hate / love: some shit happened and now some other shit is going to happen. heavy.

dear pink,
please. effing. stop it.

well, the posing is fine. i really couldn't care less about the posing. you sure do spend a lot of time at the gym though, don't you? wow. actually, i'm talking about this song, so what. you see, my co-worker listens to pop radio, and that song is played roughly every fifteen minutes. you must be raking in so much cash right now. (which is probably good for you, since you haven't had a hit in, what, 8 years?) however, just because a song is played every fifteen minutes doesn't mean it's any good. just because a song plays over and over in my head when i go home after work doesn't mean it's any good. it may be an effective pop song, but it is seriously obnoxious. so stop.

love (not really,)
me

really, though, i'm not joking even a little bit. so what has showed up in my dreams, will play in my head when i'm trying to sleep, i find myself humming it on the subway... and i hate it.
for those readers who can't watch youtube at the moment (what, your job expects you to do work while you're getting paid? ridiculous!), here is a sample of the lyrics:

na na na na na na na
na na na na na na
na na na na na na na
na na na na na na
i guess i just lost my husband
i don't know where he went
so i'm gonna drink my money
i'm not gonna pay his rent (nope)
i got a brand new attitude
and i'm gonna wear it tonight
i wanna get in trouble
i wanna start a fight

na na na na na na na
i wanna start a fight
na na na na na na na
i wanna start a fight

this is a perfect example of what i think of as the "some shit happened and now some other shit is going to happen" song. however. other bands have done it better, and, in light of their accomplishments (perfection!) i don't really think that pink should have even tried.

in the loooooooooove category, may i suggest:

kaiser chiefs - i predict a riot

this song is apparently responsible for me breezing right past two friends in the train station - i was that caught up in rocking out to it on the pod. i have it on fairly constant heavy rotation, and have had it that way for years. it's irresistible, catchy without being poppy, and a whole fricking lot of fun.

and the ultimate best of the best of the sshansosigth genre (and also, seriously? one of the best videos ever.) is of course...

ok go - here it goes again

i've spent quite a bit of time this past week trying to figure out what differentiates pink's version from these other two. they all have repetitive, silly lyrics. lots of major chords, augmented by a diminished here and there to feel "edgy."
i've come to the conclusion that it's two things, primarily:
1) real instruments / no vocal correction
and
2) actual soul
i didn't really think that i'd ever say that ok go was soulful, but in light of this development, that's what i'm going to have to conclude.
i am, however, willing to admit that my conclusions may be silly. does anyone have a better take?
also, does anyone have a way to get pink's version out of my head?
gah.

lost like a slave that no man could free

ok. my turn! i've been gleefully waiting to talk about my most shameful, dark, guilty music pleasures... but now that it's here, i'm hesitant. what's worth sharing? what's actually not that bad?
i think my deepest shames come in the form of pop music. not britney-christina pop, because seriously, that's not even enjoyable. i'm doing a show right now that uses a song off the new britney album in which she namechecks herself. i think that's just retarded.
so. ahem. anyway. pop music.
well. i'm probably not going to do this story justice, but there was an ad on t.v. a couple of years ago for some service verizon offered having to do with phones that were also music players. (gosh! remember when that was new and innovative?) anyway, there was one that involved a really femme guy working out at the gym, listening to his music, and then he came over and made us listen to his music for a while and then he said "oh, bro, gotta go, that's my lady!" because his phone was ringing. and his lady was calling.
and my roommate and i watched this ad and were both in agreement: there is no way that a dude listening to that song likes ladies.
not that there's anything wrong with homosexuality. not at all. more that there's a severe cognitive dissonance between the hardcore straight dude verizon was trying to play and someone who would listen to this song while, uh, pumping iron. or doing anything, for that matter.
in any case, as that roommate also pointed out "the fat kid with glasses sure can sing." (his words! not mine!) and it's true. he really, really can.
fallout boy - this ain't a scene


