'85 Bears Redo 'Shuffle' for Super Bowl Ad

The '85 Bears have redone their famous "Super Bowl Shuffle" for a cell phone commercial to appear during this year's Super Bowl. Former quarterback Jim McMahon and the rest of the team—even Mike Ditka this time—filmed the spot for Sprint. "I told them there'd be no dancing after 12 knee surgeries—I'm not doing that," McMahon told the Chicago Tribune. "I can barely get out of the chair. We're all old as hell now, man."

Actually, Dane Cook Is Funny

He knows he's branding himself unhip, but Steve Macone isn't backing down on the subject of Dane Cook: "Yes, he is probably more popular than he should be. Yes, there are other comedians equally deserving of fame." But "at this juncture, it's wrong to say, 'Dane Cook is not funny,'" he writes. "Because he is." And Macone considers the almost-universal backlash against his fellow comedian confirmation that Cook is a victim of his own arena-size success.

"Telling jokes in front of 20,000 people is not comedy," Macone writes in the Boston Phoenix. "Comedy is a conversation with the crowd. When you have to wait for the sound to reach the corners of a space so large that it can accommodate a full circus, the show usually turns into one." It creates a disconnect that forces Cook to exaggerate his bits. "Fans end up screaming more than laughing. It's this tableau that has turned many people off." But check out Cook's new DVD, filmed at a club rather than an arena, Macone suggests: "Isolated Incident has the feel of an acoustic album, where your reaction is likely to be, 'Okay, these songs can stand on their own.' "

Animal Collective's Rise Is Well Deserved

The rise of Animal Collective in 2009 is often attributed to concessions to accessibility, Jonah Weiner writes. “Going by the blurbs alone, you might assume that, in a few years, Animal Collective will complete its career-long metamorphosis into ABBA.” But that’s just not the case. The quirky indie band mixes pop and avant-garde in the same measure as ever; but now, it has “expanded the overtures its music makes to our bodies.”

“The gurgles and slurps are wetter and more viscous than ever, and the synthesizer stabs and bass thumps hit harder, even if they seldom resolve into anything so regular as a dance beat,” Weiner writes on Slate. Critics overlook the fact that the dizzy elation of the music is its selling point. "The 'avant-garde' and the 'accessible' work in concert—to the point where it can be hard to tell one from the other—to keep us curious and entertained. We may frequently feel at sea, but the water's warm."

Radio's Top Songs By Genre

Feel like you heard Tim McGraw’s Something Like That about half a million times in the past decade? Well, the ratings folks at Nielsen will back you up on that, with their list of commercial radio’s most-played songs of the decade:

Country: Something Like That, Tim McGraw, 487,343 plays
Top 40: Yeah, Usher featuring Ludacris & Lil Jon, 416,267
Hot adult contemporary: Drops Of Jupiter, Train, 338,749
Alternative: Last Resort, Papa Roach, 221,767
Rhythmic: Low, Flo Rida featuring T-Pain 206,864
Album rock: It’s Been Awhile, Staind, 189,195
Urban: Drop It Like It’s Hot, Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell, 169,511
Urban adult contemporary: Think About You, Luther Vandross, 147,818
Gospel: Never Would Have Made It, Marvin Sapp, 92,603
Smooth jazz: Pacific Coast Highway, Nils, 29,328

Women's Fashion Turns Tough

Women are starting to turn their backs on girly pastels, floral prints, and strappy heels in favor of a more aggressive, tough-but-sexy look. “It’s not cool to be demure,” one stylist, who prefers big T-shirts over ripped jeans, tells the New York Times. The trend toward a more utilitarian look is partially a response to the struggling economy: “So-called luxury—people are tired of it,” says a boutique owner.

Out are skin-baring style icons like Scarlett Johansson and Megan Fox; in are blazers, boots, biker jackets, leggings, and the often-disheveled look of editors like Carine Roitfeld and Giovanna Battaglia: “They show you a real-world version of high fashion. They’re not dressed by a stylist, and sophisticated people recognize that,” says a store owner. Adds the Met’s Costume Institute curator: “There is so much sex appeal in imperfection.”

