Greatest Song Evah 2/14/25
Crazy In Love
Beyoncé had already set the record for most Grammy wins and just last week she finally won her first Album Of the Year trophy. Despite her considerable accolades, there has been one thing missing. She has finally won the coveted Greatest Song Evah prize. Her career is now complete.
After a soft launch to her solo career with minor soundtrack contributions, Crazy In Love was her first full-fledged solo hit, and there could not have been a better start. The horn samples from an old Chi-Lites record blast out from the speaker, and Jay-Z’s opening rap accurately describes what we are about to hear as “history in the making.”
A sure sign of a talented vocalist is one who can make wordless lyrics sound almost poetic. Beyoncé’s “uh-oh’s” well convey the feelings that would eventually be expressed in the actual lyrics; that emotion of being so head over heels in love that you basically lose your mind. To put it another way, it’s the emotional equivalent of the old saying “dance like no one’s watching.”
Jay-Z’s mid-song rap interlude is wonderful in its own way; he earns bonus points for his ability to include a Nick Van Exel reference in a #1 hit record. When this song was released more than 20 years ago, Beyoncé was already among the most famous singers in the world, but there was no assurance that she would go on to become BEYONCÉ. Sure, she was the clear breakout of Destiny’s Child and it was obvious that she had that indefinable star quality, but this song proved that her talent and charisma was of an entirely different magnitude. All these years later, everything she does continues to be a major event. Crazy In Love reliably ranks near the top of any list of the greatest songs of the century and it is pure energy and pure excitement from first note to last. History in the making, indeed.
The 2025 Ballot
Last month I offered my predictions on the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame ballot. I came up with 17 names. The actual ballot contained 14 nominees, and the nominating committee agreed with 8 of my choices. Should I be happy with that, or should I place the Hall on blast for not fully listening to my suggestions?
My thoughts on the specific nominees range from “about time!” to “good choice!” to “OK, whatevs!” to “what the what?” I will once again do an artist by artist breakdown of the ballot, so you’ll just have to wait to see which artist caused each specific reaction. More broadly speaking, I hate to regurgitate the same complaints year after year, but if the Hall makes the same mistakes year after year, it deserves every bit of criticism that it gets.
I don’t know how recently you’ve looked at a calendar, but it’s 2025. Which means that artists who have released their first record as recently as 2000 are eligible for induction. Which means that we are well into the era in which hip-hop is the single most dominant cultural force, which makes it so aggravating that the committee is still so hesitant to acknowledge that reality. The silver lining is that with only one true hip-hop artist on the ballot, Outkast has a clear lane all to themselves. I could be wrong, but they are likely the closest thing to a sure thing this year. Still, the committee needs to do better.
On the flip side, I really thought that the Hall had finally closed the book on the 60’s. To be fair, there are 60’s acts for whom I can make a strong argument, but I don’t see the point of having artists from that era still competing with more recent ones. If the Hall wishes to add some sort of veteran’s committee path to induction I could be down with that. Otherwise if an artist that old hasn’t gotten in by now, shouldn’t that ship have sailed? I would even go as far as to say that although it’s not yet closing time for 70’s acts it should at least be getting close to last call.
To his credit current chairman John Sykes has been making an honest attempt to bring better gender and racial balance to the makeup of inductees. So I think this year’s ballot is just a poorly timed coincidence but it is still terribly disheartening in this time of backlash against equity to see a ballot so overwhelmingly male and white. The only female nominees are Mariah Carey and Cyndi Lauper, along with band members Gillian Gilbert of New Order and Meg White of The White Artists. The only black artists are Big Boi and Andre 3000 of Outkast, along with Chubby Checker. Add biracial Carey, Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, who is of Indian descent, and the members of Mana from Mexico and that’s it. The demographics of the full class could conceivably look a little better depending on who gets selected in the side categories but those are some terrible optics.
Which leads to the most inexcusable omission on this year’s ballot. There is always going to be a certain amount of wishcasting when it comes to the ballot, but I really need an explanation on the continuing absence of The B-52’s from consideration. They seem to have everything you want in a Hall of Fame act. They are much beloved, have a distinct sound, and have multiple hits which have stood the test of time. Plus, if you include the late Ricky Wilson, 4 of the 5 members are openly LBGTQ+. In these times what a wonderful message it would have sent to see this band raise the roof at the induction ceremony with a performance of such pure joy accompanied by an arena full of fans participating in the fun. Talk about a missed opportunity.