it's not totally shocking that some of my deepest, guiltiest musical pleasures have come to me through different media than the songs that i can listen to and still respect myself in the morning. the guilty pleasures often come by way of radio play, or television, or a snatch of something heard (for fuck's sake!) over a public sound system somewhere.
if it weren't for the fact that i lived in a co-op with cable my last year in college, and that cable happened to have an east coast satellite feed, i would never have sat up half the night every night with denieal watching late night music videos on a bastion of "edgy pop" called insomniac music theatre. it was so bad. we knew it was bad. and yet, this is still on my ipod. and i listen to it more than i should admit. this is definitely the worst example of pitch-corrected, automated, boppy pop of which i'm guilty.

the corrs - breathless


then there's this. i had never watched any of their videos before doing this post, but i've been listening to their music for years. now that i've watched some videos, i'm kind of squirming. but trust me - this is the sexiest violin quartet ever. the question is, is this a good thing? suddenly, i'm not so sure. (or maybe it's just the extreme embarrassment of sharing how much i enjoy this group...) (also, don't you think it would be really hard to play your instrument with all those wind machines?)



ok. we've gotten as far out as i'm willing to go. if you're still with me, it either means you really like me (hi, ma!) or you have a really deep sense of schadenfreude. i'm going with the latter.
so, in order to justify you sticking around this long, i'm going to give you some actual good ones.

all of my dear, talented musician friends have a fetish that i couldn't understand for the longest time. steely dan. i didn't get it. why would a young, attractive female jazz singer groove on steely dan? why would a successful, creative, interesting percussionist listen to music meant for my dad?
so i listened, and i listened, and i listened and suddenly, one day, i realized: i had become like them. steely dan is a musician's band, made up of consummate musicians (in whichever incarnation) playing for musicians.
that doesn't mean i'm not going to totally skip these tracks if we're listening to music together.
nonetheless...
steely dan - peg


the next song is another one that if someone gets in your car and this is on, you probably dart to change to the radio before they notice that you're not only listening to tom jones, but you're listening to tom jones sing about killing someone. oh, ha ha! you say brightly. i don't know what that was! some crap!
but it's not crap. you love it. and as soon as you get rid of the person in your passenger seat, you're going to put it back on and listen to the rest. and by "you," of course, i mean "i."

tom jones - delilah


you especially don't want anyone to catch you singing along while you're cleaning your apartment, no no, you really don't.
ahem. so. i feel like now i have to come up with something really alternative and cred-filled to wash away this shame. but you know what? it's kind of fun to wallow a bit.

look at that welsh man go!

Verruckt!

Gott in Himmel, this is embarrassing.

Alright, let's get this over with. In 1999, I was a sophomore in college. After an "80's Night" at my frat house (or co-ed literary society, if you prefer) one of my siblings sent me an IM to say that I had reminded him of Nena, with my bandana-around-the-forehead look. Embarrassingly, I had to look up Nena on the Napster. "Oh yeah! I remember who she is; she sings the Luftballons song!"

And that's where it started, but it's not nearly the end.

Back in the glory days of Napster, I downloaded any damned thing that crossed my mind. Not content with both the German and English versions of 99 Luftballons, I downloaded every Nena song I could find, including this one:



Okay, whatever, no big deal; everyone has some weakness for 80's music and mine manifested itself prominently in German pop. So what?

So Napster listed Nur Getraumt under another artist as well: Blumchen.

If you know where this story is going, you should probably be ashamed of yourself, too. I don't know if this helps my case, but I don't actually speak German.

Fuck it:



In the near decade that I've known and loved Blumchen, I've never found anyone who shows anything but pure disgust when they catch me listening. And they really have had to catch me! I learned quickly (from my roommates in college) that this was something to hide; something no one would understand. For a while I reveled in that and held up my Blumchen-love as an example of my free spirit and disdain for convention. There was a time when you could tell I was getting ready for a party because I had dragged my boombox into the bathroom to rock out while I applied my super-hot make-up. I'd yell along (phonetically) with the oh-so-catchy choruses. How was I to resist this "fantasy techno," "happy hardcore" or "hyper-pixie-techno-pop" (my phrase)?



