Current music - I can fart you an earworm
I watched MTV or Rage or whatever the music program was on the TV the other morning and there was some skinny blond twiglet singing a line ad nauseum till it sat in my head like an ‘ohrwurm‘ (English translation ‘earworm’…the experience when something goes round and round your head like a broken record).
Then the next ‘big thing’ came on the screen and behold,… yes… another skinny blond twiglet singing another earworm at me. I was caught between sadness for the dead mainstream music industry and the humor of seeing the poor ‘toy like’ supposed male eye candy miming guitar strums in the background in their 90 seconds of fame. It was like the role female models once had as Robert Palmer’s ‘props’ in the track ‘Addicted to Love’ except now these castrated Ken dolls were reduced to the prop status the anorexic blond twiglets and pouty brunettes once had fifteen years ago.
Wow, … am I meant to be impressed and wave a flag of ‘girl power’? I’m not. I don’t do reverse prejudice or misandrist (man hating, or man-demeaning) supremist crud very well. I’m one of those deluded individuals who actually believes we could all look across at each other and not just up at or down upon each other. And sure, I can take a joke, but as the third skinny blond twiglet arrived in song three and sang me another depthless, shallow earworm, I had more headache than humor.
I turned the TV off. And guess what? Yep, the earworm, which was literally the words ‘blah blah blah’ (seriously) went round and round my head. And it occured to me that brainwashed fifteen year old boys and girls probably went out and ripped off that track from an internet site somewhere because they thought that having an annoying earworm was the same thing as ‘liking a track’ or ‘hearing a good hook’. But a musical ‘hook’ is more than an earworm. A hook is something not just ‘catchy’ but CREATIVE , INNOVATIVE, often moving or inspiring. A musical hook is ARTISTIC. I could make rhythmic fart noises for 120 seconds and it’d still give them an earworm but let me tell you, there’s no lyrical depth there, no art, just fart.
Amazing though what the production line music bosses in the mainstream music industry get away with. They can show Barbie with sing La, Lee, Lo on three songs with her hair parted a different way for each track and a slightly different outfit and those who have had no introduction to musical diversity will actually believe this is interesting as long as all the other brainwashed sheep ba-aa along with the idea. Nobody wants to say ‘buddy, that emperor has no clothes on’. Seriously, they did psychology studies on this, people actually work this way. And the mainstream music industry may complain their mass production substanceless output is being ripped off now and then but they are producing this stuff from queues of lip syncing models and their pockets and egos ain’t empty yet. As for me, I have no desire whatsoever to rip of anything from the internet, especially music. If I hear quality music, I actually want to honour the artist and pay for it. That’s part of my relationship with that artist and without that how can I feel I respect him or her? And with sites like www.cdbaby.com showcasing affordable, diverse, quality, innovative artists with original works at affordable prices, I really don’t care if I leave the MTV and Rage turned off forever.
I hear a drop of rain on my roof and its setting off an earworm. Lucky for me nobody’s waiting to cash in on it.
… Donna Williams *)
author, artist, songwriter.
Love your words about earworms.
I can usually distinguish between a good track and an earworm.
Ben Lee’s We’re all in this together is a good track, and so is The Cat Empire. We had a lot of them during the Commonwealth Games. So are any of John Farnham’s albums.
What was the first pop music that captured you as pop music? A lot of Generation Y really respects the pop music that went on during your teens and twenties.
Oh goodness, now I’m really gonna dag you all out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag
I’m a complete dag when it comes to music. I lack the conformity gene, I’m sure. So I love classical music, Andrea Bocelli, Edith Piaf, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong - folks with passion and you can hear it. They could sing a commercial for toilet rolls and I’d be moved.
OK, so, pop music… wow, well I was born in the 60s and one of the songs I adored was Mel Carter’s Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me. I was about three and its got incredible crescendos. It’s really classical music morphed into pop. And Petula Clark’s ‘Don’t Sleep in The Subway’, Lulu’s ‘To Sir With Love’ and ‘Oh me, oh my’ and The Platters. Fat’s Domino could cheer me out of any hole and Chuck Berry, Little Richard.
Then 70s glam’s Suzi Quattro’s ‘Devil Gate Drive’, The Sweet’s ‘Peppermint Twist’ and their comeback with ‘Ballroom Blitz’, as well as Alice Cooper’s ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ (meant a lot in my teens when I was living one!), and Abba, Abba, and did I mention Abba? And Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ album…I must have worn through that record I played it so much. Then ELO debut and Supertramp’s ‘Breakfast In America’ album.
By the 80’s Adam Ant and Devo, Robert Palmer, Boy George (and there’s a man who doesn’t hide his passions - ‘Victims’ is stunning), Pet Shop Boys, Wet Wet Wet, The Cars and Racy. I was too poor to buy albums though
By the 90s the corporations had killed live music, and rap held some promise till it was co-opted, commercialised, packaged and every one of them sang the same broken record 2D emotional imagery as if life was always a bitch and you’d swear these guys needed a damned big rib tickle to cheer em up because that production line tough-guy scowl was looking almost plastered on. We now had models (did underwear modelling stop hiring?) lip syncing and feigning soft porn trying to pass it off as emotional passion (well they essentially had no lyrics, so what was left) and the wonderful diversity of singers and vastly different competing musical movements was gone. Now we have maybe four at any one time ‘lullaby boy’, ‘bravado boy’, ‘lullaby girl’, ‘porn girl’… that’s it. The mainstream seems like a musical desert.
Yes, you are totally right, today bands like Cat Empire and Green Day do give some hope and Farnham has always produced very hooky songs.
http://www.donnawilliams.net
Aretha Franklin! Gimme a lil RESPECT! omg……I love that song. Chuck Berry is good…………and sundry others. Doris Day, Edith Piaf (if you’ve heard the song Je ne regrette rien, it means I regret nothing) if you like the Platters, you might like the Drifters. Oh yeah, before I forget, Frank Sinatra. I guess I am a music dag too! but what I am REALLY. REALLY dagged out about is meteorology, the study of weather. I might try and find a spot on the blog for some blah about the weather……….blah is a great little expression…………..
blah blah blah blah!
hehe
AI
meteorology….
if we studied carnivores, would this also be meaty-orology?
Hi Donna,
What a subject area. I missed this one much earlier.
One of the first bands I was into was ABBA, thanks to a box set that my parents still have. I used to listen to it several times when I was at my most autie.
My favourite music from the ’60’s are by The Beatles and the Beach Boys. Most of my favourite music comes from the ’70’s and ’80’s. I too am a big fan of Supertramp (having nearly all their albums), ELO (a logical progression from the Beatles - for myself - and in lead vocalist Jeff Lynne’s terms) and I like the Pet Shop Boys (Actually is my favourite album of theirs).
I also like electronic music such as Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Gary Numan.
Stuart Vallantine,
Travelling Poet and Supertramp fan.