Square-Dancing Steps Into Rock, Hip-Hop

That tattered bastion of Americana, square-dancing, has fallen on hard times, but intrepid youngsters and older dancers eager to court them have turned to non-traditional music and methods to keep the practice alive. In Portland, Ore., a 20-something caller gathers friends in warehouses to do-si-do to punk rock. “It turns into a hoedown mosh pit,” he tells the Wall Street Journal. Some purists are aghast, but the new blood is vital.

“It's scary,” an older dancer says of the falloff in dancers—one group estimates the number at 300,000 nationwide, down from 1 million in the 1970s. The older and younger breeds of dancers have reached a wary accord in some groups. One spritely dancer says his caller grandfather’s square-dance version of “Whoomp! (There It Is)” is a crowd favorite. Still, his wife says, “we have to warn older dancers that they're in a younger square. It can get crazy.”

The Year's Best Albums

Who says the album's dead? This year saw some fine ones, with veterans like U2 and Bruce Springsteen setting the bar. Rolling Stone rates the cream of the crop:

U2, No Line on the Horizon: Bono & Co. explored “dark places” and came away “with a sense of drama that no one could match all year."
Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream: The Boss at his “wildly baroque” best: “decked-out folk and rock struggling with the big stuff—and having a great time along the way.”
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: “The wholesome French version of the Strokes,” delivered an energetic and insanely catchy mix of guitar rock and electronics.
Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3: Some of Jay-Z’s “cleverest braggadocio ever,” backed by “stunningly good beats from rich friends like Kanye West.”
Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown: With their second rock opera, Green Day “revitalizes the idea of big-deal rockers actually saying something.”
Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca: This freaky yet fun art rock album was the year’s most original, with its “sideways harmonies, warpedsoul crooning, and dreamlogic arrangements.”

Rock Hall to Induct Stooges, ABBA

The Stooges, Genesis, and ABBA will head next year’s class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, along with the Hollies and Jimmy Cliff. The ceremony will be March 15, with all the inductees invited to perform, though some, particularly ABBA, may be tough to bring together, notes Rolling Stone. The Swedish pop outfit has refused multiple pleas for a reunion show.

“The people who are really fond of ABBA, I think we are doing them a favor by not going out,” says co-founder Benny Andersson. The odds are “99 against 1.” Andersson says he never expected a Hall call “because we were a pop band, not a rock band.” The Stooges, on the other hand, have been expecting this for a while. “We’ve been rejected seven times,” says Iggy Pop. “It started to feel like Charlie Brown and the football.”

Grand Hip-Hop Museum May Rise in the Bronx

A prospective hip-hop museum in the Bronx will feature MTA subway cars free for the tagging, a Microsoft-designed music video wall, a hip-hop hall of fame, and political action seminars designed by the likes of Chuck D and KRS-One—if its founder can scare up $150 million to $250 million. “We’re fighting all the past failed attempts to do this,” Craig Wilson tells Paste. But he’s driven. “There would be no Soulja Boy if there was no Afrika Bambaataa.”

Wilson got the idea for the National Museum of Hip-Hop when an acquaintance didn't understand why the Bronx—the birthplace of hip-hop—figured in so many hip-hop movies. “The fact that deejays, graffiti artists, and beat boys are all but forgotten,” he says, “is exactly the kind of stuff that perpetuates the absolute need for a museum of hip-hop.” A raft of hip-hop luminaries will kick off fundraising in February, and industry leaders are behind him.

Decade's Best Sellers: Eminem, the Beatles

The Beatles might have had its heyday a few decades ago, but the band managed to emerge from this decade with the best-selling album. Perhaps more surprising is the decade’s top-selling artist: Eminem, with 32.2 million albums sold—followed closely by, yes, the Beatles again in the No. 2 spot with 30 million sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The most surprising appearance of all, however, is a certain boy band…

The top five best-selling albums of the decade, courtesy of USA Today:
The Beatles, 1: 11.5 million
‘N Sync, No Strings Attached: 11.1 million
Norah Jones, Come Away With Me: 10.5 million
Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP: 10.2 million
Eminem, The Eminem Show: 9.8 million
Bonus surprise: In the number 10 spot? Nelly’s Country Grammar, with 8.5 million copies sold.

