the 14th Amendment is a really important Amendment to the Constitution. Before we get into how that works, though, a little background:

You probably didn't learn this in high school or college US History (I guess you have to spend another $80,000 or so to get the real knowledge, but I'll give it to you for free), but it turns out that our forefathers were REALLY concerned with the government they were creating having too much power. These were guys that rejected the English monarchy, after all, so they were very protective of states' rights, and wanted to make sure their Federal government didn't overreach. As a result, all those "rights" in the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, jury trials, freedom from having to quarter troops, etc.) were rights you had as a citizen of the US, but not necessarily rights you had as a citizen of your state. They wanted to make sure the states were sovereign and could decide things for themselves. As a result, the Constitution had to be ratified by the States for them to be part of the Union, but not everything in the document was binding on the States.

Say what?!


Don't make him say it.

Yeah, I know, Arnold, but it's true. Over time, a lot of these rights were extended to citizens of each state, meaning their local governments weren't allowed to pass laws that infringed on them (e.g. Tennessee can't pass a law that says Tennesseans are not allowed to protest in a public park). This process was called "incorporation", meaning some rights in the Bill of Rights were now "incorporated" to the states.
So, how did they decide which ones were incorporated and which ones weren't? Well, we could spend an entire semester on that (and if you enrolled in Steve Mulroy's Constitutional Law class you did ... my God, did you), but basically the rights that were deemed "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" and "deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition" were the ones the Supreme Court said were incorporated. Slippery test, eh? Anyway, like I said over time a lot of these rights were incorporated.

Enter the 14th Amendment.

The 14th Amendment guarantees "due process" to all citizens of the States before they can be deprived of their life, liberty, or property. Further, all citizens of a State are guaranteed equal protection under the laws of their jurisdiction, and no state can abridge the privileges or immunities guaranteed to these state citizens by the federal government.
So, that's a lot, right?
The 14th Amendment said no state can pass laws that take away your federal "privileges and immunities" (like speech), no state can pass laws that don't provide for "equal protection" (like de-segregating the schools), and no state can deprive you of your life, liberty, or property without "due process" (meaning you get a proper trial on the one hand, or if the right is SO fundamental, they can't touch you at all - like marriage, oh wait...).

So you see the 14th Amendment became the shortcut to "incorporation" of those other rights that weren't incorporated yet to the states. If a right given by the Constitution to the citizens of the US (but not necessarily the citizens of the States) was "fundamental," then the 14th Amendment came along and said it was incorporated to the states.

Let's add that up:

If a right is fundamental, then it is incorporated to the citizens of the states. If a corporation is a citizen of a state, then it also is guaranteed the rights of citizens of the state.

Exactly. So a corporation, even though it's definitely not a person, has rights.
Weird.

This is where Citizens United enters the picture.
Maybe you remember this decision? It's the one that President Obama called out the Supreme Court justices for during his State of the Union address in 2010.


"I'm looking at you, Samuel Alito."

Basically (like very basically), it said that there were not differences when people spoke or when a corporation spoke, because they both had First Amendment protection.

The case was about campaign finance. Citizens United wanted to show Hilary: The Movie via On-Demand TV within 30 days of a primary. This is not allowed under a previous ruling and statute that said corporations can't use their general fund for "electioneering," and that regulation of political speech is OK if you're talking about a corporation as the speaker.

Well, the Supreme Court came along and overruled that stuff, saying that based on the First Amendment, which is "incorporated" to all citizens of all states, corporations have the right to political speech just like you and I do. So a corporation can engage in political speech and no one can stop them.

Without getting into a huge debate here, can anyone see how that could be bad?
Maybe/maybe not.

So let's add that up:

If the First Amendment has been incorporated to each state in the US, then all citizens of those states have the right to speech outlined in the First Amendment. If a corporation is deemed a citizen of State, then they have the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment (even political speech) just like a citizen of the state has, too.

Exactly. That's what Citizens United says.

Great, so how does the Second Amendment play into that? "From my cold, dead hand," and all that hoi polloi?

Going back to our initial discovery that not all the rights in the Bill of Rights were guaranteed to every state, it turns out the rights in the 2d Amendment are some of those. So that whole debate on gun control that raged throughout the 1980s (and through today) needed to be decided by the Supreme Court. Could a state ban the sale of a weapon? Could there be any regulation of firearms in this country?

