Bits & Pieces

Lady Gaga is back, and trashier than ever. This time she is working with Beyonce. If you are a fan, watch it full screen.

First, a version by Jennifer Warnes:

Now one by Leonard Cohen, its writer:

Take a listen and watch.

This is excellent. Note particularly the conductor around the 4 minute mark. (h/t MonkeyBusinessBlog)

Great, super, you-have-to-have-it music from The XX. Sculptural, spare and perfect.  Play and listen and let it grow on you. Read the review from The New Yorker.

Where The xx may be even better than their elders is in the severity of their arrangements. Big, washy keyboards? Not here, pal. More than one guitar string at a time? Those poufy lush things called chords? Highly indulgent. It’s even more surprising how ascetic and disciplined the band is when it comes to presenting information. In the album’s most active song, “Crystalised,” all we have is Sim and Madley Croft trading vocals over a bass line and a clicking stick. When the other members enter, with a drumbeat, it feels like an extraordinary blooming, even though it’s how most bands run through all the songs in a set. (There may even be a chord involved at this point.) You don’t think of people this young being masters of restraint, but the album works like a visit to the optometrist, with instruments dropping in and out every four or eight bars: Is that clearer? How about that? How about now?

Get it now. (iTunes link)

Talk about great product placement:

Another great acoustic cover of Lady GaGa. And these guys are GOOD.

More from these two great talents here. I particularly like their Michael Jackson medley, made with a few friends.

The Beezlebubs. Excellent.

Love this.

Four years ago, this was a performance by Stefani Germanotta.

She is now known as Lady GaGa. She clearly had talent even then. What a voice. There are a lot of critics of this woman, but this proves them wrong.

And here is her current incarnation. I think she could well be a latter day Madonna.

If you have been watching this blog, you have seen the various versions of Poker Face, by Lady GaGa. Here is the ultimate mash-up of all the versions (so far).

The boys of South Park pick up the challenge. (via Andrew Sullivan)

Gotta love the fact that he performs Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.

For those of you wondering what a mash up of the Lady Gaga and Christopher Walken would sound like…..

Fortune Magazine has named Steve Jobs CEO of the decade.  And he certainly deserves the title.

How’s this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.

Sound too far-fetched to be true? Perhaps. Yet it happens to be the real-life story of Steve Jobs and his outsize impact on everything he touches.

Tonight at 8:30 pm., Los Angeles time, U2 will be streaming their concert live from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. You can watch here.