Aussielicious

It’s no secret that I’ve questioned Madonna’s relevance in the past few years. In the good old days she’d create the bandwagon and then abandon it when the try-hards tried to jump on it. In recent times though she’s seemed to be chasing it down the street, in danger of losing credibility faster than Tom Cruise jumping on a couch.

I think the Super Bowl performance and the hype that is building around her new album have reinstated her as a force to be reckoned with and someone never to be written off. Sure there are people suggesting she’s pinched some influences for her show from Kylie’s Aphrodite show but those things go around and around and they are all influence by history whether recent or ancient.

Madonna has just announced the dates for most of her World Tour happening in 2013. This time she’s even coming to Australia for the first time in 20 years. Bout bloody time Madge! I’ll start mortgaging my internal organs now to afford the ridiculous price but I’ll be there.

I have just read a great article on her cultural influence and the feminist view of her Super Bowl performance. I hadn’t even given it any thought but I have to say, if it was intended it was a fantastic “fuck you” to machismo and homophobia.

I generally just feel like this is a huge triumph for feminine and queer energy in the universe.  The Super Bowl is such an ugly symbol for everything that is brutish and stupid about American/Western masculinism, and this was like an INTERVENTION.  Not only did this woman make millions of football fans watch VOGUE — not only her GAYEST song, but a song that is LITERALLY ABOUT BEING GAY, AND IS BASED ON AN APPROPRIATION OF GAY STREET CULTURE — but she made it even gayer by projecting images of VOGUE MAGAZINE ON THE FUCKING FOOTBALL FIELD.  “FUCK YOU, FOOTBALL.  FUCK YOU, AMERICAN MALENESS.”  “BETTE DAVIS, WE LOVE YOU” – that sentence was said AT THE SUPER BOWL.  The major theme of that performance was that FEMININE GAYNESS IS AWESOME, and WAY MORE INTERESTING THAN CONVENTIONAL AMERICAN MASCULINITY.  As soon as it was over, I tweeted, “It got better.”

A long while ago I posted the video for Matt Alber’s single “The end of the world” which was a beautiful song with an equally gorgeous video where Matt made no secret of his sexuality, dancing with the object of his desire.

Matt recently released a new album “Constant Crows” and on that album is Matt’s cover of Madonna’s “Take a bow” which I think is more raw and honest than the original. Matt’s voice is beautiful!

Today I saw a video online and we weren’t very busy at work so I settled in to watch it. What is it? Absolutely beautiful. Take buskers from around the world, playing different instruments or just singing, fly around the world recording them all singing the same classic song, mash the recordings up. What do you have? One of the most amazing feel good videos I’ve watched in a long time.

Stand by me!

Last night Australia saw the latest winner of XFactor, the young, very likable Reece Mastin, who, once awarded, proceeded to belt out his debut “winners” single “Good Night”. It’s a really catchy and fun song, perfectly suited to a 16 year old aspiring rock start with a pop edge. The only trouble? While the lyrics are all new, the music is practically identical to P!nk’s “Raise your Glass”, right down to the drum beats before the chorus. You can almost hear P!nk singing at the same time it’s that obvious.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens about it. Twitter is full of people commenting on the similarity so it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Check out the two songs for yourself below.

This was filmed backstage during Kylie’s Aphrodite Les Folies world tour and it’s a beautiful simple acoustic version of her hit “Breathe”. The song was off her “Impossible Princess” album from 1997 which didn’t do well commercially at the time even though critics loved it. It’s since become a bit of a cult Kylie album.

A few people on the Kylie Facebook page are hollering for Kylie to do an acoustic greatest hits album. God knows I’d buy it. Kylie herself has floated the idea of doing a tour of smaller venues doing acoustic and different versions of her hits. I say YES PLEASE!

This Saturday night DJ Dan Murphy and Sean from Rockyourbox are putting on a party called Pop Attack at Sydney’s TANK Bar immediately after the screening of Kylie’s Aphrodite Les Folies Tour in 3D. All the details for the event are one click away (or search for Pop Attack in your facebook events). It should be a great party filled with pure pop. I have the word from Mr Murphy that it’s radio edits all the way, no ten minute remixes, just good pop fun.

Jack Vidgen went viral with his audition this year for Australia’s Got Talent when he busted out a Whitney song like he was a soul diva from the South of about 40 years old. Instead he’s a 14 year old white kid from Australia.

He’s sung songs from Whitney, Adele and Jennifer Hudson in the auditions and other rounds. Last night in the Grand Final performance show he did one of his own songs. Now when I heard that was happening I was thinking it was all over. I thought we’d have a little bit of Beiber bashed around the head with a depressed Rebecca Black, but no.

Jack’s song was stunning and he’s proven that there really is an old soul diva possessing his body and inspiring amazing things from this kid. Here’s hoping he goes a very long way.

Did you know that a lot of famous jazz songs were written by men for the male lovers? Neither did I but Steven Gallavin did. He’s a new gay jazz singer in a realm that isn’t very gay friendly. Thankfully for all of us, he’s sticking to his guns and singing the classic jazz songs, as they were written, by a man for a man.

Now I know some of my readers will get a bit annoyed that Steven has used drag queens in the video but to me it makes perfect sense. The songs were all written by men hiding their true identity. Who does that better than the often shy men discovering their confidence in a wig and heels?

My post about music for a silks routine garnered a few good suggestions from readers which I thank you all for. None of them quite hit the mark in terms of what I had in my head. Thankfully there are perks to being in a relationship with someone with vast musical skills and resources.

A quick search on iTunes and I had found a great remix of Freeek by George Michael that is just dark enough, aggressive enough and fun enough that it will work. So my boyfriend is going to play with the song for me and do a bit of a mashup of Freeek, mashing it up with Erotica. It’s going to be awesome.

Last night was the last night of term for aerial silks and my routine went disastrously so I’m scrapping that routine for the time being and on the hunt for something new. I want to do a really sexy routine but finding the music is always a tough one. I was thinking of Madonna’s Erotica but while it’s very sexy, it’s not as ballsy as I want. It’s amazing that it was so shocking at the time but now it’s sexy but hardly scandalous.

FINALLY the new verions of Magic by Olivia Newton-John created by Peachy & Murphy has been released world wide! Olivia has performed it at Gay Pride and apparently the crowd loved it! Congratulations to the team. If you want to buy it, click here.

Tonight I finally got to be part of one of the flash mobs that happen from time to time in Sydney. It was so exciting. It was a very simple little surprise flash mob at a function that Kylie was appearing at. There were all the wannabe’s inside (yes I wanna be in there too) but a bunch of us stood outside and when she arrived we had a couple of singers start the verse of “I should be so lucky” and then the rest of the group all joined in for the chorus.

Kylie was very surprised and loved it. I have to say, I know I’m a massive fan but that woman is stunning in real life. I agree that at times it looks like she’s had more botox than Angelina has adopted children but tonight she looked natural, radiant and stunning. I can’t wait to see the show tomorrow night.

The music video for “MAGIC (Peachy & Murphy Mix) has just gone up on youtube. Watching a video you were at the making of is really cool. It’s great to see how it’s come together!

One of Gay Sydney’s best DJ’s, Dan Murphy is having a birthday today so to pay tribute and wish him happy birthday I’m posting his mashup of Bad Romance and Ring The Alarm. Happy Birthday Dan!