Well, states certainly tried that, and garnered both failure and success. We're not going to debate gun control pros and cons (save that for family gatherings with relatives from Arkansas or Michigan, right?), but we are going to cover the next development in our discussion of this "incorporation" business:

Two very important Supreme Court decisions that decided the fate of the 2d Amendment and whether your state government or federal government could pry that gun from your "warm, alive hand."



Too soon?

The first, D.C. v. Heller, held that the 2d Amendment was incorporated to the District of Columbia, because that's federal territory, and that the 2d Amendment guaranteed an individual right, so the powers-that-be didn't have as much regulatory power as they thought they did.

The second, McDonald v. City of Chicago, held that the 2d Amendment outlined a fundamental right, thus it is incorporated to the States because of the 14th Amendment.

Now, these cases didn't do away with regulation of firearm possession completely (much to the chagrin of militia-nuts across the country), but it did go a long way in saying that it is a fundamental right to have a weapon, thus there are very strict rules about the regulations that are allowed.

So now that we have all the pieces, let's add it up:

If the 2d Amendment is a fundamental right, then it's incorporated to the states, meaning every citizen of every state has a right to keep and bear arms.
If a corporation is a citizen of a state, then it has the same rights as a citizen of that state.

Thus, a corporation has the right to keep and bear arms.


Go ahead and say it.

That can't be right, can it? Surely people can see why this would be bad, right? Regardless, it could be true. I wouldn't doubt that a few corporations will try, and it will take a Supreme Court ruling to decide the matter.

Why don't we go ahead and look into the future and see how this will play out.

If Corporations Have 2d Amendment Rights, the World is Over as We Know It,
by Carl Eppler:

If corporations are extended the rights of the 2d Amendment (since they are considered citizens and citizens are guaranteed the fundamental right of arms bearing) then the following things will happen:

• Corporations will begin purchasing weapons. Not to stockpile or anything, just to have them, you know, because they have to protect themselves. Don't worry, we'll keep them in a locked safe, unloaded.

• Corporations will hire private security forces. Now that other hostile corporations have weapons, we really need to protect ourselves from those other irresponsible gun-owning corporations. Some of those guys really put the "hostile" in "hostile take-over." Zing!

"They threw in the reflective face-shield for free!"

• Corporate CEOs will start off looking like this:

"Your options have vested. Fully."

then become this:


"Your options have vested. Partially."

quickly devolving to:


"The only option is: Death to all who oppose me!"

• Board meetings will start off like this:

"Listen, we really need to get those quarterly reports done, okay?"

then become this:


"Listen, we really need to get these launch codes ready, okay? And are those quarterlies ready yet?"

ultimately ending in:


"Listen, we really need to get those quarterly reports done, okay?"

• Shareholders and VPs will look like this:

"Yeah, I didn't wear a tie today, we're just really down-to-earth here at Blackwater, Inc."

then become this:


"You really need to come to GRIPS with the stock-splitting plan. Har, har har!"

resulting in:


"No, I don't mind the title Vice President of Henchmen, I just feel like whenever I put a proposal in the shareholder report, no one takes it seriously."

I think I've made my point, right?

We know exactly how this will play out, America! We've seen it for years in important societal commentaries like G.I. Joe and James Bond films. We have to be alert to the corporate menace that are "ruthless, terrorist organizations determined to rule the world and also turn profits each quarter in order to keep their stock price high!"

Again, I bet this happens. I have no doubt a corporation will push the issue of: stockpiling weapons, or making their employees carry guns, or hiring mercenaries in the HR department, or holding another company hostage with a hydrogen bomb, and eventually the State will step in and shut them down, and then they'll sue the State and the Supreme Court will have to decide. That, or we'll have to start a daring special missions force to stop them. Worse yet, we may have to hire a British secret agent to infiltrate them and have sex with their most beautiful corporate assistants (I guess that's the same thing, isn't it?).

It's like inventing a robot that can punch people. Everyone agrees that's stupid, right? We know how that will end because we've seen Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Wargames. Who would be dumb enough to put money into researching that?
Oh. My. God.

So please, Supreme Court, be aware of the warning signs and don't let this happen. Don't let yourselves become the next robotic punching bag for "science" ripe for eventual enslavement by machines.

