Becoming reacquainted with hatred, part 2

Since my last post relative to this topic was so immensely popular with you, America (3 whole comments, 2 of which were about Gwen Stefani’s baby!), I have elected to give you what you want: my droll poo-pooing of God-awful lite rock songs. Here we go. Again.


“Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”: C + C Music Factory

First of all, I can’t believe this is now considered a “lite” rock song. Wow. What’s next, “War Pigs?” “G-Spot Tornado?” Back in the day if some 50ish woman using this so-called “facsimile” machine and considering getting a “something-or-other-ccino” at that new “Starblocks” place all the way across town heard anything remotely sounding like rap music wafting by her desk, she probably would have shit her pants. Even if it was rap like this:

Here is the dome, back with the bass
The jam is live in effect and I don't waste time
On the mike with a dope rhyme
Jump to the rhythm jump jump to the rhythm jump
And I'm here to combine
Beats and lyrics to make your shake your pants
Take a chance, come on and dance
Guys grab a girl, don't wait, make her twirl
It's your world and I'm just a squirrel
Trying to get a nut to move your butt
To the dance floor, so yo…what's up
Hands in the air, come on say yeah,
Everybody over here everybody over there
The crowd is live and I pursue this groove
Party people in the house
Move ... (Let your mind)
Move ... (Put me online)

Man, rap has come a long way, hasn’t it? I mean, I like a good pants-shaking as much as the next party person, but this doesn’t exactly make the hard-scrabble streets of Compton or Watts or Harlem come alive for me. (Similarly, could someone also make the contention that lite rock has come a long way?)

Secondly and further tangentially, when I was in high school I ran around with a very small group of friends. We were nerds. Sort of. We were all in “advanced” classes, but we were a little misanthropic about it all. We listened to Depeche Mode and thought we were disturbed. We went “dancing” at this all-ages club in Chicago, Medusa’s, and wore black jeans. We were bored a lot of the time. Think of Claire from “Six Feet Under” but roughly 85% less cool and 95% less attractive.

One of the guys who hung around with us sometimes, now that I am an adult and can reflect back on this all with a greater degree of perspective, was as gay as Charles Nelson Reilly. He made Jack from “Will & Grace” look like John Fucking Wayne. I’m talking, like, REALLY gay. GAY gay. But, of course, at the time, I had no clue. I just thought he was a little…odd.

If you had asked 17-year-old me what made a gay man a gay man, I would have responded, “A gay man likes men,” or something direct and—frankly—correct like that. However, my problem with respect to REALLY grasping what that statement meant, or more specifically in order for me to truly have presented it as a correct statement, lied within my misunderstanding of the verb “likes.” A gay man likes men, sure. I myself am not gay, and I also like men. Well, some men. However, now I know that a gay man, while liking men, also LIKES men. As in, likes to FUCK men, which for some reason really never occurred to me. The fucking, I mean. I mean, sure. I guess I knew that gay men have sex with other men, but I just never really thought that meant—well—actual sex. I don’t know. I sound retarded, which I pretty much was when I was 17.

Gay Guy in High School was a really good guy, though, albeit a little spoiled. I just hope he’s gay and happy somewhere. (Gay and gay somewhere?) Anyway, uh…he really liked this song.

Come on let's sweat, baby
Let the music take control
Let the rhythm move you
Sweat!

What?

SWEEEEEAAAAATTTTT!

Oh. OK!



“Drops of Jupiter”: Train

My wife and I saw these guys in concert accidentally when they were opening for Ben Folds in support of that “Meet Virginia” song. Now, I didn’t necessarily think that “Meet Virginia” was a terrible song or anything (still don’t, really), so when I discovered that they were the opening band, my interest was piqued.

They all walked out on stage and the lead singer sparked up some incense, as if they were about to lead us all on some spiritual journey. Oooooo…ok, Carlos Castenada. Whatever. Just tell me that Virginia wears high heels while she exercises and let Ben Folds get on up there. (That Virginia…she’s so sassy!)

I also noticed that the singer brought out a trumpet with a fancy stand and set it right next to him. I therefore assumed that Train’s tunes were liberally dosed with trumpet accompaniment: hence the trumpet, the stand, and their relative proximity to the singer. Hmm.

Well, the music pretty much sucked. They played that “Virginia” song, all right. Did you know that she wears high heels while she exercises? Well, she does. I think I was turned off by the incense-lighting at the beginning of the show. Their music could have been the perfect marriage of The Beatles and James Brown (which is pretty much—well—Prince, anyway) and I would have been like, “Meh. Pretentious fucks…”

And the trumpet? He played like 5 notes. On one song. So basically he played trumpet in the high school marching band and wanted to put his rudimentary knowledge of embouchure to use.

