In This Episode
[AD]
Ira Madison III And we are back for an all new bonus episode of Keep It. I am Ira Madison, III.
Louis Virtel I’m Louis Virtel. And what do you think is the best VMA category? Do you remember the best dance video? I remember one year. Jennifer Lopez won it for Waiting for Tonight. And that was like a stacked category. Best dance video, I think has some energy and verve to it. I say this because it’s now a crock ceremony with nothing going for it. But what do you think?
Ira Madison III I think my favorite category is the most iconic VMA performance.
Louis Virtel No, you’ve already upset me. Excuse me. There is now a fan voted VMA. We’re talking about the Video Music Awards, which aired last night. MTV Institution, going back to the Cars, won the first video of the year and 1984 for it, you might think. Great video. There is a great song. I love this. Who Doesn’t Love the Car is great band. There is a now a category most iconic video and it’s for all time and people can vote on it, which already feels contradictory to me. It’s either a fact that’s the most iconic or it’s not. It’s not something that we put up for a debate. But the person who won this, the most iconic VMA performance of all time is Katy Perry for a raw era. I rarely say this word. It’s your word at this point. But payola, how did this occur?
Ira Madison III You know what? To borrow a tweet that I saw last night, you know that this is fake because have you ever seen anybody put on Katy Perry’s VMA performance of Raw at an afters?
Louis Virtel No. And also, I think there are literally more legendary boxing themed performances in life.
Ira Madison III Like the more legendary Katy Perry themed performances.
Louis Virtel Yes. As I’ve said before, by the way, I do believe more respect should be put on her Vegas residency, which is one of the best live things I’ve ever seen. But this video and also, by the way, even among her number one hits raw is just not it for me. Raw. Could you buy anybody raw?
Ira Madison III Well, I mean, we know who it was by.
Louis Virtel You mean Bonnie McKee.
Ira Madison III Though. I mean, we remember the controversy when it first dropped that it was very much giving breath by Sara Burrell’s.
Louis Virtel Yes. I want to see you be brave and not do that song anymore because I don’t care for it.
Ira Madison III Yeah. But we’ve brought this up on the show before. We watched Katy Perry’s Super Bowl performance after. That’s a.
Louis Virtel Great performance. I literally watched the bon Appétit video all the time. More than I watched this this VMAs performance.
Ira Madison III Let’s just talk about Katy and get it over with, right? Yes. During her video Vanguard performance, which.
Louis Virtel Sure. You know what? Great. I mean, at this point.
Ira Madison III She has fun videos.
Louis Virtel And also, by the way, there’s a list now Billboard.com is doing this list of the 25 best pop stars of the 21st century. And Katy Perry somehow came in at number 25. Okay. I know we’re in an era where it’s not particularly awesome to compliment Katy Perry or we feel like she’s peaked or something. She’s better than 25. I think she does deserve some flowers and she’s coming in behind like beats, which, okay, maybe there’s an argument there. But she came in behind one direction, babe. They they have like two hits here. It makes no sense to rank them ahead of Katy Perry.
Ira Madison III Okay, well, let’s let’s not get into.
Louis Virtel You can’t be standing them right now.
Ira Madison III I have a direction here.
Louis Virtel All right.
Ira Madison III Okay. I was listening to Night Memories last night.
Louis Virtel You know that I enjoy the song Night Changes. And I do wonder if it’s about, of course, nocturnal emissions.
Ira Madison III But I will agree with you, though, that Katy, it is. We are in an era where it’s okay to, quote unquote, diss her. But she deserves better than that. And I think that last night the video Vanguard performance proved why we enjoy Katy Perry. She’s never been a bad performer, whereas dragging the raw performance is not saying that it’s bad or that she’s bad. It’s just that it’s not particularly memorable and no one has thought about it since it aired.
Louis Virtel Especially since the category is most iconic performance at the VMAs of all time, which truly a dozen performances come to mind immediately before I even begin to consider what what the most iconic of all time is. I’m talking about Madonna doing Vogue or Madonna with Britney Spears or in the 90s I’ll be missing you. Remember that? I was amazed. You know, I mean, I would even say like Lauryn Hill performing doo wop, that thing is more iconic than this particular Katy Perry.
Ira Madison III Janet dance doing if in those jeans.
Louis Virtel Actually maybe no one has done jeans better in life than Yeah, she’s done them, ripped all sorts of ways, all sorts of silhouettes.
Ira Madison III Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement when she did Love on Top, but also Beyonce’s ring the alarm.
Louis Virtel Right. Also she her she had a whole medley one year, didn’t she, too?
Ira Madison III Yeah, the lemonade.
Louis Virtel By the way. And of course, don’t forget the paparazzi. Lady Gaga performance.
Ira Madison III The best debut.
