2008 was all about....
...barack obama.
...change.
...britney spears's big comeback.
...going green.
...miley cyrus.
...the jonas brothers.
..."single ladies."
...the single ladies dance.
...lil wayne.
...sarah palin.
...iron man.
...the dark knight.
...jennifer hudson.
...caylee anthony.
...the celtics vs. the lakers.
...lo (the hills got itself a new star!).
...the real housewives of atlanta (move over nyc, this was the best batch of housewives yet!!!)
...chuck and blair (everybody's favorite new couple!).
...twilight.
...beyonce and jay-z.
...michael phelps.
...rihanna.
...jennifer anniston (and her finally telling the world that what angelina and brad did was "uncool").
...california allowing gay marraige for like a split second.
...madonna's love triangle.
...snl.
..."j*** in my pants".
...robert downey jr.
...jessica alba.
...project runway.
...a classier paris hilton.
...the economic crisis.
...shane mercado and his fierce dance moves.
...kanye's style.
...heath ledger.
...katy perry.
...heidi and spencer.
...the davids on american idol.
...danny noriega.
...miley and mandy vs. selena and demi.

in 2008, what was out....
...britney's crazy antics.
...republicans.
...avril lavigne (she kind of just fell off the face of the earth didn't she?).
...emo.
..."irreplaceable."
...the soulja boy dance.
...amy winehouse (she just never really got on the recovery wagon...).
..."hey there delilah" (thank GOD!).
...don imus.
...michael vick.
...lauren conrad (everyone just got kind of sick of her and her bitchy antics...).
...atonement (finally, people started realizing it was actually a really shitty movie and moved on!).
...kevin federline.
...high school musical (i think most of the world has moved on).
...mischa barton.
..."d*** in a box".
...eminem (where on earth did that man go?!?!?!).
...grey's anatomy (this show just went from bad to worse...)
...not wearing underwear.
...charlie bit my finger (except for the few that still find that hilarious...news flash, it's over!).
...chris crocker (he has nothing to whine about now...)
...hilary duff (not such a hot year for her...)

what was STILL in in 2008...
...american idol (for some reason, this show never gets old does it?).
...gossip girl (it just kept getting better).
...leggings (please let leggings never go out of style, i can't go back to wearing pants!!!)
...hannah montana.
...celebrity pregnancies.
...juno (i still hear it quoted all the time, and do you know how many junos i saw on halloween???).
...cougars (mariah got nick, enough said).
...brangelina.
...the beckhams.
...will smith (i think seven pounds might be the one to break his box office streak, though...).
...tom and katie.
...tyra's crazy antics.
...america's next top model.
...catfights on the view.
...the soup.
...rover's morning glory.
...sasha pavlovic's sexiness.
...the cavs.
...perez hilton.

hopefully in 2009, we'll see less of/be done with....
...lost (seriously, when will this be cancelled??? the show no longer makes any sense and come on, if they were really trapped on an island for that long the fat guy seriously would have lost a lot of weight by now!)
...sarah palin.
...a shot of love.
...the hogans.
...lindsay lohan and samantha ronson (i'm seriously sick of them).
...oj simpson (he's going to prison, justice is served, it's over).
...heidi and spencer (now that they're married does that mean they'll stop doing their ridiculous photo-ops? probably not, but one can hope...).
...aaron rose (i know for a fact that he's not coming back after the new year, thank goodness...).
...twilight (i'm so over it, and that movie was shit).
...megan fox.
...celebrity arrests.
...celebrity drunkeness.
...miley and mandy.
...tom and katie.
...ryan seacrest.
...pete wentz.
...sex and the city.

hopefully in 2009 we'll see more of....
...how i met your mother (best. show. ever.).
...taylor swift (one of the only teen popstars i really enjoy and think is actually talented).
...the real housewives of atlanta (season two, anyone?).
...chuck and blair (get together...for real...now!!!).
...actually funny saturday night live sketches.
...gossip girl romances! (meaning off-screen romances...like blake and penn, jessica and ed, and chace and taylor!)
...lily and rufus (i'm always rooting for them).
...a healthier, happier britney spears.
...selena and demi.
...whitney port.
...gabrielle union.

from papermag:


"I'm obsessed with vintage!" Welsh singer Duffy says enthusiastically. "I love to go out and buy a stinking 1940s shirt that's so smelly I can never really wear it, but for some reason it gives me amazing pleasure to know that there's something I own that's 60 years old. It's weird."

