Pop Shots
Looking To The Future
By: Adam Bernard
Last updated July 28th , 2010

Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is hitting you with thoughts on everything from why October is going to be a month to be excited about, to concerts coming to our living rooms sooner than we might have expected, to Oxygen developing a show that makes us not want to breathe. Also, singer/songwriter Connor Desai stopped by Pop Shots this week and revealed why a character from Sesame Street is one of her biggest musical influences. Of course, since this is Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

* It looks like come October we're in for a battle of pop's old guard versus one of today's biggest superstars as of the week of October 25th both Good Charlotte, who were TRL kings back in the early 2000's, and Taylor Swift, who is the current teen queen, will be releasing new albums. I wonder at what point Kanye West will pop up to say that although this is a good first week sale's battle, his first week sales battle with 50 Cent was the greatest of all-time? C'mon Kanye, don't let us down, and by "let us down," I mean act like an adult. You haven't done it before, so don't start now!

* Have you ever been sad that your favorite artist isn't coming to your town, or, even worse, that they are but the concert sold out before you could get tickets? Good news, American Express has found a way to hook you up. No, they're not scalping tickets. What they're doing is streaming concerts live on YouTube and Vevo. They're calling the online concert series "Unstaged," and they currently have Arcade Fire, John Legend, and The Roots already lined up to be a part of it. Although watching a concert from your home will never be able to replace the experience of actually being there (ever try to crowd surf in your living room? The results are never good), this is a good first step to getting people more passionate about music again and putting the onus on the live performance. Something tells me these streams won't be free for long, but I'm actually fine with that. Once the technology is good enough, charge five bucks and make sure the artist gets the vast majority of it.

* Because the world, or at least the Oxygen network, really really hates us, former Making The Band / Danity Kane member Aubrey O'Day, who is still known mostly for being Aubrey O'Day, is getting her own reality show. The Aubrey O'Day Project, yes, that's really the name of the show, will chronicle her attempt to make a comeback, because God forbid she attempt to do something that wouldn't make her famous. I guess Oxygen is an appropriate name for the name for the network, which is also the network that gave us the Bad Girls Club, since every time they come out with something new I just want to sigh. The good news; I'm fairly sure we've finally scraped the very bottom of the barrel with this one.

* In much happier news, this week singer/songwriter Connor Desai, who just released her latest single, "Ruby," stopped by Pop Shots and was gracious enough to answer a few questions for our "things you definitely need to know" series of interviews.

Connor, nice to have you here. Please fill our readers in on what they definitely need to know about...

Your music.
It has a wide range of influences, from Joni Mitchell, (who is like) singer-songwriters 101, to Laura Veirs, (who is) modern folk awesomeness, to Elmo. No, Elmo is not the latest indie band to grace the tines of Pitchfork. I speak of the red, furry creature who once graced my kitchen in robotic form, shouting "use your hands just like Elmo!" with his telltale, saccharinely sweet timbre, the repetition of which, thanks to my children, threatened to shelve my sanity until I turned it into a song. It turned out to be one of my more depressing, melancholic songs, for spite's sake, I suppose, which is now the title track of the new album (Use Your Hands).  

Playing the guitar.
It's out of the question if you decide to become a ninja. Also, I always perform barefoot so that I can operate the loop. 

Your tour bus.
There is nothing glamorous about my tour bus, it looks just like a VW Jetta, but I do tend to keep it cleaner than most. 
 
Driving in the fast lane on the highway.
It makes for interesting reading. The latest bumper sticker that comes to mind is "If I just passed you on the right, your in the wrong lane." It seems to me that if one is going to pass judgement via bumper sticker, the message should, at the very least, contain no grammatical errors. "You're," the conjunction of "you are," is the word we're looking for here, folks. I can't help it, I was an English major. (Ed's note: We feel the same way!)
 
Eating while on the road. 
It's not recommended, unless of course you can find a Qdoba. I am a card-carrying member of that place. Try not to be jealous.

And with that, my time is up for the week, but I'll be back next week with more shots on all things pop.

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