Over the years, I have developed a well-deserved shame in regards to this habit. I still listen; don't get me wrong, only Blumchen or Garrison Keillor can get me to clean the kitchen. But I quickly turn down the volume if I here a key in the lock or footsteps in the hall. I value my relationship with my roommate too much to let him hear this mess.

To be honest, the chagrin has gotten worse since I started this post. In all the years I'd been listening, I'd never seen a video of this woman, let alone seen her (twice!) dancing on a damned beach.

Yeah... actually? Can we forget I said anything?

I know I'm not the only one....

I was completely oblivious to the fact that Third Eye Blind could be classified as a guilty pleasure until half of my friends made fun of me for driving to Milwaukee to see one of their shows two summers ago. They were even on my short list of bands I needed to see live before I die and they still hold a place on my favorite bands list. The show in Milwaukee was excellent by the way and that weekend, as a whole, was a fucking blast.

I have fond memories of driving around in my high school best friend's mini van blaring and singing along to "How's It Going To Be." But it's not the radio hits of 3EB that made me fall in love with this band, it was how effing hot Stephen Jenkins is! Ok sort of, but not really. It was songs like Motorcycle Drive By, Deep Inside Of You and Narcolepsy. Here is an EXCELLENT video of Motorcycle Drive By live in San Fran.

Deep Inside Of You video

My second guilty pleasure, which I am fully aware of its status as such, is Mariah Carey. And I'm not talking about her new "Shake It Off" shit. I mean, that stuff is OK but what I'm really talking about songs like Emotions, Vision Of Love, Underneath the Stars and her cover of The Jackson 5's I'll Be There from the MTV Unplugged tape. Yes, I said tape. This seem like an ancient artifact for some of you, but I still rock that shit.

I even loved Mariah Carey so much that I wrote an essay on her song "Hero" in junior high. My question is, who is this new Mariah with stick straight hair, wears t-shirts as dresses and marries a former Nickelodeon star? I want the pre-looney bin Mariah back with her all natural curly hair, her old-enough-to-be-her-grandpa husband and her flannel shirts tied at the waist.

Vision of Love video

More Videos

Underneath the Stars live in Japan

Oh shit, the 90's just flashed before my eyes...

The Road to Hell

Okay, if you’re keeping score at home, you should already know that this next series of Friday posts is about guilty pleasures, tunes that you would be embarrassed that anyone close to you would find out you like.

To tell you the truth, I could give an entire bowl of fuck about what anyone thinks about the music I like. See, my earliest memories were listening to music. Music, has therefore, always been a part of my life, whether it be good or bad. So I’m going to list music that I believe would be perceived as guilty pleasures by the majority of readers.

Crappy 70s pop including tons of one-hit wonders.

There was a lot of really great music coming out in the 70s. Most of what is considered “Great 70s Music” by the masses is still heard today in the form of the Classic Rock radio stations. What I consider really great, though, are the one hit wonders. I dig Albert Hammond’s (yes, Strokes fans, it’s Jr’s daddy) “It Never Rains in California”, “Driver’s Seat” by Sniff N’ The Tears, and a lot of disco. Yes, I said it; DISCO. I played it off by scribbling AC/DC and Blue Oyster Cult onto my Trapper/Keeper, but deep down inside, I still was into things like “I Love the Nightlife” by Alicia Bridges. My favorite disco tunes? “Boogie Nights” by Heatwave and “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by Taste of Honey.

The most amazing thing I found was this video of Taste of Honey. In the 70s, there was no MTV. I mostly learned of these artists listening to the radio daily. I could tell that there were women singing on this song, but I kind of figured that it was a Supremes type set up, where there were several female singers backed by a band. Yeah, I know it was pretty stereotypical of me. I apologize, but I was a product of the white honkey recording establishment. I would have never thought that the singer was also playing such a killer bassline. This is as amazing as watching Stevie Ray Vaughn play guitar. Seriously.



