Encounterculture

Fear and Loathing on the Top Forty

It is a gimmick called real time reviewing.
The aim of the gimmick is to preserve vectors of thought by recording them as they present themselves.
I stole it from either Phil Schneider or Phil Rippa (although he probably stole it from Dean Rasmussen), so credit where it’s due.
I had a really, really, really, really, REALLY shitty day at work today, but I’m still going to try to maintain some semblance of fairness.
The bold, bracketed song titles appear when the next song comes up on the playlist.
What follows is my tour through the top forty biggest selling singles in Great Britain from 2003 in descending order from 40 to 1 in the real time it takes to listen to them.
There are two songs by the Darkness.
I am absolutely motherfucking terrified of this idea.

8:51. [40. Mis Teeq, "Scandalous"]
8:51: Eh.
8:51: Yeah, eh. Living in Los Angeles, home of a certain medical practitioner named Dre, one kinda gets complacent when around violin-based hip-hop beats.
8:52: No, this ain’t bad. I mean I never thought it was BAD or anything, just not really impressive or anything. Jesus, listen to me talk like I’ve heard this song forty times already. So that you know, I did my damndest to not listen to any of these songs, although I know for a fact that there’s one exception.
8:54: It occurs to me that I might not be doing these songs justice since I’m really not paying much attention to the lyrics at ALLLLLLL, but the hell with that. In the context of pop music, especially in terms of hearing it for the first time, [39. Big Brovas, "Baby Boy"] lyrics < disco whistles
8:55: Not that the disco whistle in this song is anything special.
8:56: These two songs could not possibly be more identical in terms of the effect they’re having on me. It’s like listening to any random City High song right after any random Ashanti song, which is to say that it’s so bland that I can’t even be an effective smartass.
8:57: Oh, this was a bad idea. These songs aren’t even funny.
8:58: Good lord, Common moved to England and his songs got even wussier.
8:59: If [38. Busta Rhymes, "I Know What You Want" (feat. Mariah Carey)] England has a DeGrassi, this is the theme song to the sex episode.
8:59: Oh hell.
8:59: Busta Rhymes is significantly more fun when he’s trading verses with Mystikal than when he’s Expressing his Feelings to Us, his Caring and Rapt Audience. Mariah Carey is more fun when she’s gagging on my Johnson. I mean, I guess. NOT GUILTY~.
9:01: I deeply, deeply, deeply want to make a drawn-out comparison between this song and some useless hair-metal ballad, but I seriously can’t think of a boring enough ballad. That is motherfucking SAD. Busta didn’t used to be boring.
9:03: All of these songs so far kinda sound alike, and I’m talking in terms of the notes that they’re using. Yeah yeah yeah only nine notes (or whatever) but you know what I mean. OH THANK GOD IT’S OVER. Okay, now I’ll hopefully [37. Fast Food Rockers, "The Fast Food Song"] have something HOLY FUCK THIS IS UNBELIEVABLY FAGGY.
9:04: I wish I could say that I was surprised that a song called “the Fast Food Song” is about, well, fast food, but some things are just there. I was not, however, expecting fast food to serve as a very labored metaphor for the ding-dong.
9:05: Y’know, I like silly crap as much as the next man, but hell, this is just dumb. The idea strikes me that that might be the point and that I might be playing the role of Dour Aging Snide Hipster Who Rains Upon Parades, but...
9:07: I have heard the words “Pizza”, “hut”, “Kentucky”, [36. Bo Selecta, "Proper Crimbo"] Oh god. Well, this is something new.
9:07: It’s like a Christmas version of “Henry the Eighth”. I leave it to you to decide if that’s good or bad.
9:08. I am as yet unsure as to what “crimbo” is or isn’t.
9:08: Okay, now they’re rapping.
9:09: I get the distinct impression that I’m going to be running the phrase “This is fucking stupid” into the earth tonight.
9:09: I dunno. Maybe I am just an old grouch. I guess maybe this is kinda stirring; it’s at least fully orchestrated and doesn’t have that fanny-lancer Nu-NRG thumpthumpthumpthump beat, so there’s that. And no mentions of KFC yet to boot. BEST SONG EVER so far.
