4/21/11

The Majak Mixtape - It's a Small Mix After All

Jambo Mixtapers! Welcome to another stunning, flawless, amazing, SNATCHING THE HAKUNA MATATA OFF YOUR FAVORITE edition of the Majak Mixtape, where pop culture goes when it wants to be part of your world. It's Thursday and you know what that means? Other than "Grey's Anatomy" continuing to try to redeem itself from that hot ass mess of a musical episode from a couple weeks ago? Yep, it's time for another round of THROWBACK THURSDAY, where we freebase nostalgia like the pop cultural junkies that we are.

Today, we're taking on the magic of Disney tunes during that rebirth period of the late 1980s and the early 1990s. You know that period of time when a new wave of Disney princesses like Jasmine, Belle and Ariel came for Snow White's, Cinderella's and Sleeping Beauty's wigs and tiaras. Dwarves who? Fairy godmother what? These ladies along with some bad ass lions came to lay their own claim to the Disney legacy. But before we get the eyes in Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head rolling, it's time for us to do the best and:

First up, Lady GaGa media-palooza is upon us as Lady GaGa is seemingly everywhere in order to promote the upcoming release of her "Born This Way" album. Just in the past week or two, we've had the leak of her newest single "Judas," the release of a promo for her Monsters Ball special for HBO, news that Lady GaGa will be the musical guest on the season finale of "Saturday Night Live" with Justin "Of Course You Weren't Getting an Oscar Nod for 'The Social Network,' Dude" Timberlake.

If that recent bit of news wasn't enough, Lady GaGa recently sat down to be interview by "NME" magazine and delivered all sorts of wonderfully off-kilter quotes, particularly when she was confronted with the opinion of most of the universe with ears that says that "Born This Way" sounds suspiciously identical to Madonna's "Express Yourself," which was the Staple Singers' "Respect Yourself" reworked. GaGa was none too pleased about the comparison, saying, "I'm not stupid enough to put out a record and be that moronic." Really, because according to our ears and the ten million mash-ups on YouTube say that you are.

GaGa ended up crying in the interview and saying about "Born This Way": "I honestly feel like God sent me those lyrics and that melody." Well then apparently God has "The Immaculate Collection" on his iPod.

In other news, Lindsay Lohan was not in the upcoming "Gotti" until she apparently got to be? Oh the magic of Hollywood and the speed in which gossip goes stale. Yesterday, according to "People," Lindsay and the makers behind the film couldn't come to an agreement, with the producers going on record to say that her recent legal woes have no factor in it.

Today, TMZ is reporting that they have struck a deal with Lindsay Lohan for her to be in the film, but she won't be playing Victoria Gotti. Instead, she will be playing John Gotti's daughter-in-law. To show how far Lindsay has fallen on the totem pole, the role had originally been considered to be going to Kim Kardashian. The film is also without a director now too so this film should be hitting theatres around the same time Kelly Rowland puts out a new album.

In slumming it news, Janelle Monae will be joining Katy Perry on some dates for her tour. We love that Katy Perry's tour is pretty much consisting of a ton of opening acts that are infinitely better than her with Robyn and Marina and the Diamonds also signed on to play dates on the tour.

Lastly, Oprah's final season of talking to all of the people who have gotten on her nerves at some point will get even more interesting as TMZ reports that James Frey, the author she famously tore a new asshole for while wearing her attack wig for making up his memoir, is going to be on to talk about how his life was changed by that whole incident. Don't piss off Oprah, James. Gayle is waiting in the wings to fuck your shit up if you do.

And that's the tea for today. Up next, we're taking on Disney. And if you don't like it:

Hey Mixtape-keteers! Welcome to another installment of Throwback Thursday, your fine, fresh, fierce, got nostalgia on lock destination. Today we're turning our attentions to the glory that was Disney animated films in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Disney films had ruled animation with such classic films like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Dumbo," "Bambi" and a variety of other plucky characters just looking to be orphaned. And though the studio had great successes like "Robin Hood," "The Rescusers" and "The Fox and the Hound," they didn't have the cultural impact that earlier films like "101 Dalmatians" or "Lady and the Tramp" did. But then came a perky sea creature who liked to comb her hair with a fork. With one swish of Ariel's tale, Disney found itself thrust back into both huge commercial success and cultural relevancy in ways it hadn't seen since its golden era.

It's hard not to love "The Little Mermaid" with its cast of kooky characters like the evil Ursula, Flounder the fish, and Sebastien the crab who brought us the magical combo of "Under the Sea"
and "Kiss the Girl"

Some people undoubtedly found Sebastian's accent to be mildly offensive, but Disney has done a whole lost worse when it comes to race. LOOKING AT YOU SONG OF THE SOUTH.

"The Little Mermaid" ushered in a whole new wave of awesome Disney films as Disney brought the masterpiece that was "Beauty and the Beast." We're not even going to begin to tackle Disney's apparent love of men in tight shirts with rippling muscles; we're just going to say they spent a lot of time looking through beefcake magazines for "inspirations." Anyway, "Beauty and the Beast" raised the game yet again when it came to the music as the film was bursting at the seams earworm tunes like "Be Our Guest"

"Belle"

and of course the title tune as sung by Angela Lansbury, who took time out of her schedule of solving murder mysteries in Cabot Cove to voice a teapot. Sure beats making people into pies.

And like all good cartoons, "The Little Mermaid" had its own video game. We remember renting this game one time and determining that the suckitude factor was just way too high for us to suffer through muzak versions of "Under the Sea."

"Beauty and the Beast" was then followed up by "Aladdin," one of the only films where Robin Williams' ADD was used to its advantage.

There was a lot of controversy over the fact that Aladdin and Jasmine were made to look as White possible while evil Jafar was made to look appropriately ethnic. What?! Disney being racially insensitive? How shocking!

Even if "Aladdin" had sucked, which it most definitely did not, the video game that came from it would've been more than enough to make up the difference.

The game brought us, dare we say, to a "Whole New World."
 


The follow-up to "Aladdin" also provided one of our favorite video games to play as a kid. Everything the light touches is your video game!

"The Lion King" was one of our absolute favorite films back when we were kids and Jonathan Taylor Thomas had a bright future as a star. So long ago right? Not unlike Robin Williams, "The Lion King" was able to use Nathan Lane's propensity to be annoying to its advantage.

And who can forget the majesty of "Circle of Life," especially when it was transferred to the Broadway stage:

How Julie Taymor went from the majesty of "The Ling King" to "Spiderman: Turn Off the Show" is tragic.

After this wave of good hits, Disney had to hit a snag and it did in the form of "Pocahontas." Apparently Disney executives were too busy painting with all of the colors of the motherfucking wind to realize that Pocahontas was 12 and not some grown-ass woman when she met John Smith. At least the movie gave us the wondrous Vanessa Williams singing the tune.

And that my friends is the end of Throwback Thursday. As always we wish you love, peace and downloads. NOW FEEL THE LOVE TONIGHT!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, I have to admit that I agree with nearly all of your statements, but I loved the Aladdin video game!