Louis Virtel Ever. I mean, just the list goes on. And Britney Spears doing satisfaction and oops, I did it again. I’m just I’m beside myself at this award. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so upset when it’s such a calculated award to give somebody who’s just going to show up to the ceremony, which is, of course, the crux of what is wrong with the VMAs at this point. Now, they give awards specifically based on who will be there. It’s not like the Grammys where there’s still a little bit of prestige associated with the Grammys. So if somebody is awarded a Grammy and they’re not at the Grammys, there’s like no love lost. Like, that’s fine. We still believe in the sanctity of the Grammys. Whereas if there’s dead air at the VMAs, the ceremony looks weird and people are thinking, why does the show exist if people can’t even show up to get the awards?
Ira Madison III Yeah, I think that that is the larger problem with the show and we’ll cut right to that after we finish. Like talking about Katy Perry here. This is a good performance, but I think that unfortunately it was a big reminder of the dip in music quality.
Louis Virtel While she certainly had her huge heads, the number ones like Dark Horse and California Girls, Teenage Dream, etc. and then she tried to slip in the three new tracks. I actually kind of liked the one the new one that interpolated Crystal Waters.
Ira Madison III Yeah, it’s okay. He’s mine. I’m his dog. He looks great. I’m a big fan of Dolce right now. I think that her latest mixtape is fucking fantastic. I saw her perform at the Paper magazine Fashion Week party last week. She’s excellent on stage. I saw Josie at Coachella as well. I will say that their performance, though fun and a great spotlight for Dog because I feel like it was probably her VMA performance debut. It was very much Cardi and Megan at the group.
Louis Virtel You are correct. I felt like I had seen it before. I do have to say also give Katy Perry credit though, like, okay, there are songs in here that are not as important as her most famous songs. But in a lot of these occasions where big stars are doing medleys of their hits, like, for instance, Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl. Okay. For every poker face, you do get million reasons, you know, like they sort of have to shop around the lesser hits in order to make it a full package.
Ira Madison III I think lifetime’s ended great. I thought that there was a song for. Because of that song. It’s an okay song. It’s the one of the better ones that we’ve heard from this new era so far. Let’s get into. Her speech.
Louis Virtel I am actually a fan of it, so I’m curious.
Ira Madison III I loved it. Yeah, I loved it.
Louis Virtel It was just bitchy and curt enough without also being sincere.
Ira Madison III Yeah, it was between passive aggressive and aggressive. She clearly had some shit to say about the people online.
Louis Virtel Yeah. She said there’s no decade long accidents referring to her career. Which whoever came up with that line. Okay. Excellent. We love it.
Ira Madison III The doctor? Probably. My.
Louis Virtel God. Luke just emerges from backstage like the Phantom.
Ira Madison III I thought that her speech was great. I loved her telling people to, you know, shut out the noise and stay off line, etc.. She kind of beat chapel to the punch.
Louis Virtel Right. Though I’ll. We’ll get to chapel in a second since you. She, of course, made a very splashy VMAs debut this year, too. But yeah, the shutting out the noise, I think, was a cool thing to say. That said, when Chapel was on the red carpet and cursing at some reporter for, I don’t know, yelling something at her, It was a paparazzo, I think, or somebody using a camera. I sort of like how transparent she is about how disgusting those situations can be, because as you know, when you walk past these like phalanxes of photographers, like shooting, it’s a cattle call one. It’s a cattle call, too. It’s crazy that people can even keep their eyes open. It’s so blinding. And then three, it’s so stressful. It’s so shocking. It’s like being in the middle of a traffic jam or something. You do feel like somebody should be yelling, Can everybody shut up? So to see her do that was cool. And then seconds later, she was giving an interview to Queer Press. Like the logo, I think it was logo or something. And she gave a darling interview talking about how psyched she is to be near Sasha Colby and all these other drag entertainers where they’re plain. Jane was dressed as a chaperon specifically, and did a little. They cut to a bunch of these queens, and Plain Jane did a little miming of her, not wanting to be seen by the photographers. So funny and so classic drag. Yes.
Ira Madison III And that is something that people were, quote unquote, upset about online people without any taste. But it’s that drag is supposed to be that. It’s funny. There’s a way to make fun of Chapel Road without denying the fact that she’s a human being who is setting up boundaries. And I think that we are getting into this weird point now where I’m just tired of hearing people say that particularly we went too far in defending her. I’m tired of people trying to swing to the opposite end of the pendulum, saying she needs to sign up for being a pop star or maybe like she’s too angry. You know, it’s not giving diva. It’s giving attitude or anxiety or fragile. And how many of our pop stars are balls of fragility? So many only have anxiety and they deal with them either through drugs or drinking or other things. And she is trying to deal with this in such a. Open, honest, raw way that I have to commend her for it.