NASCAR Gets Jolt of Girl Power

Female racing phenom Danica Patrick confirmed today that she's going to race in NASCAR events next year. Patrick will make the jump to stock cars while maintaining her presence on the IndyCar circuit, where she is a certified star. But the best part of this new deal is that she's joining JR Motorsports, which features Kelley Earnhardt—sister of Dale Jr.—as a team owner, writes Jay Busbee.

"That's right—in a sport derided by its detractors as backward-looking, the hottest new team in NASCAR will have at its center two women," writes Busbee of Yahoo Sports. "The truth is that Patrick and Earnhardt will make for a powerful tandem regardless of their gender ... and, to an extent, regardless of Danica's immediate success on the track."

Man Cleavage: It's All the Rage

Plunging necklines: They’re not just for women anymore. Male cleavage is back, and if you like chest hair and heaving pecs, you’re sure to appreciate the variety of V-necks and scoop-neck tops for men that are hitting the runways. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the history of man cleavage, from bare-chested heroes of last century’s early swashbuckling films, to recent stars who just like to leave a button or three undone.

Disabled Model Show Handicapped by Sincerity

A British reality show about disabled women competing to win a spot as a fashion model has mostly admirable intentions, but ultimately does more harm than good. "There is something both bold and troubling about Britain’s Missing Top Model," writes Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times. "It’s a contest designed to raise the profile and confidence of disabled women but makes a spectacle of their hunger for acceptance."

"The contestants’ desire to be desired, not pitied or patronized, makes sense," Stanley continues, and they are actually treated just the same as non-disabled models in one very important way: "An ounce of fat is a greater hurdle than a missing limb," she writes, recalling one photographer on the show who says, "Rebecca’s disability didn’t cause me any problems. It was just the fact she’s not really in shape."

Animal Collective Doesn't Care About Cool

Merriweather Post Pavilion made Animal Collective one of the most hyped bands of 2009, but the follow-up Fall Be Kind EP sounds almost aggressively unconcerned with indie cred. The first song includes a flute solo from Zamfir, one of those ubiquitous infomercial pan-flute players, while a later track samples the Grateful Dead. "Cool? These guys aren't sweating it,” writes Mark Richardson for Pitchfork.

Fall Be Kind flows surprisingly well for a record of outtakes from Merriweather Post Pavilion—moving from the unabashed melodicism of "What Would I Want? Sky" (the Dead-sampling track) to the more abstract territory of “Bleed” and “On a Highway.” Fall Be Kind shows a band still driven to experiment, to go into “unfamiliar realms,” Richardson writes, even if it means failure. “There's still a sense of gamble with Animal Collective—and that's exactly what makes them an especially exciting band.”

LeBron in NFL? Browns Coach Says Suit Up

If LeBron James really wants to try football, Eric Mangini will find room on his roster. “I think he should come on down,” the Browns coach tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “The guy’s a freak athletically.” James may be an NBA star now, but he played wide receiver in high school. He opined on Monday Night Football that, if he dedicated himself to football, “I could be really good.”

“I could be a split tight end like Gates or Gonzalez,” he said. “If you put a linebacker on them, they can’t match up.” QB Brady Quinn, for one, loves the idea of throwing to James to improve the fortunes of the 1-8 team. “Tell him to suit up,” he said. “We’ll get him working.” But nosetackle Shaun Rogers doubts the King could hack it. “A great athlete, yes. A football player, no. Yeah, Lebron, I said it.”