In fact, to hear the blond chanteuse say such a thing is not weird at all. From her black-and-white video clip for "Rockferry" featuring her heavily-lined lids and blond bouffant, combined with her earthy Dusty Springfield-esque vocals, the native Welsh-language speaker's preoccupation with all things retro is apparent and has been a part of who she is ever since she was a youngster, according to her charming anecdotes about growing up in small-town Wales.

"I've always been old-fashioned. When I was younger my mum gave me and my sister a fiver each, which was almost as much money as I got for every birthday," she says. "We went 'round Pwllheli, a small town in North Wales, and my sister was in the arcade gambling with her mate, and mum saw them there and walked down the street and looked into this coffee shop and I was sat there with a cashmere cardigan on, in July, with a cup of tea and a scone. I was six years old. She knocked on the window and pointed [at] me as if to say, 'What the hell are you doing?' and I waved, and had cream all over my face. Apparently, I've always been opinionated. I like to do my own thing. I was more into having a scone and a cup of tea at the age of six than gambling and getting wet at the funfair. It's always just the way I've been."
Once named as one of the so-called 'New Amys' (after Amy Winehouse), Duffy's managed to forge her own path, her soulful Sandie Shaw and Lulu-influenced sound being lauded by the likes of BBC TV's Jools Holland, who has had her perform on his Later show no fewer than three times since November 2007. Now with the release of her debut album Rockferry in the U.S., Duffy's set to become as well-known as Winehouse, albeit likely without the tabloid tales.



Born Aimee Anne Duffy to a Welsh father and English mother, Duffy was raised speaking both Welsh and English, being schooled in Welsh until the age of ten when she was moved to an English school after her parents' divorce. "At the time it was really difficult, but it was really important for me to have that education in English because it gave me the skill to write in English. If that had never happened, I would never have been able to do that." Growing up in Nefyn, Wales, a town without a record store, restricted her music knowledge to whatever was on the radio, in Duffy's case, classics station BBC Radio 2. "I grew up listening to classics. Whatever was cutting through from 1950 to 1990 -- Percy Sledge, Walker Brothers, David Bowie, Madonna, Michael Jackson -- it was just classic tracks and I only had a surface view on music. I didn't get any sense of depth, I didn't know artists' record collections, I didn't know the history of soul music and the crossover between gospel, soul and blues to the British music scene. I didn't know anything."
Despite lacking an encyclopedic music knowledge, Duffy spent the years between ages 15 and 18 obsessively creating music and admits she went to great lengths in her efforts to be a success. "I was quite extreme, and in Nefyn if you want to go anywhere, you've got to go on at least three bus rides, so when my mates would be finishing college at 2 o'clock to go and smoke weed, to be really normal and young, I'd be like 'Bye!' and go on three bus rides, get to the studio two hours later, work there all through the night. I always got quite extreme and just wanted to do music."

Through Rough Trade's Jeanette Lee, who later became her manager, Duffy was introduced to ex-Suede guitarist-turned-producer Bernard Butler. The two collaborated on Rockferry, and Duffy found her niche through co-writing with Butler as the pair stayed true to her classic roots in the production process. "I didn't work with people who were avid users of contemporary programming or sampling. They all played instruments and had the same interests and likes as me, so everything on the record is really real. Which lends itself towards that sense of nostalgia."

"I read this quote once," she muses, "from Phil Spector, who said that music is made by lonely people for lonely people. I read it and I thought, 'OK, interesting theory' and [then] I thought, 'but really, if I don't make music that's when I feel lonely.' I'm not a lonely person, but unless I give something like that, then there's a sense of loneliness. I feel like I need to express, I need to do music, I need to feel alive, I need to give and create something." With many songs already written for a Rockferry follow-up, there's one person Duffy has on her collaboration wish-list. "I'd love to get Scott Walker to do some strings on my record. That would be my lifelong dream. That guy doesn't get out of his comfort zone for many people, so I really don't think it's going to happen. I don't think he'd be willing to go back to the early Scott Walker days for a blond kid from Wales." Somehow, we think he just might.

so perez had this quote up and it's quite possibly my favorite thing ever:

