Quick Review: Gnomeo & Juliet

You already know that "Gnomeo & Juliet" is basically "Romeo & Juliet" but with garden gnomes. Gnomeo (voice of James McAvoy) is one of the Blue Gnomes, who are feuding with the Red Gnomes from the yard next door. He meets Juliet (Emily Blunt), who is a Red, they fall in love, etc. Since this is an animated movie for kids (which tries hard to be as funny for adults as the better of the "Shrek" films, but falls short) the story isn't quite the same. You may also already know that Elton John executive-produced this and some of his songs are used in the film -- sometimes his original recording and sometimes orchestral versions. You might even know there are a couple of new Elton John songs in the film. But what you didn't know is that one of the new songs is a duet with Lady Gaga. Now, every time you see "you" in the previous sentences, replace it with "I" and you'll understand why I was perplexed just now when I read that Gaga was singing in the movie (although on the soundtrack album only Elton's solo version appears). Either it didn't register in my brain or I didn't recognize her voice at all or something. Next time I'm at the theater, I'll have to try and sneak in at the point it's used in the movie to hear it again. My grade: C-minus.

Return Of My Summer Playlist!

I stumbled upon a link to Billboard.com's compilation of their top 10 songs of summer (using a point system based on heir chart methodology) for every year from 1985 through 2009. Looking through their listings, I decided some additions to my summer playlist (Part 1 here, Part 2 here) are required. (I also am adding others to the list of songs I need to own.)

The following, however, are already in my iTunes library. Some I overlooked the first time around and others I've changed my mind about. I'm sure you will find some of them quite cheesy, but it could've been worse: I still left "MMMBop" off the list. Adding these songs and "Commander" (my song of summer 2010) to my original list, I now have exactly 100 summer songs.

Oh, and here's some pretty summer scenery: Hugh Jackman at the beach...


A View To A Kill - Duran Duran (1985)
Sussudio - Phil Collins (1985)
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free - Sting (1985)
Raspberry Beret - Prince and the Revolution (1985) - I can sing the hell out of this at karaoke.
Papa Don't Preach - Madonna (1986)
Invisible Touch - Genesis (1986)
On My Own - Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald (1986)
Higher Love - Steve Winwood (1986) - Also a killer karaoke song for me.
Venus - Bananarama (1986)

My Summer Listening Pleasure (And Maybe Yours) Part 1

I love disclaimers. In the case of the big 58-song summer playlist I've created, there are a few of them. These songs fall into at least one of these categories, sometimes more, sometimes all: they were released during the summer, they were popular during the summer, the song title and/or lyrics refer to summer, sun, heat, etc. If they don't fit these categories -- and this is a pretty big disclaimer -- to me they either sound like a summer-type song or I identify them with summer in my mind for some reason, which will be explained.

Also, the list only includes songs that are in my iTunes library. There may be other songs that are truly summer songs, but if I don't own them I didn't include them. (It's also possible that some songs not on the list but should be are in my iTunes but I somehow neglected to find it.) I am open to any and all suggestions to add to the list, but if it's not obvious from the song title why it should be included I hope you'll enlighten me as to why it's a summer song.

I'm listing them in order of the year of release (according to Wikipedia or whatever other sources I could find). Using the versions I have (a couple of extended mixes included) it's over 4 hours, 15 minutes of music, and Part One begins after the jump: