wears the trousers magazine

The more I read about the story behind Jolie Holland’s recent single ‘Mexico City’, the more I’m convinced it’s a work of genius. Cleverly embodying the spirit of Beat Generation muse Joan Vollmer – before her shocking accidental death at the hands of her gay common-law husband William S Burroughs in the titular metropolis – Jolie weaves a tale of drug-fuelled camaraderie with Edie Parker and Jack Kerouac, laced with regret and a sense of longing. This brilliant video, filmed in Joshua Tree, California, captures all these details perfectly. Beautiful.

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How do you balance a hectic touring schedule with making umpteen videos for your debut album? Easy! Don’t be in them. Or at least, don’t do much. That seems to be the thinking behind the promo for the new Angus & Julia Stone single, ‘Hollywood’, due for digital release in the US as part of a six-track EP in the run up to the eventual issue of A Book Like This, their fantastic debut album that was out here in March. For me, ‘Hollywood’ is one of the album’s weaker cuts but this video is gorgeous. See how many filmic references you can spot.

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You’d think that people would have better things to do with their time than recreate, shot-by-shot, music videos rendered in The Sims but apparently not so. Here’s the latest bout of bizarreness. Witness the peculiarity of Britney’s ‘Womanizer’.

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If you missed ‘Later…with Jools Holland’ last week, you really ought to watch this show-stopping cover of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ ‘God Is In The House’ by French–Irish cabaret artist Camille O’Sullivan. Or rewatch it if you did. Provocative stuff.

As a bonus, a quick search of YouTube uncovered this lovely clip for Camille’s version of Cave’s ‘The Ship Song’. She plays two dates at London’s Roundhouse on January 15th and 16th.

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Rather less graceful than Camille’s TV performance was Katy Perry’s appearance at the MTV Latinoamérica awards in which she came a cropper after bellyflopping into a giant cake. The whole performance is up on YouTube, but we prefer to skip the crap and go straight to the silly bits. Brilliant.

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other videos we’ve been enjoying this week…

an acoustic version of ‘What Have I Done’, the new single from Swedish singer-songwriter Anna Ternheim’s latest album Leaving On A Mayday. Download this version for free from Anna’s website (registration required). A studio performance video for the song ‘Summer Rain’ can be seen here.

Meaghan Smith unleashing her inner flapper in new single ‘If You Asked Me’

Robyn’s latest chart-bound song-that’s-been-around-for-yonks, ‘Dream On’, a collaboration with Christian Falk

Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson providing insight into their duet ‘Winter Song’, from the Hotel Café’s upcoming all-female festive offering.

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Finally, what do you get when you cross Céline Dion with former Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody? Utterly unlistenable shit. If Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart despised the Republicans’ use of their song ‘Barracuda’ to promote the disastrous Sarah Palin, what must they think of what Céline has done to ‘Alone’?

On a side note, one of our favourite office games is to trawl through the search terms that lead people to land on the Wears The Trousers website and yesterday’s produced a classic: “celine dion proof horse aliens exist”. Harsh, but funny.

Alan Pedder