And next time you see a memo at your workplace that says:

"TO: All partners
FROM: Destro Labs, Inc.
RE: Increasing Global Presence via Weather Domination"

please take heed, and don't say I didn't tell you so.

The Gay/Not Gay/Definitely Gay Lyrics of George Michael

Dear America of 1985: This man is NOT gay. Not at all. Pay no attention to the multitude of clues you are being bombarded with. This guy wants nothing more than to sell records and sleep with chicks. Love, Sony Records.


[*author's note: Props to Jphive, my good friend who is the genesis of this post. Also, there was so much picture-evidence for this topic that I had to create a "George Michael" folder to manage them all. Seriously.]

Georgios Panayiotou. George Michael.


Trivia tidbit: GM also dabbled in Colonel Harlan Sanders fetishism for a bit in 1985.

We all know the story of little Georgios, no need for me to rehash it for you. It breaks down like this: little Greek kid with a huge voice goes to England and gains HUGE success with his schoolmate in a band with an onomatopoeia for a name, dumps that no-talent schoolmate into obscurity, goes solo and has more MASSIVE success world-wide, decides he wants to be a serious artist, stops appearing in videos and has a protracted legal war with his label, then gets arrested for waving his willy at an undercover cop, comes out of the closet, and then seems to make a career out of getting arrested.


The road to fame is paved with community service.

Now don't get me wrong - I love George Michael. I'm not afraid to say it, either. Yes, I own all three WHAM! albums on vinyl. Yes, I have copies of Faith and Listen Without Prejudice, too. I think he is one of the best singers out there; he has an amazing voice. In fact, I would agree with my old friend Matt Sterling and dub him "King of the (Alive) Gay Singers."


Sorry, GM, this guy still holds the title of "King of the Gay Singers." And not just because he already had the cape, sceptre, and crown.

Are all his songs great? No (ever heard "Too Funky"?...terrible). But did he have some massively popular and catchy hits?
Hell yes.

Can you deny the greatness of "Careless Whisper"? "Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)"? "Father Figure"? what about that duet with Elton John? And did you ever hear his cover of "Somebody to Love"?

The guy had 8 #1 singles in America, as well as 7 #1s in the UK...sold 20 million copies of his first solo record, Faith, as well as 10 million copies of the title single! This guy was a hit machine in the 1980s. I think in 1987 or 1988 he had 3 singles still in the top ten at the same time! Couple that with his successes in WHAM! and you've got a very serious money-maker on your hands.


The double entendres are free, however.

But all this seems to be largely forgotten about GM because of a little legal trouble he had back in 1998 (not to mention all his subsequent legal trouble - lay off the sticky-icky, George). Seems he engaged in a little "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" tit-for-tat (but not really, in this case, is it?) with an undercover LA policeman at a public park/gay hook-up locale. His ensuing arrest made world-wide headlines as now it was clear that one of the the premiere global sex-symbols of the 1980s was batting for the other team. America and Britain were shocked!


Shocked, I tell you.

I mean, you have to understand just how big of a star GM was. From WHAM! to his first solo album, he was everywhere. You couldn't turn on MTV without seeing this guy. And they made sure to sell him to all those hungry teen girls with disposable income the best they could.


Hot pink long-sleeve Tshirt: not gay, as long as you wear it with neon yellow fingerless gloves.

With WHAM!, he and buddy Andrew Ridgeley were popular enough to sell about 20 million albums, have a farewell tour that concluded at Wembley stadium (which was 8 hours long and attended by 73,000 people), and were the first western pop stars to do a concert in communist China. Yeah, WHAM! was the diplomatic unit (no pun intended) sent to extend the hand of goodwill to China in 1985!


Banana-yellow jacket and matching pants (with fringe on each) without a shirt: not gay in the least, as long as your silent partner also wears a get-up that's mono-chromatic and a primary color.

As a solo artist, Faith was HUGE! He made a video for every damn single, each single was catchy and a hit, and he even scored some controversy points with all that "I Want Your Sex" business (but it turns out he didn't want "your" sex, he wanted "that guy over there's" sex).


Suspenders, a high-waisted belt, and an Amish-looking hat: definitely not gay. It was just popular for men to dress like "Downtown" Julie Brown in 1987.

And yet...looking back, did he leave us some clues as to which way he swung? Was it really all so shocking in hindsight (no pun intended, but see what I did there)?


Mesh shirts: not gay as long as they're tucked into your jeans. Without a belt.

