When I was younger I vowed not to be that out-of-touch adult that had no idea what was going on in the world of children. I didn't want to be intimately familiar with it, but I at least wanted to have a basic idea what was going on. I am becoming that adult against my will now. People now mention songs and artists that I have absolutely no awareness of whatsoever. I read the Internets. I watch some MTV. I have no idea what the fuck these songs are. "Hey you know that song Grenade by Bruno Mars?" "No." "Yes you do, you've heard it, you just don't know what it's called." So I will go watch the video for the song on YouTube and, sure enough, I have never heard that song before. Never once. Not on a commercial, not as background for The Real World, nothing. I am completely out of touch. Today I realized that I would not know a song by Katy Perry or Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga if I heard it loud and clear. I am rarely out of touch about songs that are older than I am, with a few exceptions. The most notable of which is Macarthur Park. I know that is a very famous song, and have known it for a long time, and figured that when I eventually heard it I would be like "oh, THAT song." I finally heard it about a year ago and was like "wait, what?" (That song is a complete mystery to me anyway as to why anybody thought it was good). FOCUS: What song (or artist) did you hear about for a long time, but never heard? Did you eventually like that song, or dislike it? Do children in your family regale you with Bieber tunes? Do old people in your life keep telling you about All Along the Watchtower?
The worst part is when they try to sing the melody. "You know, the one that goes dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun, da-na-na-na-na." Look dude, even if you were right...that sounds like incomprehensible gibberish. 90% of songs sound the same when reduced to dun-dun-dun form.
I did a kid's golf camp over the last three summers, and we had to pick the kids up at home, drive them to the course, and then cart them around for the afternoon. One day the bus we used to pick them up was in for service, so we had to take a cargo van, that had an auxiliary port in it so the kids wanted to blair their ipods. Here I was introduced to so much Disney garbled trash, it was nerve wracking and utterly disappointing at the same time. However, by the end of the day, I will sadly admit I was bobbing my head to Miley Cyrus "Party in The USA". The worst part was the fact that these kids all were new to the cell phone camera phase, and recorded me bobbing my head and used it as blackmail on me all summer. At the end of year golf game between the father's and sons, they played it in the banquet room in front of all the parents, who all had a good laugh at my expense. It reminded me of this:
I'm still not sure what songs are by Justin Beiber. I've been told they get stuck in your head, so I'm not going to seek them out, but I have never heard any of his music on the radio.
A girl I've been fucking for a while now is right into Lady Gaga, but despite this - she's actually pretty cool. I realized a while ago that I wouldn't know a Lady Gaga song if I heard it. After discussing this, I learned that Paparazzi wasn't a Britney Spears song, and I have no interest in being able to identify other Lady Gaga songs. I also have no idea what Justin Bieber's singing voice sounds like, or untill the other night when it was stuck in my head and I had to find the youtube clip to try and get it out, that the stupid whip my hair song was by a) a kid b) someone related to Will Smith or c) that Will Smith was enough of a dick to name his child Willow. I don't consider this in any way being out of touch. I consider this a mark of taste and refinement. I almost always know the basic details of what's popular, and what's current and actually good. I just don't listen to things that are popular unless I'm also at least open to the possibility that they might be good.
This is infinitely true. I usually stop them before they get to that point. Or try. Random: Have you heard that song Great DJ by the Ting Tings? DrFrylock: No. Random: Really? You've never heard that song? DrFrylock: No. Random: You have, you must have. DrFrylock: Doubt it. Random: But you know who the Ting Tings are, right? DrFrylock: No. Random: You must DrFrylock: No. Random: Are you sure? DrFrylock: Yes. Random: Anyway it's the one in that one commercial with that one guy from that one show. DrFrylock: No. Random: It's the one that goes... DrFrylock: Stop. Random: No but it goes like... DrFrylock: Stop. Random: But it's all like duh duh girls uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh and the drums uh uh uh DrFrylock: Stop. Random: But you know what song I'm talking about now, right? DrFrylock: No. Random: You don't know duh duh girls uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh and the drums uh uh uh? DrFrylock: Stop. Random: Wow you must really live in a cave or something. DrFrylock: DIAF
It was a song from a Broadway play, and those songs take on a life of their own. Then Donna Summer covered it and it took off as an insanely popular disco song. Hell, we sang it in school in sixth grade - Sweet jesus, i feel like a cro-magnon man explaining how we discovered fire. Carry on.
I will also admit that I was able to tolerate this song for a few weeks last summer, mainly for circumstantial reasons. The bar I went to before the US-England game last summer (yes it was a 12:30 kickoff and yes I went to a bar before, I had to go somewhere else to watch the actual game because it got packed and my idiot friends showed up too late to get in) had a live band playing before the game that played an admittedly pretty cool cover of this song. Later after we beat Algeria, ESPN.com had "Party in the USA!!" as its main headline. Of course after we lost to Ghana I went to a friend-of-a-friend's house to get angrily drunk and some slut pulled it up on the stereo, I had to be restrained from drunkenly smashing her Ipod. A little off-focus, but I was watching "Dumb and Dumber" last night, and it occured to me--that movie came out in 1994. It's almost 20 years old. Granted, the humor is almost completely timeless (really the only thing I could think of that would change if the movie was made today would be the parts where the hitman is using a pay phone) but still....when I have children, will they properly appreciate the antics of Harry and Lloyd?? Because I'm pretty sure I'll be a failure as a father if they don't.
