Almost halfway done the summer already. Kinda hard to believe. I'm having fun though. These are some thoughts about the songs you shared from Saturday, July 1st through Friday, July 7th.
WEEK 6
1) I really enjoyed the sobriety day, and I thought both the authors and the artists brought a lot to the table. It was interesting to hear artists that I would typically (and still probably do) dislike, music-wise, but nevertheless identify with something that they were saying. I think Macklemore is ridiculous, and I'm glad Pat noted the irony of Macklemore being the voice of reason in this particular situation, but he was right—a great message. Fucking terrible song, but a great message embedded in that song. Same with the P!nk song, which sounded like boilerplate P!nk (ugh, that fucking exclamation point), but man, the lyrics hit kinda hard. "No pain inside / You're my protection / But how do I feel this good sober?" I just find it fucking fascinating how bad songs can still be good songs in terms of their function. Also can't discount that it's the blog authors lifting all these songs up and making them better with their write-ups.
2) Lots of little coincidences this week that I quite enjoyed. On weather day, there were two different people choosing their weather songs based on each song's presence in a video game. What are the chances? (For the record, if it had to be a weather song from a video game, I would have chosen "Cool, Cool Mountain Theme" from Super Mario 64.) And then on Not-America-or-Europe day, we had two people choose based on cartoons (and one despite a cartoon), plus two different artists from two different Song Challengers, named SiM and Simmy.
3) There were also four days in a row in which someone picked a song from an album we've already covered in Record Club (T-Pain, Missy Elliott, Bruce Springsteen, and Amadou Balaké), plus one artist (RuPaul) who is scheduled to be covered in a couple weeks. One of my hopes was that this summer would get some bloggers in the groove as far as music writing is concerned, and then there would be a transition after Labor Day where Song Challengers feel compelled to keep coming back for some RC. This week bodes well for that plan.
3b) If I ever eventually go back through some of the earlier Record Club picks and reevaluate some of my more negative reviews, then I will definitely start with T-Pain's 1UP.
4) Sidenote: my YouTube algorithm is clearly very confused after feeding through almost 500 seemingly random songs over the past 40 days. So it's settled on continually flashing the still shot from "Imma Be" with Fergie wearing her visor. I think YouTube was upset that I said no one has ever looked as good in a visor as Fergie did.
5) A list of countries named for Day 38: Japan, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Australia, Japan, Japan, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Barbados. I order the songs each day completely at random, so it's funny that most of the repeat countries got paired up.
6) Multiple people asked me for clarification as to what "song not from Europe or North America" meant, and I gave the same answer to everyone: I cannot provide clarification. Yes, I made the list of prompts, but after they were published, it became our list. I am a writer now, just like you. I think the point is to let the writer interpret the prompt however she or he wishes. I interpreted it as a song from an artist from either Asia, Australia, South America, Africa, or Antarctica. Others might argue that Central America and the Caribbean are outside North America as well. No wrong answers!!! And I will maintain this mindset as we move deeper into the summer, with some sillier prompts. You interpret it however you want.
7) I also want to make it clear that I will publish anything that you choose and anything that you write. Now, the rub for this one is that all these write-ups are technically being tagged with "Joe K." as author, according to Blogger. While I'm making it very clear who is writing each entry by affixing the author's name at the top of the post (twice), I also might occasionally feel the need to express my own views in a comment beneath the blog post. That was the case with Bob's write-up a couple days ago. I'm not putting him on blast, and we had a really civil and helpful chat about it in private, but I'm just saying that I really didn't agree with anything he was saying, and yet it says "published by Joe K.", and so I feel compelled to comment on it. I hope that doesn't feel like a betrayal of my editorial duties.
8) FOUR separate Jawn Morgan references!!!! My hot take is that Jawn Morgan is the hero we didn't need but the hero we deserved. I fucking hate the word "jawn" and I welcome anyone who is going to make its use lame enough that everyone will just quit it already.
1) I really enjoyed the sobriety day, and I thought both the authors and the artists brought a lot to the table. It was interesting to hear artists that I would typically (and still probably do) dislike, music-wise, but nevertheless identify with something that they were saying. I think Macklemore is ridiculous, and I'm glad Pat noted the irony of Macklemore being the voice of reason in this particular situation, but he was right—a great message. Fucking terrible song, but a great message embedded in that song. Same with the P!nk song, which sounded like boilerplate P!nk (ugh, that fucking exclamation point), but man, the lyrics hit kinda hard. "No pain inside / You're my protection / But how do I feel this good sober?" I just find it fucking fascinating how bad songs can still be good songs in terms of their function. Also can't discount that it's the blog authors lifting all these songs up and making them better with their write-ups.
