I submit for your consideration a selection of especially attractive men in contemporary music who, the way I see it, are under-appreciated for their achievements in hotness. Unlike the sadly unshakeable perspective many still hold toward female artists, men in music are not there to be sexy sex objects for our enjoyment; they are there to be dignified artists whose looks we don’t indulge in talking much about out of respect and admiration for the music they create. But as fans of their music, we certainly enjoy the bonus of their looks, and I find this worth celebration.

It’s odd to think how the handsomest men in the world of indie/alternative music are often not appreciated (read: objectified) for their looks in the same way as women artists are. Not that any artists/ musicians/human beings deserve to be objectified, but an artist’s “image” is just how we interact with them once they present their music to us in person or via magazines or music videos or what have you. Besides, I jump at any opportunity to indulge in the cross-section of girlish desire and music fandom.

I hope you’ll enjoy looking at and listening to the sexiest men in music whose hotness is underrated as much as I do.

[lead image via pressherenow.com]

The post The 6 Sexiest Men In Music Whose Hotness Is Underrated appeared first on Portable.tv.

I could never quite get on board with Beyoncé’s “Run The World (Girls)” as a feminist anthem. It wasn’t exactly a song empowering women inso much as it was a song empowering Beyoncé. With lyrics like, “Help me raise a glass for the college grads” and “How we’re smart enough to make these millions / Strong enough to bear the children / Then get back to business”, “Run The World” is designed for a very specific sort of woman; one whose priority is money and career, and who has been blessed with the privilege of being able to make autonomous choices about these things. It doesn’t exactly appeal to a democratic cross-section of women, and I’d say it’s more disenfranchising than it is empowering. Not all women have the ability or desire to go to college or to have children and then return to the workforce, because not all women are Beyoncé, who has the beauty of being, essentially, her own boss, and incredibly rich to boot with an entourage of helpers to assist her in what I can only imagine to be the most tiring and draining, both physically emotionally (but also rewarding), undertaking for a woman: motherhood. Beyoncé’s particular brand of feminism speaks in no uncertain terms to a certain type of woman; while it’s not an unworthy type of feminism, it’s an almost completely inaccessible one.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In fact, I’m not sure I’ve been satisfied with any song as a girl power anthem since Xtina and Lil’ Kim’s aggressive call to arms, “Can’t Hold Us Down,” (2003) which has a very clear, very simple message, “This is for my girls all around the world / Who have come across a man that don’t respect your worth.” While “Run The World” is for powerful women fighting to retain their power, “Can’t Hold Us Down” is about women demanding and usurping that power in the first place. It’s a sentiment that appeals to all women, addressing the sort of things all women deal with, all the time in their lives; being put down by men for simply being female. For being called a bitch because of their opinions, or a slut for sleeping around, when men shamelessly somehow hold the inherent right to judgement of both, even though they receive praise for the same behavior. It’s brilliant on the level of Nicki Minaj’s Pickle Juice rant. And, even more inspiring, “Lil’ Kim and Christina Aguilera got your back.” Beyoncé just wants you to “Bow down, bitches.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Janelle Monáe’s “Q.U.E.E.N” featuring Erykah Badu, is the first song since “Can’t Hold Us Down” that’s filled me with the same breathless, goosebumpy excitement. As the chorus repeats, “Am I a freak for getting down?” Monáe takes us back to the very grassroots concerns of feminism; basic acceptance and equality in sexuality, and this time not just at the virtue of men, but by the hand of society and its various religions. While “Q.U.E.E.N” may be a nod to Monáe’s own possibly queer sexuality and her connection with the LGBT community, for me, it’s a non-exclusionary anthem for a generation of pop-feminism that leads by the example of its strong women, but falls short on actual content. Lady Gaga’s brand of activism transcends feminism to incorporate everyone who has ever felt disenfranchised by society; we fight like rabid dogs in the street over whether Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Ke$ha are actually feminists or empowering for women; while women like Pink!, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez are just sort of left out of the conversation altogether.