9:10: Far be it from [35. Daniel Beddingfield, "If You're Not the One"] me to drop a yule log, but what the hell is wrong with people in December?
9:11: For everyone who ever wanted to hear what Justin Timberlake would sound like if he covered a Belinda Carlisle song, here you go. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you.
9:12: I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t liking this so far. It’s very middle-school slow-dancey, but hell, there’s a time and a place for everything. Everything can’t be Guitar Romantic.
9:12: I am positive that this song was on the Love Actually soundtrack. Go see Love Actually.
9:13: Man, it’s not even wussy when he hits the high notes.
9:13: No, no, I’ll say it: this is a decent little song.
9:14: The one thing that’s going to get shorted from this project is any kind of perspective. I mean, right now I’d say that this is one of the cream of this class of singles, but there’s like thirty-some to go, and that’s a lot of ground, even with two Darkness songs. [34. Busted, "Year 3000"]
9:15: Is there a pussier, parent-approved version of Blink 182? I mean besides these guys. Seriously, Smashmouth is laughing at these guys. They revel in the line “totally naked” and I die a little.
9:16: When I own a CD publishing company, this will be the first song on the first edition on our series of compilation CDs for well-off white teenagers.
9:17: Thank you, Busted, for introducing me to the digital banjo. I hate this project.
9:18: I like Lening’s idea for this song way more than the song itself. [33. The Darkness, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love"]
9:18: OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
9:18: No, no, I get it. The Cure meets Ratt. I don’t like any of that.
9:19: Oh LORD is this embarrassing, and not in the good “I know it’s not any gooooood, but fuck it, it sounds good to me” way (I mean, I like the Jet song and I have no shame). No, in five or six years this is going to make all the twelve-year-old proto-hipsters write a wads of miserable snotty album reviews where they go to great prosaic lengths to camouflage the fact that they ever liked anything this stupid. In other words, hiring crush at Putzfuck OH ZING.
9:22: [32. XTM & DJ Chucky, "Fly on the Wings of Love"] I can’t hate cheesy trance like this, although God knows I can point out how stupid it is. There’s just too much great disco to write everything like this off. Besides, there’s times when melody alone will do, and that’s what cheesy trance was made for. But it’s really stupid. When your friends make fun of ravers by doing that dumbass pantomimed ball motion thing (you know what I’m talking about), this is the kind of song that’s playing in their head.
9:24: The panflute is not making this any less excruciating.
9:24: That’s it, I need beer.
9:25: Allright, this is about to get a whole lot better or a whole lot worse, depending on how you look at it. [31. Westlife, "Mandy"]
9:25: Aw, it’s a pop ballad with a piano. And it’s MANDY. I may be on the verge of embarrassing myself in front of God and the blogosphere.
9:26: That stutter-step beat just sounds retarded here, but this is honest boy-band pop and I can deal with that. It’s when boy-bands decide to Break Musical Ground (the phrase “Dirty Pop” springs to mind) that I get antsy and start ridiculing. But this is just music intended to introduce twelve-year-old girls to womanhood and I…am going to stop that sentence right now.
9:27: I might actually keep this. There is plenty of room in my heart for worthless catchy pop. Hell, I might actually like this more than the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes version, although the big note at the end doesn’t even compare.
9:28: It occurs to me that this song was mentioned in Can’t Hardly Wait and my admiration grows again.
9:29: [30. Kelly Rowland, "Stole"] OHRIGHT THIS SONG. My friend David’s girlfriend was the star of this video, actually, so this is going to get bonus points from me here. Plus the chorus is actually kinda good-sounding.
9:29: I’m wondering if I should maybe be doing more analysis here, although I’m not really sure if that’s true to the spirit of real time. Certainly there’s some analysis to be done; ten songs in, the vast majority have been pop ballads, which jives with that thing I was reading on Stylus today about how file-sharing benefits the single. Which makes sense; these ballads are increasingly dynamic and it’d make sense that people would want direct access to ‘em (remember that the British charts are based on sales, so this is people buying this music, not requesting it or anything like that). But I digress from making jokes about the Darkness. The Darkness is ridiculous. [29. Jennifer Lopez, "All I Have" (feat. LL Cool J)]
9:33: Oh I just LOST.
