The Ancient American Idol

I'm having issues with American Idol. Look, the show has been on how long? Eleven years or something like that. Now, as with anything, after eleven years, the popularity is expected to start to wane a bit. So if you're the producers, wouldn't you want to do whatever you could to counteract that sort of inevitable decline as much as you could? I would think so. And while I have no idea if the producers think that same thing or not, I do know that if that is their line of thinking that they are certainly going about it in a very strange manner.

See, last night, the contestants were to sing Billy Joel songs. I have nothing against Billy Joel. He's a fine musician and I enjoy many of his songs. But when was the last time he had a hit? A BIG hit? Early 90s? I thought that I heard them mention on the show that his last hit was 17 years before one of the contestants was born. And I'm not totally sure that his music has withstood the test of time. Tell me again why playing the songs of the elderly is a good idea for a pop music singing contest on television? I'm not seeing their logic.

On top of that, who do the contestants have helping them out (also known as 'mentoring', though if that's what they're doing, it's minimal mentoring at best) but none other than Diddy. Aka P Diddy. Aka Puff Daddy. Aka Sean Combs. Now, Sean Combs is a talented guy and a surprisingly good business man. (He's no Jay-Z, but he can hold his own quite well.) How did they come up with the idea of Diddy helping these kids sing Billy Joel songs? And how did they get him to agree to it? (Hey, Sean. You wanna help kids sing old man Billy Joel songs?" "Who? I mean, sure!")

Let me put this in perspective. Let's say that you're my age-ish. (I'm going to make my age-ish 40 for this discussion. Let's not talk about how old I really am, shall we?) Now let's fantasize that I was a teenager who could sing and take it back 24 years so that I'm 16 and it is now 1988. The Number One song that year was inexplicably "Need you Tonight" by INXS. "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison was Number Four. "So Emotional" by the recently departed (and constantly coked up) Whitney Houston was at Number Six. "Sweet Child o' Mine" by Guns and Roses was at Number Eleven. You get the gist. Now, if American had done then what they did last night and picked songs about thirty years older than I was at the time, I would have been expected to sing the likes of "Mule Train" by Frankie Laine and "The Hucklebuck" by Paul Williams! That's laughable to me now! And isn't that essentially what they're doing with the current American Idol contestants? It is! I just don't know why!

It'd be like if I walked out there (still playing into the fantasy that I could sing when I was a teenager) and the director said, "OK, guys. Tonight we're going to be doing the songs of Irving M. Cohen!" (If you don't get that reference, I've included a handy video below!) Or "Good news, kids! Sousa marches!" What the what?!

I don't understand what they're doing. The show isn't exactly compelling anymore. This is supposed to be a contest for the next biggest music star and they're having them sing outdated Billy Joel songs after being mentored by rapper Diddy and outfitted by sixty-year old Tommy Hilfiger. I don't get it. If I hadn't been watching Idol since the beginning, maybe I wouldn't feel so invested in it that I feel almost a duty to keep watching. But I'm really not seeing how this sort of thing is going to help.

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Politically Correct Christmas Carols

You know that the war on Christmas is going to get to the point where nothing is allowed. Nothing as we know it, that is. I imagine that we'll still be able to have some things, but not the really nice things. We'll end up being regulated to things like the "Politically Correct Christmas Carols" which I have included below. Behold!

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Hide Your Chickens

A quick note:

I just read over at the LA Times that "Black Sabbath took to the stage Friday at the Whisky A Go Go to announce another reunion tour in 2012". Wow. Well, OK. But if you're expecting me to start bashing Black Sabbath for going on tour when they're all senior citizens (and when Ozzy seems barely coherent on his good days), you'd be wrong. Tour! Tour all you want. I wouldn't mind seeing me some old and withered Black Sabbath. You know why? Because it's Black Sabbath, for cryin' out loud! They tour, you GO! That's how it works with these awesome ancient bands whose members aren't dead (by multiple miracles) from either drug overdoses or multiple organ failures.

But here's the part that annoyed me: "The British heavy metal originators have begun working on an album of new material, their first since 1978." Uh huh. And..."Iommi said the set list will be much more than the usual hour of hits the band has performed since its first reunion in 1997." Yeah...um...no.

See, I don't think that I'm alone when I say that when these old guys go on tour, we want to hear the stuff that made us like them. We don't care about your new stuff. We want to hear everything you did before 1980. We're OK with hearing the individual band members hits (ie, if you leave out Crazy Train, I'm going to be pissed), but we don't care about your new stuff. We're here to hear the old stuff. I don't care about some ballad that one of them wrote after the birth of their child on a stormy night in 2002.

