MUSIC: 2009 Pop Music Mash-up

I not the biggest fan of current Top 40 pop music hits unless I'm at the club but I must admit that, although I can't stand half the songs that were everywhere this past calendar year, I am obsessed with DJ Earworm's Pop Music Mash-up of 2009. It's almost like the creation of a whole new song; sadly it's one that makes more sense, lyrically, all remixed together, than some of last year's biggest radio hits!

Combining everything from the über-popular "Single Ladies" (Beyonce), "Down" (Jay Sean), "I Gotta Feeling" (Black Eyed Peas), "Use Somebody" (Kings of Leon), and "Just Dance" (Lady Gaga) to "Heartless" (Kanye West), "Gives You Hell" (All-American Rejects), "Love Story" (Taylor Swift), and [the terrible] "The Climb" (Miley Cyrus). Also making welcome appearances are "My Life Would Suck Without You" (Kelly Clarkson), "I'm Yours" (Jason Mraz) and "Dead and Gone" (T.I. with Justin Timberlake).

You can download the track for free from DJ Earworm's website too. (If you don't know how, look for instructions on the right side of the video on YouTube.) Hey, and even if you're like me and don't enjoy half these tunes alone, take solace in knowing Justin Bieber didn't make the mix this year.

Sergio del Limonar

YOUTUBE: Key of Awesome

Clearly we here at ZONINO! have a sweet spot for good parody. It's been awhile but we've come across another mock-video set to entertain you with hilarious visuals and intensely clever lyrics.

The YouTube series Key of Awesome has music videos poking fun at all your favorite topical pop-culture fads in television and music right now. From "Jersey Shore" (with Garden State native "Bruce Springsteen") to teen-crooner Justin Bieber.

In the video parodying Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video, "Gaga" sings, "I like to eat brillo pads that's how I got this voice, sometimes I like to cut myself but it's a fashion choice."

"Emo Vampire", appropriately enough poking fun at the "Twilight" saga, stars a old-timey vampire (a la Dracula) singing sadly about how he'll "never be an emo vampire...i've got nothing in common with the vampires of today, they gaze at girls and pout and brood, and then just run away." There is even a great jab in the song at author Stephanie Meyers.

These videos show how you don't have to be amazingly high-tech, just maybe tech-savvy, to create something that's technically humorous.

Sergio del Limónar

MUSIC: "Bad Romance" video

Lady Gaga pretty much owns the world right now. At the dance-pop world. I think Madonna gave it to her. And after seeing the amazing video for her newest single, "Bad Romance", I completely and totally fall to my knees at her bedazzled throne.

In this hyper-stylized video, Gaga is awash in a bath house of white (Bath Haus of Gaga to be specific) after being kidnapped by supermodels and sold to some sort of mafia to work as a sex-slave. Bad romance, indeed. While I realize the concept sounds pretty brutal and cruel towards womens' rights, I was strangely empowered by the interpretation.

My favorite images are of Gaga in her gold dress with her pet great dane and when she completely incinerates a John, leaving only a skeleton on a ash-covered and charred bed.

While the song is not my favorite single from the Lady herself, coupled with the video it definitely becomes greater!

Buzzy