9:33: Man, I went into this project in the spirit of gonzo journalism, but god, this is just the worst possible way to do this. Gonzo journalism is all about capturing the spirit of the moment, but the fact is that my spirit while listening to songs like this is essentially just an extended dull hum. Jennifer Lopez bores the hell out of me, but not fruitfully like the Darkness or Ja Rule; she’s the musical equivalent of remembering that you left the bathroom light on right when you’re walking out the door.
9:37: I think the thing that makes [28. Justin Timberlake, "Cry Me A River"] these songs so popular is that snatch of vocals in the beat. Outside of that, musically that song’s no different from the Big Brovas one.
9:38: I am realizing that I am about to become an idiot for this song.
9:38: Yep. I’m stupid. Like everyone else, I liked the part at the end with that waterfall of Justin tracked vocals, but yeah this part’s really great.
9:39: Thank you Stylus Magazine: this song makes a lot more sense if you try not to think of it as a generic U Left Me pop song (which is exactly what made me keep it at arm’s length when it was actually going around) and instead keep in mind that Justin just lost his girl to Fred Durst.
9:40: That beat in between “now it’s your turn” and “to cry” is the place that hits come from. FUCK I was dumb.
9:40: And lest we forget, Timbaland is still god. OH FUCK THIS REALLY IS GOOD.
9:41: Chris Lening is going to make so much fun of me.
9:42: And [27. Elton John, "Are You Ready For Love"] you gotta love how it ends with “Yakyakyakyakyakyakyak”.
9:43: OH OH OH OH. Right. This was the song that I cheated like hell on; I’d heard it before, and in the search to download this track I ran across what I thought was a mix on Southern Fried records (which usually means really good things). Instead, it’s the full-length song, and it took me exactly the length of time from the opening note to the first chorus to realize that it was the best song of the year, and as such I’ve been listening to it overandoverandoverandoverandover ever since.
Here’s the thing about this song: it’s like an acid test where you get to find out a lot about your tastes. I’ve read at least a few reviews of modern house music where they dismiss it as disco piffle that couldn’t hold a candle to the real Gamble and Huff stuff, just like I’ve read at least a few reviews of pop records where the critic yammers on about how They Made Pop Music Way Better Back [26. Jamelia, "Superstar"] In The Seventies when guys like Elton John were making music. And now all those people get to shut the fuck up, because out of nowhere we get a MFSB/Elton John collaboration and – here’s the key – we get to evaluate it as pop music first and foremost, not as some canonized piece of musical literature. (It also really doesn’t hurt that it’s MFS Freaking B and Elton Kerfungled John, making this some sort of ridiculous fanboy crossover like if the Green Lantern suddenly showed up in Watchmen or something.)We get to [25. Eminem, "Lose Yourself"] evaluate it on its own terms, not the terms of critical writings (except this one, I guess), so you get a real chance to see how you would have reacted to disco music.
9:52: I really want to keep writing about that song but god dammit this beat won’t let me focus. I still remember hearing this for the first time; it was immediately apparent that this was going to be the song that you’d drag out whenever you ran into one of those stuffy mannerists who likes all rap except Eminem because he’s a misogynist and homophobic and vulgar and besides he’s just a pop star. Well, here you go.
9:54: Fifty years from now I will still know every word in this song.
9:54: No, you know what makes this song? It’s the way he inflects the word “not” in the chorus. It’s the alchemic reaction that occurs when you mix determination with fury. God bless Eminem. [24. Ultrabeat, "Pretty Green Eyes"]
9:55: Urgh. Every time I hear this thudding beat I get reminded of when I was trying to leave the Paul Van Dyk show and got accosted by some condescending flyer-wielding street teamers who wouldn’t let it go that Cosmic Gate was “too hardcore” (my words) for me. God, what the fuck is up with that pan-flute. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DEAL WITH THE BRITISH AND PAN-FLUTES?
9:57: Okay, this is really not Cosmic Gatey at all. Just so’s y’know. I have a habit of jumping guns. Cosmic Gate would basically have just been the thumping drum and then one synth stab and then a drop-out for a voice saying something like “Five fingers” or something equally nonsensical. “I lost my keys. Have you seen my keys?” You get the point. Cosmic Gate can rub my grundle.
