why your music sucks

That Beck video is strange . . . but cool.

And the Gnarls Barkley video is a knock off of the White Stripes one.

 

I went to a 80s themed costume party earlier this year where the playlist was also all 80s music, and it was so much fucking fun, it was damn near criminal. You truly haven't lived until you've seen a group of 30-somethings, drunk off their ass, screaming, absolutely screaming, along to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." I say this without a single ounce of shame.

Even better than Whitney Houston, however, was the point in the party someone put on Dead or Alive, and the Jersey kids, of which there were many, went absolutely nuts.

They next day we were passing around this link, which nearly had me in tears.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2006/4/6moe.html

I think music actually is better today than it was 20 years ago, but there is no doubt in my mind that music was more fun 20 years ago. Most of the time, yes, I like to put on Wilco, or Iron & Wine, or The Shins, or Liz Phair, or Pearl Jam, and mellow out or contemplate my place in the cosmos, but sometimes I like to phucking rawk out to Fallen Angel by Poison, possibly the most ridiculously awesome song ever, with easily the most ridiculously awesome video by an 80s hair band.

I love the look on the guy's face at the end of his video when she kicks him in the balls and runs away. Classic. The only thing more ridiculous that her phony kick in the nuts is Rikki Rocket's hair, followed closely by Brett Michaels lowering his sunglasses at the end when she climbs on his bike. But it's still fabulous. It's a shame someone had to invent irony and kill this kind of artistry forever.

 

Quite an impressive list of no-talent ass clowns.

 

DD, read another tome from that Mcsweeneys site...funny stuff. Check out these lines from a story about an art professor criticizing the artwork of his 4-year-old daughter.

Do you think your picture's worth a hundred million words? No way. It's not even worth a thousand Mexican palabras. In fact, I bet if you were to take your picture to Uzbekistan, where talk is cheap, your picture would still only get you about 50 alfoz. And in Germany, an efficient, streamlined country where language is used sparingly, your picture would translate into just one Wort: Scheiße.

Oh, yeah, sure, go play soccer with your brother. Ignore boring old Dad; he's only trying to help you better yourself. I gave up on your brother a long time ago—he's got the fine motor skills of a turtle. But if you're ever going to get out of this Blue Period of yours, it's going to require a lot of work.

 

Actually, kingcreole, that list of EStreet's is kind of all over the place. If Timberlake had performed in the 80s, half the people here who rip him would be cumming in their big boy pajamas with nostalgia every time his name came up. He can actually sing and play the piano, and writes his own songs, which is more than you can say for about 70 percent of the artists in the 80s. Stefani, I admit, is like the thinking-girl's Fergie, which shows you how much the both suck, but there's nothing wrong with Nelly Furtado. And Christina Aguilera can sing her ass off. She doesn't quite have Whitney Houston's pre-crazy pipes, but she's got a lot of talent. To deny that is to deny reality. Beyonce sucks, yes, and so does Britney and Hillary Duff, all three got famous because of marketing and masturbation, but R. Kelly is talented, and 1,000 Dave Chappelle skits and illegal marriages to 15-year-old pop singers won't make Ignition (Remix) any less cool.

And true, Snoop Dogg is now a clown and a parody of himself, but without him, The Chronic isn't one of the most important albums of the last 20 years. Drop It Like It's Hot is a stupid, moronic song, but it doesn't make his good songs, like Gz and Hustlas, What's My Name, or Gin and Juice, any less awesome.

 

AlleyA,

These are my two favorite McSweeneys articles ever.

Short Imagined Monologues: Morgan Freeman Buys a Pop-A-Shot:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/7/13ruehlmann.html

Covering Teen Wolf: One Coaches Guide

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/11/4malla.html

 

Which is precisely why I said I'd take the Sports Predictor's list of 80s pop music over today's pop music.
Although she's talented I don't care for 99% of the music Aguilera puts out.

 

November Rain. Released in 1992. Not '80s music.

Early '90s music rules, though.

 

TP: GNR was a great band in the 80s, and November Rain is a great song, but the song was released in '92.

 

Damn. Beat me to it by two minutes.

 

And yet the irony is that Debbie Gibson's actually the one who ended up in Playboy.

 

That's Deborah Gibson that did Playboy, not Debbie.
Tiffany did Playboy too.
Give it a few more years and Britney or Christina or one of today's teen stars will wind up in there.