Crappy 80s pop including tons of New Wave bands

If I learned anything about 70s music is how much disco and pop was shunned. Shame on those people for not seeing the glory in such bad music. I truly believe that my peers in the 80s subconsciously decided that when it was our time, we would embrace the music of our generation.

For the most part, I was into metal in the 80s. I ran the gamut from hair metal to the heavy stuff. I had “Kill ‘Em All” by Metallica when it came out. I didn’t discover them later and then backtrack. I was there in the beginning, bitches! I fronted with the whole metal posture. But secretly, I was also really into Cyndi Lauper and Culture Club, thanks to an ultra-cool and fashion trend-setting younger sister.

So yeah, I walked around saying Boy George was a fag, and I’m sorry. That dude had some great tunes:



Not that the metal was really any better. Yes, Metallica was my favorite band for the longest time. But when that first Poison record came out, I was all over it. Later, I would find out that C.C. Deville had completely ripped off Rick Nielsen’s (Cheap Trick) guitar solo in “California Man”, but then, that was a song by Jeff Lynne’s earlier band, The Move, so I’m not sure who’s ripping off who anymore.

But the song, “Cry Tough” still remains a favorite. What an anthem!



Unfortunately, pop music got really shitty in the 90s. There were some great hits, to be sure, but once the Mouseketeers got recording contracts, that whole scene went into the shitter for me.

I liked punk rock as well, during my formative years. That, combined with my love of metal, evolved with the Seattle scene. I found a friend in college that was a key influence on me, and I began ordering everything with a Sub Pop label on it. Of course, Nirvana came off this label, and once again, I was into them way before a lot of people ever sniffed a flannel shirt after a hard night out at your local punk rock club. While Nirvana, Soundgarden and The Fluid all moved on to major labels, there were so many bands that didn’t. So yeah, I got the Cat Butt EP and the Blood Circus EP. I got every Supersuckers release from Sub Pop. While some people have long since disowned grunge, it will forever keep its place in my unbathed, drunken heart.

So there you have it, folks. My Little Secret (thank you, Afghan Whigs).

Enjoy your weekend, and don’t forget to pick up a bottle or two of Goose Island Harvest Ale.

Guilty Pleasures (Emphasis on the Pleasure!)

I wrote this post twice.

The first time, I talked about some of the music I have in my collection that I am sort of ashamed that I own. (You know what I mean; I know you all have Wham! and Terrence Trent d'Arby in your iTunes. Unchecked so they don't come up in rotation, maybe, but there nonetheless...) But I thought about it some more, and I decided that I wasn't really doing the theme justice, that I was being too narrow. Those tracks, while certainly fulfilling the 'guilty' part of the theme, did not embrace its 'pleasure' aspect.

In order to rectify that, Gentle Readers, I give you some music that I am absolutely, an-apologetically enamored with, no matter how many times I get pointed and laughed at for it.


Spinal Tap :: Big Bottoms


I don't know how one can not love this, or at the very least appreciate how magnificently perfect the parody of every rock band that plays to crowds of teenage boys is, but apparently there are those that do not. It's a mystery to me. If you have never seen this film, you must. And then watch the commentary; they do it in character, as if they are sitting around watching the final cut of the film, and it's like a whole second movie.


Pat Boone :: Crazy Train


That's right, Pat Boone. The same Pat Boone who started recording in the 50's and who made his career on covers of R&B hits intended for a mainstream (which at the time meant 'white') audience. The same man who was so devout that he refused a movie role alongside sex symbol Marilyn Monroe because he didn't want to compromise his standards. The man who, apparently, has developed a killer sense of humor.