Louis Virtel No, as you said, like how many popstars years later finally open up about having anxiety or whatever? Like I just saw Shawn Mendez posted a video online talking about his return. He performed at the VMAs last night to where he made the dubious choice to rock out. Not my brown girls. But in that video, he he basically talks about coming back to music and getting excited for it again. And it really sounds like somebody who has there’s no other way to put it. Put through it like it sounds like this entire industry, the way the fans behave, etc., has weighed on him for years and it sounds like he paid a price. So it sounds like Chaperon is not just saying I’m setting up boundaries. It’s I won’t pay a price. I’m going to tell you right now when something is inappropriate.
Ira Madison III Well, imagine Fagots giving any sympathy the chapel road, because we know how they treated Shawn Mendes.
Louis Virtel A right with respect respect and not Shawn Cody Bcom blaze in pictures.
Ira Madison III Yeah he seems happy which I’m I’m very glad for him. He wanders around New York City without security most of the time. Just reading.
Louis Virtel Who is Woody Allen?
Ira Madison III Yeah. He seems like a genuinely happy person now. I’m glad that he’s making music again and it’s fulfilling him. He there was an interview, not an interview. He did a front facing video on Twitter, which I watched where he talked about his collaborators and how they sort of got him in love with making music again because he sort of was just empty and wasn’t feeling like he wanted to do it anymore. That said. The song is boring. He makes dentist’s office music.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right, right. Yeah. He doesn’t really merge into prestige ever, even though I think he really cares about music. In addition to being a performer. Like you can tell like the the interest is there. I almost wonder if he would go into like a producing space eventually or something.
Ira Madison III Maybe. I love stitches. Like I love stitches back in the day. I love his vocals On Senior Writer. My favorite song of his is Lost in Japan.
Louis Virtel My favorite of his is There’s Nothing Holding Me Back. I like it a little frenetic, you know what I mean?
Ira Madison III That’s what I need. It’s just giving too much. High school jam band and I went to an all boys Catholic school in Milwaukee. Like the boys were jam band playing yesterday on their guitars and playing fish. And it was giving me that, especially with the carpet.
Louis Virtel We’ve had enough.
Ira Madison III The carpet. I was like, This is really giving coffee shop.
Louis Virtel I also just think it feels a little bit like when you choose the rocker character from The Sims, you know that’s him. He’s making the grand gesture with the guitar and, you know, it just feel like he felt very archetypal as opposed to artistic.
Ira Madison III I mean, back on Chapel, I enjoyed her performance a lot. Chaperon did a performance of Good Luck Babe, which still does not have a music video, and I am very glad that she canceled those tours in Europe and did a VMA performance because now the VMA performance can replace the music video at afters. Yes, I will say my main problem with the VMA is, is that it was not iconic. I thought it was a great performance for her and a great debut. But when I’m thinking about Lady Gaga bleeding on the stage, what I’m thinking about the Britney moment, you know, I’m thinking everything at the VMAs just seems too afraid to go one extra step. She was Joan of Arc. Like, why wasn’t she burned at the stake?
Louis Virtel Right? Right. We could have used something a bit saucier. Also, can I just say about her? I’m still used to thinking of her music when I hear it. And you know, you and I have known Pink Pony Club for years now or whatever, thinking of that music as Fringe as like, you know, she has a few fans or whatever. And now when I hear this music, it feels like it belongs in the dead center of pop culture. Like someone tweet something in my brain and now I’m like, this is the music we all love. I mean, it Also, she became extremely popular, but it’s just it’s weird how the music feels different to me now that it’s this popular.
Ira Madison III Yeah. You see, people do hot to go at a party. It feels like, this is for everybody now, in a very weird way. And she said also she’s going to take off like end of October through May to work on new music. So I’m looking forward to that era when she drops big single next year of the sophomore album. And that one’s going to really feel like a cultural moment.
Louis Virtel And speaking of cultural moments, I hope after Midnight from this album gets its cultural moment because I continue to be obsessed with that song in particular from her.
Ira Madison III And super modern ultra graphic girl. What are we doing here?
Louis Virtel Yeah, there’s room to grow still and she’s grown.
Ira Madison III She could. She could thriller this album if she wants to. She could knock out Teenage Dream.
Louis Virtel I did think it was both cool and a little telling that the most memorable VMA moments to me were images like Sabrina Carpenter dressed in Madonna’s actual Oscars gown from when she performs Sooner or Later, the Oscar winning Sondheim song from Dick Tracy. It’s cool to see that. Like it. First of all, who knew that dress still existed? So the fact that she pulled that out and according to her, got it from Madonna, who she said was very supportive of her. That was nice. That said, what does that mean? Ultimately? You just have the dress like, why are we referencing it? Really? It’s both kind of cool and also kind of nothing.
Ira Madison III Yeah, it’s sort of that whole Kim Kardashian thing of pulling out a piece that someone has worn before. It’s this thing in fashion now where it’s sort of archival pieces are popping up all the time. But what is the story here? Yeah, you’re not doing anything that’s related to Sondheim. You’re not you’re not sort of breathless.