To wit:

"Freedom '90."

Here's a song that was released on GM's second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. Still waiting for Volume 2, actually, but see what GM did there? He was so tired of all the success and money and fame from his first solo album (the multi-platinum Faith, which scored him an endless supply of cocaine, cash, and women, I'm sure) that he wanted to do what all artists do: show the world that they are "serious" about *insert art form here* and focus on that. They want to make sure their audience knows they're mature artists, not just money-grubbing fame-whores. And they want their same audience to come along with them (i.e. keep buying all their albums because they're artistic, not because they want money) for their "journey". Can you please just listen to my music, without prejudice!? So, GM does this and is actually pretty successful with it. Listen Without Prejudice made it all the way to #2 in America, stopped only by this man:


If you dress ridiculous enough, you will be #1 in America.

And, GM did it without ever appearing in his own videos. This was the heyday of MTV, people, so that's a big deal. MTV was literally making pop-stars via videos from 1983 until probably 1996 when they stopped showing videos and replaced them with reality television (and now they're making stars out of those attention whores...this is how a person named "Snookie" can be famous without irony). But GM, who plastered his unshaven face and tight-jeaned ass on everything possible in 1987 and 1988 to promote Faith,


Feathered hair and state-trooper shades: not gay at all. As long as you wear a leather jacket over your wife-beater.

decided to forego all that "promotional" hoopla on Listen and just sing the songs. Often, he would use super-models as the actors in his videos, helping foster a relationship between pop music and fashion that seemed to be something people cared about in the 90s.


An unholy alliance, to be sure.

This brings us to "Freedom '90" and its hidden/not-so-hidden lyrics. The video was the first to use super models instead of the pop star, and was directed by David Fincher, who would later bring you "Vogue", "Janie's Got a Gun", and Fight Club.



All this is fine and good, but it's the lyrics we're concerned with here:

Heaven knows I was just a young boy
Didn't know what I wanted to be I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy
And I guess it was enough for me
To win the race? A prettier face!
Brand new clothes and a big fat place On your rock and roll TV
But today the way I play the game is not the same
No way
Think I'm gonna get myself happy

Ok, that's not too obvious. Just a guy singing about his boyhood dream of being a little bit famous, being popular, and getting on TV. Cautionary tale though in the last couple lines..."today the way I play the game is not the same"...what could he mean?

But then we get to the pre-chorus bit:

I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man


These clothes certainly don't make the man...I mean, a lot of people wear sleeveless Ts and bright white shorts that are cut to show off maximum thigh, right? Wham!, indeed.

Oh. I see. Yeah, that's not really veiled at all, is it? People actually thought this was just about GM being a "serious artist" and not "just a pop star" or about him wanting out of his record contract. Sure.

And then the chorus:

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me

Pretty clear.

In all, knowing what we now know about GM, it makes the song better. He was able to craft a kick-ass pop song (I mean, you can't deny how great the song is) that also had a cathartic element that worked on 3 levels. 1) his opposition to his own fame, a theme that is rampant in music industry whores; 2) his need to get out of his contract with Sony; and then 3) the actual matter of his hidden sexuality, that could have been the catalyst for all the self-loathing and self-promotion in the first place!
It's pretty brilliant, in a way.

Now if only Tom Cruise or Christian Bale had a recording career...


Impossible.

Is this Swedish girl from the future?

Robin Carlsson - the Swedish Marty McFly?

Anyone out there heard of Robyn? If you were graduating from high school and watching a lot of MTV back in 1997 like I was, then you've answered "yes" to the preceding question.
Robyn is the Nordic pop-princess that brought us such hits as, "Do You Know (What It Takes)", "Show Me Love", and "Konichiwa Bitches" (to which we will return).
I remember seeing the video for "Do You Know (What It Takes)" on MTV (at a time when they still showed music videos) and really liked it. I mean, I was admittedly a music snob back in high school, with music snob friends, so for me to admit this was pretty difficult to do. I think that I had earlier admitted that I did, in fact, like Duran Duran - and this was a breakthrough that allowed me to publicly approve of Robyn in the summer of 1997. I liked Robyn so much, in fact, that I purchased the CD-single of the song, "Do You Know"...perhaps it was because I thought it was funny, perhaps it was because I really liked songs with parentheticals, or perhaps I really did enjoy the new sounding pop of this Robyn with a 'y'. Either way, I was pretty happy with my purchase (and now-defunct Tower Records was happy for me to have their overpriced CD).

