'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.”