As Monáe raps, “She who writes the movie owns the script and the sequel / So why ain’t the stealing of my rights made illegal,” grounds gender and sex equality back in the most simplest of its interests. Instantly, this resonates in the everyday life of a woman who, in a city like New York, can’t make it a block down the street without being cat called. And that’s not even a scratch against the culture of rape, not just America, but the world over; against institutionalized inequality in work places; against prejudice toward non-heteronormative sexual alignment; against the subordinate worth of female sexuality in both romantic and non-romantic interactions; against the overarching dismissal of feminine values as somehow “lesser” and the female resolve as unequivocally weaker. Stripped of the grand designs of Beyoncé’s nation building in “Run The World”, Katy’s militant “Part Of Me” or Ke$ha’s ballsy “Blah Blah Blah”, “Q.U.E.E.N.” asks for something far more humble for women, but something so very important to feminine empowerment that we’d be lost without it: respect.

The gorgeous video also has a clear message; that women, as relics that “appear” to satisfy a gaze constructed by a frigid society, we must work together to free one another and enable each other to act. Monáe and Badu ask “Is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror? / And am I weird to dance alone late at night? / And is it true we’re all insane?” to remind us that we need to continue asking these questions, and “defy every label”. Because in the excitement of glitter guns and all-female army amassing pop, it seems we might have forgot what Xtina and Kim we’re fighting for ten years ago. Thank God Janelle Monáe and Erykah Badu are here to save pop-feminism from total hedonism.

The post Janelle Monáe and Erykah Badu’s “Q.U.E.E.N” Is The Feminist Anthem We’ve Waited 10 Years For appeared first on Portable.tv.

According to New Zealand born director Claire Littler, her homeland has remarkable funding structures for local bands to record music and to consequently produce music videos. Taking advantage of this perk, Claire teamed up with her pal, Ralph Matthews, to create a lovely music video for their newest project, “To Leave Someone”.

Claire’s eye naturally gravitates toward photographic imagery while Ralph’s background is in illustration. Together the co-directors channeled their artistic abilities, incorporating graphic art elements with dynamic film shots, thus giving their film a surreal and dream-like aesthetic. For now, music videos are keeping the innovative duo’s schedule pretty full so Portable spoke to these Kiwis about directing, inspiration and film.

Portable: When did you first become interested in directing?

Claire Littler: There was always something about the power of music and moving imagery together that really inspired me, starting from when I was in high school. It’s really cool conceptualizing an idea and then seeing it come to life — being able to evoke emotion from an audience.

Ralph Matthews: I studied graphic design and fine arts but I always found moving imagery much more engaging. I’d always been really interested in making films, but it wasn’t until I started working with production companies that it felt like a tangible vocation.

P: What is it like to work in an artistic duo?

Claire Littler: Being in a duo is ideal for bouncing ideas off of one another to refine a concept and then draw from each other’s strengths. It’s also a lot of fun when you’re working with your friend — we’re lucky that our creativity flows in the same direction.

P: Why do you choose to juxtapose illustration/animation and real life film in many of your pieces?

Both: It depends on what’s appropriate for the video concept but if it works we combine the two. For “To Leave Someone” we wanted to show escapism and animation was a way to take the video to a surreal place.

P: Were you inspired or influenced by anything in particular for “To Leave Someone”?

Both: There was definitely a mixture of integrating our own experiences and using our imaginations to conjure metaphorical imagery to emphasise those emotions. It’s a pretty heavy song so we wanted people to relate to it or take something away from it. From the feedback we’ve received, it sounds like it hit home for a lot of people, which is all we could really ask for as creative directors.

P: What is your creative editing process like and how did you incorporate pertinent themes in “To Leave Someone”?

Both: We wanted to highlight the beauty of tension that can be so present in life, hence why the home is fairly bare and not much happens other than quiet moments when she is alone. Everything about how it looks is normal, but what’s going on inside her head is where things get more strange and uncomfortable.

The animation sequences represent the abstract thought process of metaphors that evoke the idea of the decay of a relationship — a journey to this daunting, unfamiliar world. She sinks helplessly and gets lost in the idea of the inevitable distance between her and her lover in the incomprehensible depths of the ocean.