"A lot of people like to fool you and say that you're not smart if you never went to college, but common sense rules over everything. That's what I learned from selling crack"

- Snoop tells the new issue of Esquire

i love snoop dogg.

um, brokeback mountain is being turned into an opera. no comment.

amy winehouse is apparently a racist...big surprise....that girl's just crazy...but then she apologized for being racist...uuum, ooooook.....

hilary duff looks really grown up and chic chilling in la:


jude law makes being a dad so hot:


taylor swift keeps rocking out and looking adorable at the cma festival:


jewel is so cute....seen here at the same festival....new album!!!!:



and rumer willis's sis is carrying on in the family tradition of ugly clothes:

okay, i'm thinking about boycotting sephora. not that i shop there that much anymore anyway...i mostly order my makeup online directly from the brands because i know what i like...or i just pick it up at nordstrom because i like the people better there. anyway...i already boycott tlc because they still show that idiot kat von d...racism is unacceptable! i mean they cancelled dog the bounty hunter's show because of his racist comments, but tlc did nothing about la ink after the whole antisemetic scandal broke...i mean, are they saying that antisemetism is not as bad as racism? ugh, people piss me off...from fashionista:

Sephora Picks Kat
May 20, 2008 @ 11:03am

Amy Winehouse may be elusively avoiding fashion contracts - and also detox and jail - but her influence rings clear.

Even when she herself can't be present on a photo shoot, she seems to leak in anyway. We saw it in Vogue Italia when Lara Stone posed with massive painted tattoos on her body. We saw it in the Chanel Cruise show, when Siri wore crazy cat eyes and teased hair, and in the new Chanel ads with Coco.

And now, we're seeing it on the Sephora website, where they grab Kat Von D, the tattoo artist and fetish model from TLC, dress her up like Amy Winehouse, attempt to sell her makeup line, and call her a beauty insider.

On the upside, she must be cheaper than the $1 million rumored to be Amy's fee for a private appearance - and Kat will be clean and sober on a photo shoot.

so everyone might think that i like kat von d because she's all alternative and what not and has a retro/vintage sense of style and whatnot, but no, i hate kat von d...first of all, tattoos are really really not my thing...second, just because she has tattoos does not make her all that cool...and so what if she wears retro/rockabilly clothes??? so does amy winehouse, but i don't like her either!!!



see, amy's all cute and retro, but that doesn't mean that i think she's awesome...i still think she's a drug addict/alcoholic/psycho/weirdo/etc:

and yeah, she was in this him video, but i don't like him anymore, and i've never liked this song:

but this is the real reason why i hate kat von d....we know you did it kat, just fess up:

from the la times:

THE 'SPEIDI' CHRONICLES
Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt: 'We're entertainers'



Their rise from "The Hills" to celebutab magnets is a well-scripted affair.
By Kate Aurthur, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 11, 2008
The tabloid world -- led by the magazine Us Weekly, along with the paradigm-exploding websites TMZ and Perezhilton.com -- is simultaneously bursting and flat.

Bursting, in the sense that these media spill over with several dozen characters whose ongoing stories are meticulously and minutely dispensed to readers in the same lurid and addicting manner that a 19th century Penny Dreadful once was. The unbalance of Britney Spears, the growing pains of Miley Cyrus and the druggy tailspin of Amy Winehouse -- to name a few favorite plots -- add up over the hours to grand Flaubertian narratives about femininity, drugs, mental health, motherhood, legal proceedings, controlling parents and violence.

But it's flat in that every story seems just as important as every other, and the monster needs feeding. That's what tabloid fame is now: Weekly, and sometimes hourly, we must have stories; the lives of the chosen people must appear to move forward. Into the breach between supply and demand have stepped Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, the villainous couple from MTV's docu-soap "The Hills" -- while they may not be the most famous, they are definitely the most fame-ish. Creatures of the game in every way, they have mastered the new realities of celebrity culture.

The two know what commodity they're selling and what its value is. "There's only so much gossip," as Heidi said over lunch recently.

"We're always the juicier story," Spencer said. Switching to the third person, he added, "And when Heidi and Spencer are gossip machines, it's like, 'What did Heidi and Spencer do?' "

Heidi and Spencer. "Speidi" for short. He's 24, went to Crossroads School and then USC, having grown up in Santa Monica and the Palisades. She's 21 and was raised in Crested Butte, Colo., which she referred to as "the smallest place in the world." She came to Los Angeles in August 2005 after a miserable fashion-school year in San Francisco where she met Lauren Conrad, late of MTV's "Laguna Beach," whose move to L.A. was to become the raison d'être for "The Hills."

