5/27/11

The Majak Mixtape - So Happy I Could Mixtape, Part Two

Morning Mixtapers! Welcome to another stunning, flawless, amazing, SNATCHING THE CHAMPAGNE FLUTE from your favorite edition of the Majak Mixtape, where pop culture goes when its lost its judging position on "The X-Factor." Happy Friday Mixtapers! We're back with part two of our extravaganza eleganza in tribute to the one year anniversary of the Majak Mixtape. Could we have done this all in one Mixtape? Probably. But if Oprah can convert the whole United Center into one big love-athon and broadcast that for two days, we figure we can stretch out this look back at the Mixtape as well. What we lack in special guest stars, we more than make up in bitchy commentary and links to YouTube. And really? Isn't that all we need at the beginning of a Memorial Day weekend? Exactly. But before we talk about some of our favorite songs and videos from our first year as mixtaper du jour for "The Second Supper," it's time for us to what?


Somewhere, Christina Aguilera is laughing her ass off while reapplying her red lipstick for the 12th time that morning as Simon Cowell's attempt to bring his mega-hit "The X-Factor" to the United States continues to be making waves for all the wrong reasons. With "The Voice" on NBC doing so well, you just know that Cowell is trying to do everything that is possible to ensure that "The X-Factor" is a hit and apparently one way he is doing it is dropping Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole from the panel, even though she already filmed auditions in Los Angeles. According to TMZ, the chief reason was because producers were worried that people weren't going to understand her accent.

Really? We don't really buy that since Cheryl Cole's accent isn't a new thing. It's not like she's Madonna, and it changed mid-flight over the Atlantic Ocean. It must sting a lot for Ms. Cole to not only be ousted as a judge but replaced by Nicole "Every Single is My Debut Solo Single" Scherzinger of Pussycat Dolls fame. Nicole had originally been signed on to just host the program but now will be added to the panel along with Paula Abdul, L.A. Reid and Mr. Cowell.

In other news, there are predictions that "The Hangover: Part II" may rake in some $100 million in the box office this weekend. We're sure a lot of that money is going to go towards paying the army of writers it took to that the first film's script and switch the words from "Las Vegas" to "Bangkok." You do have to sort of appreciate the fact that film not only doesn't hide but seemingly flaunts the fact that it's exactly the same as the first film.

Also, Amy Winehouse's back to blacking out so she checked herself into rehab according to sources. The "Tears Dry on Their Own" singer apparently checked herself into a facility but not before downing one last bottle of vodka before making this venture. We sure hope it was top shelf or she's going to be having one rough ass morning.

And that's just a little bit of the tea for today! Now let us continue to the rest of the Mixtape because we so so so excited.


Welcome Mixtapers for Part 2 of our extravaganza eleganza in celebration of a year of the Majak Mixtape! So, after a few months of writing the Mixtape exclusively for "The Second Supper" we decided to launch this little ole blog to give people a daily dose of the good, the bad, and the delicious of what the music industry and pop culture has to offer. At first, we were sort of blissfully alone here at the blog. No seriously, in all of August, we only had four views of it. But it's amazing what a little advertising and shameless whoring of your website on your Facebook and across Twitter can do for a website. The Majak Kingdom took on its own distinct life of its own as we were able to do things here that we simply didn't have the space for at "The Second Supper." Like, we're pretty sure they would never give us the necessary pages for us to write a tribute to the batshit crazy that is Food Network's Sandra Lee (below making a Kwanzaa Cake)?

We did Yule Blogs in a week long tribute to the holiday season as well as throwing a week long celebration in honor of our love of all the programs that defined as a child by way of Nickelodeon. Hell, we even rang in 2011 by making our readers Look at Their Year, Look at Their Choices.

