There are a few things I miss about Gossip Girl.

I miss the actual story arcs of Season 1. It seems the writers have exchanged the deconstruction,personal conflict and resolution that made me actually like the show for shock value and shallowness.

I miss Blair and Serena. No, not the vapid, debauched incarnations  running around now, but the Blair and Serena we met in Season 1. The Blair and Serena that I could sympathize with, relate to, and root for, even when they were at their worst.

Mostly, though, I miss the music. I suppose I could check in at the music page of the show’s official site, but I forget. The music is now Gossip Girl’s best feature. And I should remember that next time I’m looking for new music with which to fall in love.

Last season during my first break-up with the show, there was an episode — 10  — that had a lot to do with Aaron, who I hated, and so I didn’t pay much attention. I think I was reading a book with it on in the background. Maybe I was playing Solitaire on my phone. Anyway, I did remember thinking, “Wow, the music is especially awesome tonight. I’ve gotta find out who that is so I can download it.”

Well, I forgot about it until tonight. Surprise, surprise, that was the episode where Kings of Leon was used for practically the entire episode. Three of its songs were used in pivotal scenes, and now that I’ve downloaded the entire CD and listened to them again, I remember why it is that I loved those songs so much.

Here’s a live version of their No. 1 single “Sex on Fire” (used when Aaron was trying to get Serena to pose for him). I’m also including “Use Somebody,” which wasn’t in that episode, but it’s one of my current favorite songs. It’s somewhere in the Top 40 and has been for a few weeks now.

Caleb Followill’s voice is frakking amazing.

It usually takes me a while to fall in love with the newest album from the bands and artists that I love. I suppose it has to do with a combination of the fact that I usually love so intensely their current work and also that styles evolve and change between projects.

BarlowGirl’s second album, Another Journal Entry, was the one that introduced me to the sister act, and I have a feeling it will remain my favorite. It took me a good three or four weeks to come to love How Can We Be Silent. So color me surprised that I found myself head over heels with BG’s latest offering, Love & War, within a matter of days.

What I love about BG is that they’re real. Authentic. Genuine. (And, you know, more synonyms for real.) They’re passionate. Their material comes from personal experiences and prayers and pain and struggles. They’re not standing above us all, far removed from what they’re singing.

I love the stand they’ve made for purity and modesty. They’ve never dated at all, and they make no apologies for it. I love the example they set day in and day out, especially for young girls.

I also like that, like Casting Crowns, their primary audience is the Church. Don’t get me wrong — I think it’s awesome (and necessary) that bands are able to break into more of a mainstream, secular environment. But we believers need challenging and encouraging and inspiration and even admonishing, too. BarlowGirl and Casting Crowns, unlike, for example, Derek Webb and Tony Campolo, don’t criticize, condemn, or ridicule the Church. They realize, of course, that there are issues, as with any other entity comprised of imperfect, flawed people, but they also understand that it’s futile to hurl the baby out the window along with the bathwater.

In “Running Out of Time,” Lauren really takes to task believers who turn their heads the other way when confronted with sin because they want to remain comfortable and “relevant.” As she points out, that though “we may not pull the trigger, we stand by and watch and pretend not to see” and that “silence is worse than evil done.”

She spits in the face of pop culture, celebrity gossip, and the mainstream media in “Time For You to Go,” too, which I love. I used to subscribe to US Weekly and EW and People and troll celebrity gossip sites until I stopped and wondered why I got so much entertainment from the screw-ups and pain of strangers. (Plus? I wasted so much time doing it.)

I like every song on Love & War, but there are five that really stand out:

1) Love is Marching: Can You feel His heart beating/The sound of love is marching/And when our hearts begin to break along with His/This world will change/Love is marching to His heartbeat…

2) Sing Me a Love Song: You’ve never failed me before/Why do I feel betrayed?/If I close my heart to You now/The darkness would have its way/I crave Your voice, help me not fall away/Will You please hold me?/And sing me a love song again/Say the words that heal my heart/Sing me a love song and then/Let Your words remind me who I am…

3) Tears Fall (written about the senseless and selfish tragedy wrought by abortion): What have we lost because we chose/We’ll never know/And loving you is better than feeling alone/And all our claims to freedom/Have become these heavy chains/And in the name of rights/We keep filling nameless graves/Let the tears fall down/Let them soften the ground/May our hearts be found/God, forgive us now…

4) Open Heavens: We are falling on our faces/Searching for movement/Give us fire in these days/Oh, Spirit, lead the way/Hallelujah, singing hallelujah/We’ll cry out from our hearts now…

5) Beautiful Ending: Why do I let myself let go/Of hands that painted the stars/And hold tears that fall/And the pride of my heart makes me forget/It’s not me, but You who makes the heart beat/I’m lost without You and dying from me…

Becca, Alyssa, & Lauren Barlow

I originally blogged this almost a year ago. This is the actual post, dated November 12, 2008. But it’s just so incredibly amazing, encouraging, and earth-shattering that I wanted to blog it again.