TMZ calls them "celebutards." Perez Hilton calls them "famewhores" and "promosexuals." Spencer's response: "Anybody who wants to promote our brand, negative or positive, give me a call."

A steady drip stokes the spotlight

Over quesadillas recently at Don Antonio’s -- the West L.A. restaurant that is Speidi's version of mecca -- they were both polite and, in suspicious contrast with the spectacular pugilism that is one of their major gossip assets, happy-seeming. The disparities don't stop there: On the phenomenally popular "Hills," which ends its third season Monday and averages 3.3 million young adult viewers per week with millions more on MTV.com, Spencer is Heidi's boyfriend/former fiancé/Svengali, and he's taken her away from her friends. In real life, their romantic relationship appears solid, and he's her manager (Heidi is embarking on a singing career and has a fashion line, Heidiwood).

Together, they have leveraged many bits of their lives -- Heidi's plastic surgery (nose job, breast implants), her real and continuous falling out with Lauren, the possibly faked ups and downs of their relationship and the cruel public mockery of Heidi's popstar aspirations -- to fit the 24-hour news cycle. They have retained a publicist, Cindy Guagenti of BWR Public Relations, but she seems to have a hands-off approach to their full-on courting of the press. Often, staged-looking paparazzi shots accompany their doings: It's Easter, and Heidi and Spencer have bunny ears on! Spencer comforts a crying Heidi after people are mean about her music video for "Higher" on the Internet!

So, Heidi and Spencer, what would happen if some media person texted you, trolling for some gossip, while we're having a perfectly calm conversation at Don Antonio's?

Heidi, with a sly look, said: "Obviously we're entertainers. We are trying to entertain in every aspect of our lives. Whether it's on the show or in the tabloids."

Harvey Levin, the TMZ guru, said this fakeness factor actually adds to the fun: "They are so lame, and so staged and canned, that it makes it almost entertaining and fun to poke fun at. The secret for them is that they get the joke."

And Hilton, whose lawless blog has caused frequent earthquakes that shake the publicist-driven and fawning Celebrity Industrial Complex, mused over the setups and fictions in a telephone interview. "Genius and pathetic at the same time," he said. "But more genius than pathetic."

Thus their celebrity has gone far beyond "The Hills," which somewhat inexplicably shows almost none of these important parts of their lives, such as Heidi's musical ambitions. (Adam DiVello, the creator of "The Hills," missed an interview appointment to answer questions for this story, then did not make himself available again.) Either Heidi alone or the two of them have been on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," "Live With Regis and Kelly," "The Tyra Banks Show" and "Late Show With David Letterman." They frequently call in to Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show, and they attended the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner. They have a reciprocal relationship with the mainstream tabloid press and the blogosphere. For an entertainment journalist, to listen to Spencer talk knowingly about how it all works is more than a little chilling.

"Every hour," he said. "Every different magazine, every blog texts, like, 'We heard this, we heard this.' Most of the time, people are just making things up, trying to get you to give a source quote. Or give one line just so they can build something. On every site, in every magazine, they need content. It's the most competitive industry in the world, I would say, the pop culture media game."

'Bad guy' ups the jeopardy

Janice Min, the editor of Us Weekly and one of the game's chieftains, said she became aware of the allure of Heidi and Spencer while in a staff meeting during the second season of "The Hills" when several editors couldn't stop talking about Heidi's new boyfriend on the show. " 'Oh, he's loathsome, he's so awful, I want to make him go away,' " Min recalled recently. "And then they talked about hating him for quite awhile."

Indeed, Season 2 was when "The Hills" changed -- because Spencer changed it. He and Heidi, who was Lauren's television roommate and sidekick, had met off-camera after the first season and started dating. Sort of. First, they had to overcome that age-old obstacle of whether he was using her because she was on an MTV reality show. Spencer, after all, had a history that included his own unscripted ambitions as an executive producer and costar of Fox's failed "Princes of Malibu" in 2005.

"The Hills" needed some evil, Spencer figured. "I saw a clip of the show, and everyone was so nice," he said mockingly. "Friendly," he added with disgust. So yes, he wanted to "cause drama" and "get my own show."

