I make it a point never to discuss politics if I can help it on this blog, namely because I count my friends as coming from many points of view.  But this is one of the rare times you will see a politician mentioned on these pages.

Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia, decided to do a rendition of “Blueberry Hill” for Russian Television.  It’s awful, but so awful that it’s crap-tastic!  Check out the link here.

HT: Daniel Foster, The Corner @ National Review.

Mexico is a land rich with tradition, and they have a musical heritage that ranks well with any country on Earth. Narcocorridos are not part of that tradition. Rather, it is part of the musical cesspool that is so disregarded that some local authorities banned this excrement. It is not that I have anything against the musicality of the bandas. In fact, some of these are utterly magnificent instrumentalists. It is the fact that they glorify the vile animals ruining the country in a way that makes gangsta rap artists look like choir boys that gets my goat.

One of the bigger artists in the genre, El Shaka, was murdered today. Ironically, he had had to announce that he was not dead thanks to an erroneous press report. He was shot to death in his Cadillac at close range. His murder makes him the seventh musician killed in the past three years. The wages of peddling the glories of a drug baron are on display for everyone to see. What a waste of talent.

Organisers say the event, the work of American musician and artist Laurie Anderson, is the first of its kind. Ms Anderson called it “an inter-species social gathering on a scale never seen before in Australia”. It featured the cries of whales and high-pitched electronic sounds inaudible to human ears, accompanied by a bass guitar and violin. For an hour or so Australia’s most recognisable building became a giant kennel. The sounds sent some agitated pets into a frenzy, while others seemed rather bemused. “Most dogs are fine with it but we had to move away because he was getting a little bit freaked out by the whale noises,” said one dog owner. Ms Anderson said it was one of the best moments of her career. “Supposedly, they are sort of like bats and whales that they can hear super high things and they can. Their hearing is so much better than ours. “We didn’t want to do something that humans couldn’t hear too, so we chose a different bunch of things. A lot of dogs seem to enjoy classical music, frankly.” While the dogs’ owners certainly enjoyed the show, we’ll never know what their four-legged friends made of it. These pets were a tough crowd. There were plenty of barks, howls and yawns along with the occasional snarl as the Sydney Opera House witnessed a piece of canine musical history.

I adore Laurie Anderson, and I’m sure she means well, but this is silly.

HT: BBC.