Category / music

by Lexine

A Christmas Playlist

The weather outside is frightful (at least here in the Bay Area), as is having to be subjected to the same ol’ Christmas music. I’m one to get into the holiday spirit but I also don’t care for traditional Xmas music; working in retail eons ago rendered me this way. It’s worse now thanks to crappy Camp Rock remixes of the classics like “Silver Bells” and “Winter Wonderland”. That said, I have my exceptions…

I’ll always be down for 80s/90s rap and upbeat R&B with a Christmas twist!

One holiday tradition of mine is watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, so of course the soundtrack also gets some play. “Linus and Lucy” and “Skating” are two of the few Xmas classics that I enjoy, and “Christmas Time Is Here” is simply enchanting (I prefer the instrumental over the vocal version).

*That* one holiday song will keep Mariah a forever multi-millionaire, but this other holiday song of hers gets all the airplay in my house! I first heard this particular version of “Joy To The World” in one of those BBC Essential Mixes from the 90s (go to the 1:02:00 mark), coincidentally mixed by the same guy who made this remix. This song deserves more appreciation during the holidays; give it a listen if you need a break from hearing Mimi’s money-maker.

Speaking of BBC Essential Mixes, there are no holiday-themed songs in this one, but I always saw it as a “holiday” mix as it originally aired two days before Xmas (and it just turned 30 years old this year). Forget caroling–I’d rather rave around the Christmas tree with this mix!

by Lexine

Throwback: Aretha Franklin Concert, 2015

Happy 10th (and five days) anniversary to when I got to see THE Queen Of Soul Aretha Franklin perform live! 🤩 The show took place three years before her passing, and it was my one and only time I got to see her. To hear her sing (the mic was definitely ON) remains a moment I’ll forever be grateful to witness. I still vividly remember seeing a lady two seats down from me bawling with emotion while Aretha belted a lovely gospel song. Babyface (lower left pic) also opened for her, and I’m always down for some classic Babyface. Two icons in one night, and I only paid a little over $50 for it! 😱

by Lexine

A Christina Summer

Christina Aguilera on Rolling Stone magazine, Double Issue, July 2000

This cover is oh-so 2000. The first Best New Artist Grammy winner of the new millennium on the cover, wearing low-rise bottoms and a playful smile with a CD player in tow, and headlines on Napster (IYKYK) and Slipknot. And if you’re wondering, yes, a Boy Scout can be gay. 

Seeing that Christina has been reviving her Genie In A Bottle days lately, from bringing back her wardrobe from that era to revamping her debut album on its 25th anniversary last year, I wonder if she’ll do something for the 25th anniversary of her first Rolling Stone cover this month.

Also, I want her shirt! 

by Lexine

Strike A Pose For June

Madonna, photographed by Herb Ritts for Interview magazine, June 1990

Once upon a time, magazine covers featured celebrities with some actual talent and substance, and everyone and their grandparents knew who they were. Some celebs got bold in their portraits, and no one took more brazen pics than Madonna herself. This could very well be my favorite mag cover of hers. It just POPS. You don’t get more in-your-face than grabbing your crotch. That a female celeb did *that* made it more ballsy; I bet the incels and prudes in 1990 sent hate mail to Interview then. I can’t imagine what the reaction would be if, say, Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter struck the same pose on a mag cover these days. Although it would be pretty cool if either of them did that.

The editorial and her interview is also worth a look! 

by Lexine

Now Playing (4.30.25)

What else would I play on International Jazz Day? 

Listen to the lyrics of this song. More relevant than ever. (The song also reminds me of the movie Casino, oddly enough.) 

TIL that the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz (which he is a part of, naturally) is the lead partner for IJD. 

There are a few versions of the last song, with its only constant being Gillespie playing on every version. I’ve always preferred this collab with Miles, and the beat also got sampled in this early 90s rap song, which I first heard before “Tunisia”.

It is not IJD without some actual international flair via bossa nova jazz! While I also enjoy the vocalized version, the instrumental version above will always be next-level aural paradise. 

by Lexine

Scenes From Kylie’s Tension Tour!

Yesterday, I got to break some tension in San Francisco by attending the Tension Tour featuring pop icon Kylie Minogue! While I got to see her for the first time a year ago, it’s not every year she tours the States. Let’s get to it with the pics!

(Note: there are no pics of her opening act Rita Ora, but only because I was in a long-ass line for Kylie merch while she was performing. Sorry!) 

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by Lexine

Throwback Covers!

Britney Spears on Teen People magazine, February 2000

I used to be a magazine hound as a teen, and the late 90s through mid-2000s were quite the era for magazines. The fashion editorials, the celebrity profiles and covers, those sex articles in Cosmo that had my friends and I snickering…it was quite the time. But going back to those covers: the magazine editors then put some serious effort into those covers. The cover star, the photography, the blurbs and typography…it all got my attention. So, since I’m a sucker for nostalgia and enjoy celebrating #throwbackthursdays, starting every first Thursday of every month, I’ll revisit some of my favorite magazine covers from yesteryear. I aim to post covers that celebrate a milestone anniversary this year (like covers from 25/30/35 years ago), but it’s not a promise. 