Then “Jupiter” came out and the band kind of blew up. And by blew up I mean “really, really sucked camel dong and not due this time to any ego-waving delusional meditation-trainer syndrome by the lead singer”:

Tell me, did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

Huh?

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there

HUH?

Now that she's back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey
She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo
Reminds me that there's room to grow, hey, hey

Now that she's back in the atmosphere
I'm afraid that she might think of me as plain ol' Jane
Told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land

Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there

Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you're wrong
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had . . . and me

Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of da
And head back toward the Milky Way

Does anyone have any clue what the FUCK is going on here? Maybe if I ate a fistful of diazepam and chased ‘em down with a gallon of Murphy’s Oil Soap this would make some sense. Mozart? Tae-bo? Fried chicken? Soy latte?!? Oh, Jesus.

To me, it sounds like this guy just got done listening to “You Can Call Me Al,” thought, “Hey, this would sound even cooler…in SPACE!” and then wrote this piece of shit.


“I Hope You Dance”: Lee Ann Womack
“Because You Loved Me”: Celine Dion
“Hold On”: Wilson Phillips
“I Need You”: Lee Ann Rimes
“That’s The Way It Is”: Celine Dion

I really don’t have anything intelligent, insightful, or even remotely humorous concerning the reasons for the glorious suckitudinousness of these songs. They just SUCK.

I guess my major problem is that they are simply BORING. Dull. Lame. Comprised of cheap, unimaginative sentiment that been rehashed time and time again. People love this shit, though. Whatever. I guess I don’t know what I’m missing.


“Breathless”: Kenny G

Funny story…

The best job I ever had in my life was when I was 19, after I had dropped out of college (the first try didn’t take). I worked at a Border’s Books & Music. It was awesome. I was surrounded by cool, older people who liked me and for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel like a nerd or a loser or, more dramatically, human social cancer, which is pretty much what I felt like when I was at school. Women paid attention to me, even liked me. People thought I had interesting and insightful things to say about music and other stuff. They laughed at my jokes. I had fun.

One thing about the job sucked, though. You guessed it: the fucking customers.

Annoying fucking customer: “I’m looking for a song. I don’t know what it’s called. ‘Breezes’ or something? You know it. Do you have it?”

Me at 19: “Uh, I really don’t know. ‘Breezes’ you say?”

AFC: “Yeah, ‘Breezes.’ Something like that…”

**annoyed typing sounds** Me: “Uh, nothing coming up. I don’t think we have that.”

AFC: “Oh, sure you do. You know…’BREEZES!’ Guy plays a golden flute!”

**Me, thinking** Golden flute? What the fuck?!? “A golden flute? James Galway? Uh…hmm…”

**Me, continuing to think** What terrible shit music would this woman want that sounds like ‘Breezes’ and is played by some jackass with a golden fucking fl—

Me: “Oh! Do you mean ‘Breathless?’”

AFC: “Yeah, it could be…”

Me: “Kenny G. ‘Breathless.’ It’s in [**GULP**] JAZZ. I’ll show you. (as snarkily as my 19 year old self could muster) And it’s not a golden flute. It’s a soprano saxophone.”

What still impresses me almost 15 years later is that I figured it out. Kenny G. “Breathless.” I love how she kept insisting, “Oh…you know it.” Yeah, lady. A 19 year old kid with long Tom Petty-like hair who smells like a fucking ashtray is a huge Kenny G fan. I’m sure he celebrates the man’s entire catalog.

We found ways to amuse ourselves at the store. After all, spending 40 hours a week surrounded by people with no taste at all is enough to make a person want to pound Wild Turkey and beat up children at the end of the day. My favorite way to kill time was what we called “The Yanni Experiment.” Lemme ‘splain:

The employees were allowed to select the music for in-store playing. We received a lot of free promotional CDs, which we certainly played, but sometimes we just cracked open a particular disc from stock in order to break up the monotony, to check something out to sate our personal curiosity, to advertise something that people would probably dig and then buy, etc. The best was when we decided to put Yanni on the in-house stereo.

Within 30 seconds of hearing the music of that former Greek national swimming champion (seriously), people became zombies, wandering up to the cash register as if looking for brains to consume.

“What…is…this…beautiful…music?” they would intone.

“Yanni!” we always too-emphatically replied, relishing in the fact that they had no idea we were mirthfully mocking them.

“This…is…beautiful…music. May…I…possibly…purchase…this?”

“Sure!” And we’d walk Zombie Yanni Enthusiast over to the New Age section and show them the wide variety of Yanni CDs for sale, from which they would almost always select at least 2, perhaps 3, sometimes (I shit you not) one of every single available title. It never failed. Incredible. What’s in that guy’s music that made white people from the (then) ages of 36 – 54 go cuckoo?