Louis Virtel Mahoney Which I would love for her. Yeah, Yeah.
Ira Madison III You’re more Betty Boop. But she could do that. I am desperately begging for a Dick Tracy musical on Broadway, by the way. I’m smart, I don’t like. And people always say Megan Hilty, but Sabrina Carpenter, Breathless Mahoney.
Louis Virtel Don’t hate it. I also just love that she has, you know, your grandpa’s fourth wife energy.
Ira Madison III You know, she’s.
Louis Virtel She’s standing right by the crypt. She’s got the will in this hand.
Ira Madison III But even that, there was there was no story to that tape. McRae was wearing an old Britney Spears dress.
Louis Virtel Why? And by the way.
Ira Madison III What is the story?
Louis Virtel And I’m not saying Britney Spears didn’t look great in that outfit, not a particularly interesting outfit that we needed to revisit.
Ira Madison III Yeah, but Meghan wearing Britney’s I’m a Slave for You outfit looked great. But then. What else are we doing here? I get that it was the 40th anniversary so that you want to honor the VMAs past. But I feel like every year of the VMAs lately is honoring the VMAs past and not creating any new reason for the VMAs to exist.
Louis Virtel Yes, You don’t feel the confidence that we’re still in an icon making era. You know, I think also a problem the VMAs have is it’s not that people don’t watch music videos anymore, which used to be the chief complaint about the VMAs. You know, that MTV moved to another direction and we don’t see those videos on anymore. People are obsessed with music videos. I think weirdly, what’s interesting now is you’re less likely to see music that isn’t algorithmically delivered to you. So the concept of any one music being considered the best, like the video of the year, sort of is irrelevant now. You know, like if you’re a Taylor Swift fan, okay, that’s the music you listen to this year. But you didn’t really have to watch music videos from your other bands that I grew up listening to that weren’t particularly my brand, Foo Fighters, You know, you didn’t have to watch Rage Against the Machine or whatever things that would be otherwise competitive. The. I had two of those albums, I have to say.
Ira Madison III Freak on a Leash. Yeah.
Louis Virtel And I owned the Issues album and Freak out. Yeah.
Ira Madison III That is actually the problem with the VMAs or sort of MTV in general now rewarding things like that. You sort of hit the nail on the head with that. People kept saying last night, who seen Fortnite, Who seen Fortnite? This is the song of the year. And if you’re a swifty, it’s the only fucking video you’ve watched all year.
Louis Virtel Right.
Ira Madison III I’ve seen it because I like Taylor and I like Post Malone and I’ve watched the video several times, but it’s not one I put on at afters because no one else is into it the way that I am. But we’re all in these bubbles now. And even when you’re in your bubble of friends and the things that you listen to as a group, that’s not going to mirror what other people are watching by themselves.
Louis Virtel Right. Right. Here’s the thing. Among videos she has directed, I think the Fortnite video is pretty impressive. There’s some stark stylistic choices like images that are memorable. So at least it feels more like a contender for via video of the year than some of her other ones. But excuse me, the idea that she has won five videos of the year.
Ira Madison III And three in a row.
Louis Virtel Yes. To me, it’s like if you had a book award and then gave it to Harry Potter every year. My feeling is, yes, definitely the most popular. Yes, Qualified and important. You know that a book is reaching so many people that said, you’re kidding if you’re saying it’s earned this award by being better than everything else, it’s just more popular than everything else and dominating in a monocultural way that I feel like awards shows somehow feel really obligated to adhere to. And also, of course, they want her to be at the ceremony, so they give it to her for that reason.
Ira Madison III Of course, it’s the same way I feel about how we discuss music now or people discuss music online now that everyone has sort of been recorded by Stan Brain. You talk about how popular something is, how big something is on the Billboard charts. Remember when defending your favorite artist meant defending your own taste?
Louis Virtel Yes.
Ira Madison III Well, you had to say.
Louis Virtel You really wrote.
Ira Madison III A song for this one.
Louis Virtel I really wrote a poem with that one.
Ira Madison III Yeah. You had to say this song is good because this artist is great because I dig this like video. Because you weren’t when we were arguing about music when we were kids, when we were arguing about it in high school. In college, you weren’t saying, she’s number one on Billboard. Tortured Poets has been number one for several weeks. It’s no, I fucking dig this because it’s cool. That’s why I like saying I love reputation. Like I like the attitude in that album. I like how pissed off she was at that moment. I think it’s one of Taylor’s more raw albums lyrically and sonically, just because of the emotional mess she was going through at the time. Whereas tortured poets feels like a cash grab.
Louis Virtel Right. And yeah, a retread to me, if we’re talking about albums like Evermore folklore, etc.. But I think not that Stan culture is the entire Internet. Sometimes it feels like the entire Internet based on what you see, what tweets you see passed around. But yeah, there is this notion that popularity means an artist is unimpeachable, that they have accomplished something that no other that no critic can take away from them. And I feel like that’s such a growth mindset. Critics are not trying to take away things from artists. They are interested in the art. So it’s like, why not get into the ins and outs of it, the ups and downs and you know what we like and don’t like. I just I feel like that part of Stan culture is particularly I sound like Jason Alexander, former head of the NEA right now. Anti art.
