I guess I’ve forgotten that Five-Star Friday was supposed to be a “semi-regular occurrence.” But no matter, for today’s selection is worthy of five stars.
This is the 1991 studio version of “Tommy the Cat,” featuring the dulcet vocal stylings of Tom Waits and some “Ren & Stimpy”-style animation. Primus sucks!
That would be the lead singer of Quiet Riot.
Back in 1983 or ‘84, I harbored quite the fondness for Quiet Riot. What third-grader wouldn’t? I remember the Lincoln Pilgrimage that year, riding in our den mother’s van on the way back from the forced march. We were on North Grand, in front of the shopping center, when “Cum On Feel The Noize” came on the radio.
It was urban legend among Sandburg third-graders back then that on the song’s last chorus, the lyric “girls rock your boys” was altered to be slightly naughtier. We got stone-cold quiet as the song went on, and cheers erupted after that last chorus because all of us “heard” the legend’s confirmation.
I can also remember rocking out with my sister and brother in her room listening to his vinyl copy of “Metal Health,” air-guitaring the solo to “Noize” on my mom’s old, wooden Spaulding tennis racket. I had that shit down.
It’s been slow the past few days at Anonymous Communist headquarters. Thankfully, there are other people around to give me ideas.
Will Reynolds posted his thoughts about five random songs in his iPod, an idea I had a few months back. Having nothing else to blog about, today would be a good time for me to see what shuffles up.
Some of you may remember that several weeks ago, I accidentally put my iPod through the washing machine. So in order to play today’s game, I’m using the iTunes catalog on my computer, which not only contains the unfortunate musical choices of Mrs. Communist but many I’d-rather-be-waterboarded-with-Galliano-than-listen-to-these children’s CDs. The lone caveat to this game is: No skipping songs, no matter how embarrasing or lame. Here goes:
“Too Many Puppies,” Primus — OK, so I cheated a little bit. This was the song that was playing when I saw Will’s post, and it’s a good one. Off Primus’ first studio release, “Frizzle Fry,” this song was written in 1990, during the runup to Gulf War I. The lyrics are still relevant today:
Too many puppies are being shot in the dark
Too many puppies are trained not to bark
At the sight of blood that must be spilled so that
We may maintain our oil fields
The part about “the visions of the past brought to life again/too many puppies, too many dead men” will apply doubly when Lord Cheney invades Iran.
“One Man Wrecking Machine,” Guster — This is one of Mrs. C’s tunes. I’ve never listened to Guster, so here goes… Hey, that was nice. Too many bands today self-consciously try to sound like music from bygone eras, but this song at least sounds like just plain ol’ rock music. And the lyrics, while funny in some parts, tell the story (in my interpretation, at least) of a person who, unhappy with the present tense, decides to try to relive his youthful “good ol’ days” but realizes that A) they really weren’t all that good and B) life has sort of passed him by.
“Can I Kick It,” A Tribe Called Quest — This classic joint off of Tribe’s debut opens with a sample of the bassline from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side. When the beat kicks in, the shaking of one’s ass becomes unavoidable.
(For the record, Marky Mark shamefully used the same sample for his song “Wildside,” released at least a year after “Can I Kick It.”)
While not as strong lyrically (Phife Dawg’s verse is actually pretty corny), the beat-bassline combo and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s furious scratching makes this one of the album’s best songs. The video (this one uses a remix) is lots of fun, too.
“Junkie’s Prayer,” Fishbone — Throughout their career, Fishbone have always shown a sense of humor as well as a social conscience. This song combines both. Over a mouth harp and a loop of maniacal laughter, our crackheaded narrator intones an invocation to his god, the drug dealer:
My pusher who art in the crack house
[…]
Give us this day our daily crack
[…]
Forgive us for we have no control or self-respect
Grim Reaper has cashed my life savings check
Fishbone is known for its good-time party music, but they can get serious, too, and make it compelling. I couldn’t find a video.
“Bobo on the Corner,” the Beastie Boys — This 73-second interlude off of “Ill Communication” features percussionist Eric Bobo throwing down over Mike D’s drums and Adrock’s wicky-wicky guitar. Thaaat’s about it. The video I found uses this as the score for some artist’s paintings.
Well, nothing embarrassing, but nothing earth-shatteringly awesome, either. We’ll revisit in a few months.
I don’t watch much television. What little TV I do watch is mostly limited to sporting events, reruns of “The Simpsons” and DVRed episodes of “No Reservations” and “The Sarah Silverman Program.”
With the DVR, of course, you can fast-forward through the commercials. But with live sporting events, you’re sort of forced to sit through crap like the Nachos Bell Grande and The Guy Who Brought Bud Light to the Opera ads. One commerical, though, stands out as a shining beacon of awesomeness against the cold darkness of suckitude.
The spot has been around for a several months but has made a triumphant return during the MLB playoffs and World Series. Its brilliance is… well, brilliant:
Stinky McStinkface. I gotta start using that.
You may remember him from such movies as “Back to the Future” and “Teachers.” This is from a 1987 appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman”:
For more of the genius of Crispin Glover, check out “Clowny Clown Clown.”
Hat tip to Your Neighbor.
There are few subgenres of rock music more loathsome than hair metal. Or poodle rock, or butt rock, or cock rock, whatever you want to call it. It all sucks.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, hair metal enjoyed unchallenged popularity on MTV, which was most kids’ main source of music back then (and which actually played music videos). You couldn’t go more than one or two videos without one of those shitty bands in lipstick and blush, dressed in skintight leather pants festooned with bandannas flinging their poodle haircuts about.
