Posts by Eliot Glazer

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or a woman overly dramatic. Billie Myers came and went in 1998 with Kiss The Rain, a pop song whose hook helped cement the power of cliched, vague statements wrapped in feminine self-assuredness. “Kiss the rain whenever you need me,” she sings, reminding her ex-lover that they’re […]

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he makes everything sound so damn appealing, so we allow him this soapbox… On October 31, 2007, I felt I had reached the apex of my obsession with one musician whose signature vocal stylings had been – for years – some of the most […]

We like to fluff Sir Paul McCartney ’round here, so today we offer a countervailing opinion. Our Bad Music Correspondent Eliot Glazer shall now take Macca down a peg or two. Great, Hidden Track, yet another post about aging Brits.

I like “Feliz Navidad” as much as the next guy, and although my heart lies with Mariah Carey’s go-to-for-the-gays, modern classic “All I Want For Christmas,” the holiday song I can truly call my favorite is, naturally, “Wonderful Christmas Time (All The Best!)” by Paul McCartney and Wings. Honestly, what the shit is this song?

Read on for more on why Eliot wants this song to go the way of Linda…

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he makes everything sound so damn appealing, so we allow him this little soapbox… Everybody loves a wide-eyed indie starlet with a voice like silk and a penchant for writing airy, eclectic ditties. But someone’s got to tell Feist to give corporate shilling a […]

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he makes everything sound so damn appealing, so we allow him this little soapbox…

The Isley Brothers are the stuff of legend. As pioneers of marrying funk, soul, and rock and roll, the Cincinnati trio has seen its success span decades. Through good times and bad, and in packs of varying number, the Isleys have most certainly left their stamp on the music industry and continue to churn out hits as the shape of pop music endures further shape-shifting models.

In 1995, Ronald Isley took a gamble — what did he really have to lose? — and teamed up with R. Kelly, releasing the single “Contagious,” for which Isley adopted a pimped-out alter ego named Mr. Biggs. Floating through the pop cultural continuum during a time when gangsta rap equated the machismo factor in urban radio, Isley’s career was rejuvenated by his playing an inexplicably rich and powerful man-king whose woman goes astray in pursuit of R. Kelly’s younger, more virile magic penis (I’ll spare you the obvious pee joke).

Watching Contagious is like peering into a crystal ball that contained a future in which R. Kelly would find stunning success with a repetitive, undeniably silly slow jam and a soapy narrative consistently centered around adultery. But where “Trapped In The Closet” manages to take its viewer/listener straight to downtown Crazyland, “Contagious” remains creepy and bizarre, only in the most enjoyable way possible. Read on after the jump to watch the incredible video…

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he’s an adroit wordsmith, and he’s gonna try to convince us that the bad is really good. Remember Charlotte Church? She was an absolute wonder, an extremely young, polite, pleasant-looking “opera prodigy” with a voice beyond her years. And, oh, the songs she sang! […]

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he’s an adroit wordsmith, and he’s gonna try to convince us that the bad is really good. Way before Sex and the City, Natalie Cole turned Bruce Springsteen’s Pink Cadillac into a girly ode to naiveté, a song about which Carrie Bradshaw might ask […]

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he’s an adroit wordsmith, and he’s gonna try to convince us that the bad is really good. As a bona fide legend in the history of popular music, Notorious B.I.G. — he of the well-tailored mushmouth who helped close the bridge between gangsta rap and […]

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he’s an adroit wordsmith, and he’s gonna try to convince us that the bad is really good.

Not until recently did I realize how much I love Anita Baker.

I don’t know what clued me in. I should have realized her brilliantly campy appeal years ago when, while working at a country club, a fellow employee (and unrecognized pop cultural genius) complained about George Michael’s Careless Whispers being played too often throughout the establishment. I questioned her disgust with the song, as I was personally indifferent to it.

“C’mon, dude,” she said, “It’s totally an anthem for pedophiles.”

Read on for more of Eliot’s hilarious romp through Anita Baker’s mind…

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he’s an adroit wordsmith, and he’s gonna try to convince us that the bad is really good.

Now I may not have been a cool kid by any means, but my parents — your everyday liberal Jewish boomers — knew how to keep their oldest son’s musical taste in check.

As a product of the[ir] times, I listened to Carly Simon, Harry Chapin, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell…basically any North American who owned a musical instrument and experienced mild depression between 1970 and 1982 (one might not necessarily include Billy Joel among those folksters, but one wouldn’t realize that I grew up on Long Island, where knowing all the words to “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” is as natural as giving the finger on the L.I.E.).

James Taylor was always, and continues to be, a staple of my musical taste. From his genuinely formative early records to his more recent albums that seamlessly compliment the “elegant yet comfortable” interior of a Williams Sonoma, Taylor’s got his routine down to a science. He doesn’t take risks, but there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that (look at Norah Jones, three records, eight Grammys, and a cool bajillion dollars later). Every summer when JT plays at Jones Beach, my mom drags my dad along who, although he’s as much a fan as I am, often jokes that he should “bring a blanket and pillow” to the show. Ah, some things never change.

Read on for more I Love Bad Music and a fancy, streamable JT track…

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he’s an adroit wordsmith, and he’s gonna try to convince us that the bad is really good.

Even if you’re rooting for Sanjaya Malakar to throw the media mammoth that is American Idol, not everyone involved with the gargantuan show should be equally condemned. Sure, Idol has become an honest-to-god factory in mainstream music, churning out vocalists like Britney Spears does fully developed fetuses.

But aside from salvaging what is left of an industry that possesses a shriveling set of balls resting lightly below the digital-downloading guillotine, there have been a couple of considerable Idol offspring in its seven seasons. Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone is a certifiable pop classic, Jennifer Hudson gave life to an otherwise mediocre movie, and the adorable Jordin Sparks is poised to be both a tween sensation and perhaps this season’s sleeper.

Make no mistake, the judges’ favorite winner throughout the show’s history is Fantasia Barrino, a powerhouse saaanger whose emotional aptitude and tragic backstory (“Illiterate single mom chases dreams, ends on ‘high note!'”) have earned her adoring fans and critics alike. No, her music isn’t particularly stellar, but her most recent self-titled sophomore attempt was well-received for its march into a less-tread territory in the field of contemporary R&B.

Read on for more of Eliot’s claim that what’s perceived as bad is really good…

Friend of HT Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he’s an adroit wordsmith, and he’s gonna try to convince us that the bad is really good.

I read Stereogum. I read Pitchfork. I even dabble through Spin and Rolling Stone from time to time. But even as a trained musician, I refuse to consider myself any kind of authority on music.

Granted, I’ve always harbored moderately good musical taste, relying on the talents of artists whose work usually finds success among critics and college students (hello, cred!). Naturally, I would mention my surprisingly short DMB phase in high school with an air of exasperation here, although I can’t begin to imagine the amount of hate mail under which I’d find myself buried.

But for every Cat Power, Flaming Lips, and Nick Drake listed under the Artists on my iPod is an Alicia Bridges, Babyface, and at least one American Idol contestant, and not even necessarily a winner. It’s sad but true: I love bad music. I crave it. And I want you to love it with me.

Read on for the rest of Eliot’s first installment of “I Love Bad Music”…