P: What can we expect to see from you in the future?

Both: More music videos! We’re co-directing another music video next month and also have other projects of our own that we’re working on individually.

The post Claire Littler and Ralph Matthews Talk To Us About Directing Great North’s “To Leave Someone” And The Art Of Music Films appeared first on Portable.tv.

“If prominent feminist thinkers of the last century or so were to get together and design their composite ‘woman of tomorrow,’ what would she be like? [...]… um, Ke$ha.” – Ashley Fetters for The Atlantic.

“Ke$ha is the most empowering artist on the planet.” – James Montgomery for MTV News.

“Get Sleazy.” – Ke$ha, “Sleazy”

Since her Jack Daniels-drenched debut onto the pop music scene in 2010, Ke$ha has been stumbling across the globe, shooting glitter guns at her fans and encouraging them to throw up all over rich dude’s houses. She’s finished three albums filled with songs that are somewhat grating and occasionally catchy, but always make you want to do shots of tequila. Now, she’s reached the point in any sensationalist pop star’s career when MTV wrings her personal life like a used dishcloth, until every drop of dignity has been fully extracted.

MTV’s six-part documentary, titled My Crazy Beautiful Life, and filmed in large part by her brother, is 80% advertisement and 20% party montages, and 100% a showcase of Ke$ha’s We-R-Who-We-R philosophy. Her central message isn’t a bad one: as she says in her voiceover after consoling a tearful fan in the first episode of the show, “If I can give anybody the confidence to just be themselves, that’s all I want in this life. I want to give people a place they can be themselves.” But while she’s been playing the underdog card that’s responsible for the success of stars as major and fleeting as Avril Lavigne and Lady Gaga, the media has latched onto a possibly less intentional theme in her music: feminism.

Ke$ha started her career by creating music that’s intentionally lacking in meaning, and has ended up the accidental leader of a party-girl feminist movement. According to an article by Ashley Fetters on The Atlantic’s “Sexes” blog, Ke$ha’s memoir (which is also titled My Crazy Beautiful Life, shockingly) is comparable to The Feminine Mystique in more ways than one. Fetters’ claim has been backed by web journalists and casual bloggers alike, and inspired someone somewhere to create keshathefeminist.tumblr.com.

The concept behind Ke$ha-feminism is that, after centuries of being treated like sex objects, it’s the female population’s turn to make guys feel less than human. Songs like “Blah Blah Blah” and “Grow A Pear” seem to have been written with the intent to taunt those who’ve written similar songs about women. When Ke$ha performed the latter at a show in Budapest, her mom reportedly danced around the stage wearing a penis costume, which Fetters interpreted as an effort to “subvert the symbolism of the phallus.” But before we go around calling a pop star who takes guys about as seriously as she takes anything else (which is not at all) a feminist, we need to decide whether feminism is really about making men pay for being douchebags, or if it’s about ending sexual objectification on all fronts.

The best way to measure just how offensive Ke$ha’s attitude should be to you is to imagine that everything she says was actually said by Kanye West. You felt a little weird about his comparing a vagina to fish fillet in “N****s In Paris,” right? We all did, once we figured out the reference. Now, imagine him saying these things (you also have to change all the male pronouns to female ones, to be clear):

“I don’t really care where you live at/ Just turn around, boy, let me hit that/ Don’t be a little bitch with your chit chat/ just show me where your dick’s at” – “Blah Blah Blah”

“When I first met you, panties dropping/ every time I saw you, it was on and/ one day you asked if we could just talk and that’s the reason why I’m walking/ If I am honest, I’m just not hooked on your Phonics/ I’m not trying to be rude or crude, I just wanted one thing from you and you got confused” – “Grow A Pear”

“I never thought that you would be the one acting like a slut when I was gone/ Maybe you shouldn’t kiss and tell/ You really should have kept it in your pants/ I’m hearing dirty stories from your friends” – “Kiss and Tell”

“Up on the chalkboard I just love your ass/ when you write notes, it shake-shake-shakes” – “Mr. Watson”