Rowlf the Dog :: I Never Harmed an Onion


Some have said that a grown man should not, perhaps, have silly songs by muppets in his music collection. They would be wrong, and unable to appreciate the simple brilliance of Jim Henson.

M.C. Hawking :: Big Bizang


This, of all my music, has gotten the most comments along the lines of, 'What the fuck are you listening to?!?' My answer is always the same: hardcore science rap as if it were done by Stephen Hawking, bitches!

White and Nerdy :: Weird Al Yankovic


Weird Al is (and some of you will find this ridiculous) kind of a hero of mine. I mean, such comedy! Such wit! Such talent! I went to see him live, once, and while it's true that the only other adults there were parents with their pre-teen children, it is also true that it is one of the best live shows that I have ever seen, hands down. The man is a national treasure, I say, and anyone who disagrees can face me at dawn with pistols in hand!

HANG YOUR HEAD IN SHAME!!

Hopefully, you all enjoyed our first go-round of Friday themes. Sadly, we're done with party music, so it's time for a new Friday theme. This time it's... guilty pleasures. That's right, the stuff you listen to when no one's around, the stuff you pretend you hate but secretly love. The music that, when your friend finds it on your iPod, you're all redfaced and "I have no idea how that got there. My wife must have put it there!"

Since I believe in leading by example, I shall go first. All of these will actually be found on my hard drive, and in some cases, on my iPod. Heeeeeere we go.

Queensrÿche: Sadly, they're probably best known for the soul-suckingly horrendous "Silent Lucidity," off of their "Empire" album. While the bizarre, fascist/political intrigue/hitman concept album Operation: Mindcrime is far from a classic (in fact, it's pretty terrible), when I was 14? That shit blew my mind. So... um... I still, you know, know all the lyrics. I've also been known to listen to it at alarmingly loud volumes in my car, and even rock out a little, despite it's gratuitous cheesetasticness. Ahem.



Christina Aguilera: I'm not proud of it, OK? She freaks me out, and she might actually be a cyborg. But damn if she doesn't have a serious voice on her. There's really only one song that I like, mainly because of the background music and in it. Here's an excellent live version of "Ain't No Other Man":



Mandy Moore: I'm killing myself here, aren't I? Fuck it, that's the point. OK, look: Mandy Moore is beautiful, and she's actually an excellent actor. She's also got a great voice, which I really realized in this song, "Umbrella," which is actually a (gulp!) Rihanna cover. The original kind of blows, but this version - give it a listen before you judge, you pricks:



Megadeth: There was a time when Megadeth fuckin' rawked.. I actually had a giant Megadeth patch on my denim jacket when I was 13 (that my (incredibly patient) mom sewed on for me, of course). I thought that they and Metallica were the coolest bands on the planet. I still have great affection for Dave Mustaine's weird, whiny voice. Here's "Holy Wars," featuring them in all their shirtless, tight-pantsed, metal glory. I've been known to throw my head around while listening to this... and perhaps toss up a goat horn or two.



Boston: Oh, fuck me. This is probably the reason fucking Itunes keeps recommending shitty classic rock albums to me. Look, it's not out of some sense of regional appreciation - I don't care that their name is Boston. I'm not that much of a local fanboy. I just... I just dig 'em. And not just "More Than a Feeling" and "Peace of Mind," either. I genuinely and unironically listen to the entire eponymous album (and sing at the top of my lungs. I get a lot of weird looks when I'm in the car). I can't help it. I'm a moth and Brad Delp is my flame. Here's what's easily the best track, "Let Me Take You Home Tonight," from a time when calling women "mama" wasn't weird or creepy at all.



Nuclear Assault: Speaking of throwin' up a goat... the worst of old-school speed metal. Seriously. They're awful. Up there with Testament, and yet... and yet, a few months ago I found myself trying to track down their old albums. God forgive me. Here's "Critical Mass," their sad effort to be environmentally conscious. Hey, at least I didn't pick "Hang the Pope."



I'd say I've shamed myself enough for one day... or lifetime.