9:58: THIS SONG IS SEVEN MINUTES LONG? Fuck, I knew I should have broken with the rules of the real-time review and gone with the full version of “Are You Ready For Love”. I really don’t know if I could put into words how much the Philly International sound is going to be the music in my ears right after I die if I’ve been good. Plus I missed out on the breakdown, and the breakdown’s just fucking retardedly great. PLUSSSSSSS the version I keep talking about has all the radio commentary all over it, and from the sounds of it the deejay is hearing the song for the first time too, and it sure sounds like he likes it as much as I do. He did talk all over the breakdown, but hell, if they’d played the full version back in the 70s I bet they would have talked over the breakdown too; at least this way they were going through the history with the rights issues and all that instead of just talking about stupid bullshit. AMBIANCE~.
10:02: Urf. Talking about that song makes me want to listen to it instead of this song. Hey! Great timing. [23. Christina Aguilera, "Beautiful"]
10:02: It’s not a bad song or anything, but Sarah McLaughlin’s “Angel” is *right*there*. God, I might as well just rip up my Heterosexual Card for typing that.
10:05: It seems oddly fitting that after releasing this song, Christina Aguilera decided to embark on a voyage to becoming the ugliest possible sex symbol. Whoever told her that the Wendy O. [22. Rachel Stevens, "Sweet Dreams (My LA Ex)"] Williams look was hot needs to jump in a goddamn lake and stay there ‘til the bubbles stop surfacing.
10:07: Gotta love how the answer song to “Cry Me A River” charts higher than the song itself (danke clapclap). God bless the British and their shamelessness.
10:07: Okay, this is pretty goddamn great radio pop music. Britney should be weeping into her seventy thousand dollar pillow for not recording this.
10:08: EVERYONE NEEDS TO HEAR THIS SONG. The best thing about it is that you get to see exactly how much credit her songwriters give her: there’s lines about how not playing that record (i.e. “Cry”) and such. Justin, on the other hand, gets to be at least somewhat veiled and act like he’s got a brain or something. It’s like they WAIT HOLD ON THAT’S ONE HELL OF A WAY TO INTRODUCE A SYNTH SOLO. God, this is a great radio song. [21. Girls Aloud, "Sound of the Underground"]
10:10: This is a very poor man’s Kylie Minogue. For some reason they added a synth that sounds like a bumblebee. Poor this song for following that last song.
10:10: No, the chorus is somewhat redeeming. If I have a beef with hip-hop, it’s that it’s done a lot of damage to the idea of using a lot more instruments in the chorus to grab your attention, and that ain’t the case here.
10:12: I am guessing that somewhere on this thing called the intar-nette there is a remix of Puretone’s “Addicted to Bass” with this vocal on top. I know that there’s one of the track from here with the vocals from “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’”.
10:13: The surf guitar sounds very much out of place until it’s surrounded by the rest of the instruments in the chorus. INSTRUMENTATION INSTRUMENTATION INSTRUMENTATION.
10:14: [20. Black Eyed Peas, "Shut Up"] See, I know I’ll never be able to fully hate this song since I wrote something about it for a local weekly (danke Rick). Doesn’t mean that it’s anything good or anything, and it’s DAMN sure no “Weekend” or anything, but hey. Memories are memories.
10:15: I hate hate hate that “on the phone” effect. It just sounds fucking stupid.
10:15: SEE?! Listen to the chorus – the only way you know it’s the chorus is that there’s like one synth violin. And verily you sit there relatively unimpressed. Phil Spector needs to produce everything ever, and Paul McCartney needs to go ahead and jump up his own ass and get it over with.
10:17: I got nothin’. I forgot that this song is like eight years long.
10:18: [19. Fatman Scoop, "Be Faithful"] Hey, it’s that song that jacks that DJ Kool song that. I think it was DJ Kool. DJ Kool is certainly a valid point of reference for this loving tribute to the act of yelling a lot.