Ira Madison III Yeah. And there’s this idea that critics critique things because they hate everything and want to bring people down. And maybe that’s people with YouTube channels and maybe there’s people online who get off on hate views and hate clicks. But real genuine critics of music, of film, of television, of books, of art. They do it because they love it. Like, you’re not going to be a you wouldn’t be a theater critic unless you loved theater because why are you going to see a fucking play every night unless you love it? Why are you listening to music all the time? Unless you love it? Movie film Critic So like, why are you going to film festivals and watching six movies in a day unless you genuinely fucking love movies, right?
Louis Virtel There’s clearly an adrenaline rush there. And by the way, I just say I have never been to one of these film festivals before. I am so jealous. Half my friends go every year. It’s that’s the darkest part of my year when people aren’t like, can Yeah, you know.
Ira Madison III It could. It can be fun.
Louis Virtel I was one time at Sundance, but I didn’t get to see anything. I was working there with a company anyway.
Ira Madison III To my mind, I love going to the New York Film Festival. It’s it’s nice to just be it’s nice that a festival is occurring in the city that you live in. Yeah. So you could just go uptown and then all of a sudden there’s this buzz and shit happening for the premiere of a film and then you just go home.
Louis Virtel [AD]
Louis Virtel Back to the VMAs. What did you think of Megan as a host?
Ira Madison III I thought Meghan was fun.
Louis Virtel She is never not.
Ira Madison III Fun to me. I enjoy Meghan. I enjoyed her performance. I didn’t like what she was wearing. But the performance is fun. Even if this music from this era, I don’t really love that much.
Louis Virtel Yeah. By the way, speaking of what people are wearing, before I forget. So Taylor Swift wore a kind of yellow plaid ensemble that.
Ira Madison III Fresh out of Hot topic.
Louis Virtel And fresh out of Cher from Clueless. Somebody online posted a tweet that made me think. Do you think Blake Lively is dressing her? It’s kind of her version of like, fashion, but also accidentally tacky. I don’t know.
Ira Madison III I think that Taylor has very strong. I think that Taylor loves her friends, but she’s a Sagittarius and she has very strong opinions about her friends. I do not believe she thinks Blake Lively has any taste.
Louis Virtel It concerns her.
Ira Madison III I do not believe that at all.
Louis Virtel I’m always curious about her sartorial choices because she always is like it’s neither awful fashion or good fashion. This is something that has been debated online. I’m not the first person to say this. No, because it’s just so interesting, like the pairing of a certain kind of boot with a certain kind of skirt that feels sloppy in a way, though. Also fitting anyway. I don’t know. It’s like it makes her more approachable and relatable in a way.
Ira Madison III I’m sure she supports Blake because she’s her girlfriend. But there’s an interview that Selena Gomez just gave recently where she talks about how she and Taylor watch Vanderpump Rules and they watch the Valley and remember who Selena Gomez was. Remember when she had that YouTube channel?
Louis Virtel Yes.
Ira Madison III As she would make fun, she and Demi would make fun. Would make fun of Miley. Gruesome like like she like she was a bitch. Yeah. And I just sometimes the things that you see, the way Taylor shuts down people, there’s no way that she can’t be a bitch in private with her friends. And you’re not going to be a fan of Bravo without some of that rubbing off on you. So, no, I do not believe that she would ever let Blake Lively come anywhere near her closet.
Louis Virtel Do you think Taylor Swift, when she’s maybe like, being bitchy in a text the way we would? Is she always leaving a voice note because it disappears and.
Ira Madison III I think she would probably lose voice notes. I think a lot of it in person. But I also think that there are people who I think that the people who have maintained in her circle would not do that. I think that, like, she probably doesn’t go deep in that way. So you’ve been perfectly vetted.
Louis Virtel Right and right. There’s several, several rounds. It’s like, here’s Scientology in terms of round numbers. Here’s being Taylor Swift’s friend way up here.
Ira Madison III Because also this probably India is involved, too. Definitely. Imagine, I mean, Beyonce, if they want to party with the queen, they’re going to have to sign a nondisclosure.
Louis Virtel Imagine not doing that. Please. When she was at that wedding, I was like, where is where is her assistant? Dressing room. Clipboard. Excuse.
Ira Madison III Julius. Julius in the background. Julius Julius is in the background, looking stressed while she’s just singing to love on top at her former assistant’s wedding. And also in her GQ interview, she said she loved Chapel Road, and that made me think her former assistant is this white girl, this millennial Beyoncé Definitely doubts too hot to go at that wedding.