Viewers loved to hate him for it, as Min saw. What those people didn't see in Season 2 and still don't see as Season 3 closes, Spencer said, was him falling in love with Heidi. "I was -- and am -- so in love with Heidi, and that stuff stops mattering. Our real world is right here." He gestured at the space between them.

The show only became more popular, and got more attention for all of its stars. And when Heidi and Lauren's friendship ended -- over allegations about a sex tape that has been covered seemingly as ceaselessly as the coming presidential election -- the feuding spun pageview-gold for Us' online business. Min said: "The number of comments, the amount of traffic generated -- it was pretty huge for us. That's when I thought, 'You know what? Let's just take a risk on these people.' "

Spencer said, "We were all of a sudden in pages next to Brad and Angelina and TomKat."

Maintaining that position is of paramount importance, so they bend over backward to accommodate. "Janice Min at Us Weekly is like a family member to us," Spencer said. "We love her. If my mom and her are e-mailing me at the same time, I'm like, 'Uh, Janice or my mom?' "

Their accessibility coupled with their ambition will lead, they hope, to opportunities for Heidi's music. Heidi said, "I want to be as big as Britney Spears and Madonna." There are also future television possibilities -- such as their own rumored MTV series -- as well as their current financial bread and butter: bookings for club appearances. According to Spencer, they "make up to $50,000 for two hours in club appearances -- each."

To ensure their place, they pose [see accompanying story]. "We have done story after story poking fun at them, and in some cases just trashing them for their ridiculously staged conduct," Levin said. And yet, he ran into them recently "and they hugged me!"

They do embrace the haters, which, from experience, Hilton sees as a key part of their strategy. "At the end of the day -- and I think this is part of their appeal -- Heidi and Spencer love being famous."

The criticism of Paris Hilton was once that she was famous for doing nothing, which, though it was never actually true, had a certain sting. But what Heidi and Spencer do -- and there are others with their kind of fame, such as E! celebutante Kim Kardashian -- can't possibly be called nothing, since using reality television as a starting point is now so entrenched. Not to mention competitive -- in their view, generating the material, on "The Hills" and in the real world, is the hardest work of all.

"No celebrity does anything, really," Spencer said. "Unless you're a famous athlete who actually physically does something, like, how much work is reading lines from a script? We're improv TV personalities. That's way harder."

kate.aurthur@latimes.com

From Cleveland.com:


From Amy Winehouse to The Shins: The best albums of 2007
by John Soeder/Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
Saturday December 29, 2007, 12:00 PM


Some great bands resurfaced. On the other hand, "American Idol" refused to go away, even if you have to admit Sanjaya was good for a laugh.

It was just that kind of year on the pop music beat, with mixed blessings aplenty.

On the bright side, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame enshrined its first hip-hop act, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and pledged to hold future induction ceremonies in Cleveland every three years, starting in 2009. A bustling comeback trail brought the Police and Van Halen our way for memorable gigs, and Led Zeppelin reunited, too. Not to be outdone, Radiohead set the world on its ear by having consumers name their price for a download of the band's latest release.

Unfortunately, we had to endure those boring Live Earth concerts (the first global nonevent!), Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards and the "The High School Musical 2" soundtrack, the best-selling album in a year when not many albums were sold, period.

As for the best albums of 2007, those were another story:

1. Amy Winehouse, "Back to Black" (Universal): It's no wonder this one-woman British Invasion is up for six Grammys, including album, record and song of the year, best new artist and best hair. OK, just kidding about that last one, although soulstress Winehouse is no joke. Her raw talent came across loud and clear on the irresistible "Rehab" and "Tears Dry on Their Own," a glorious Motown flashback.

2. The Shins, "Wincing the Night Away" (Sub Pop): The alt-rock group's third outing had sublime melodies and cryptic yet evocative lyrics to recommend it. Nowhere did they come together more beautifully than on the haunting, Beach Boys-ish "Phantom Limb."

3. Radiohead, "In Rainbows" (InRainbows.com): Everyone was talking about the pay-what-you-like downloading scheme, but let's not forget the cutting-edge music. "Bodysnatchers" was all hard-rocking groove, fuzzed-out guitar and angst-ridden Thom Yorke vocals. The clattering "15 Step," "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" (dig those spiraling riffs!) and the Beatlesque keeper "Faust Arp" proved worth the negotiable price of admission, too. Luddites, rejoice: You finally can buy the CD in stores Tuesday.