Fast forward to 1999. I'm living in San Jose, CA now, working at Warehouse Music and am introduced to a new pop-princess, American style: Britney Spears. I'm sure we don't need to go over this, but, Britney Spears was the high school girl that couldn't really sing but looked great in her 'not-yet-barely-legal' Catholic schoolgirl uniform dance video that took over pop music for a few years (500,000 copies sold of her debut single in one day) because she preyed on statutory rape fantasies and the dispensable income of young people aged 13-21 (these two phenomena are not related).


"These are the furry epaulets that will change music...forever!" - Britney Spears

As you recall, her debut single, "...Baby One More Time", was a monster. The video was everywhere, it was played all the time, and the whole country now had a female analogue to their fascination with the Backstreet Boys and N*Sync. Perfect.

I heard "...Baby One More Time", but I wasn't struck with Britney's bad singing, I was struck by the overwhelming similarity to a one-named Swede who was pretty much forgotten by now: Robyn.

Listen to the two side by side, and you've got pretty much the same song. All the way down to the vocal stylings of Ms. Carlsson (who can sort of sing) and the vocal impressions of Britney Spears (who cannot), the two songs are strikingly similar (to use copyright infringement parlance) to me. Maybe not the same exact melody or chord progression, but the style is certainly the same, right on down to those eighth-note synth parts and the ultra-clean harmonies (well balanced, to boot).

Compare for yourself (we can wait 9 minutes):

Baby One More Time.mp3

01 Do You Know (What It Takes).mp3

I was upset by this. No one remembered poor Robyn, with her bleached blonde anime bangs from 1997; everyone wanted Britney Spears to save pop music, to bring back its youthful glee (largely absent since the over-exposure of David Cassidy, et al.), and to rake in millions of dollars. All Britney did was steal Robyn's style and put a youthful face on it. No justice.

So this leads me to the first prong of my thesis: Robyn was a musical visionary, and Britney Spears is akin to Elvis Presley.

That sounds incendiary, I know, to equate Louisana/Mickey Mouse Club trash with Mississippi/Memphis/gospel music trash 'The King', but think about how similar the situation is: Robyn puts out her album in the US, it does ok (maybe that's an understatement, it did go platinum), but she is largely forgotten. Britney comes along 2 years later, does pretty much the same thing but puts her plaid skirt and pigtails on it and it's a sensation (like, 14 times platinum). Just like Elvis stealing rock n' roll (whether he stole that from Little Richard is for another time). Right place, right time. Sorry Robyn.


The possibility of an NSFW up-skirt shot surely contributed to at least 1 million of those sales.

Well, it turns out that Robyn and Britney's striking similarities may not have been due to musical prolepsis/Britney Spears-being-like-Elvis after all. I did a little research on the matter (not that you're surprised by this), and found that the link between Robyn and Brit-Brit is actually this man:


Max Martin - a Swedish musical badass that is always getting chased by sharks.

Max Martin is a Swedish music producer/writer that has pretty much written most of the popular songs from the end of the 90s and on into today (a quick resume? "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"; "Since U Been Gone"; "California Gurls" to name a few). I mean, really, you look at the guys resume and you can't really believe he was involved in so many hits! He's like Lionel Richie, but Swedish! He did a lot of work with American pop acts (Britney, Backstreet Boys, and Kelly Clarkson, to name a few), but he started with hometown artists like Robyn. That's right...this guy wrote "Do You Know (What It Takes)" a couple years before he wrote it again for Britney, this time as "...Baby One More Time". Lightning strikes twice, I guess.

As a side note, although Martin did write many of Britney's best songs ("...Baby One More Time", "If You Seek Amy", and "3" *a fantastically underrated song, I might add*), he did not write her best work, which is obviously (and undisputed-ly) "Toxic".


Thanks to two ridiculously-named producers (Bloodshy and Avant) we have this masterpiece of synth-pop and surf guitar.

Britney Spears - Toxic.mp3


With the first prong of my thesis so thoroughly disproved, we'll put that aside and continue forward into the second part of this post and prong two of thesis:

Robyn must be from the future.


With our limited research, we believe this to be the most likely means of travel for Robyn.

...to be continued in Part 2!