Reading these relentlessly irreverent lyrics, one might assume that Ke$ha is a self-assured, even if somewhat misguided, twenty-something who knows exactly what damage she’s doing and has no qualms about any of it. But upon watching the first episode of her documentary, it would become abundantly clear that her aggressive honesty is more a result of social anxiety than the brave stand of a cultural trailblazer. Thirty minutes of behind-the-scenes with Ke$ha progresses rather quickly into Ke$ha’s tearful confessions of desperate devotion to her first true love (she drives past his house with her friends, ducking down in the passenger seat so he won’t know that she’s stalking him), of a feud with Perez Hilton that she claims “single- handedly ruined the only relationship that meant anything to her,” and of being afraid of realizing her dreams, because “dreams end.”

While the revealing nature of the footage in My Crazy Beautiful Life certainly makes it one of the more affecting reality series MTV has produced, it also hints at some darker aspects of Ke$ha’s life that might explain why her instinct in approaching sexism is to retaliate in such a juvenile way. Her attack on men using their own offensive words is vaguely reminiscent of a kindergartener drawing all over her classmate’s art project with crayon after having her own ruined. The lingering of that instinctive reflex might have something to do with her deeper issues with fame and love.

The most important issue surrounding Ke$ha feminism, however, is not Ke$ha, herself, but the public’s choice to put her in the same league as figures who have actually created feminist work. Popular culture is spilling over with women who promote female sexuality without degrading the opposite sex. Lena Dunham, Peaches; just last week, Grimes published this post, effectively condemning sexists in the entertainment industry without once lowering herself to their level. There’s really no reason to go around appointing non-musicians as our role models.

Ke$ha doesn’t represent feminism, she represents a misogynistic culture which is so effective that it’s convinced some women that the only way to fight it is to be it. The opportunity to give men a taste of their own medicine might be an appealing one, but ultimately, Ke$ha’s idea of feminism is equivalent to drunkenly punching an assuming frat boy in the face and then willingly waking up in his bed the next morning covered in your own vomit.

The post Is Ke$ha the Worst Thing That’s Ever Happened To Feminism? appeared first on Portable.tv.

Ciara has just released the clip to her new single “Body Party” and made the creative decision to pay tribute to True Lies in a bid to compensate for the songs terrible title. I don’t know if that’s actually why she chose to put herself in Jamie Lee’s shoes, but I do know that “Body Party” is only one letter off Body Part, and that’s just not right.

In the spirit of Ciara’s puffy pants, here are 7 other music videos with famous film references.

The post 8 Music Videos With Famous Film References (Featuring Ciara’s True Lies Striptease) appeared first on Portable.tv.

In the wake of his recent passing at the age of 86, we’re taking a look back on the controversial yet incredibly progressive contributions Ed Bland made to jazz and the evolution of Black culture in America.

Not only did Bland collaborate with musical greats such as Jimi Hendrix, Dizzie Gillespie, George Benson and Sun Ra, but contemporary artists still sample his music as well (Fat Boy Slim, Cypress Hill, Beyoncé). To top all of that off, his compositions were performed by some of the best orchestras in the country too: Brooklyn Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, and The Pazant Brothers just to name a few.

Touted by many as the “Great Grandfather Of Hip-Hop”, Ed Bland not only composed innovative jazz arrangements, but wrote and directed one of the most controversial short films in the country. Touching on the origins of jazz, black culture, oppression and ultimately concluding that Jazz had died, Bland’s The Cry Of Jazz (1959) was a radical independent film that not only shocked the tumultuous America in 1959, but paved the way for conversations on the impending race relations of the 1960′s.

With the assistance of over sixty volunteers and a shoestring budget, Bland wove an informative and simple explanation of jazz and the death of jazz by appropriation and rehearsal as opposed to improvised songs. Set to performance clips by Sun Ra and his Arkesta, the film alternates from clips of Chicago’s black neighborhoods to a salon conversation between blacks and whites alike on the state of jazz music in 1959. Added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2010, The Cry Of Jazz was labeled “A historic and fascinating film that comments on racism and the appropriation of Jazz by those who fail to understand its artistic and cultural origins.”