Even “Headbanger’s Ball,” where all the actual metal videos were relegated, was overrun with crap like Trixter and Warrant. Perhaps that was because in its early days, The Ball was hosted by Mr. Poodle Haircut himself, Adam Curry.
This kind of music burns its candle of suckitude on both ends. The vapid lyrical content, over-reverbed drums, self-indulgent weedly-weedly guitar solos and scalded-cat vocals are bad enough. It’s the image that these bands project is what makes them doubly loathsome. What is cool about making yourself look as womanly as possible by troweling makeup on and teasing your hair? MTV should have run a contest for girls back in the day: “Win a dream date with Poison, where you can trade makeup and hair secrets!” The stage antics of these bands were just as ridiculous as the way they looked: Singers twirling microphones, guitarists throwing their “axes” over their shoulders, drummers flipping their sticks, etc. It’s all contrived and corny and probably learned at Musicians Institute.
Thankfully, by the early 1990s other bands had come along to relegate hair metal to the cutout bin of musical history. On with the list:
5. “Girl School,” Britny Fox – I don’t recall this one getting a lot of daytime play on MTV. But did it ever rule “Headbanger’s Ball.” You had to sit through two or three videos such as this to get to one from Anthrax or Suicidal Tendencies. It doesn’t take a genius to be able to infer the content of the video from the song’s title.
4. “More Than Words,” Extreme – This song should have been called “Baby I Wanna Fuck You.” It’s not your typical chorusy, reverby, overwrought hair-metal power ballad, but with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the lyrics fulfill two of the three main hair-metal cliches: partying, fucking and loving you forever. You can guess which two this song has.
3. The entire “Hysteria” album, Def Leppard – There was a time when Def Leppard didn’t suck. In the early 1980s, they actually were considered among the top acts of the so-called New Wave of British Metal. And as an 8-year-old with two teenaged siblings, I thought the “Pyromania” album (”Onda-gleeben-glouten-globen!”) was the cat’s ass. I listened to that record so much that I even memorized the vinyl noises in between songs on my brother’s copy. But something happened in between “Pyromania” and “Hysteria” that turned this band into garbage. Maybe it was the drummer losing his arm, maybe it was my evolving musical tastes. But during seventh grade, this album spawned a never-ending stream crappy videos, epitomized by:
2. “Unskinny Bop,” Poison – This song contains possibly the worst lyric in the history of recorded music: “Like gasoline you wanna pump me.” Seriously… what the fuck?
1. “I’ll Never Let You Go (Angel Eyes),” Steelheart – Coming at the tail end of hair-metal’s “relevance,” this song very well could have been the one to lower the hair-metal casket into its grave. It neatly encapsulates most of hair-metal cliches: The parentheticized song title; the over-chorused arpeggiated acoustic guitar intro; the over-reverbed drums, of which there are a ridiculous amount; and, of course, the eardrum-perforating, upper-register screeching of the lead singer. Please remove all pets and small children from the room before the end of the video.
In the late 1980s, hair metal, along with R&B counterpart new jack swing, was soulless, corporate music at its acme that even a moderately intelligent 13-year-old could see through. And after seeing these videos again 15 years later, it is music that, even with the benefit of nostalgia, has not gotten any better with age.
In a few hours, the mean streets of Urbana will be exactly where I’m at.
Ween takes the stage at the Canopy Club tonight, and U-Huff and I, along with Captain Jack from Silly Joel and the Paperboys centerfielder, will be there.
They’re touring in support of their new record (which comes out Oct. 23 but can be preordered here), so it’ll be fun to hear all sorts of new tunes.
I hope to have a full report up sometime Thursday. Until then, enjoy the clean version of their rejected Pizza Hut jingle:
Continuing the A Tribe Called Quest meme, this is from 1993’s “Midnight Marauders.” Track 8, if you will.
I remember being totally trashed at some random bar in Champaign a few months after this came out when the DJ put this song on. I was so happy that they played something actually good (and this song is great) that, completely out of character, I danced with some woman I didn’t even know. That’s how much I like this song.
I had to DVR this year’s “Hip-Hop Honors” because of work obligations. But I wasn’t going to miss A Tribe Called Quest, one of this year’s honorees.
Others honored included:
I had to sit through all of that to get to A Tribe Called Quest. You know, the whole “save the best for last” thing. Those of you who read Occasional Potato (my old blog, whose name was taken from a Tribe lyric) know how much I like ATCQ, so I’ll spare you here. Suffice it to say that “The Low End Theory” is the finest hip-hop record of all time.
During the show, Pharrell Williams and Lupe Fiasco performed “Electric Relaxation.” Lupe took the Phife verse and butchered a couple of the lines. Nice going, dumbass. Then Tribe (including Jarobi!) took the stage as the show’s final act and medleyed “Check The Rhime” and “Award Tour.” Check it below:
Everyone has their favorite entertainment medium. Some people like television; others enjoy the movie pictures.
I like music.
I also enjoy sharing my impeccable music bonafides with others, which is where we’re at now. I have an iTunes playlist titled “Five-Star Classics,” songs for one reason or another I have a deep attachment to. And of course, they’re all from about 1996 and earlier.
And what better song to kick off what I hope will be a semi-regular feature than one named for last night’s lunar event:
In the grand tradition of “Shoes,” I bring you…
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