I don’t want to be a nattering nabob of negativism. Despite my criticism there are enough wonderful artists on the ballot that if the voters choose wisely we should have a nice Class of 2025. Voters can select up to 7 acts on the ballot, which guarantees that half of the nominees will be inducted. I’ll go through the names one artist at a time once the SNL 50th anniversary celebrations are all done.
All-Star Weekend (Ho Hum)
Looks like this is the year that I have finally thrown in the towel on the NBA All-Star Game. I’m old enough to remember when it was arguably the most exciting of the Big 4. It was a constant game of “can you top this?” among the big stars and a perfect demonstration of the freakish skill set that the top players have. Over time, however, that degenerated into a full blown farce. The only real value to the game in recent years is that it serves as a rejoinder to people who claim that no one in the NBA plays defense. Nope, the reason scoring is up is because the players are so good that even the best defender can only do so much to stop someone. You want to see what no defense looks like? It’s the unwatchable mess of an all-star game where everyone has unimpeded paths to the basket, they are all chucking 3’s, and the final score is something like 184-165.
The league has been trying everything to juice the game. For a few years the leading vote getter from each conference served as a team captain and the 2 would choose up sides. The problem here is that it’s too much of a hassle to watch the game and try to figure out who is playing for which team. At least when the teams are divided by conference you know the teams. There was only one instance when this format provided entertainment. It was in 2022 when Kevin Durant and LeBron James were the captains and the draft occurred just after James Harden forced his way out of Brooklyn. KD was still pissed, and he refused to acknowledge Harden as a potential selection, even though LeBron was trying his best to goad Durant.
The newest tweak this year is that rather than one game there will be a mini-tournament in which the 24 all-stars divided into 3 8-player squads play short games with the 4th team in the mix whichever one wins tonight’s Rising Star game. The sides were chosen by the hosts of Inside the NBA and as it turned out the 3 captains had specific goals in mind when constructing their teams so there is a bit of logic to the respective rosters. Charles Barkley filled his team with international stars; Kenny Smith went with first-time stars, and Shaquille O’Neal stuck with the veteran legends.
Still, although I had a lot of interest in which players were chosen for those precious 24 slots, I have lost interest in actually watching the event, and I felt this way even before I realized that the game(s) will take place at the same time as the SNL 50th anniversary special.
Although it’s not officially a part of All-Star Weekend, TNT will lead into its coverage of All-Star Friday with the semifinals and finals of Unrivaled’s one on one tournament this evening at 7. It will be Napheesa Collier against Azura Stevens in one semi and in the other Aaliyah Edwards faces pre-tourney favorite Arike Ogunbowale. The games are first to 11, with make-it take-it rules. The final matchup is best 2 games out of 3.
SNL Anniversary Preview
After a long buildup, the official 50th anniversary party is almost here. If you have watched any NBC programming this week you have seen alumni all over the network, whether on the late night talk shows or on the Today Show. Suffice it to say that the evening will serve as a major homecoming for dozens of popular names from the show’s past. If there was ever an afterparty that I would need to somehow find a way to crash, this is the one.
The first anniversary show that NBC produced was the 15th, and as a symbol of how long ago that was the emcee was Billy Crystal. With the exception of showing Eddie Murphy highlights, Lorne likes to pretend that his 5 years of exile didn’t actually happen so the fact that a star from the Ebersol years had such a role shows that it was a different era. Crystal indicated that there would be no new material on that special, making the comparison to a baseball old-timers game. You like to see the stars, not to see them move slowly in ill-fitting uniforms.
That attitude set the template for the earliest anniversary specials. Bring back as many old stars as possible, but limit their participation to introducing clip packages. Any new material would be limited to musical performances and a Q&A segment with the dignitaries in the audience. The formula changed with the 40th anniversary special.