2) Lots of little coincidences this week that I quite enjoyed. On weather day, there were two different people choosing their weather songs based on each song's presence in a video game. What are the chances? (For the record, if it had to be a weather song from a video game, I would have chosen "Cool, Cool Mountain Theme" from Super Mario 64.) And then on Not-America-or-Europe day, we had two people choose based on cartoons (and one despite a cartoon), plus two different artists from two different Song Challengers, named SiM and Simmy.
3) There were also four days in a row in which someone picked a song from an album we've already covered in Record Club (T-Pain, Missy Elliott, Bruce Springsteen, and Amadou Balaké), plus one artist (RuPaul) who is scheduled to be covered in a couple weeks. One of my hopes was that this summer would get some bloggers in the groove as far as music writing is concerned, and then there would be a transition after Labor Day where Song Challengers feel compelled to keep coming back for some RC. This week bodes well for that plan.
3b) If I ever eventually go back through some of the earlier Record Club picks and reevaluate some of my more negative reviews, then I will definitely start with T-Pain's 1UP.
4) Sidenote: my YouTube algorithm is clearly very confused after feeding through almost 500 seemingly random songs over the past 40 days. So it's settled on continually flashing the still shot from "Imma Be" with Fergie wearing her visor. I think YouTube was upset that I said no one has ever looked as good in a visor as Fergie did.
5) A list of countries named for Day 38: Japan, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Australia, Japan, Japan, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Barbados. I order the songs each day completely at random, so it's funny that most of the repeat countries got paired up.
6) Multiple people asked me for clarification as to what "song not from Europe or North America" meant, and I gave the same answer to everyone: I cannot provide clarification. Yes, I made the list of prompts, but after they were published, it became our list. I am a writer now, just like you. I think the point is to let the writer interpret the prompt however she or he wishes. I interpreted it as a song from an artist from either Asia, Australia, South America, Africa, or Antarctica. Others might argue that Central America and the Caribbean are outside North America as well. No wrong answers!!! And I will maintain this mindset as we move deeper into the summer, with some sillier prompts. You interpret it however you want.
7) I also want to make it clear that I will publish anything that you choose and anything that you write. Now, the rub for this one is that all these write-ups are technically being tagged with "Joe K." as author, according to Blogger. While I'm making it very clear who is writing each entry by affixing the author's name at the top of the post (twice), I also might occasionally feel the need to express my own views in a comment beneath the blog post. That was the case with Bob's write-up a couple days ago. I'm not putting him on blast, and we had a really civil and helpful chat about it in private, but I'm just saying that I really didn't agree with anything he was saying, and yet it says "published by Joe K.", and so I feel compelled to comment on it. I hope that doesn't feel like a betrayal of my editorial duties.
8) FOUR separate Jawn Morgan references!!!! My hot take is that Jawn Morgan is the hero we didn't need but the hero we deserved. I fucking hate the word "jawn" and I welcome anyone who is going to make its use lame enough that everyone will just quit it already.
9) Songs that make me wanna explore: "Fight like a Brave" by Red Hot Chili Peppers (like Fisher, I know this one from THPS3, but I want to know whether '80s RHCP are better than '90s or '00s RHCP); "Dead Dog Song" by Okkervil River (this is the only Okkervil album I'm not familiar with); "She Changes like the Weather" by Nic Armstrong & the Thieves; "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil; "Here Comes the Rain Again" by Eurythmics
10) Worst songs of the week (but occasionally inspired song choices): "Starting Over" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis; "American" by RuPaul (sorry for spoiling my opinion about RuPaul's music here, before we cover it in RC); "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" by Toby Keith; "The Final" by Dir En Gray (sorry, London girls); "The Final Countdown" by Europe; "Murder the Government" by NOFX; "adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood" by Future of the Left
11) Best songs of the week: "Family Farm" by the Hold Steady; "Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (Hallelujah Version)" by Tyler Childers; "She Wolf" by Shakira; "Hurricane" by Plains; "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke; "The Champions (National Aerobic Championship Theme)" by Ty Parr; "Represent" by Nas; "Philadelphia Freedom" by the Elton John Band
12) Not sure if I should put ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky" in Best or Worst... it's a good song, but it also is featured in the stinky new Super Mario Bros. Movie.
13) "America We Stand as One" by Dennis Madalone... no fucking idea... maybe in it's own category of so Worst it's the Best?
13b) Same with "Like a Rock" by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band... but the opposite (so good that it's bad?!?).
2 comments:
To Pam and the K*** children:
From the bottom of my heart, I apologize. I did not think Joe would like "The Champions (National Aerobic Championship Theme)" as much as he does. This is a development I could not have possibly predicted, by I regret it nonetheless. If he starts competing in high-intensity aerobics while wearing a singlet, that is entirely my fault. Again, I am tremendously sorry.
Yours Truly,
Pat
My soft spot for cheesy '80s songs cancels out my extreme discomfort with meme songs.
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