Louis Virtel Yes. Did she did she consider the choreography or is it like Hillary, Hillary Clinton with the Macarena? She’s like, I.
Ira Madison III Feel like she did it. She did. I feel like she is she is down and has fun. And the clips that we see of Beyonce say we can see that from her. And you can see tiny clips of that from Taylor, even though it’s goofy white girl like her at the U.S. Open. Right. Being drunk. But I don’t know. She seems so much more fun in person and sort of maybe a servic in person, too, then she’s ever going to let us see. Right.
Louis Virtel Got right.
Ira Madison III Maybe in 20 years or something. Sure. Lead into just being a bitch in interviews. And so do that thing where she’s like talking about her past contemporaries and what she really thinks about them, which would be so fun.
Louis Virtel God willing. You’re right. I feel like we might just have to wait a long time.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Also, Taylor has a lot of goodwill for me this week because of the Kamala endorsement, which shouldn’t make me excited because it’s not like I thought she was a Republican. The way everyone kept saying she’s hugging Britney Mahomes, that means she’s a Republican because she voted for Biden last time. I don’t think that she all of a sudden is like I’m a Republican. She goes very East Coast. Liberal vibes.
Louis Virtel The panic that seemed to be ensuing about her not having endorsed anybody. Give me a break. Obviously she was going to say something. She posted that one picture, a shadow of Kamala behind her. Seemed to indicate that there would be a statement forthcoming. And then she, of course, did. Actually, the one thing that surprised me about the statement she put out. It was clearly written before the debate because they timed the release of this new Harris Wallace friendship bracelet merch with her post. I’m surprised she didn’t modify it a little bit more to include one thing said in the debate because she just said, okay, my values align with Kamala Harris is more than they do Donald Trump’s. And she brought up how he used images of her, which is, of course, disgusting to promote his own campaign. But honestly, I mean, he was so ridiculous during the campaign, it could have used one extra. Can we believe what we just saw moment in it, you know?
Ira Madison III Right. She used the childless cat lady comment, which J.D. Vance had brought up, but. Right. The fact that Trump was talking about eating cats in Springfield, that was that sort of felt like something you would comment on. But no, it was obviously a predetermined press release. Troops organized it all and also walked off the debate stage to the man.
Louis Virtel Would we pick that song for her?
Ira Madison III Absolutely not. But I wasn’t expecting a walk off song. I’m expecting at a rally she’s going to walk out to. Ready for it?
Louis Virtel Yes, that makes more sense. And also just has more like, I’m getting out ready to do something like vote. Whereas the man like, that’s sort of not the vibe that mom was going for. Like if I were a man, it’s like she’s already wearing the Timberlands. She’s got the bearing, you know what I’m saying?
Ira Madison III Plus, my the you know, that song has my favorite Taylor line ever, which is he could be my jailer. Burton to this Taylor.
Louis Virtel Does that mean she’s seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Does that mean she has She’s like, Let me Wicked Sandy Dennis. Has she done it? I want to know. You know that Sandy Dennis is on my pass here. Keep it right. Like this is how they make sure I don’t lose that.
Ira Madison III She’s definitely seen it. And she’s definitely walked in somewhere and over dramatically. Said, What a dump. Wow. And then laughed at making the reference.
Louis Virtel Maybe she’s also seen the play once, too, because there’s lots of famous people when they do the play. Usually, you know, it’s whatever Zachary Quinto is in, etc.. By the way, I’m going to be tonight with Zachary Quinto and Kumail Nanjiani and some actress Jane Fonda at the party starter. Yeah. Yes. Harry’s daughter, Bridget’s aunt at the Bourbon Room in Hollywood. And allegedly they’re going to be testing me on some Jane trivia in front of Jane Fonda. I don’t know that this can go good for me anyway.
Ira Madison III She brought a gun.
Louis Virtel I guess I missed the trivia and look bad to get the trivia right. And Jane’s like, why don’t I get away from the fag? You know what I’m saying? Yeah.
Ira Madison III Get the fag off the stage. You’re not watching that.
Louis Virtel If you didn’t get tickets tonight for the Bourbon Room because it is sold out. Sorry. It will be on YouTube eventually, and it’ll be on Love it or leave it on Saturdays so you can listen there where all of my wonderful jokes will be edited down to digestible portions.
Ira Madison III Who else did we love? We brought up Sabrina Carpenter, but her performance was great.
Louis Virtel Yeah, she did a medley of the three very, very famous Sabrina songs at the moment, which are espresso. Please, Please, Please and Taste, which is the one I’m replying the most at the moment, which seemed like a novel observation, but it turns out the other two are just two of the most played songs of all time and I needed to move on to a third. Also an homage to Britney, the astronaut thing from Oops, I Did It Again. Also, a bit of a VMAs homage since obviously The Moon Man is the name of the trophy moon person. Now, it’s not the moon person.
Ira Madison III I love it, though. I love that an announcer said moon person. And then they immediately cut to Cyndi Lauper introducing Sabrina as she said Moon.