10:20: Poor poor British people; this is probably a pretty badass floor-filler in British hip-hop clubs, like some sort of copyofacopyofacopy of Holidae In or something. Wait, hold on, here’s a Tribe Called Quest verse. I am confused and not enthused. Burma-shave.
10:21: And now we’re back to the part of the song that would have broken my mind wide open if I’d heard it in the sixth grade. I’d have been all DAAAAAAAAAMN. Good lord – “Go Brooklyn, it’s your birthday”. Did the Brits just give up on hiphop after “OPP”? (yesIknowaboutdizeerascalshoddop)
10:23 [18. David Sneddon, "Stop Living the Lie"] This is a tender ballad being sung by a Clay Aikinalike named David Sneddon. This blank space is for you to insert all the jokes that seem obvious to you.












Whatever you’re thinking, you’re right.
10:24: Okay, I deleted the Babyface and Amy Grant and Richard Marx jokes because the truth is that this guy’s last name is Sneddon and that really says it all. This is so breathtakingly mediocre that any deformity appears as big as the sun, but seriously, the idea that teenage girls while away their youthful primes pining away and every so often, letting loose a soft sigh of “Sneddon…” No sir, that dog won’t hunt.
10:26: Well, it was short, anyway. [17. Shane Ritchie, "I'm Your Man"]
10:27: What the fuck is up with the British and their bizarre fetish for music that sounds like it should be playing in the background of a local Chrysler retailer ad?
10:28: It sounds like the mutant offspring of Billy Joel and Beck. Make up your own mind, I guess. It doesn’t work for me.
10:30: [16. Junior Senior, "Move Your Feet"] OH WIN. God, those first four synth notes just work. God, this song rules.
10:31: It’s still impressive to me that this song broke here without a big club culture. God knows that this song just has to CRUSH dancefloors everywhere, since if you can hear it without moving in some way then you need to get off’n my planet, but I’d have never guessed that people would want to listen to it outside of that context. I guess that’s the video for you. It really was a great video.
10:32: What makes this song work is that cymbal crash behind those four notes. The song might as well have [15. Beyonce, "Crazy In Love"] overlaid vocals going PUMP.YOUR.FIST.HERE.
10:33: I can’t help it: I like this song too. Brendan’s going to kill me but I CANNOT HIDE MY SHAME. It’s a great beat, Jay’s verse sounds fine to my untrained credibility-challenged ears, and Beyonce doesn’t get in the way of it. I’ll gladly admit that it’s absolutely iPod-hop, but at some level either music sounds good to you or it doesn’t.
10:35: YOUNG HO Y’ALL KNOW WHEN THE FLOW IS LOCO YOUNG B IN THE R-O-C – UH-OH. Yeah, that fucking rules. If you like the art of the single, Jay-Z is categorically your favorite mainstream hip-hop artist since Biggie; a little bit of him goes a million miles. His albums always have a bunch of crap on them, but fuck, I’ll take a disc full of “Change Clothes” if it means one “December 4th”.
10:37: More songs need horn sections. This is the truth and you know it. Modern music is all [14. Kevin Lyttle, "Turn Me On"] about sex and contains zero horns and I cry BOOOOOOOLSHIAT. Someone is missing the point of symbolism.
10:38: There are songs where you know you just fucking HATE them within the first two seconds of hearing them. Exhibit A. URGh. I hate the voice, I hate how the beat is catchy and way too simple, I hate that watery synth shit going on the background, etc.
10:39: I half expect this song to segue into “Oh Sherry”.
10:40: I would prefer to hear “Oh Sherry”.
10:40: Ahhhh. Delete snide dancehall bitching [13. 50 Cent, "In Da Club"], continue to something good. You know a song’s really great when you can identify it just by the rhythm section within the first second, and God Knows you can do that here. Dre really doesn’t get the respect he deserves here – it’s a super-simple beat, laconic as fuck, but eminently familiar. I like Stunt 101 more, but even I can see why it’s not nearly as big a hit as this.
10:43: I shall now quote everyone else who’s written anything about 50: He’s not great, but he’s really good, and that’ll do.
10:44: Man, it grabs you by the nuts and doesn’t let you pay attention to other stuff. There was a lot more to write about in that song, but it’s just arresting. [12. Dido, "White Flag"] It’s also pleasing to my young heart that this is a Ja Rule-less list.
