Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Hear my words that I might berate you
This was supposed to be a brilliant rant - one of my best, it was shaping up to be - on why I was refusing to jump on the "Go Flames Go" bandwagon that seems to be weaving its way through Edmonton. I had it all worked out in my head. I was all worked up in my head. There was geneuine foam eminating from my mouth on the topic. I could hardly wait to get to a computer and pound it out.
Then I looked at the newspaper, and remembered that there are far more serious atrocities in the world: to wit, Blender Magazine ranks "The Sound(s) of Silence" as the forty-second worst rock song of all time. Well, I thought I was foaming at the mouth *before* reading that. . .
It should be noted that Blender deserves credit for trying. If I'd been charged with a similar task, I probably just would have copied and pasted Barry Manilow's entire discography and taken lunch early. And again to its credit, it's tough to argue with some of the choices - the list opens with Celine Dion's putrid "My Heart Will Go On," a piece of sap-laced dog feces whose sole redeeming feature is that it gave rise to one of the most immature parodies of all time in "My Fart Will Go On" (all together, now: "Every night in my room, I hear you, I smell you. . ."). The presence of the New Kids on the Block is self-explanatory, and "Achy Breaky Heart" and "She Bangs" (the Ricky Martin version, not the far superior William Hung one) are also no-brainers.
But come on: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as number forty-eight? A little overrated, yes, and not among the Beatles' best, but including any Beatles track at all on a list purportedly of the worst songs - not the worst songs that have endured forty years, not the worst songs by otherwise brilliant artists, but the worst songs in music history - reeks of a wannabe music snob magazine trying to prove itself by assuming an inverse correlation between popularity and quality. Memo to Blender: sometimes things are popular *because* they're good. Other times, they're popular because people are stupid. It's all about nuance.
Even the number one choice - Starship's "We Built This City" - is something of a let-down. While it's hardly a classic, naming a generic turn-it-up-while-driving-down-the-highway rock song as parade marshall to the worst music of all time seems a little weak.
As for Paul Simon's inclusion on the list, Blender notes "If Frasier Crane were a song, he would sound like [the Sound(s) of Silence]." Well, truth be told, I like Frasier, too (or I used to - I haven't actually seen a single episode since Niles and Daphne ran off together, though I may watch the series finale).
So, in summary, the list is pig doots. I could come up with a list of fifty worse songs just going through my own CD collection (which, needless to say, includes only the highest quality tunes). Let's see, we've got Bob Seger's "Horizontal Bop," The Who's "Boris the Spider," Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (if you do not believe that this is a bad song, you have never heard me sing in the shower - "Fire Awa-a-a-a-y!"), and - let's be honest - pretty well anything by Steve Miller, except maybe "The Joker" (one day, I will learn the meaning of the word "pompetus"). Then there's the CD by Global Edmonton news anchor Gord Steinke, which I picked up in a Toronto pawn shop for two bucks, and whose omission from Blender's list must only be due to the magazine's ignorance of its existence.
Hell, if I wanted to - and I don't, for it would be a truly soul-wrenching exercise - I could probably cull a list of fifty Paul Simon songs more deserving of a spot on the list than "the Sound(s) of Silence."
The "Fifty Worst Songs of all Time"? Sorry, Blender, looks more like "Fifty Ways to Kill Your Credibility" to me.
Coming later: "Why I'm Cheering for Detroit" and "How My Parents Got Married."
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This was supposed to be a brilliant rant - one of my best, it was shaping up to be - on why I was refusing to jump on the "Go Flames Go" bandwagon that seems to be weaving its way through Edmonton. I had it all worked out in my head. I was all worked up in my head. There was geneuine foam eminating from my mouth on the topic. I could hardly wait to get to a computer and pound it out.
Then I looked at the newspaper, and remembered that there are far more serious atrocities in the world: to wit, Blender Magazine ranks "The Sound(s) of Silence" as the forty-second worst rock song of all time. Well, I thought I was foaming at the mouth *before* reading that. . .
It should be noted that Blender deserves credit for trying. If I'd been charged with a similar task, I probably just would have copied and pasted Barry Manilow's entire discography and taken lunch early. And again to its credit, it's tough to argue with some of the choices - the list opens with Celine Dion's putrid "My Heart Will Go On," a piece of sap-laced dog feces whose sole redeeming feature is that it gave rise to one of the most immature parodies of all time in "My Fart Will Go On" (all together, now: "Every night in my room, I hear you, I smell you. . ."). The presence of the New Kids on the Block is self-explanatory, and "Achy Breaky Heart" and "She Bangs" (the Ricky Martin version, not the far superior William Hung one) are also no-brainers.
But come on: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as number forty-eight? A little overrated, yes, and not among the Beatles' best, but including any Beatles track at all on a list purportedly of the worst songs - not the worst songs that have endured forty years, not the worst songs by otherwise brilliant artists, but the worst songs in music history - reeks of a wannabe music snob magazine trying to prove itself by assuming an inverse correlation between popularity and quality. Memo to Blender: sometimes things are popular *because* they're good. Other times, they're popular because people are stupid. It's all about nuance.
Even the number one choice - Starship's "We Built This City" - is something of a let-down. While it's hardly a classic, naming a generic turn-it-up-while-driving-down-the-highway rock song as parade marshall to the worst music of all time seems a little weak.
As for Paul Simon's inclusion on the list, Blender notes "If Frasier Crane were a song, he would sound like [the Sound(s) of Silence]." Well, truth be told, I like Frasier, too (or I used to - I haven't actually seen a single episode since Niles and Daphne ran off together, though I may watch the series finale).
So, in summary, the list is pig doots. I could come up with a list of fifty worse songs just going through my own CD collection (which, needless to say, includes only the highest quality tunes). Let's see, we've got Bob Seger's "Horizontal Bop," The Who's "Boris the Spider," Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (if you do not believe that this is a bad song, you have never heard me sing in the shower - "Fire Awa-a-a-a-y!"), and - let's be honest - pretty well anything by Steve Miller, except maybe "The Joker" (one day, I will learn the meaning of the word "pompetus"). Then there's the CD by Global Edmonton news anchor Gord Steinke, which I picked up in a Toronto pawn shop for two bucks, and whose omission from Blender's list must only be due to the magazine's ignorance of its existence.
Hell, if I wanted to - and I don't, for it would be a truly soul-wrenching exercise - I could probably cull a list of fifty Paul Simon songs more deserving of a spot on the list than "the Sound(s) of Silence."
The "Fifty Worst Songs of all Time"? Sorry, Blender, looks more like "Fifty Ways to Kill Your Credibility" to me.
Coming later: "Why I'm Cheering for Detroit" and "How My Parents Got Married."
