Blog Posts by John Kordosh

We were having our usual day, examining hundreds of music videos minutely, not even stopping to eat, when we had an idea: What if we featured a music video that showed people actually performing music? No script! No actors!  No fancy sets! It was the most radical idea ever! Excited, we ran it past Toy-Bot, The Good Cat, but--frankly--he seemed indifferent to the whole idea. Then again, his people, the cats, aren't a musical race. But ours is!

We considered the consequences. Would Framed's readers embrace the notion that human beings sometimes make the music that makes music videos possible? Would our captions be as razor-sharp as ever? And what about Gummo, America's beloved Sentient Bubble?

Damn the consequences, we said! This is a nifty idea! We'll simply pick a video that shows real musicians playing a real song in front of appreciative real people and we'll do the best we can! It's that can-do attitude that's made America great, after all!

It's our pleasure, therefore, to present

Welcome, everyone, to what is now--officially!--America's Favorite Music Video Blog That Is Also Kinda Funny. We assure you that this is honor we don't take lightly, and that we'll do whatever we can to continue winning your trust and readership.

Lady GaGa -- last week's featured artist right here in Framed -- is a hard act to follow, but we think we're on to something by bringing you Aretha Franklin this week. Aretha, of course, is universally known  as the Queen of Soul and last year, Rolling Stone named her the best singer of all time. Her honors, somewhat like ours, are nearly endless. The lady has won 20 Grammys, including Lifetime Achievement and Living Legend Grammys. Unsurprisingly, she was also the first woman inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Our video is "Freeway of Love," a single off her 1985 album, Who's Zoomin' Who? that hit #3 and won Aretha one of her many Grammys. The video takes us to her hometown of Detroit, which evidently used to be some sort of

As a change of pace, this week we've decided to spotlight dance music. And we can think of no better video to do so than Lady GaGa's #1 smash hit, "Just Dance."

"Just Dance" was the first single off her 2008 debut album, The Fame, and it hit #1 in the U.S. and at least five other countries when she was just 22 years old. To prove it was no fluke, the follow-up, "Poker Face," also hit #1 later in the year, and the album is still at #5 on the Billboard chart. According to fellow Y! Music blogger Paul Grein, "At least one song from this album has been listed in the top five for all but two weeks since before Thanksgiving."

Pretty impressive, huh? Equally impressive is the video for "Just Dance," showing the bacchanalia that is the modern dance scene. It looks like nuthin' but fun, so sit back and enjoy the video, our frames and the captions we have--as always--very thoughtfully provided for your reading pleasure!

1--Little-known fact: Lady GaGa was a seventh-round pick of the Dallas

If you're a regular reader of our blog, welcome back. This week's Framed may well be the internet's single finest moment!

We'll ask you to bear with us for a minute, though. Every now and again, we like to explain Framed to our new readers. So, if you're a newbie here, listen up:

1) Framed is a blog that features a different music video every week. We go through the vid and freeze still pictures, which we then caption in English for your convenience.

2) But wait! Our captions aren't descriptive, but are--rather--irreverent and topical. Yes, it's a twist no one ever thought of before.

3) We then cash the check Y! Music sends us, making the whole experience win/win. Or, at the very least, win.

4) Insanely democratic, Framed features music from all genres, from country to rap, purely for your enjoyment. Feel free to make suggestions about videos you think we should highlight.

That's how it works and we hope you'll become a weekly visitor to Framed. This week we're featuring rap icon DMX

Alternative dudes Cracker have just released a new LP, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey, their ninth album. Is it any good? Well, we don't know because it never got a mention in Y! Music's own New This Week, a blog most Americans agree would be their favorite were it not for Framed.

We're pretty sure there's a good reason for that, and it probably has something to do with Ethel Merman. But we at Framed like Cracker, so let's see what they say about their new record. To quote their website: "This rich new trove of sharp-witted songs showcases a bristling, late 70's--early 80's power pop punk aesthetic which hits as hard as it did at the band's formation 17 years ago."

Bristling, eh? Rich trove, eh? It sounds pretty darn good! Caught up in Crackermania, we've decided to feature the guys in Framed this week, simply to boost their record sales. We occasionally wield our power randomly, as you know. We couldn't find a video for the new disc so we're going with the classic "Eurotrash

If you're a fan of American Idol--and, really, who isn't?--this is an exciting time of the year! Once again, we're down to two finalists and an anxious nation finds itself unable to concentrate on things like work and family. Who will it be, Adam or that other guy? 

We don't know, but we thought this would be a good week to look back on one of our favorite Idols, Taylor Hicks, to see how things have been going for him since his ascension back in season five. You'll recall that Taylor eked out a victory that year over Katharine McPhee, who has since actually vanished from the face of the Earth.

Post-Idol, Taylor's eponymous first album went platinum and hit #2 in the U.S. His second, The Distance, was released in March of this year and hasn't fared as well, peaking at #58. This week's video is "What's Right Is Right," off the second record, and it's fairly typical of Hicks' oeuvre. We see the soulful Hicks onstage mostly, and it's really not a bad song. 

Faint praise? Perhaps. To be

Whew! We just made it back to 2009 in time for this week's blog! Regular readers know that we took an extended vacation in the 1980s, where we enjoyed their simple musical stylings...but it's great to be back home!

As far as the '80s go, it was a nice time to visit but we sure wouldn't want to live there. Did you know that George Bush's dad used to be the Vice President of the United States?? It's true! Back in those days, Americans actually didn't utterly despise the Republican Party. Go figure!

Let's get to this week's video, a 21st century effort, and a prize-winner by all accounts. We're featuring Coldplay, the great alt rock band out of England, and their 2002 song, "The Scientist." The song--prominent piano and strings, very Coldplayish--was on their excellent A Rush Of Blood To The Head album, which won the 2003 Grammy for Best Alternative Album and is also ranked #65 on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the "The Definitive 200 Albums Of All Time."

On top of all that,

Regular readers know we've been vacationing in the 1980s the last few weeks, bringing you some of the quality videos they made back in those days. The decade's most important contribution to society, of course, was gangsta rap, and this week we're proud to welcome seminal gangstas N.W.A. to Framed.

N.W.A.--Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Easy-E and MC Ren--were known as "the world's most dangerous group" for their portrayal of the gangsta lifestyle and especially for their attitude toward the police. "I'm not the other color so police think they have the authority to kill a minority," rapped Ice Cube in "F*** Tha Police," a favorite of social conservatives to this day. 

Sadly, there is no video for that song, but we're bringing the next best thing with "Straight Outta Compton," the title track of the album that propelled N.W.A. into history in 1988. The video, shot in their hometown in Southern California, is pretty much a cops-vs.-N.W.A. event. As always, we invite your comments, and wonder how