America's musical history has been fortunate enough that there are a multitude of hit songs that, when heard on the radio or iPod, people can immediately identify. This is made easier by the fact that some of the better songs ever made have a catchy intro or opening instrumental that immediately get people's heads nodding, or evoke some nostalgic memory. So here's my subjective top 10 list of the songs you can't help but listen to:
10. "Crazy Train", Black Sabbath
When you hear Ozzie shout, "ALLLL ABOOOOAARRD", I think everyone knows that the "AAI AAI AAI" part is next. 'Nuff said.
9. "Purple Haze", Jimi Hendrix
The catchiest guitar music seems to be the stuff that's simple when you're looking at the tabs but eloquent in its nature, and "Purple Haze" certainly meets those specifications. I know next to nothing about playing the guitar, but Hendrix's talent was so great, that even I knew when I was listening to someone who was a master at their craft.
8. "Smoke on the Water", Deep Purple
I was trying to figure out where to put this song and having some difficulty, because the beginning guitar part is what everyone remembers, but beyond that, not a whole lot else. I was never in a high school band, so it took me until I was 18 to learn that the band's name was Deep Purple and in actual fact, the song itself is pretty freakin' long.
7. "Final Countdown", Europe
You're damn right I went out of my way to put 80s music on this list. Perhaps it was because the lyrics of their songs were so non-substantive that most bands around this time just went for broke on the instrumentals. The go-to song of playoff basketball for two decades.
6. "100 Years", Five for Fighting
I was racking my brain trying to figure out the 21st century's contribution to this list, when this song exploded in my mind. Was it #1 on American Top 40? I'm pretty sure it wasn't, since it's really sappy. But when that piano first starts playing and you don't suffer a wave of nostalgia about SOMETHING, you're a soulless prick.
5. "I Want It That Way", Backstreet Boys
In an era where songs were driven totally by catchiness and not at all by lyrical sophistication, this song reigns supreme. If you assume that half of the United States population is below the age of 35 (or not, I don't care), that's as good as saying that 150 million people know more of the words to this song than they let on. As a straight male, I tried to think of every reason to NOT put this song on the list...and then I realized that I could lip-synch 80% of the words.
4. "Ants Marching", DMB
You sorta have to give Dave the benefit of the doubt with a list like this, as his music helps define an entire generation. Anyone in the 18-30 crowd has been living under a rock if they've never heard this song before and don't know a couple lines from it. I don't even listen to Dave Matthews Band that much anymore, but when those saxophones start playing, nine times out of ten, I'll stop and listen to the song the entire way through.
3. "I Want You Back", Jackson 5
Ahhh, to have a young(er) Michael Jackson again...I'm pretty sure this is the only song on the list that exalts the bass guitar in the opening, because it's the bass-line that everyone remembers in the song, even if the only other part you remember is the chorus.
2. "Sweet Home Alabama", Lynyrd Skynyrd
The opening guitar is good for TV shows, it's good for commercials and its good for movies. I figure something this timeless and marketable can't be anywhere lower than the top 3 and reps a state that at the time was probably better known for its folksy institutional racism.
1. "Billy Jean", Michael Jackson
Of course Michael has to be on this list more than once, we're talking about an artist with a fan base on every continent (I'm assuming scientists in Antarctica love his stuff too). You gotta hand it to this song, the only thing you hear at first is that simple drum beat, but everyone knows what comes next. A true generation gap-bridger.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Movies I Consider Overrated
Sort of on the wings of the Harry Potter post, I'd also like to submit several movies that most people enjoy, which I consider overrated. This could be for any number of reasons such as un-inventive writing, over-reliance on cinematography and/or CGI but the biggest reason is because the filmmakers intentionally preyed upon the American publics' proclivity towards vicarious living. Which brings me to my first and probably most difficult case:
The Boondock Saints
Let me start off by saying I like the Boondock Saints and found it to be an entertaining film from start to finish (especially the protracted erroneous debate about the "rule of thumb" in the beginning). However, I think that people, especially from my generation, treat this movie as the gospel if for no other reason than they like to live vicariously through the two brothers. The main reason this movie is so good is because it touches on some of America's favorite controversial subjects such as vigilante justice, shameless violence, the militancy of the Irish, and Willem Dafoe. Who wouldn't want to go around capping baddies while having Latin inscriptions tattooed on your knuckles? It makes for good film and lets people identify with a gratuitously violent cause that everyone secretly thinks is just. Having said that however, if you take a step back from it, the movie seems intensely narrow in scope and in my opinion ends on a short and absurdly over the top note (i.e. Willem Dafoe going all tranny and the brothers and their pappy shooting the mob boss after saying that hokey "prayer"). So again, I think the Boondock Saints is a good movie, it even straddles the line with being great; but a lot of people think it walks on water and I don't agree.