So I decided that, rather than being repetitive, I’d just change some wording and move some things around.

Have you heard of what’s often called the “love chapter” of the Bible? I would venture to guess that even those unfamiliar with the Bible have heard of 1 Corinthians 13. You know, the “love is patient, love is kind” chapter.

But I’ll bet you haven’t heard it read this way.

No matter how often I watch this, when she gets to the part that says, “God keeps no records of wrongs. He always hopes. He always trusts. God never fails,” my eyes immediately fill. It’s like some kind of Pavlovian response, I swear.

It’s impossible to encounter God and not walk away changed. I know that I tend to exaggerate. I’m a writer. I like words. I want to make a point, and usually that can be accomplished by being overdramatic.

Trust me when I say that I would absolutely not be breathing right now if it weren’t for Jesus Christ. I’m living proof that Christians aren’t sealed off in some bubble, untouched by the every day tragedies and problems that plague everyone else. My depression was severe. It was lengthy. It was devastating.

And yet I am here, completely recovered. No medication. No lasting effects from my attempts to overdose. I haven’t even seen a counselor for over a year.

That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. Again let me preface the next statement with an assertion that I am not being melodramatic: how do people live a day-to-day existence without God?

I don’t see how it’s possible.

I really don’t.

Anyway, listen to Dawn Richardson’s words. Listen closely and listen carefully and just let them wash over you.

Hearing her describe God’s love for me — tiny, insignificant, screw-up me — and then the actual song, “Forever,” absolutely wrecked me.

I’ve already posted the acoustic version of and my thoughts about this incredible new single by BarlowGirl (off their forthcoming album Love and War, available September 22) on my personal blog.

However, since this is technically my pop culture blog, this is the place to post the official video to “Beautiful Ending.”

I am usually a bigger fan of acoustic versions of songs, just because I like that stripped-down feel, but the original version is absolutely fantastic. Can’t wait for Love and War.

Because I’m best when I’m cutting and pasting other people’s words, I’m bringing over Mike Ragogna’s review of Kelly’s brand-new CD, All I Ever Wanted, which drops tomorrow.

His review is spot-on and is exactly everything I thought while listening this past week, from his raving about “Long Shot” to his “eh” on “Whyyawannabringmedown,” which is the only track on the entire CD I skip.

Anyway, she is awesome, and as the review said, there are tons of potential “chart-busters” that I will “happily be burnt out on by summer’s end.”

Kelly Clarkson — All I Ever Wanted
By Mike Ragogna, Huffington Post

Kelly Clarkson, what have you done. You’ve gone and turned in one tight little pop album that should get all of your American Idol cousins (except Chris Daughtry) a wee-bit green-eyed. Right from the opening guitar riffs of the megahit “My Life Would Suck Without You” (ours too, Kelly), we are hooked on your poppy, essential album that features tons of likely chart shredders that we happily will be burnt out on by Summer’s end. Unlike what went down on your moody My December (that now deserves a revisit and a personal apology from each maligner), your energy level is spiking again, and you prove Simon Cowell correct when he once stated on Good Morning America that your pipes were better than your fellow Idolsters “by a mile” (okay, that was years ago, but still…).

At various times, All I Ever Wanted rocks, discos, serenades, and invokes several decades of music, often in the same song. But Kelly Clarkson’s cast of producers–including Dr. Luke, Howard Benson, Louis Biancaniello, Sam Watters and Ryan Tedder–direct this sonic pageant with an eye on 2009’s charts, and the team had quite an auspicious start with the album’s first single. Where Britney Spears’ phenomenal “Womanizer” set the record for giant leaps to the number one position, this album’s lead-off “single” (however we’re defining that this week) reset the bar. “Suck”’s vocals on this Clarkson co-write are some of the strongest we’ve heard from the singer, but one of the secrets to this pop-rockin’ phenomenon also could be its chorus’ unconscious channeling of a melody from Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” (and, for the minutia-minded, the first line of its verses sounds like a brief nip of Dar Williams’ “Green Street”).