10 years ago the returning cast members and hosts participated in new live sketches on stage. Some of them were straight on remakes of classic pieces such as Bass-O-Magic, some were new star-studded versions of popular recurring sketches such as Celebrity Jeopardy. That appears to be the plan this time as well. NBC has released a preliminary list of guests, but more are certain to come. (I’ll go out on a limb and say that among the returning past hosts will NOT be E*** M*** or D***** T****.)
Figure on some big surprises. No matter how one feels about SNL, particular in recent years, it’s undeniable that a hefty percentage of the biggest names in American comedy have deep roots in the show. And if you’re into Kremlinology, keep on eye on which current castmembers are going to be prominently featured. It will tell a lot about their futures. In addition, the names from the past who do and do not appear indicates which cards Lorne pulls out of his Rolodex most frequently. (Yes, I firmly believe that Lorne still uses an old school Rolodex.) I’ll have a full recap of the festivities in Wednesday’s newsletter.
Non-Peak TV - Cliffhangers
I’m going to wrap up this recurring segment with a show that was more of a noble failure than a flat out flop. Most of the shows I have discussed here had the deadly combo of poor concept and poor execution. This one had an interesting concept, it’s just that the presentation was too schlocky for its own good.
Cliffhangers was a tribute to old timey movie serials which briefly aired on NBC in 1979. The appeal was obvious; the boomers who had grown up on serials were now all grown up and were filling executive suites and writers rooms. They all had a great deal of nostalgia for this particular form of storytelling. Cliffhangers consisted of 3 ongoing serials, each of which would end the weekly segment with the hero in grave peril. How will they get out of this situation? Tune in next week to find out!
The 3 storylines each fell into a different genre - a paranoid conspiracy thriller, a western/science fiction hybrid, and a horror tale. In an interesting creative choice none of the serials in the premiere episode began with chapter 1, although the stories were simple enough that a viewer could pick up on the gist without having to do much heavy thinking. (My memory told me that the western/science fiction story began at chapter 1, but according to Wikipedia chapter 3 was the first one shown. I must have misremembered that.) Unfortunately the ratings were so poor that only 1 of the 3 actually aired its concluding chapter, so the fates of some of our heroes has been lost to history.
The first serial starred Susan Anton as a newspaper reporter investigating the mysterious death of her brother and finds that there’s more to the story than meets the eye! With each week her investigation peels another layer off of that onion. It’s essentially a modern day update of The Perils Of Pauline; in the climax of each episode the bad guys are on the verge of capturing or killing her, she escapes certain death, lather, rinse, repeat until the next chapter.
The middle story looked and felt really chintzy, but I’m still not sure if that’s because 1979 television budgets weren’t very high or if it was an intentional homage to the cheap special effects common in 1950’s science fiction. In this one a western sheriff chases bandits into a cave where he discovers an underground alien society. When the action moves to that lair the film shifts from black & white to color. There is only one scene that I remember; one of the chapters ended with the hero and heroine caught in a spider web. A giant spider slowly crawls towards them, end of chapter. The spider looked like it was made out of papier-mâché, making the situation a lot less scary than it could have been.
The third segment was a version of Dracula set in contemporary Los Angeles. In this one a group of vampire hunters, who included a descendant of Van Helsing, battles the count who is masquerading as a college professor. Michael Nouri, later of Flashdance fame, played Dracula in a portrayal which owed a lot to Frank Langella’s interpretation of the character. Once again, there is one scene which I clearly remember that impressed 13 year old me, but when I think about it now it sounds cheesy. In that scene Dracula runs through a stop sign and when the police officer pulls him over Dracula did not have his driver’s license. When asked to step out of his vehicle Dracula does the full blown unfurling of the cape followed by the baring of the fangs and it’s game over for the unfortunate cop. It almost sounds like I’m describing a scene from What We Do In the Shadows.
There is probably the footprint of a good show somewhere in there, and I remember this show with at least some fondness. I have noticed that the episodes are on YouTube, but I prefer to preserve the memories I have from watching this as a preteen. That’s not unlike the memories that boomers have for the movie serials which inspired the show in the first place.
Closing Laughs
Time to wrap a bow around things for another week. Thanks for reading/subscribing/sharing. Have a great weekend everybody, and I will see you again on Monday. Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day.