World's Most Valuable Models

Even supermodels are making less money these days. The Daily Beast came up with a formula to determine which are the most valuable, based on everything from runway work (weighed 10%) to cover appearances (10%) to income from contracts (40%):

Gisele Bündchen: She no longer walks the runway, but an avalanche of endorsements, from the likes of Max Factor, Dior, and Versace, bring in an estimated $25 million.
Kate Moss: At 35, she still snagged six covers last year...and a reported $8.5 million.
Adriana Lima: She’s been a Victoria’s Secret Angel for nearly a decade now, no doubt helping her earn $8 million.
Doutzen Kroes: She became a Victoria’s Secret Angel last year after doing high-profile ads for Dolce & Gabbana and Versace; she now rakes in $6 million.
Daria Werbowy: You may not know her name, but you know her as the face of Lancôme, a gig that contributes to the $4-plus million she'll make this year.
Alessandra Ambrosio: A longtime Victoria’s Secret model, one of her new gigs is a Brazilian campaign that used to belong to Gisele. Annual take: $6 million.

Walk the Runway Like a Pro

– J. Alexander—otherwise known as Miss J, the 6’4" drag-dressing America’s Next Top Model judge—has been coaching models on how to rock the runway for almost 20 years. Cathy Horyn of the New York Times takes a lesson and offers a few tips:

Develop your own style: Carmen Kass has the bust shake; Naomi Campbell has the leg kick.
Stand up straight: He begins analyzing Horyn’s stride with “Well, first of all, you walk like your back hurts.”
Focus on you: “It’s all about you. It’s about Cathy,” Miss J says. A passer-by isn’t a distraction, “she’s just the girl you are passing on the runway.”
Don’t overshadow the main event: “If your walk is too extreme, you don’t see the clothes.”
Be elegant: “Always start from the bottom, it creates a cleaner line.”
Keep a cool gaze: “Here’s the face that you want,” he says, looking calm even while thinking, “I hate my teeth, I hate the world today. I’m getting paid 10 grand. I’m starving. I want a sandwich.”

Best Videos of the Decade

The "aughties" saw a breakdown in the traditional music business and the outlets for music videos. But that doesn't mean people didn't make good ones—maybe they're even better for it. Steve LaBate runs down the best since 2000 in Paste. A sampling:

Outkast, "Bombs Over Baghdad": "A luscious Technicolor feast, exploding vibrant and alive onto the screen."
The White Stripes, "Fell in Love With a Girl": "Perhaps the most innovative video of the decade (or at least the most carefully labored over)."
Johnny Cash, "Hurt": Made a year before the Man in Black passed on, "here he takes a long, dark glance back at the imperfect life he’s lived." It's "one of the most moving videos ever made."
OK Go, "Here We Go Again": With "the infamous, impressively choreographed and unforgettable treadmill dance."
The Decemberists: "16 Military Wives": The band "coyly pokes fun at their bookish reputation with this fantastic video set at an overly ambitious prep school."

Pirate Radio Rocks on Good Tunes, Cast

Critics agree that the soundtrack of Pirate Radio can't be beat, and the top-notch cast is a joy. So when it comes to the shaky plot and pacing, some can turn a blind eye:

"There’s no denying the comic energy of the cast," Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone. "Couple that with blasts of Brit rock from the Beatles and the Stones to Dusty Springfield and David Bowie, and the ship is unsinkable."
Writer/director Richard Curtis introduces "characters and conflicts only to drop them," Stephanie Zacharek of Salon complains. But no matter: The best bits "take place in the movie's margins, in the vignettes and asides that don't necessarily have much to do with the plot."
Bah. A great cast and great tunes—some of which are not at all historically accurate—do not a great film make, Sam Adams writes for the AV Club. "Do you like montages, but grow bored with the tedious plot bits in between? Then Pirate Radio is the movie for you."
Curtis alludes to the cultural issues behind the plot—a little, writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. Really, "he wants to party." Which he does, and "which is fine."

Meet the Man Behind Elmo

When Kevin Clash does a live Sesame Street event, the kids “don’t know me from a hole in the wall and they don’t care to,” he tells Time. “I’m the guy holding their friend.” That friend would be Elmo, the furry red monster Clash puppets and voices, one of the most popular characters in the show’s 40-year history.

Yes, that is Clash’s voice on all those Tickle Me Elmo dolls and other toys—“I call that job security,” he says. But don’t expect him to jump into character should you run into him on the street: “We can't just sit there as ourselves and do that voice and personality,” he says, explaining why puppets are brought along even to radio interviews. “We're puppeteers