Fight Club
In a lot of ways, Fight Club relies even more on vicarious living than Boondock Saints because of its commentary on the rat race of corporate America. I'm not gainfully employed as a pencil pusher somewhere, but surely there's a ton of guys with pent-up rage about where they work who would love to curb-stomp their coworkers with no repercussions if they could. Another thing that makes me like this movie is that Brad Pitt turns in a good performance, and by that, I mean he's as believable as a multiple personality can be and he actually has some inflection in his voice while delivering lines. The flip side to this is that I feel the director could have delivered the same stuff without the cinematography being so gritty and over the top (most people would rather not be exposed to a subliminal image of a dude's wang, what sort of symbolism could there be in that?). Not only that, but was there no other way to progress to the great plot twist at the end without the ridiculous idea of turning Fight Club into a terrorist group? I recognize that this is one of the seminal movies at the turn of the 21st century, but I can't help but wonder if people wouldn't view it more critically if not for the sterling performances of Pitt and Norton.
300
As of now, 300 has probably become my favorite movie to claim as overrated, if only because a lot of other people agree with me. This represents the most far-fetched version of vicarious escapism, yet people love it for its hyper-adrenaline, testosterone-infused look and feel. 300 is one of two movies on this list which I genuinely dislike on the whole for a few reasons. First of all is my own personal bias: I like my war movies to be epic in scope, with sicknasty but REALISTIC fighting even down to the first-person shaky camera cinematography from Saving Private Ryan. Therefore, it's easy to gauge my distaste for this movie, because 300 didn't really hit on any of this criteria. Everything was shot so close up and in slow motion to the point where it looked like Leonidas versus twenty guys instead of the three hundred Spartans versus the hundreds of thousands of Persians. Moreover, I thought the dialog was stilted and at times idiotic (the narrator started to annoy me after a while), good for a few sound bytes, but not much else. I liked Sin City, and I feel like dark comics such as that are where Frank Miller should stay, not in what could have been the most badass movie since Gladiator.
Crash
And finally, the movie I really, REALLY don't like, to the point where I'd say it was the biggest steaming piece of shit to ever win Best Picture. Prior to actually watching Crash, I'll admit I was sucked into the rave reviews of my (white) peers, who told me to go out and watch the movie all in one sitting, ASAP. Well I did, and looking back on it, I probably should have taken a break between each contrived subplot to go get too drunk to taste this chicken, because it would've made for a more enjoyable experience. There's really no good place to start with Crash, because I hated all of it, but just for schnitzengiggles, let's begin with the fact that they had to compile an all-star cast just to get their sanctimonious point across. Nothing informs me more about race relations in America than a painful argument between Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock after Ludacris has just jacked their car. And might I add that if not for Ryan Phillippe, I never would have understood the endemic corruption and brutality of America's police departments. I personally resent the fact that they had to collect these A-listers to really drive home their all too obvious points on race in the United States (i.e. you better believe what this movie has to say, because Don Cheadle is an articulate black actor, so....yeah). It speaks volumes about American culture that a (substandard) movie had to come along in order to kick-start national dialogue about how Americans of different ethnicities interact with each other. I'm not too sure, but I think what the point of the movie was is that people of different races don't always get along, but in the end what unites us is our humanity and empathy. What? You mean I didn't have to spend two hours and millions of dollars just to say all that? Get out of town.
The Boondock Saints
Let me start off by saying I like the Boondock Saints and found it to be an entertaining film from start to finish (especially the protracted erroneous debate about the "rule of thumb" in the beginning). However, I think that people, especially from my generation, treat this movie as the gospel if for no other reason than they like to live vicariously through the two brothers. The main reason this movie is so good is because it touches on some of America's favorite controversial subjects such as vigilante justice, shameless violence, the militancy of the Irish, and Willem Dafoe. Who wouldn't want to go around capping baddies while having Latin inscriptions tattooed on your knuckles? It makes for good film and lets people identify with a gratuitously violent cause that everyone secretly thinks is just. Having said that however, if you take a step back from it, the movie seems intensely narrow in scope and in my opinion ends on a short and absurdly over the top note (i.e. Willem Dafoe going all tranny and the brothers and their pappy shooting the mob boss after saying that hokey "prayer"). So again, I think the Boondock Saints is a good movie, it even straddles the line with being great; but a lot of people think it walks on water and I don't agree.