Louis Virtel She’s I got to remember that. Also. I always good to see Cyndi Lauper, who is basically retired at this point I’m sure can still belts her ass off.
Ira Madison III Living off that kinky boots of money.
Louis Virtel Right? Tony winner Tony winner. She’s an shorter and he got Lenny Kravitz was also there. Well cool J was there some people just get to be at awards shows like do you have a slot for me? I’m going to go ahead and do that. Like Lenny Kravitz did the In Memoriam at the Oscars. You know, just whatever. He gets to show up.
Ira Madison III He’s in his cool. Era now. He’s always been cool, but he’s in his cool, like, nostalgic era. Yeah, I remember what he was working out at the gym in leather pants.
Louis Virtel It was so shocking.
Ira Madison III Pants. He’s just around as Zoe’s dad.
Louis Virtel Right? And his body is sheet metal. Yeah, and he’s 60 years old. It’s really crazy. I wanted to say quickly about Sabrina Carpenter’s speech she gave for the song of the summer or whatever nonsense a word they decided to give her. I like how she addressed the fans. There seemed to be she wasn’t going for super bubbly and super quick. She was just like, I have. She goes, It sounds cheesy, but I have the best fans. Thank you. I enjoyed the kind of low key ness of what she said.
Ira Madison III I, I enjoyed that too, because haven’t we gotten sick of artists shouting out their fans name? Yeah. Swifties, hotties. The barbs enough.
Louis Virtel Right? You’re radicalizing them. Stop it. We know where this leads.
Ira Madison III Although, although I did love Beyoncé in her GQ interview saying when she said that she loves Miley. She says, I love my backseat rider. She said I’m a smiler.
Louis Virtel Okay. She’s been paying attention. I’m you know, I’m always curious about her media diet when she’s sitting around watching or not watching.
Ira Madison III I feel like she watches and listens to everything. She mentions so many artists in there. She mentioned some new indie people to it, which she does. She also said, I’m watching the Sky and House of the Dragon.
Louis Virtel All right. Okay. So she’s lightly dialed in.
Ira Madison III Yeah. L’alcool Jay was great.
Louis Virtel Imagine him not being great. He’s delivered. He delivered on NCIS for, I believe, 136 seasons.
Ira Madison III I wish we’d been recorded before this. Louis and I were trying to figure out if NCIS L.A. was still on, and it ended last year. And then I went down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia, discovering just how many NCIS series there are.
Louis Virtel And there’s one called NCIS Origins. In case you’re wondering, how did this thing all start? Take me.
Ira Madison III There. The creation of the program.
Louis Virtel Yeah, right. NCIS, L.A.. I believe it ended because Linda Hunt said fucking enough. I am a million years old. Let me go home.
Ira Madison III Yeah. So he was great. And honestly, lessons still kind of go off at a party when he did doing it.
Louis Virtel I love his attitude and his early music. The Yeah, going back to Cali, etc.. Yeah.
Ira Madison III By the way, I also want to do a shout out to the very hot men who showed up at the VMAs. Raul. Alejandro.
Louis Virtel Yes.
Ira Madison III Gorgeous. And somehow I never noticed what he looked like, even though his came out with Rosalia at Coachella when I was there. But I was very high.
Louis Virtel You don’t see that for months?
Ira Madison III Yeah.
Louis Virtel I could finish that sentence. Yes. Like a detective.
Ira Madison III And I also discovered what a Benson Boone is.
Louis Virtel This man can sing.
Ira Madison III He can sing. And speaking of Sabrina, there’s a reaction video of her going, What? When he does his backflip off the piano.
Louis Virtel That is stunts, parkour as it pertains to balladry we’ve rarely seen. I can’t believe he’s doing that. Yeah, he’s the one who used to be. He was on American Idol and then dropped out before the semifinals. And now this giant singer, also this teddy swims is still a new name to me. He sounded amazing.
Ira Madison III Yeah. Teddy swims. Sounds fucking great. I should actually listen to his album because that’s actually the kind of music that I love listening to.
Louis Virtel Also, by the way, a man who looked hot, the guy from Manasquan or whatever, Wolf, he looked like a silent film actor. It looked like somebody who has like a closeted tryst with Rudolph Valentino. There’s no proof that Rudolph was queer. I’m just throwing that out there.
Ira Madison III Damiano, David. Hot as hell.
Louis Virtel Yes. Great. Look at the VMAs, too.
Ira Madison III Yeah. But going back to the thing about our bubbles of music, I have oddly, I feel like I’ve never heard of Benson Boone before, and I’ve never heard the song.
Louis Virtel Even though he’s like a wild chart entering like. Like he went up the charts faster than Chaperon did this year.
Ira Madison III Yeah, but I listen to what I listen to and I listen to women. I very rarely listen to people who are men.