10:45: Hey, this is actually kinda good. I always wonder about how history’s going to preserve songs like this – I mean, back in the sixties, not every song that survives today was either a gigantic hit or Emblematic of the Times, Man; a lot of them survived just because they’re pretty, pleasant, moving songs, and I’d say that at least two of those could apply to this song (think trip-hop Fleetwood Mac).
10:48: I would, however, be lying to myself and the Lord if I didn’t point out that it’s Dawson’s Creeky as fuck.
10:49: [11. Evanescence, "Bring Me to Life"] ARGH. I guarangoddamntee you that in fifteen years, this’ll be just as embarrassing as Styx.
10:50: For the record: I thought this song was boring even before I knew it was about The Big J.C.
10:50: I actually saw Daredevil (for the class taught by Leonard Maltin! Honest!), so that may have contributed to my resistance to this song. Of course, no song that inspires/forces that kind of full disclosure can really be worth much, cannit?
10:51: Okay, well, maybe I’m just being an ass. I’ll admit that when I first heard it, it did sound kinda neat, but it did NOTTTTTT survive the test of time and repetition. Now it just sounds like Creed With A Chick to me – terrifyingly Serious and shit. Sigh; Junior Senior was just a few songs ago.
10:53: [10: The Darkness, "Christmas Time"] “Gentlemen! She’s gone from ‘suck’ to ‘blow’!”
10:53: Nonono – it’s like a mashup where someone puts Queen on top of Good Charlotte!
10:54: Okay, MAYBE this is good music if all you ask of your music is that it focus your attention solely upon it. I will say that between those Queer Guitars For A Straight Guy and erm, that voice which I can only really imitate by doing the “Oh my! I have accidentally bitten into a lemon!” face without actually doing an imitation of how it sound, it certainly does that.
10:56: Well, it was better than the first one I heard. And thus ends [9. Room 5, "Make Luv"] my experience with the Darkness.
10:56: Home stretch! This is actually OK so far, since it just sounds like recycled O’Jays OH FUCK THERE’S THE HOUSE BEAT. It ain’t Agent Sumo but it’ll do. Goofy house is way more fun than goofy rock since at least goofy house is about creating a good time. Goofy rock is about watching other people have a good time and manic-depressive recluses like me don’t cotton to that much.
10:58: Oh My, The Lyrics In This Song Certainly Wouldn’t Hold Any Water With Putzfuck!
10:59: Well, this really isn’t going anywhere. And I got my dander all up for nothin’!
10:59: Rather than bitch and be a sourpuss, here are some house songs from 2003 which are vastly superior to this: Lamb, “Wonder” (Dead Guys remix); David Guetta, “Just A Little More Love” (Wally Lopez remix) – well, okay, those are the two best. I obviously can’t be bothered to divert my attention from this (throwing dirt on tracks).
11:01: /got nothin’. The British really need to flock to stuff that I can make fun of more easily. Someone flood Kiss FM with copies of Jackpot.
11:02: [8. Blu Cantrell, "Breathe"] THIS IS A DR. DRE BEAT. WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND YOU?
11:02: Oh hell, it’s Sean Paul. I like a few of his songs and it’s always because of a beat which sounds kinda cool when I’m driving around LA. Right now I’m listening to a beat that I’ve heard a squillion times before (complete with the car crash!) while sitting in my apartment.
11:03: I have become convinced that this song is less interesting at the moment than taking a piss.
11:05: That piss did not last nearly long enough. Boy that sounded bad when I reread it.
11:05: Yeah, you can pretty much go back and reread what I wrote about that J-Lo song as it applies %110 to this.
11:06: [7. Kelly Osbourne & Ozzy Osbourne, "Changes"] Oh no.
11:06: O NEAUX.
11:06: Is Kelly doing a Dobie Gray imitation? And Ozzy just sounds ridiculous after hearing that dong from the Darkness.
11:07: Life seemed a lot more interesting back before Ozzy Osbourne turned into a gigantic vagina.