There are a few bands who are the exception to this rule. Not many, but a few. And Black Sabbath isn't one of them. If a band that old wants to play new stuff for folks, they need to have a "New Stuff Only" tour. I have no problem with that. But if I'm going to see a band whose greatest album came out in 1971, don't play me your new stuff because I'm not there to listen to that.

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The Star Mangled Banner

We all know that Sunday's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl was less than perfect. But in comparison to other renditions, hey, it wasn't that bad. Don't believe me. Take a gander at this. The video below was shot a couple of years ago in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Apparently, "Officers from across Hamilton County Tennessee gather in front a memorial to remember fallen law enforcement officers." That's all I know. Well, that and that the "singing" of the "anthem" is nothing like I've ever heard before. It kind of sounds the same as the anthem penned by a one Francis Scott Key. Kind of. And the guy "singing" is kind of carrying a tune, so I guess that's why it's called singing. Other than that, there aren't a lot of similarities to the national anthem of the United States actually being sung. No. In fact, there are very few if, in fact, any more than the ones I have just cited. Take a listen. Recognize any of it? It's OK if you don't. It's barely recognizable as much of anything.

See? I told you. Look, I admire anyone who can get up and try to sing in front of others, especially for something as important as a memorial for fallen law enforcement officers. I really do. But for something that important, don't you think that maybe you should just do a quick scan of the words? Maybe even rehearse it once or twice the day before? Carry the lyrics up there with you if you need to. It's OK. I won't think less of you. (Well, I won't think less of you if you read the lyrics and get it right. If you have lyrics written down and you still can't come up with the correct wording? That's odd and I cannot be a party to something like that.) But when you're up there "singing" as if your vocabulary has just been put on "Shuffle" and random words are just flying out of your mouth in a semi-discernible tune? That's exactly how you end up on YouTube and that's exactly how you end up the subject of today's post. And really, those are two things that I don't think many of us would ever strive for.

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O, Say Can You Sing?

Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers on a Super Bowl game well played. While I enjoyed the game, I really think that the commercials were not up to par. And if you're going to try to tell me that it isn't about the commercials, well, you'd be wrong. If you're forking over $3 million for a thirty second ad spot, you're supposed to kick it up a notch. But I'm not really here to talk about the commercials. No, I'm here to talk about the national anthem. And I think I shall start out by asking, "What in the what was that?"

The anthem, most of it, was sung by a one Christina Aguilera. She claimed, at the time that she was anointed vocal belter of national tuneage, that she had "... been performing the anthem since I was seven years old and I must say the Super Bowl is a dream come true." A quick check of Wikipedia shows that Ms. Aguilera is now thirty years old. That should have given her twenty three years to practice. Too bad it wasn't twenty four.

See, she appeared (translation: she totally did) to have forgotten the words or remembered the words incorrectly at one point. I only say this because instead of singing "O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming", she came up with "What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last gleaming." Yeah, that's not right at all. She managed to correctly place and sing the words "we watched", but other than that, I had no idea what she was talking about. It's like she kind of took the second line from the anthem "What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming" and kind of mixed it in with what she was supposed to sing. And while she didn't really miss a beat while she sang it, it was still wrong.

The video of her debacle is below. If it doesn't play, try clicking here and watching it over at YouTube. I wasn't really all that fond of how she sang the rest of the song, albeit correctly. I guess I like it better when the high notes are hit instead of being taken down an octave so that they're doable for the average singer. And while I'm not calling Christina Aguilera average, her performance certainly was.

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You Gotta Get Two Beers And Jump

Yesterday, it was all about my new hero, Steven Slater. I realize that 'hero' is probably not exactly the most accurate word to describe what he has become. He's more just like a guy that I really wish I knew and that I really wish I could have a beer with (preferrably the beer that he grabbed right before he slid down the emergency chute of that plane he had been working on). And I think that Jimmy Fallon felt the same way about the guy, which led to him composing and performing this lovely ballad in honor of the man. Enjoy it. Just be warned that the tune is going to get stuck in your head for at least a day and quite possibly for the rest of your life. It's catchy and repetitive (as is the unwritten requirement for ballads, apparently). And if anyone could explain to me what was with the woman who couldn't remember the line, I'd appreciate it. It wasn't that hard. In fact, it was downright simple. Was it stage fright? The pressure of the crowd? She seemed to be enjoying herself and she managed to get out almost half of the line before she lost confidence in herself. What happened there? Hard to say. Hard. To. Say. Oh, and if the video below doesn't play, click here to check it out. You won't be sorry. (At least, you won't be sorry until the 300th time that you've sung that song in your head. Then you might be a little sorry.)