Louis Virtel No, I know. It’s I think it’s controversial, you know, that. I don’t believe they need voice boxes or but what we’re doing right now, to me is anathema to what life should be about.
Ira Madison III The stand a man. Why?
Louis Virtel Gross Right. What’s he going to do with that?
Ira Madison III But anyway, he’s he’s cute.
Louis Virtel Yeah.
Ira Madison III And, you know, rolling around like he’s in a video game. So he was a Legends of the Hidden Temple on that stage.
Louis Virtel I would say he was in the ball pit at a 90s. Burger King.
Ira Madison III Yeah. So I’m going to tune in and I think that’s pretty much it for the VMAs. I mean, the less said about that opening performance, the better.
Louis Virtel That was tough. Yes. And also, just shout out to the VMAs red carpet there, though. There will always be like 15 people where I feel like they made up celebrities just to keep you on your toes. But they’ll throw somebody out there that’s like, please welcome Chuck. And like, you have to just pretend that that was real.
Ira Madison III This is so mean. There was there’s a photo of Chris Offutt on the red carpet. Meghan Trainor, BFF. As you know, Tiktoker. And someone posted it with a video and they said zero camera flashes.
Louis Virtel People are so rude. Brutal to be on a red carpet. Brutal.
Ira Madison III I also want to say a brief. Keep it. I’ll throw in one. I keep it to people who don’t really know anything about the industry trying to do a funny drag online. There is a photo going around of Tate McRae with her name being held off camera, a red carpet. And it’s they do that for everybody. Right.
Louis Virtel Because those the photographers have to write down the name to attribute everything.
Ira Madison III Yeah. But they even do it for Taylor Swift and Beyoncé because they have to be organized by name. Afterword to be put into Getty.
Louis Virtel Right. Yeah, because when Getty messes up, that’s like a huge deal. Yes.
Ira Madison III Yeah. So that’s when you mess up black people names and somebody gets fired.
Louis Virtel Right. Hopefully. You never know.
Ira Madison III Last thing on mistake McRae. Though she and Tinashe are two amazing fucking dancers who were just at the VMAs to present.
Louis Virtel Strange. Yes. It feels like, by the way, there were not thousands of performances. Surely we could have gotten something with those two ladies together.
Ira Madison III Song of the summer. Where did not have nasty at all represent it?
Louis Virtel Yes. A song, by the way, that I am not sick of When I hear it at any place. It’s appropriate whether it’s like a restaurant or berries or whatever.
Ira Madison III But part of me wonders about the cut off and submissions and whether or not she is on tour, so maybe she doesn’t want to perform. That shit’s always weird too. Does it feel like Chaperoned had to cancel tour dates in Europe to be able to perform at the VMAs? You had to rehearse. So maybe there’s that, too. But I also don’t know the VMA cutoff because why was Paper Town read Confusing? Nominated for something. Did that song come out ten years ago?
Louis Virtel Yes. Obama was president. It was tough. Yes.
Ira Madison III Do you have a last thing to say? Keep it to the VMAs.
Louis Virtel No. Maybe I’ll say something regarding the past to the VMAs, which is I do still think and I’ve said this before, I think the Chris Rock hosted VMAs might still be the greatest award show of all time.
Ira Madison III It’s so funny.
Louis Virtel Yes. And also, I mean, look, the amount of amazing things that happened there. You have the mothers of Tupac and Biggie Smalls reunited, Afeni Shakur and of a little Wallace. That was fabulous. Madonna dragged tribute to Madonna, Ricky Martin, Lauryn Hill. If you watch it and I need somebody to watch that entire ceremony front to back and confirm to me that it’s still good.
Ira Madison III Yeah. And also, I will never forget the line from Chris Rock about Britney. She went from Mickey Mouse Club to the strip club.
Louis Virtel So simple. So we called parallelism. Yes.
Ira Madison III We used to have real pop culture.
Louis Virtel Yes. And we were all focused on the one thing at the one time. And sometimes that one thing was corn.
Ira Madison III Honestly, I think that’s the way you fix pop culture. We at some point have to escape personal monoculture. We have to escape the bubbles. There has to be a thing where Spotify even used to give you in the algorithm songs that you’ve never heard of from artists that you don’t even listen to, and now they just give you stuff you heard before.
Louis Virtel No, Right. It should be a court mandated. Have you listen to a song with a trombone in it today? Do it one time. I’m not saying you have to become a scarf, and God knows I’m not.
Ira Madison III All right. That’s our episode this week. I hope you enjoyed our bonus Keep it. And we’ll see you next week. Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
Louis Virtel You can also subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.
Ira Madison III Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Chris Lord and our associate producer is Kennedy Hill. Our executive producers are Ira Madison III, Louis Virtel, and Kendra James.
Louis Virtel Our digital team is Megan Patsel, Claudia Shang and Rachael Gaieski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to Matt DeGroot, David Toles, Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landes for production support every week.
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