4. Mika, "Life in Cartoon Motion" (Casablanca/Universal Republic): "Why don't you like me?" Mika fretted on the exuberant "Grace Kelly." What wasn't to like? Armed with a potent falsetto, this piano-pounding ringer for Freddie Mercury also delivered pure pop pleasures to the tune of "Lollipop" and "Love Today."

5. Bruce Springsteen, "Magic" (Columbia): "Radio Nowhere" served notice: The Boss was back in full-blown rock 'n' roll mode on his first project with the E Street Band in five years. Although there was no mistaking the political undertones of the title track or "Last to Die," other songs revealed sides of Springsteen we hadn't encountered before, including the lush pop leanings of "Your Own Worst Enemy" and "Girls in Their Summer Clothes."

6. Kanye West, "Graduation" (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam): On his third album, the outspoken MC graduated magna cum loudmouth. Still, it was easy to forgive West's raging ego in light of his witty wordplay ("I'm like the fly Malcolm X -- buy any jeans necessary") and uncanny ability to work everything from Steely Dan's jazz-rock to Daft Punk's electronica into a creatively risky yet virulently catchy hip-hop dissertation.

7. Prince, "Planet Earth" (NPG/Columbia): "I love you, baby / But not like I love my guitar," he wailed orgasmically between Jimi Hendrix-style riffs on "Guitar." Other tunes found Prince addressing life during wartime and sweet-talking the opposite sex. On the funkadelic "Chelsea Rodgers," he sang: "Chelsea's fly, like coast to coast." You still could say the same about His Purple Badness.

8. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, "Raising Sand" (Rounder): This go-figure partnership sprang from the Rock Hall's 2004 salute to Lead Belly, where Led Zeppelin's Plant and neo-bluegrass sensation Krauss first joined their wonderful voices. Rootsy magic abounded on "Raising Sand," particularly on the trembling "Rich Woman," the toe-tapping Everly Brothers chestnut "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" and "Stick With Me Baby," a charmer from the Mel Tillis songbook.

9. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, "Strength & Loyalty" (Interscope): These homegrown rap heroes made the hip-hop comeback of the year, assisted by Akon on the socially conscious hit "I Tried." The likes of Mariah Carey and Yolanda Adams were along for the ride on other cuts. Nonetheless, the star power didn't overshadow Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone and Wish Bone, who chewed up the urban scenery and spit it back out in style.

10. Michael Brecker, "Pilgrimage" (Heads Up International): We lost a jazz virtuoso when this saxophonist died in January after a long battle with leukemia. The stellar cast on his swan-song effort included Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny, although it was Brecker himself who soared highest, flitting between swinging melodies and abstract reveries. Even before he left us, his soul was gloriously unfettered.

Girl Crush: Amy Winehouse
Posted Jun 7th 2007 2:24PM by Kim Davis

11 Reasons I Am Borderline Obsessed with Amy Winehouse

11. She's bringing back the sweet sound of 60s girl groups (and it's not a gimmick!)

10. She shot-gun married her on-again-off-again boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil

9. She gets wasted (on stage, out at parties, wherever!) ... and doesn't apologize.

8. She collaborates with hip-hop heavyweights like Jay-Z and Ghostface Killah ...

7. But even better? When she was 10, she formed a rap group called Sweet 'n' Sour, as Sour that she described as "the little white Jewish Salt 'N' Pepa."

6. She pulls off that sultry mysterious thing ... even on an OUTHOUSE

5. You and your mom would feel equally enthusiastic about throwing this CD on in the car.

4. I tend to gravitate toward sad songs ... and music in general, and 'Back to Black' really is the perfect cope-with-a-breakup, bawl-your-eyes-out tune

3. Her old school naked lady tattoos

2. She's waaaaaaaaaaaay better than Lily Allen (Yeah, I said it!)

1. The beehive. OMG the mighty, mighty beehive ... in my opinion, it's size and importance rivals the Empire State Building, the Atlantic Ocean, Zeus, Superman and global warming. I just want to be there when she "does her hair" once. Amy, if you're out there, please, PLEASE teach me!