Fight Club
In a lot of ways, Fight Club relies even more on vicarious living than Boondock Saints because of its commentary on the rat race of corporate America. I'm not gainfully employed as a pencil pusher somewhere, but surely there's a ton of guys with pent-up rage about where they work who would love to curb-stomp their coworkers with no repercussions if they could. Another thing that makes me like this movie is that Brad Pitt turns in a good performance, and by that, I mean he's as believable as a multiple personality can be and he actually has some inflection in his voice while delivering lines. The flip side to this is that I feel the director could have delivered the same stuff without the cinematography being so gritty and over the top (most people would rather not be exposed to a subliminal image of a dude's wang, what sort of symbolism could there be in that?). Not only that, but was there no other way to progress to the great plot twist at the end without the ridiculous idea of turning Fight Club into a terrorist group? I recognize that this is one of the seminal movies at the turn of the 21st century, but I can't help but wonder if people wouldn't view it more critically if not for the sterling performances of Pitt and Norton.
300
As of now, 300 has probably become my favorite movie to claim as overrated, if only because a lot of other people agree with me. This represents the most far-fetched version of vicarious escapism, yet people love it for its hyper-adrenaline, testosterone-infused look and feel. 300 is one of two movies on this list which I genuinely dislike on the whole for a few reasons. First of all is my own personal bias: I like my war movies to be epic in scope, with sicknasty but REALISTIC fighting even down to the first-person shaky camera cinematography from Saving Private Ryan. Therefore, it's easy to gauge my distaste for this movie, because 300 didn't really hit on any of this criteria. Everything was shot so close up and in slow motion to the point where it looked like Leonidas versus twenty guys instead of the three hundred Spartans versus the hundreds of thousands of Persians. Moreover, I thought the dialog was stilted and at times idiotic (the narrator started to annoy me after a while), good for a few sound bytes, but not much else. I liked Sin City, and I feel like dark comics such as that are where Frank Miller should stay, not in what could have been the most badass movie since Gladiator.
Crash
And finally, the movie I really, REALLY don't like, to the point where I'd say it was the biggest steaming piece of shit to ever win Best Picture. Prior to actually watching Crash, I'll admit I was sucked into the rave reviews of my (white) peers, who told me to go out and watch the movie all in one sitting, ASAP. Well I did, and looking back on it, I probably should have taken a break between each contrived subplot to go get too drunk to taste this chicken, because it would've made for a more enjoyable experience. There's really no good place to start with Crash, because I hated all of it, but just for schnitzengiggles, let's begin with the fact that they had to compile an all-star cast just to get their sanctimonious point across. Nothing informs me more about race relations in America than a painful argument between Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock after Ludacris has just jacked their car. And might I add that if not for Ryan Phillippe, I never would have understood the endemic corruption and brutality of America's police departments. I personally resent the fact that they had to collect these A-listers to really drive home their all too obvious points on race in the United States (i.e. you better believe what this movie has to say, because Don Cheadle is an articulate black actor, so....yeah). It speaks volumes about American culture that a (substandard) movie had to come along in order to kick-start national dialogue about how Americans of different ethnicities interact with each other. I'm not too sure, but I think what the point of the movie was is that people of different races don't always get along, but in the end what unites us is our humanity and empathy. What? You mean I didn't have to spend two hours and millions of dollars just to say all that? Get out of town.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Harry Potter Makes Me Sad
Nothing will have a better chance of making me shit myself later in life than if people end up regarding J.K. Rowling as one of the greatest authors of the 20th/21st century. I recently had a protracted debate about the legitimacy and general merit of the Harry Potter series where I obviously took the anti-Potter perspective purely in the context that I believe she should not be exalted to the point that she is today. This is not meant to be some mean-spirited libelous attack on Ms. Rowling, she happens to have created and continues to support many charitable causes (don't believe me? Wikipedia it.) What this is meant to do is provide a dose of realism and a different perspective on the legacy of the Harry Potter series so that hopefully twenty years from now people won't speak of Rowling and someone like Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton in the same breath.