When we started the year, we also ushered in a brand new structure to the Mixtape, namely we added the feature of "Spill the Tea." It was our way to talk all the crap we normally do with our friends about the trivial world of celebrity without ever having to necessarily write a full Mixtape in its honor. And God bless Hollywood for giving us such an abundance of tea to spill as we covered everything from Lindsay Lohan:

to "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Camille Grammer and her split with her husband Kelsey:
 
and of course we exhaustively talked about the one, the only, the Sheenius of Charlie Sheen:


So in honor of this, we kick off this Mixtape with the band The Gossip, of course, and their song "Standing in the Way of Control."


One of the greatest things about doing this blog is all of the random viral videos we get to link to. We've seen a plethora of them over the past year doing this Mixtape and here are just a few of the ones we loved the most:
We kick this off with of course Antoine Dodson and his song "Bedroom Intruder." This song famously was cobbled together using real news footage and then run through Autotune. This song made so much money that Antoine was able to move himself and his family out of the projects. We helped contribute to his wealth by buying an Antoine Dodson t-shirt. We have fond memories of this particularly because friend to the Mixtape Colin Thelen would routinely answer his phone singing a version of this tune.


Next up is Ark Music Factory. Of course, Rebecca Black is the true star out of that company and its horrific production for gullible parents who think that their child is $2,000 away from becoming the next Justin Bieber. Rebecca Black did what every new popstar ends up doing to prove her authenticity; she did an acoustic version of her hit song. Just think of it as the crappiest edition of MTV's Unplugged series ever.


Rebecca Black may have been the biggest star out of the group, but the best video to come out of the whole situation is the cavalcade of stars that are part of the Ark Music Factory. Below is a video of a launch party of the music company. It's the kind of video you'll end up seeing in a montage on CNBC's "American Greed" while people talk about how they didn't know it was a Ponzi Scheme.


Ark Music Factory also led us to find the acting reel of one of their singers. The whole thing is worth it for the emotional breakdown scene; we haven't had this hard of a time figuring out if a person was laughing or crying since we watched "Hey Paula" on Bravo.


Also, we love that the acting in the first little scene clearly was culled from watching one of those popular marathons of "Girlfriends" on BET.

And the magic of YouTube is that you can stumble upon other awesome viral videos. While we were watching Ark Music stuff for the ten millionth time, we were introduced to the glory of Serena Foster and her song "Thing Called Magic." Some unholy combination of low-rent Lady GaGa theatrics, subpar Regina Spektor caterwauling and a whole lot of second hand embarrassment.


But all of these viral videos pale in comparison to the magic that was Cazwell's "Ice Cream Truck." A gay rapper of dubious MC skills, Cazwell had clearly taken the words of one Billy Flynn to heart by using as much razzle dazzle to distract from having little to no talent. For Cazwell, razzle dazzle happened to be half-naked men and phallic shaped icy treats.


The song reaches John Waters level of campy awfulness while the video barely is safe for work. Cazwell has also blessed us with the music "I Seen Beyonce at the Burger King." The song is a thoughtful look at the celebrity culture and fast food. Nah, we're just fucking with you.


Bonus viral video: Trina takes the song "Party Like a Rockstar" and adds questionable racial politics into the mix by doing a song called "White Girl."


And up next, here are some of our favorite quality music videos we've loved. Up first, Hey Marseilles takes us on a little trip to "Rio."


Next, Janelle Monae is serving us FACE FACE FACE in her video for "Cold War."


Erykah Badu got herself into some serious hot water with her music video for her single "Window Seat."


The Strokes came roaring back with their amazing single and video "Under the Cover of Darkness."


Kanye West delivered a mini-movie in anticipation of his album "My Dark Twisted Fantasy."


Sure, we still haven't figured out what exactly was going on in "Telephone" and we're more than happy to never watch the video for "Born This Way" ever again, but we do sort of enjoy Lady GaGa's mix of Tim Burton, Three Stooges, and vaguely Nazi-esque motifs in her video for "Alejandro."


And obviously, this list would not be complete without Cee-lo and his video for "Fuck You."


And that brings this celebration Mixtape to close on a deliriously four-letter note. As always we wish you love, peace and downloads! Have a great Memorial Day weekend. We'll be back on Tuesday with a whole new edition of TUNESDAY. Until then, let's start the party!

No comments: