Happy 1st Birthday, Daijams! Check out the Top 5 posts of Year 1!

I was raised on music. The nineties, ie the time I spent between ages of 3 and 13, were a blur of Dave Matthews, the Smashing Pumpkins, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among many others. In 2010, my parents even started a Facebook community dedicated to posting YouTube videos of their favorite artists and songs. It's like a hereditary disease of the best variety.

A year ago today, I realized my friends (particularly my beloved but beleaguered roommates) were fed up with my constant babble about the live music videos I was collecting in my YouTube "Favorites" file. The videos were, at that time, heavily influenced by my budding Weezer obsession, and my roommate Allie took to asking whether I was going to listen to the "SWEATERRRRRRRRRR" song again tonight, or if she could go to sleep in peace. I took that as a sign that I needed some sort of outlet, beyond my parents' celebrated Facebook community. I wanted to create a searchable library, a canon of good live music, along with (of course, as I am a narcissistic writer, and this is just what we do) my own commentary.

So one year ago today, this blog was born.

In fact, the very first video posted here was a Weezer/Sara Bareilles collaboration. I began that post thus:

"The inaugural video on this blog is one that I have not been able to get out of my head for seven days. Seven. Full. Days. It's actually the reason I'm starting this blog: To try to get this song out of my head. I figure if I post a new live music performance every day, eventually, maybe in four or five years, I'll get this song out of my head."

Here's the video that started it all, in case you don't want to click through:

Happily, that song has been out of my head for approximately 11.5 months, thanks in large part to this blog. The daily chore of writing posts has turned into my favorite daily task, thanks in large part to the growing readership (YOU!) that has not only interacted with me via comments and Facebook postings, but in real life: The other day a friend texted me that she was sitting on a plane next to a woman actively engaged in a creepy vocal fry, which I'd written about a few days prior in a post about everyone's favorite white female rap-talk-singer, Ke$ha.Thank you again to everyone who has read and responded, or just read and enjoyed privately. If you've ever actually watched one of my videos all the way through, you're my best friend.

In an act of sentimentality, today we look back at the five most popular posts in this blog's first year of life. Let's dig in:

5)  Kelly Clarkson: "Express Yourself" and "Already Gone" (posted July 13, 2011)

In this post from last July, I mused over the talent of the only artist (save maybe Carrie Underwood) to have truly transcended the American Idol stamp on her career. Kelly Clarkson is wicked talented, and the post included two videos: her 2002 audition video and a 2009 live studio performance of her then-smash hit, "Already Gone." The progress was striking. Thank God her career didn't end with From Justin to Kelly.

4) The Rolling Stones: "Time is On My Side" (posted February 2, 2012)

After a run-in with Bill Murray at the end of January 2012, I felt the need to delve deep into this song and its history, as well as the Rolling Stones' start on the coattails of the Beatles, their progression of live show style (they got a LOT more outgoing), and the artists who did this song before the Stones made it famous.

3) Nikki Yanofsky: "Lullaby of Birdland" (posted May 19, 2011)

This then-17-year-old jazz singer has a voice beyond her years, and you guys seem to agree. Her phrasing and confidence still takes my breath away. Originally posted in May 2011, this song was in the lead for a long time until the next two artists completely obliterated her pageviews.

2) Hanson: "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" (posted December 1, 2011)

The Hanson brothers are proof that if you're talented, and you stick together long enough (as family is hopefully apt to do), you're going to find not only the slow-soaking success that is the Holy Grail of the music industry, but also that people will really dig it when their favorite band from 5th grade is still awesome. More than three months after I posted this, and I'm still obsessed with this song.

1) Pink: "Bohemian Rhapsody" (posted November 29, 2011)

After only three months, and with more than three times the pageviews of the runner-up, Pink's version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" is by far the most viewed post on this blog. I'll credit Freddie Mercury's fashion sense, Pink's gusto, and our country's undying love of all things Queen.

Thanks for sticking with me through Year 1! If you're just joining us, Year 2 kicks off tomorrow with a post celebrating a bevy of my favorite musicians from all over the spectrum -- pop, blues, rock, even rap. Why? Because tomorrow is my birthday, and I can do whatever I want!

Until next time -- jam on!