It seems highly antiquated that a social commentary on race and culture should be brushed under the rug or met with such extreme caution, and yet Ed Bland tackled the issue head on in a time when minorities were expected to keep quiet about their own oppression. As depressing as it may be to only have been recognized for his contributions to the arts and culture a few years before his death, the relevancy of his film rings just as true today as it did decades ago. On one hand I would like to be thankful for his unique and progressive exploration of struggle in film, yet on the other hand I can’t help but be saddened by the parallels in contemporary society with the films content. Either way, he has left a legacy of beauty and innovation much sooner than he should have.

The post The Late Ed Bland And The Cry Of Jazz appeared first on Portable.tv.

An album should be telling a story, instead of being just a collection of songs. Listening to an album that tells a story is an experience; the listener should be able to empathize with the artist and be a part of the story that she/he is unraveling. Super Hooper’s debut album Man on The Park achieves in creating this experience in multiple levels.

First of all, Super Hooper invites you in his creative process by explicitly listing his musical influences in the album bio. Moreover, Super Hooper achieves in building upon this story with very well crafted videos which appear in episodes of an experience that accompanies the actual album and enriches it with a story that revolves around the voice-over of a second-hand dealer and with visuals taken from these antique shops with all these found objects.

With the first 6 videos having been released, Portable jumped into a conversation with Justin Hooper, who is the singer and songwriter behind Super Hooper, to talk about his influences, his favorite pop moments and what story lies behind the music videos.

Portable: As stated in the album bio you carry a lot of musical influences, from “the swagger of Elvis with ’80s stadium-rock drums and 808 percussion”, “straight-ahead Spector with a ‘Kokomo’-style sax solo” to “Edwyn Collins leading a gospel choir”. Upon viewing your music videos, I can’t wait to learn about your cinematic influences. What visual styles have influenced you in the creation of the videos?

Justin Hooper: The voiceover linking each video tells the story of a man and a woman’s courtship with magical realist inflections. What hero doesn’t need his own menagerie of wooden animals he can call to life? After falling for a mysterious second-hand dealer, our protagonist finds himself starting to unravel. Will his kangaroo save or betray him? “La Jetée”

Performance-wise, I’m inspired by old Serge Gainsbourg clips, and any off-centre cabaret moments from David Lynch films. And being a film buff, I couldn’t resist a few highfalutin references… the video clip “Willows” gives a reverential nod to Chris Marker’s extraordinary essay film “La Jetée”, and the clip “Wandiligong” pays high camp homage to a studio based driving scene in Claude Leluch’s film, “A Man and A Woman”. I was also influenced by the enigmatic femme fatales from, say, Jean Luc Godard’s “Contempt” and David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”.

P: Why did you choose to release your videos in an episodic format? What is the experience that you are aiming for?

Justin Hooper: Just as the shop windows in my video narrative, capture the desires of the hero, I’m hoping to capture you! To entice you to look a bit harder, listen a bit longer, and come closer to the music…

P: According to the bio on your album, your album is called “an Identikit of favourite pop moments.” What is your most potent pop memory?

Justin Hooper: Dancing in the kitchen to Kanye West’s “Runaway” with my two year old son Louis.

P: What record inspires you the most?

Justin Hooper: That’s a hard one, but if I had to pick the one record that most inspired my album, Transformer by Lou Reed.

P: What are other projects you are working on?

Justin Hooper: My son Louis is obsessed with the drums after coming along to Super Hooper rehearsals.  I’m working on drawing him back to guitar as his instrument of choice. I’m also writing a bunch of new material with Tim Harvey who produced “Man of The Park“.

Click here to view the embedded video.

P: What inspires you these days?

Justin Hooper: The voiceover connecting each video hints at the mysterious world of vintage second hand shops. This world feels very close to me. I grew up in an antique store, so the poetic possibilities of inanimate objects taking on their own lives is straight from my childhood. Secondhand shops and flea markets still inspire me in the way they present a visual feast, full of untold stories.

