Music is My Radar

… and Irony.

That’s right. It’s time for the second installment in my ongoing series of musical shame, where I bear my soul and my sometimes questionable taste to the world, in the hopes of finding redemption, or at least a good laugh.

Song number two comes to us from way back in 1983, from an artist I otherwise cannot stand: Elton John. I don’t know if it’s the gap in his teeth, the campy costumes, his predilection for ridiculous glasses, or crap like this, but I’ve never liked Elton John. The fact that classic rock radio plays only two or three of his songs (but then they do that with everyone) doesn’t help, nor does this exchange between Sir Elton and Keith Richards.

“His writing is limited to songs for dead blondes.”

- Keith Richards (about Elton John)

“I’m glad I’ve given up drugs and alcohol. It would be awful to be
like Keith Richards. He’s pathetic. It’s like a monkey with
arthritis, trying to go on stage and look young. I have great respect
for the Stones but they would have been better if they had thrown
Keith out 15 years ago.”

- Elton John (about Keith Richards)

It’s one thing to call for someone to tear down the internet, but you better have your dukes up if you want to take on the Stones. I’ll take Keith’s heroin addiction over Elton’s bottle battle anyday.

But I digress. So without any further ado, my guilty pleasure du jour is

“I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” by Elton John.

The song comes to us from Elton’s 1983 album Too Low for Zero, his first in a number of years with his 1970s backing band and the full employment of his long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin. (If you’re not familiar with the song, you can listen to it here.)

I’ll let you reach your own conclusions about why the song is embarassing; some of you might actually like Elton John. That’s fine - I don’t judge. (Out loud, anyway.) But here’s why I like it.

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I know that this is my second Van Halen-themed post in a row, but considering that I’ve been listening to them for almost 25 years (hmmm, that’s not sobering or anything), longer than the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, R.E.M., or any of my more recent musical crushes, it makes sense that there’s a backlog of Van Halen-related thoughts scurrying around my head.

This is one such idea I’ve been kicking around for some time now. I wish it was more developed than it is, but I think that simply writing and posting it will give it the sunshine it needs to grow. So, as the title implies, I’d like to initiate a dialog on the myriad ways that Sammy Hagar destroyed Van Halen.

You likely know the story. After years of mounting tensions between Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth, ol’ Diamond Dave packed up his schmaltz and trouser snake and hit the road solo. The brothers Van Halen began searching for a new singer, initially approaching Patti Smyth of Scandal fame. (That doesn’t have disaster written all over it, does it? Noooooo.) I can just the voice that brought us “The Warrior” - a wonderful and majestic 80s rock anthem if there ever was one - singing

“Here I am, ain’t no man of the world, no
All I need is a beautiful girl
Ah yeah, beautiful girls.”

from “Beautiful Girls,” Van Halen II

Or maybe it’s just me. Anyway, the boys soon settled on Sammy Hagar, former singer of the 70s rock band Montrose and successful solo artist in his own right, as the replacement for Roth.

Admittedly, Hagar had some big shoes to fill. Dave’s game-show-host personality was one of the defining characteristics of Van Halen’s image, and inevitably when a force of nature like Roth leaves, a vacuum will result. Had Hagar simply tried to be the next Dave, he would have bombed instantly. So, props to him for sticking with what he knew.

But the band changed. Maybe it changed along with the scene, as it became apparent that snorting mounds of cocaine on a daily basis was not sustainable in the long run. Maybe the inevitable effects of aging were softening the party image the band had so masterfully cultivated. (Then again, that was mostly Dave.) And certainly, as the 80s gave way to the 90s, many bands became more “socially conscious,” whatever that means.

But there is the excusable and there is the unforgivable. So here’s a sampling of lyrics from Dave’s time in Van Halen, contrasted with lyrics from Sammy Hagar. I’ll let you be the judge.

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We all know what happened to David Lee Roth (and Van Halen) and after the two parted ways. Van Halen immediately fell into a black hole of SUCK; Dave released one decent EP, a not-too-shabby record, then similarly fell down the rabbit hole of SUCK.

Well, the following clip is the vocal track - no instruments - for “Runnin’ With the Devil,” from Van Halen’s first record. If you don’t know the song by heart like I do, give it a few listens. If you do know the song, watch the video and prepare to laugh your balls off.

No, this isn’t a post about Catholicism, confession, or Catholic-themed rock. This is the first in a series of admissions, er, submissions, about music I own and like, but would not say Hi to if I passed it in the hallway. (You the reader are welcome to submit your own stories of shame. I will laugh at them with smug superiority and if they’re really bad, post them.)

So let’s this series started. Believe me, the first one is a doozy. My inaugural guilty pleasure ….. (drumroll)

“Only Wanna be With You” by Hootie and the Blowfish.

Told you it was bad. I’m sure I need not explain why I am utterly debased and ashamed of my enjoyment of anything related to Hootie, so here’s why I like it.

1. It’s catchy.
2. It’s cheesy - some douche like me singing about his girlfriend.
3. It does make references to Bob Dylan, but that doesn’t impress me. Any hack can with a guitar can sing about Bob Dylan. After all, Hootie is not the only group that made reference to an older, more influential artist in a song or video. (Hint: Look at Jordan’s shirt, the one he’s wearing in the car.  Can you see what band it is?  No! No!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!)