Why you shouldn't hate on Valley girls, + Ke$ha: "Take it Off" and "We R Who We R"

I've been fascinated with Ke$ha ever since her debut album dropped in January 2010. She was even one of the first artists I featured on this blog in March 2011. My interest is logical: after all, I'm a 24-year-old girl from the Midwest whose taste was formed under the influence of the Spice Girls and the boy bands of the 1990's, for whom dance music was not complete without some spoken sorta-rap. ("Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want!") From those beginnings, along with parallel interests in classic stylings of big band and rock and blues and so forth, a small piece of my heart has remained true to what American dance music has morphed into: the rap-infused club beats of artists like Katy Perry and Rihanna and Chris Brown and Ke$ha, artists who are popular thanks to a wide demographic, from the Spice Girl-influenced twenty-somethings to the tweens for whom Ke$ha (hailing from both Los Angeles and Nashville) is the spiciest girl they know. It's worth noting that the future music movers and shakers, the people who will buy pop albums in 10 years, are currently 10- and 11-year-olds like my little cousins who know all the words to Justin Bieber songs.

In fact, despite our stubborn ways, each successive generation's music and vocal taste has had a profound effect on society. For example, an article in today's New York Times discusses how young women set trends in our linguistic evolution. The clearest example is the Valley Girl inflection -- you know, like, when you uptalk? and all of your thoughts are, like, in the form of a question and punctuated with, like, these space fillers that help you dominate the conversation and manipulate others into thinking that, like, they have to do what you say? The article also describes a phenomenon called "vocal fry," which is best encapsulated by pop musicians like Britney Spears and -- you guessed it -- Ke$ha.

Here's a demonstration of vocal fry from a guy who I'm guessing wants you to buy books and lessons from  him so you can learn how to sing. We'll take the free example, though:

As he mentions, vocal fry is a gravelly sound found at the bottom of your range -- the growl of a blues singer or a pop star whose range may need some buffering on the bottom. Speaking of which, has anyone done a study of the average vocal range of Britney Spears' albums? It seems to me she was hitting sing-songy notes back when she was a teenager, but her subsequent six albums have gotten a lot more guttural and alto-range. ("You want a piece of me?") I assume it's due to her transition from young, aspiring singer to all-out performer, complete with dance moves and snakes, leaving less time for singing.

Britney Spears in her infamous 2001 VMA performance with the snake.

Say what you will about Britney Spears or her singing talent, but the woman knows how to put on a show.

So, I argue, does Ke$ha -- except praise to heaven, she actually sings when she performs live. (Everyone remember Britney's 2007 "Gimme More" VMA debacle?) Ke$ha, instead of sacrificing singing, sacrifices the all-out dancing, leaving it to a team of blond-mulleted dancers while she and two back-up singers hit all the right notes. Let me repeat: The three of them execute harmonies, live, on dance tracks. This is in itself noteworthy, especially given that the recent Grammy "tribute to dance" featuring Chris Brown, David Guetta, Lil' Wayne, Deadmau5, and the Foo Fighters made it seem as though dance music is a studio-only production. The electronica, rock, and rap elements were performed live, but Chris Brown and David Guetta lip-synched their poptastic dance pieces so they could also perform some poptastic dance moves. I like dance moves, but the Grammy performance was a distressing indicator that popular dance music is more about the dance than the music, that singing doesn't seem to be a priority to the genre anymore. Dance music is thus discounted as a legitimate genre the way that romance novels are tossed aside by literary critics: the bad ones make everyone look bad.

But back Ke$ha, who does sing. In the video at the top of the post, which is from the 2010 American Music Awards, the singer -- who turns 25 this Thursday -- lets her freak flag fly, beginning the song in a disc jockey pod of some sort, wearing illuminated goggles. She's joined by two dancers wielding microphones and blond mullets, who retreat to stationary mic stands as the "100% dancers" take the stage behind Ke$ha. She sheds a layer of clothing and proceeds to sing, dance, and smash a guitar on stage. It feels a bit contrived; the guitar is presented by a back-up singer and Ke$ha strums it for a minute before holding it up to reveal "HATE" crossed out on the back. Eh, that's cool, but I've seen her actually play guitar, and she undersold it here for the sake of the gimmick. But the gimmick works as confetti falls and it's Ke$ha smash time, including a possibly accidental swipe against a dancer. The sparks literally fly, the song ends, and the singer stares down the audience until their ovation turns into a standing one. She smiles. Mission accomplished.

Cheer for me. Now.

I like Ke$ha because she actually sings, she writes all of her own music, and as a member of my generation (she's eight days older than me), she seems comfortable with who she is and what she presents to the world. She put green lipstick on her male dancers, ripped tights on everyone, and she mixed leopard print with what appears to be a leotard made of mirrors. Her voice seems to emerge already autotuned, and she throws in gasps and piques that are conversationally familiar to anyone born after 1980, particularly anyone who has spent time in a sorority. Often these vocal stylings are interpreted as vapid, but as linguistics professor Carmen Fought told the New York Times, "If women do something like uptalk or vocal fry, it’s immediately interpreted as insecure, emotional or even stupid...The truth is this: Young women take linguistic features and use them as power tools for building relationships." Hmmm, go on?