The extremely hooky chorus of Clarkson’s “I Do Not Hook Up” explodes with a girl group unison sing-a-long ala the Go-Gos and the Bangles, and its message is a cross between “sober-up before you touch me, dude,” and “don’t rush me, I like to take it slow.” When the song’s lyrics weirdly visit Stephen Stills’ “Love The One You’re With,” Clarkson uses those exact words to communicate something akin to, “Honey, you ain’t getting’ nothin’ better, don’t even bother” (hey, these are top forty anthems, not Shakespeare). She’s not gettin’ all Queen Latifah on him, but it’s refreshing to have a no-nonsense Clarkson straightening the drunkie out with style. In a similar way, “Don’t Let Me Stop You” amps up the ‘tudefulness with its line, “…got a high threshold for pain, but let’s get one thing straight, I’m not down to share you with anyone,” and it’s yet another probable hit–as if either Kelly or this album has to worry about such things. The same goes for the title track, its cool “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” march feel feeding into the chorus’ international vibe like a harem stopping by the set of Kyle XY (as in “WHY” did ABC Family cancel that terrific series?).

Kelly Clarkson’s vocals on every ballad, especially “Cry” (whose working title HAD to be “Is It Over Yet?”), blow away any comparisons to her youngish peers, such as those of the Disney variety (sorry, Miley). “Already Gone” already sounds timeless, and “Save You” will make you long for Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” period. The song has an inside out “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” drum rat-a-tat on the verses, and emo-randomness on the choruses; when they drop out altogether for the quick bridge, we get Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” piano section Vita-Mixed with Abba’s “The Winner Takes It All.” Then, the drums pop back for some chorus skitters before the verse pattern returns for its “50 Ways…” fade. “Why spend so much time focused on elements such as drum patterns,” you ask? Because Kelly and her producers built every recording like it came with a ten year “Guaranteed Fun!” warranty, and rarely does a pop album give you this much to look at under the hood.

The most obvious discovery is that some of the project’s retro, musical references–at least the intentional ones–are some of the smartest and most blatant winks at the seventies, eighties and nineties assembled in one super-sized, fourteen track helping. For instance, in the day (a century ago), when utilized as the intro on Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out,” you never paid attention to the Korg rhythm pattern that continued thumping along thoughout the hit. But nowadays, we’re so aware of that once overused sound (yes, that would be you, Hall & Oates), that when the cheapy-drum-machined, eighties dance club-vogueing “If I Can’t Have You” employs a similar intro antic, you think it has to be a set-up for what will be the album’s stinker. Then, in stroll momentary vocoders, radioed-out vocal repeats, reverbed guitar/keyboard hits on the chorus, plus everything but a Stock/Aitken/Waterman disco ball, and suddenly, you’re grinning your ass off. (Sorry, Mr. Grant, Clarkson’s got spunk and we LOVE it!)

However, if we were to say at least one track from this pure pop album for now people was junky, we’ve got a winner (please keep all hate mail to twelve paragraphs or less). No, Powers That Be, “Whyyawannabringmedown” does not channel Pat Benatar, Gwen Stafani, nor Joan Jett, nor does it qualify her as a pseudo-punk. Throwing out phrases like “Love Monkey” or simulating “street” kids counting down to the chorus never conjours girl’s skool cool; and, really, shame on you for ripping off huge chunks of Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz,” you naughty writing team. But even though Clarkson comes off more like an emphatic Belinda Carlisle or Tracey Ullman than rawker in this role, jeez, it’s all so damned addicting.

A song we’re going to want to hear a lot of this Spring is “Long Shot” which starts with a classical Electric Light Orchestra-like string figure, verses it up with a Squeeze “Up The Junction” vibe, then chants a chorus that has a touch of Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”’s ending and hints of Klaatu’s “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft” (okay, that’s a stretch). And for a little trip to Who-ville, we’ve got the intro of “Impossible” that siphons “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” then it’s off to Motown for the chorus’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” nod. Another radio-ready potential hit, “Ready,” starts off with a slice of The Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” keyboards, and the melody and lyrics will make you wonder if Clarkson and her co-writers swiped John Mayer’s Sony mini-corder of song ideas. “I Want You” is a cutesy oldies-meets-Mars throwaway…we may have a new winner for worst track here. Then, the album ends with the gorgeous, “string”-laden ballad, “If No One Will Listen.” This probably will be Clarkson’s big pop, adult contemporary, and country crossover, in case you were wondering if folks still made things like that. They do, and All I Ever Wanted has got one to prove it.

