Warning: Video contains some NSFW language.
I’ve recently gotten back into vinyl records, so have been trolling Ebay, looking for lost records from my youth. The aim of this blog is to highlight some of the more ridiculous ones.
This first post is more of an aside, so as to get the grumpy old man out of the way. Recently, I happened to be sitting on the bus behind two teenage girls who, although they got on together, were soon both cocooned away in their individual oblivious bubbles of Mobile Phone Texting and I-Pod Listening. I was feeling old and grumpy, when one of the girls suddenly spoke.
“Oh Jayleen, this is that free song I was talkin’ about. It’s soooo good.”
She offered one of the earbuds to her friends, and they listened, as I felt slightly guilty for being so cynical about music no longer being communal.
“This is fully sick!” Presumably Jayleen said. “Who is it?”
Her friend read the screen. “It’s ‘The Girl U Wish U Were’ by the ‘The Bling Babies’.”
“You should fully play that at Taylor’s party. It’s wicked jam”.
Then someone’s mobile beeped a message and they went back to their own bubbles.
I would have forgotten about it, but then a few days later my friend Shane was raving about how good music was in the last few months. He may be 40, but he’s a teenage girl in spirit. He’s big into dance music, and I’m Definitely Not. He showed me his latest dance compilation CD and pointed out his favourite was ‘The Girl U Wish U Were’.
I explained how I’d heard two girls on the bus talking about it. “Well,” he said. “They would, they’re soooo awesome”.
“OK,” I said, trying to not sound too interested, whilst not wanting to hurt his feelings.
“I’ll put it on,” he said.
“That’s ok...” I started, but by then it was too late, which is how I finally heard the song.
After a minute, he was singing along, at least until I noticed my face. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s so...” I was lost for words, eventually settling for “...Basic”. I explained that dance music used to have harmonies, and counter-rhythms, and breakdowns. This sounded the same all the way through, and the rhythm was simply THUMP CLAP THUMP CLAP.
“That’s how dance music is now!” he said. “Lady Gaga’s made everything minimalistic, cause it’s really cool. This song is huge!”
Confused as to why anyone would like this, I consulted Metacritic for reviews, and was confronted by a 10 out of 10 review from Pitchfork Media, speaking of ‘woofer –munching synth lines’ and the ‘combative taunts’ of the lyric. The vocals are ‘sped up, slowed down and stretched out. The effect is almost psychotic, suggesting three or four inner monologues fighting over smashed emotions.’
I feel like I’ve wandered into some kind of alternate universe where Bad is Good.
They linked to a free download of ‘The Girl U Wish U Were’, complete with what modern cover design has devolved into: cheesy photoshop done by a friend. Did someone really think using the ‘Impact’ Font would look professional, rather than some Caturday / LOLCats pictures?
I’ll put it up here as illustration. Whilst I'm going to post some cheesy, awful, goofy very obscure records that I grew up with during my life as a pop consumer, I truly believe not one of them is anywhere near as soul-crushingly bad as this.
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