The first argument that a lot of people give me about the Harry Potter series is "at least it's getting people to read". I used to buy into this argument as well until I realized it isn't the best idea to accept the bare minimum in terms of intellectual pursuits. I've tried to read Harry Potter, and while it does not particularly agree with me, I can see how people use it as a source of harmless escapism, which is fine and good perhaps if you're still in middle school. First and foremost, it's probably a safe bet that there are scores of fantasy writers out there who are at least as good at writing a story as Rowling, yet because there is no hype machine behind them, they're doomed to languish on the shelves. To be honest, I barely view the Harry Potter series as a step up from those anime graphic novels that people read: entertaining, but surely more worthwhile books are out there that will help you intellectually as well. To my mind, no children's author has surpassed Roald Dahl, yet his estate is not worth more than a billion dollars and Rowling's is; I can only attribute this to the fact that the Harry Potter series is more irrepressible fad than truly substantive literature.
My perspective on the issue is grounded primarily in the idea that reading something, especially when you are young should expand your mind and open you up to new literary horizons. Essentially, you need to get something meaningful out of what you're reading in order to validate your time. When I was younger, I read Calvin and Hobbes comics because in addition to being funny, I deeply identified with Bill Watterson's perspective on life. When I was in middle school, I got my jollies out with science fiction as a bridge to adult fiction from preeminent authors such as Clancy, Grisham and James Clavell. The point here is that after a while, science fiction and fantasy became a phase in the reading I had done, and the best of these books I might take out occasionally to glance over for bathroom reading, but after a point I knew I had to make my way down to the Politics and Government section at Barnes and Noble as well.
Whether due to pervasive anti-intellectualism in American culture (think about it, how many Facebook friends that you have don't like to read?) or the fickle tendency of people to not look beyond the author de jure, the Harry Potter series has become a critical success while entire bookstores across America close. I am not saying that J.K. Rowling does not deserve the success she has had, millions of people can't be wrong; I am saying however, that with the multitude of other competent writers out there, she has been TOO successful. Perhaps if people are willing to wait hours for Harry Potter books, they should also make sure to buy another book from anywhere but the Cooking section; that's how I personally have found the best and most meaningful books I have ever read.
The first argument that a lot of people give me about the Harry Potter series is "at least it's getting people to read". I used to buy into this argument as well until I realized it isn't the best idea to accept the bare minimum in terms of intellectual pursuits. I've tried to read Harry Potter, and while it does not particularly agree with me, I can see how people use it as a source of harmless escapism, which is fine and good perhaps if you're still in middle school. First and foremost, it's probably a safe bet that there are scores of fantasy writers out there who are at least as good at writing a story as Rowling, yet because there is no hype machine behind them, they're doomed to languish on the shelves. To be honest, I barely view the Harry Potter series as a step up from those anime graphic novels that people read: entertaining, but surely more worthwhile books are out there that will help you intellectually as well. To my mind, no children's author has surpassed Roald Dahl, yet his estate is not worth more than a billion dollars and Rowling's is; I can only attribute this to the fact that the Harry Potter series is more irrepressible fad than truly substantive literature.
My perspective on the issue is grounded primarily in the idea that reading something, especially when you are young should expand your mind and open you up to new literary horizons. Essentially, you need to get something meaningful out of what you're reading in order to validate your time. When I was younger, I read Calvin and Hobbes comics because in addition to being funny, I deeply identified with Bill Watterson's perspective on life. When I was in middle school, I got my jollies out with science fiction as a bridge to adult fiction from preeminent authors such as Clancy, Grisham and James Clavell. The point here is that after a while, science fiction and fantasy became a phase in the reading I had done, and the best of these books I might take out occasionally to glance over for bathroom reading, but after a point I knew I had to make my way down to the Politics and Government section at Barnes and Noble as well.
Whether due to pervasive anti-intellectualism in American culture (think about it, how many Facebook friends that you have don't like to read?) or the fickle tendency of people to not look beyond the author de jure, the Harry Potter series has become a critical success while entire bookstores across America close. I am not saying that J.K. Rowling does not deserve the success she has had, millions of people can't be wrong; I am saying however, that with the multitude of other competent writers out there, she has been TOO successful. Perhaps if people are willing to wait hours for Harry Potter books, they should also make sure to buy another book from anywhere but the Cooking section; that's how I personally have found the best and most meaningful books I have ever read.
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