Kelly Clarkson suddenly found herself on the world stage via a national contest, in the lion’s den facing three Bizarro World judges and scores of competing hopefuls. She survived, and though there have been other talented and memorable American Idol winners, she’ll always have the dubious honor of having been our first. All I Ever Wanted represents a logical career path that doesn’t push buttons or boundaries, but it’s not supposed to. It’s Clarkson’s most wholly satisfying project to date, showcasing her living up to her full potential. Maybe that’s all that we, and Clarkson, really ever wanted.

Tracks:
1. My Life Would Suck Without You
2. I Do Not Hook Up
3. Cry
4. Don’t Let Me Stop You
5. All I Ever Wanted
6. Already Gone
7. If I Can’t Have You
8. Save You
9. Whyyawannabringmedown
10. Long Shot
11. Impossible
12. Ready
13. I Want You
14. If No One Will Listen

The hallmark of a good band is whether or not they can sound as good (or in some cases, better) live as they do on the CD. And I’m not just talking the obvious (and horrendous) examples of Ashlie Simpson and Britney Spears. I love All-American Rejects and Panic! at the Disco, but the instances where I’ve seen them perform live on various talk shows and/or other appearances have been…less  than stellar.

Paramore is an example of a good band. Hayley Williams sounds as good live as she does in the studio, and that band…man, those guys are awesome. Especially the drummer. When I’ve got them playing on my iPod or in the car or wherever, I find myself listening to the drum sequences because they’re amazing. And they sound really, really difficult.

Anyway, I’m posting a live performance of “Decode,” the song they wrote especially for the movie Twilight, from Jimmy Kimmel back in November, I think it was.

I love this song (although “I Caught Myself” edges it), and this is an excellent performance.

So it looks like iTunes sure knew what it was doing by making Paramore’s “Decode” the only track from the Twilight soundtrack available for individual download.

When the lineup was announced a few months ago, I was pretty much ambivalent.

And then I saw the movie.

I just finished downloading the entire soundtrack. It’s definitely worth it for “I Caught Myself,” which is Paramore’s second offering, and I think my favorite song would have to be “Leave Out All the Rest,” by Linkin Park. It’s not typical Linkin Park — it’s more “Shadow of the Day” than “Faint.”

As I’ve already mentioned, “Decode” and “I Caught Myself” are awesome (as is anything done by Paramore), and while I’m not a huge Muse fan, “Supermassive Black Hole” definitely makes me think baseball. Vampire baseball. Kellan Lutz and Jackson Rathbone and Rob Pattinson in baseball pants. Awesome. (And I still want the old-school jersey Ashley Greene wore.)

Rob’s songs are pretty cool, too — he’s got kind of a Bob Dylan vibe going on. “Bella’s Lullaby” is pretty, and even “Claire de Lune” is available as one of the three bonus tracks.

So yeah. I think the $11.99 was well worth it.

Did some music downloading last night and ended up with two of Fall Out Boy’s and Panic At the Disco’s Fueled by Ramen labelmates: Paramore and The Academy Is…

Thanks for the Paramore recs, Janie and Cori, ’cause I absolutely love them. The “Listeners Also Bought” feature at iTunes suggested The Academy Is… and I love them, too.

Speaking of Panic, while I like their new CD, I totally miss the fun quirkiness of their debut — and I miss the exclamation point, as well. “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage” might be the best title for a song ever, and it’s definitely one of my favorite songs.

I’ve always liked Fall Out Boy and I still think “I’m just a notch in your bed post, but you’re just a line in a song,” from “Sugar, We’re Going Down” is such a great line.

I love this whole indie rock/alt rock/power pop/pop punk genre.

ETA: They said “Jesus” when they performed in tonight’s elimination show. I don’t know what the difference between last night and tonight was. Interesting.

I guess Idol Gives Back ran long, because my TiVo cut off right after Daughtry and I totally missed the closing number.

How surprised was I when I found out the contestants backed by a Gospel choir sang “Shout to the Lord?”

Yeah. Very surprised. That is my absolute favorite worship song, but I definitely didn’t expect it to pop up on something like American Idol.

They did such an awesome job, and even if they did change the second word, it is still pretty obvious Who the song’s about. Ironic how the name of Jesus is apparently so offensive, and yet people find it okay to use as a curse word.

Anyway, awesome. The harmonies give me chills.

Just when I was getting bored with Idol Gives Back (seriously — it seemed a bit too commercial this year for some reason, or maybe my heart is just that hard), Carrie Underwood appeared and was amazing as always.

I’m sure this’ll be gone soon, so if you missed it, watch while you can. I’ve never loved George Michael’s “Praying for Time” more.