And that’s all I got. You can do the math yourself.

Terrible Band + Embarrassing Song = Guilty Pleasure.

Some time ago, I wrote an article for a local newspaper in Atlanta about my iPod and the abundance of musical choices it offered, as a way of commenting on the dizzying variety of consumer goods we face and how often, an excess of options prevents us from making decisions. The article was one in a series I wrote concerning politics, policy, culture, and so on, but one part of the article I submitted to my editor failed to make it past her proverbial red pen.

At the end of the article I included a list of the top ten songs in my iTunes library, as measured by Play Count. (As if my music nerdiness were not evident enough, I obsessively archive and organize my mp3 collection. If I have more than 2-3 songs by an artist, I usually create a “smart” playlist for that artist, so that, in the event that I add additional songs by the artist, the new songs can automatically join their brethren in the playlist. Additionally, I have smart playlists created for various genres, the year of release, songs with missing artist, album, or year information, and so on. And people wonder why my research efforts are so unproductive.) All the songs in my library with a Play Count value of 3 or greater are included in a smart playlist called “I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHIT,” which is sorted in descending order by Play Count. Thus, at the top, is my own personal top ten. I’m my own Casey Kasem.

So, for the purposes of this post, here is my top ten list, complete with title, artist, and Play Count value.

1. “Earn Enough for Us,” XTC, 177
2. “Rocks,” Primal Scream, 151
3. “Girls on Film,” Duran Duran, 116
4. “I Can’t Believe,” Apples in Stereo, 107
5. “24-Hour Party People,” Happy Mondays, 97
6. “Get Set to Fall Out,” Radio 4, 96
7. “Brown Sugar,” The Rolling Stones, 89
8. “Around the World,” Daft Punk v. Wyclef Jean, 88
9. “Ballroom Blitz,” Sweet, 87
10. “Now It’s On,” Grandaddy, 84

Yes, I’ve listened to “Earn Enough for Us” by XTC 177 times. (End-to-end, that adds up to over 8.5 hours of listening to one song, over and over and over again. Chilling.) And that’s just total listens since a) iTunes introduced the Play Count variable and allowed geeks like me to record how many times a song was played, and b) since I ripped my CD of Skylarking to mp3 and started listening only to the digital version. Including pre-Play Count listens and the number of times I listened to the song on CD, plus cassette listens, I’ve probably heard the song 300 times. All of this begs a question (several, actually).

First, have I ever been diagnosed with or treated for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? No. I’ve known people that were treated, or should have been, for OCD, and listening to a song over and over doesn’t really compare to, say, compulsively touching each control knob for the burners on the gas stove five times in order before leaving the house, to make sure that the stove really is turned off. (This is not made up. A woman I knew back in Atlanta did this. Won’t say who she was/is, but there were many reasons why we called her “Crazy Paula.”)

Second, why those songs? Well, I don’t have time to answer that question now, for all the songs anyway, but you might observe a few common characteristics among them. First, many of them have a prominent beat and are very … and I hate this descriptor … danceable. There. I said it. In fact, all but numbers 1 and 10 could be described as such. Second, there are strong Beatles influences, particularly on tracks 1 and 4, even though the Beatles themselves do not show up until position 71, with “Taxman” (37 listens). (Likely this is due to the fact that my days of heaviest Beatles obsession (there’s that word again) were in high school, well before mp3s, iTunes, and my iPod.) The Rolling Stones make an appearance at number 7, bested at number 2 by one of the most Rolling Stones-influenced songs ever recorded.

Third, why “Earn Enough for Us?” Clearly, it is the favorite, with more listens that 9 and 10 combined. If you’ve heard it, you know it’s a catchy, heavily Beatles-influenced song, and wouldn’t sound out of place on Revolver or Rubber Soul. But 177 listens? Isn’t that a bit much? Yes. Yes it is. It is waaaaay too much. And that’s why I’ve called you all here today, to hear a tribute to my “favorite” song of all time, “Earn Enough for Us,” by XTC.

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I’m giving up. I don’t think I’m ever going to go to another concert again. It’s not because of the incessant talking that accompanies nearly every show I’ve seen. (Why pay $20 to stand around and talk with your friends? Could you not do that elsewhere, say at another bar, without that pesky cover charge? Idiots.) It’s not because of a lack of bands playing in Memphis - although since I moved here I’ve often complained about a lack of Memphis appearances by touring bands, even though I’ve only been to two or three concerts here in that time.

No, the reason why I will likely never attend another show again (forgive the hyperbole) is that lately, there appears to be some physical or psychological barrier that prevents me from walking into a venue and seeing a band play. Even when I buy tickets and am very excited about a show, I always find a reason to stay home instead and waste my $20. Within the last month, I’ve passed on an already-purchased ticket to Yo La Tengo (one of my all-time favorite bands) and sold another ticket, to Band of Horses (a recent favorite), to a friend. What’s my problem? How can I bitch about the utter denial of Memphis by many of favorite bands and yet not be bothered to attend a show when one of them actually comes to town? How can I obsessively collect CDs by all manner of artists and yet have little interest in attending a show where that very same music will be played?

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New iPhone arrived today!! Not exactly music-related, I know, but I don’t care!!

I suppose I can use it to play mp3s, but the capacity is so small, why bother? I plan to use it solely for podcasts. And for knocking down haters, of course.