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Musical Crap From The Seventies

It's come to my attention that during the 1970s, America was a flaccid, flaccid nation when it came to our music. What were we thinking? Actually, let me rephrase that. What were y'all thinking? I can't take a whole lot of responsibility for any of it, really. I started out the 1970s being 2 years old and there's rarely anything that you can hold a 2-year old accountable for, much less, responsible.

Let's start with a Number One hit from 1974. Paul Anka sang a horribly sappy song called "You're Having My Baby". I don't get this song at all. Allow me to give you a sample of the lyrics if you're not already familiar with this atrocity. Ahem....

That you're havin' my baby

You're the woman I love and I love what it's doin' to ya

Havin' my baby

You're a woman in love and I love what's goin' through ya

The need inside you, I see it showin'

Whoa, the seed inside ya, baby, do you feel it growin'?

Are you happy you know it?

That you're having my baby.

Are you kidding me? "The seed inside ya, baby, do you feel it growin'?" What. The. Hell? And those aren't just crappy lyrics. That was a number one song!! What was wrong with this country?! Y'all listened to that crap? Willingly??

Then there was the David Geddes hit "Run, Joey, Run". I was not familiar with this song until just a few days ago when the fabulous Armstrong & Getty were discussing it on their morning radio show. (Download the podcast of their show over at iTunes. These two are fabulous!) "Run, Joey, Run" is a song about a girl who gets knocked up by her boyfriend. The girl's father finds out and gets angry. The girl's father then proceeds (from what I can figure out according to the lyrics) to hit the girl and then get his gun to go daughter-knocker-upper hunting. She tries to warn the boy, the aforementioned Joey, but he doesn't listen. He comes over to her house, the Dad goes to shoot him and the daughter (I believe her name is Julie) jumps in front of him and the Dad ends up killing her. Top of the charts!

Lyrics David Geddes lyrics - Run Joey Run lyrics

Seriously. What was going in y'all's lives that you wanted to listen to that? Granted, it has kind of a catchy tune and all, but it really gets weird once you start thinking, "What now? A gun? Run? He shot his daughter? What the hell?" I mean, it's really weird.

But here's my favorite weird-ass song of the 1970s. Are you familiar with a song called "Timothy"? "Timothy" was a catchy little ditty by the one-hit wonder group, The Buoys. While the song itself is disturbing to say the least, I'm kind of glad that they only had just the one hit, as I can't imagine how they'd possibly follow up a song about cannibalism. Wait. What now?

That's right. Cannibalism. Pop-culture cannibalism. That song made it inexplicably all the way to Number 17 during the year of our Lord 1971. Number 17. How did...? Wait. I need to fill you in on "Timothy" before I go on babbling about how weird this is.

It seems that Joe and Timothy and "me" (the narrator of this morbid tale with a catchy tune) were trapped in a mine. The tale goes something like....

"Trapped in a mine that had caved in
And everyone knows the only ones left

Were Joe and me and Tim....

When they broke through to pull us free

The only ones left to tell the tale

Was Joe and me

Now, normally, you wouldn't think that "the only ones left to tell the tale was Joe and me" would mean that the two dudes ate their freaking friend! You'd just figure that Tim died, wouldn't you? Yes! You would! Because that would be what? Normal, that is correct. But this song is far from normal. And it goes on....

"Timothy, Timothy, Joe was looking at you

Timothy, Timothy, God what did we do"

Huh. I dunno. What did you do? Let's skip a couple of lyrical passages ahead to find out, shall we?

"My stomach was full as it could be

And nobody ever got around to finding Timothy". Oh, God.

Now, according to Wikipedia (take it for what it's worth), once folks figured out what the weirdo lyrics were about, it began to demand more airtime and move its way up the chart. When the radio executives began to realize that there was a hit record hidden in this morbidness, they tried to claim, of all things, that Timothy was really a mule and not a person. This was supposed to somehow make the airing of such a song more palatable to the stations and the listeners. I don't know if that worked or not, but the song did make it up to Number 17 that year. I really can't imagine that saying that they ate a mule was going to make the song anymore happy-go-lucky than if it were a person. Don't get me wrong. Eating a mule is much better than eating your buddy. But when it's in a Top 20 song? It's still freaking weird.

Seriously, what would be your next act after you've had a hit with cannibalism? A polka medley about bestiality? Is K-TEL still around? Are they still producing their 8-track collections of various genres of songs? Hits from the 80s? Things like that? If they are, they need to get on this one right now. They need to come out with "Crap We Used To Listen To - The Seventies". They could have a "Crap We Used To Listen To" for all decades, really. It would be a hit. I'd buy it just for the sheer awfulness of it all.

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