11:08: One can only imagine how much studio magic had to go into this song. I heard Kelly Osbourne live on Conan or Leno or something or other and I swear before God and Sonny Jesus that she missed every single note with valor and candor. Here, she just sounds like a 13-year-old boy, thus making it a Great Leap Forward of theoretical Maoist proportions.
11:10: What always kills me about these songs are the session musicians in the background, since (A) they manage to sound exactly like singers on commercials, and (2) they HAVE to know how [6. T.a.T.u., "All the Things She Said"] much their talent’s being wasted.
11:11: It seems quite fitting that as this song goes on, the lesbian couple that lives in the apartment above mine undertakes their nightly gigantic loud-ass fight.
11:12: OH I GET IT – it’s just ABBA. The world makes the sense again. Seriously, I could cut back and forth between this and “S.O.S” and yeah. I have no fundamental problem with ABBA, ergo I have no fundamental problem with this.
11:13: It seems that the dulcet tones of TABBATU have stilled the combative lesbians. Who says music is just for the decadent?
11:14: [5. Will Young, "Leave Right Now"] This is becoming much longer than I’d anticipated.
11:14: Listening to this song engenders a conviction that the record industry really wants to get rid of all those unsold Chris Gaines albums. They practically just overdubbed a string section and fagged his voice up a little bit.
11:16: Also: ten’ll get you twenty that a decade ago, this song would have been coming out of Mariah Carey.
11:17: And so ends Blah Blah Blah, the song.
11:18: [4. Gary Jules, "Mad World"] Hey, it’s that song from Donnie Darko, Movie Which Did Doodly-Squat For Me (Outside Of The Soundtrack Which Had This And “The Killing Moon” And “Under The Milky Way Tonight” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart”).
11:19: I actually do like this song, all Five For Fightingisms aside. It reminds me of that Neil Young song from Philadelphia (called, to the best of my knowledge, “Philadelphia”). Being raised by a mother who recreationally used to play the piano for local plays makes one like some instruments.
11:21: [3. R. Kelly, "Ignition" (remix)] *shakes head* I am powerless to resist this song. It makes zero sense (“It’s like murder she wrote/Once I get you out them clothes” – zuh?), that backing track is just ridiculously perfect, like a modern-day “Sexual Healing”, and the hell if I can ignore how deliriously poor taste the whole thing’s in. I am only one man, and this song is a whole lot more; call me a decadent pervert if you must but hell. Pop music should sound good.
11:23: My first time hearing this song: sometime last fall I was driving to the Nuart to see some poncey movie and right up by the 405 at the light before Sawtelle, I pull up [2. Gareth Gates, "Spirit in the Sky"] next to an SUV. All of a sudden, this little dork leans fully out the window and starts SCREAMING the lyrics to the song at me, even throwing a bow or two if I remember. Then the light turned, and I drove away, thoroughly confused but with one more archetypal L.A. story to my name. Ask me about “The Nitro Of Love” sometime and I’ll tell you about the time I saw some guy start spontaneously juggle traffic cones.
11:26: You’ll notice that I’m writing over this song. There is a reason for this, and that reason is simply that this song is fucking stupid. It is almost of an acceptable caliber for the soundtrack to Coyote Ugly; the fact that it’s not should probably tell you something.
11:27: Songs with banter can suck it.
11:27: And so we come to…
11:27: [1. Black Eyed Peas, "Where Is the Love" (feat. Justin Timberlake)] Say it with me: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
11:27: Okay, I’m about to bitch a bunch, so let me get the obligatory positives out of the way first: Yes, that’s a damn catchy beat, and yes, Justin’s a pretty good choice to do the guest vocals. And – wait, yeah, that’s it.
11:28: You’ll notice that they propose zero solutions in this song.
11:29: I liked this song an AWFUL lot more before I heard “Game of Death”, which at least has some fucking BALLS to it.
11:30: I’d be quite curious to know the extent of the Peas’ support of human-rights organizations outside of this song. OH YOU CYNIC THEY’RE SINGING ABOUT LOVE GO BACK TO YOUR CYNIC HOLE WITH YOUR FOREIGN FILMS AND YOUR THE RAPTURE AND THE LCD SOUNDSYSTEMS

And that’s that.