I'd like to think that most people are telling the truth when they say "I've never heard a Lady Gaga/Justin Beiber/Miley Cyrus/artist de jour song...." but I can't be the only person who thinks they're all full of shit, right? It's like when people say "The Office? Huh? Is that...is that a movie? I don't know. I don't watch television." Yeah right, shut the fuck up. You're so cool. Uh huh. Keep it moving. I pride myself on having pretty fuckin' good taste in music, go out of my way to NOT listen to the radio, etc and even I know who they are/their songs. Some of y'all might honestly just be clueless, and that's cool, but I'm going to go ahead and make a safe assumption that most people who do that are pompous blowhards trying to act like they're above having sat through produced noise for three minutes. Edit: I put Dumb and Dumber on my iTouch for my flight last week, and somehow the audio got screwed up and there was nothing there. I kept watching it because I knew every line, and I still laughed. Probably seen that movie at least 200 times, and there's still stuff I just now notice.
The only thing I know about Justin beiber is that "whoa ohhhhhhh" thing in one of his songs. I pretty much never listen to the radio but I still know most of the big pop hits because of stupid girls in bars and parties.
I had honestly never heard that song before I came across this version, that makes it listenable... To be fair, I think I was concentrating on the girl in the red shorts the whole time... And the lead guitar, as well. Dude that redid this video was a genius...
Because of my job and my love of music, barely anything gets by me unless it's underground or Indie. I'm usually the unfortunate one that people come to ask when they like a song, but DON'T know the artist or title. THEM: "What's the bomb-diddy-bom-da-diddy-diddy raggae song I keep hearing in the Heineken commercials?" ME: "It's this one":
I don't really listen to music in the first place, but one of the things that really confused me for a long time was Fergie. Not because of anything integral to her music, but that for a long time the name "Fergie" was associated with a British Duchess. I spent a fair amount of years wondering how the hell the Duchess of York wound up with a pop singing career until I finally found out it was a different person.
I'll be honest, Lady Gaga's music doesn't bother me at all, her outfits and her image do nothing for me, but I don't dislike her music. She's probably the best in the teeny bopper genre that I can think of. I'm in this boat as well, I'd like to keep it that way. To be fair a lot of people (myself included) are ditching cable nowadays so a lot of people are probably telling the truth when they say they aren't up to date on any current shows. That said, I probably watch as much if not more older TV shows now than I ever watched current TV when I had cable and totally agree with you on the douchy people who act morally superior because they don't watch TV.
Having two teenage girls in the house provides me with more exposure to the current pop icons and culture than I need or want, but I just think back to the scowl on my father's face when I joined the "KISS Army" when I was 12-13 and blasted their music. But, it is fun to watch cartoons like "Family Guy" or "Futurama" with them just to see what references they get. I wouldn't be able to identify a Bieber or Lady Gaga song if I heard one, but at least I know who they are. Just like my kids know that "The Wall" is the greatest rock opera ever composed, but couldn't identify a song from it.
Bruno Mars - I know he's a pop singer, though I couldn't pick him out of a lineup if my schlong depended on it. I've heard one song and quite frankly it was enough to make me NEVER want to hear another. I couldn't tell you what the name of it was, but he's basically singing about a boring day where he eats Fruit Loops and watches Oprah or some such shit. It was basically ear-rape and made me wonder who's cock he's gurgling to get a record deal. Supposedly he'll be playing in my city in a few weeks, I wonder if I should do the world a favor and assassinate him...
I was lucky. I had avoided Bieber/Gaga/Kesha et al like the plague, and had succeeded nicely. How? By listening to only the 80s on 8, 90s on 9, or Chill stations on XM Radio. Then came this year's father-daughter dance. I still don't know which is which and who is who, but I know I heard every single one of them that night. Something to be proud of though: My 8 year old daughter thinks Bieber looks like a girl, and when all the boys are letting their hair grow out to look like that stupid hair cut of his, my 7 year old son asked me to shave his head into a mohawk. I complied immediately. He thinks it will help his rock guitar playing. I don't care, anything but that Bieber haircut.
Antifocus: The older you get the more you realise how much of popular mainstream culture is utter shit. I prefer to listen to independent radio, particularly <a class="postlink" href="http://www.rrr.org.au/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.rrr.org.au/</a> One of the very few Melbourne (Australia) radio stations that does not suck donkeys balls.
I'm currently in Afghanistan, and ordinarily, I don't listen to the radio stateside, and don't have cable. Keeping track of who is singing what song is rather difficult. However, being deployed has it's "benefits." (I use that term loosely). We somehow have access to a Polish MTV-like channel called "Viva Polska". It's like MTV was back in the 80's, they actually show music videos, and if you get up early enough, talk shows with gorgeous nude women. They're entirely in Polish, but no one has complained. I've been just about driven completely insane by that channel, because the seem to play the top 20, or something close to that. I promise you, if I hear Katy Perry's "California Gurls" or "Teenage Dreams" in the future after I leave here, it will cause me to curl up into the fetal position.