This month, I travel back to the year 2000. If you’re an old like me, you’d remember seeing a mag called Teen People at the newsstands. TP, which was created by the editors of People magazine and lasted from 1998 to 2007 (?), competed with Seventeen, Teen, and YM. Among those titles, I liked reading TP and Seventeen the most, and TPs issue with Britney happens to be part of my collection (not my pic, btw). That cover exudes pure Y2K teen beauty. The futuristic tone of her makeup and jewelry, the aura of optimism and joy she’s giving…and to witness her ascent to Icon status in real time! You just had to have been there. Us olds remembered Britney when she was happy and on top of the world, and, going by her interviews then, she seemed like someone us teen girls at the time could relate to. 

Snippets of her cover story can be found here (I can’t find the full article anywhere right now). Is it just me or was fashion more simple yet cooler then? 

Also, that “Bush Is Back” blurb…🤭

by Lexine

Thursday Random Thoughts

Like many real ones with social media these days, I have joined the land of blue skies. I haven’t abandoned the right-wing cesspool known as Twitter just yet, although I may consider it if I get more followers on Bluesky than Twitter.  The Bluesky app also needs some work, but I must say: it’s soooooo refreshing to see a social media site not bogged down by its MAGA manchild owner, vile right-wing trash, algorithms that are obviously drunk, and dumb bots. Here’s hoping the site stays the course and doesn’t devolve like Twitter.

I’m also on Threads and still have my IG. I got a TikTok but I haven’t touched it for a year now. (I’m just not a TikTok girl.) In the hierarchy of SM posting, Bluesky now gets first dibs on my short-form nonsense, then Threads, and, if I feel like it, Twitter.

My Vegas birthday trip pics will be coming shortly. I’ve posted some on my socials a few weeks ago, but I got a lot more pics and a whole lot to say about them!

I travel for my day job a few times a week, and some of the things I’ve been seeing on the digital billboards when I take 880 North back home…😒”Be Kind”? “Choose Love”?? What in the sappy Etsy boymom hell is that? Many people in this country certainly weren’t kind at all at the polls two weeks ago!

By the way, IT’S STILL THE MOOD

Meanwhile, that parallel universe is looking more lovely by the day. We’re all looking forward to what the Kamala administration will bring to this country after her landslide election win two weeks ago, the House and Senate going blue, Trump and Elon finally going to jail, the racists/misogynists/Nazis all staying pissed on their Truth Social accounts, and next summer bringing us the release of Xtina’s newest album and the Batgirl movie. *sighs*

I think I found THE cold-weather fragrance…

…and THE scent for femme fatales, divas, and the bad girls your mother warned you about. In other words, MY kinds of scent! It’s a few steps above Black Orchid, which I also own, and that’s all I can say because I’m not well-versed in describing fragrances and its notes (and that’s something coming from a novelist-by-night).

Someone send me back to Vegas for the next seven months with a $15,000/month stipend to cover lodging, food, gas, bills, my rent back home, and miscellaneous. I only say this because the Penguins aka my hockey team won all their games while I was in Vegas. Superstitions and all that.

I’m really gonna miss Rafa. It was only a matter of time before he hung up his racket for good. The first time I saw him play was Wimbledon 2008; I tuned in after getting curious over the whole Nadal-Federer rivalry going on then. That Men’s Finals match, honey…talk about an intro! I enjoyed watching him play ever since, and he was the total package: talented, class act, and, yup, a hottie. 😘Him and Federer defined one hell of an era in Men’s Tennis that I doubt can be topped any time soon. Happy trails, Rafa! 🫶

I know Dolce & Gabbana are sketch (as people; their clothes are fine), but their Fall 2024 ads with Miley are STUN.

The pearl-clutchers need to take all their outrage they’re wasting over how suggestive Sabrina Carpenter is in her shows and instead apply it to why Fist Brown (thanks, Dlisted) still has a career. Go after the abusers in the industry, why don’t you. Or is that too difficult for them?

Ending this post with a song that will go multi-platinum in the households of young women fighting against the emboldened, yucky incels. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll know!

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #14

Amazing Vocalists!

Aretha, Shirley, Whitney, and Christina…if vocals were energy, their pipes would power a metropolis for days. 

I will always love me down a singer that can sing. Having listened to pop and R&B during the 90s, I got spoiled by singers of the time. Whitney, Mariah, Celine, Toni Braxton, Faith Evans, Leann Rimes, Christina Aguilera…While I don’t mind an artist who may not boast the best pipes (but at least make catchy songs), what a great singer does with their voice–on top of making good songs–is next-level art that seems to be a rarity nowadays. (Really, who is the vocalist of the current generation of pop stars?)

Also, if you don’t know who Shirley Horn is, give her a listen! My favorite jazz station played one of her songs a while back, and I got hooked by her voice. She’s an underrated vocalist, IMO.