Times reporter Douglas Quenqua continues: "The idea that young women serve as incubators of vocal trends for the culture at large has longstanding roots in linguistics. As Paris is to fashion, the thinking goes, so are young women to linguistic innovation." So while you were making fun of Valley Girls, they were latching onto the dregs of your language skills, burrowing in and changing the way you think about language. Linguist Mark Liberman says that not only are women are half a generation ahead of men on the vocal soundscape, but it rubs off: his 2003 study of 12,000 phone conversations found that more men than women use the word "like" superfluously in conversation. He also (predictably) found that young people use it more often than older people, but the line has grown fuzzier as informal conversation has shifted to account for the tics of the younger generation.

Wear your colors proudly.

If all communication has a purpose, then these stylistic choices do too. Vocal fry, the creaky voice effect, was notably used by British men as far back as the 1960's to denote "superior social standing." Women use uptick to manipulate and lower their voices to sound more authoritative. And sometimes, the article notes, women use vocal fry to communicate boredom or disinterest -- emotions that Ke$ha will happily make you forget about for four and a half minutes while she stages a performance that demands you sit down and watch, so as not to miss anything good. Say what you will about Ke$ha, but like Britney, she knows how to put on a show. And unlike most of her dance music contemporaries, Ke$ha doesn't value the show above the music. And if record sales are any indication, we're listening.

Dave Werner: "Extraneous Lyrics"

Some days you just need something to make you smile. Since those days are usually Wednesdays, we're going a little less serious today with a parody video made a guy (and new father!) named Dave Werner.

Werner essentially took the biggest hits of 2010 and expanded the lyrics in a way that, one might argue, is much more complete and descriptive. For example, while Lady Gaga's lyrics are a bit abstract -- "I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as it's free" -- Werner takes a more literal approach: "I want your unappealing features, I want your infectious medical conditions, I would like everything you have as long as there is no currency exchange involved." His voice is passable but his articulation, thesaurus and musical sense of humor are top-notch.

Werner's recording, which has half a million hits on YouTube, has also been featured on VH1's Best Week Ever, Gawker and PopEater, among others. The songs he parodies:

"Dynamite" by Taio Cruz
"Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem, featuring Rihanna
"Fuck You" by Cee Lo Green
"Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga
"Tik Tok" by Ke$ha
"Baby" by Justin Bieber
"California Gurls" by Katy Perry

Enjoy.

"Extraneous Lyrics," performed by Dave Werner.
Original YouTube video.

Ke$ha: "Dead Flowers"

I have a strange fascination with Ke$ha. She's such an odd specimen of a pop star: Her breakthrough was singing the melody on Flo Rida's 2009 hit "Right Round" -- a song I detest more than finding cockroaches in my cereal box. Then she released "Tik Tok" as a single, followed by the full album "Animal" in January 2010. It debuted at number 1.

Her tracks are dance-pop and incorporate spoken rap. (I mean, ugh.) The lyrics are vapid -- usually about sex and/or drinking -- and nothing she does makes any damn sense.

But I just love her. I can't really figure it out; something to do with chutzpa. She's got a Nashville/LA singer-songwriter pedigree, a voice that can handle everything from pop to country to soul, and an attitude. Not all her songs are great, but the ones that are ("Boots and Boys," "Your Love is My Drug," "Stephen," etc.) are great. She's fun, and she doesn't seem to give a fuck what others think. She doesn't sing about crushes or wine coolers -- she'll walk in the room and order a round of whiskey, then take home the hottest guy in the room. (And then stalk him.)

Girl can hold her liquor, that's for sure.

Given her poppiness (and superficial trashiness), I've hidden my love of Ke$ha. Until now. I wish I had some context for this recording; all I know is what you see, which appears to be a house party at which a jam session occurs, and Ke$ha sings the Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers." (With some help with the crowd at the chorus.) She doesn't start until about 1:20 -- but as soon as she opens her mouth, you stop. You listen. Her inflection is beautiful. And I love the glimpse into, like, what she's actually doing on a Friday night. We'd totally be tight. Enjoy.

"Dead Flowers," performed by Ke$ha
Original on the Rolling Stones' "Sticky Fingers" (1971).