The post Justin Hooper Invites Us Into The Second Hand World Of His Debut Album appeared first on Portable.tv.

Once upon a time, in an era where it was not yet frowned upon to wear exercise gear in everyday life, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was funny in a non-ironic way, our friendly English neighbours had begun to make themselves heard through hit guitar groups and stadium anthems. Yes, Britpop changed the face of UK music in the early 1990s, using it’s lads-y hedonism and alternative rock to fuel the larger British cultural movement, Cool Britannia (which included the rise of the YBAs and Naomi Campbell strutting in a Union Jack flag), and subsequently stole the heart of many a working-class Brit along the way. Although the sub-genre never really made it big overseas — the emphasis on British reference points made it difficult for the genre to achieve success anywhere else but Britain — the likes of Suede, Sleeper and Pulp believed in the supremacy of “real music”, and implemented this to great effect.

It may be overplayed to death, but could you possibly defend the greatness of any other ballad in the face of “Wonderwall”? Today we have some pretty catty Twitter wars, but has their ever been a greater rock-royalty feud than that between Blur and Oasis? (let’s not forget that famous Noel Gallagher quote about how he wished Damon Albarn would “get AIDS and die”.) To top it all off: the demand for one Oasis gig was and still is the largest ever for a concert on British soil. In those times, the fringe had officially become mainstream; and the Brit geeks had inherited the rock’n'roll kingdom.

But as all good things do, Britpop soon came to an end. Oasis’s third album was released to strong criticism from music critics, music lovers and even Noel Gallagher himself for its overproduced sound. Longtime member and major innovator in the sound of Pulp, Russell Senior, decided to leave the band, saying, “it wasn’t creatively rewarding anymore.” And at about the same time, Damon Albarn sought to distance Blur from Britpop with the band’s fifth album. By the late 1990′s, post-Britpop bands like Coldplay, Radiohead, Travis and The Spice Girls began to make their ascent into the limelight.

But that didn’t mean the boys and girls of Britpop shrunk away forever. After all, it was thanks to them that the rules of British music were decisively changed, and their influence wasn’t going to be completely forgotten any time soon. Now in the 21st century, it’s all about the revival, and there are plenty still around to remember the first time. Pulp are the latest to reform in search of Britpop’s glory days, following on from Blur’s tear-stained reunion several years ago. Now Suede are back too, while other lesser-known bands (like Cast, Bluetones, Dodgy and Shed Seven) continue to tour. If they’re not already dusting off their parkas and Fred Perry polos, they’re starting to think seriously about it.

Nearly 20 years ago to the day, in May 1993, Oasis got their big break when they were spotted at a gig at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut club in Glasgow. What ample timing to rejoice, and also consider buying tickets to a reunion gig. And so, in celebration of The Scene That Celebrates Itself, here’s at look at where the best of Britpop are today.

The post Britpop: Where Are They Now? (Mostly Still Here) appeared first on Portable.tv.

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Stevie Nicks wears many hats (also, shawls and pendants, depending on the decade). She’s a majestic songstress. Potential white witch. Obvious Gemini. And confirmed (and now reformed) drug professional. As arguably the most recognizable name in Fleetwood Mac, she originally only joined the band because her then-boyfriend Lindsay Buckingham insisted on them as a package deal. Nicks navigated the murky waters of sleeping with bandmates a solid four decades between Gwen Stefani tried to make that a thing, probably did just as many drugs as Keith Richards, and still happened to write some of the best pop songs of all time, including “Dreams,” which to this day is only number-one hit that Fleetwood Mac ever had. For uncouth readers who can’t be bothered to muster interest in significant musical contributions of the 70s and 80s, I offer you this: Destiny’s Child would not have had “Bootylicious” without “Edge of Seventeen.”

In honor of the 35th anniversary of Rumours (and the subsequent Fleetwood Mac tour that begins this April), here’s a look back at the career of one of the most enchanting women in popular music.

The post The Definitive Guide to Stevie Nicks appeared first on Portable.tv.