Smash Hits used to be cutting-edge, including a free condom with each edition

Let me take you back to your childhood (cue horrendous memories of shellsuits, Michael Barrymore, novelty board games and – if you’re lucky – images of the twins from Pat Sharp’s Fun House). Chances are that Sunday nights meant sitting in your room with a shitty tape recorder listening to the top 40, index finger cocked, ready to punch record when your favourite song was played. If not, you must have been one of those losers who watched Heartbeart, which attracts an even greater level of social stigma. While sounding easy enough, taping tracks from the radio was a tricky business and the success or otherwise of each Sunday night depended on a keen appreciation of timing, and a good element of chance. More often than not, panic would set in and I would press record too early, thereby taping ten seconds of jingles and high octane introductions, before getting to the goods. If done while the countdown was still in the thirties, the pressure would build for the rest of the show and by the time I was in the top five, I’d be a nervous wreck, pressing multiple buttons every few seconds with no concept or understanding of what the hell I was trying to achieve.

This nostalgic trip down memory lane was prompted by Sting’s recent verbal barrage against reality TV juggernaut, The X Factor. In some shameless PR rant to coincide with the release of yet another piss-poor album, the tantric shagger branded The X Factor “a preposterous show” that has “put music back decades.” While he was right on many levels (and simply repeating what any half-intelligent being already knew), Sting’s claim that The X Factor has put music back decades was intriguing, as it implied that popular music was once in rude health. My gut reaction was to think that the charts in my time were pretty good; however a sustained period of recollection allied with some research informed me otherwise.

Below is a list with video links to some of the most shameful singles of all time, largely derived from my youth, and also from more recent times. I’ve deliberately stayed away from some of the more obvious choices, for example La Macarena, the Crazy Frog, anything by Meatloaf/Bryan Adams, as mere references to those songs/”artists” bring me out in a cold sweat.

10. Blazin’ Squad – Flip Reverse

For those unfamiliar with this seminal UK band, Blazin’ Squad (we’re dropping the ‘g’ ‘cos we’re FUCKING hard) were a collection of ugly, horny chavs who sung about shagging. Key to their appeal was hair product, derivative crutch-grabbing and over-sized T-shirts. Against all odds and despite widespread derision, they sold some records including the horrific Flip Reverse, before one of them appeared on Big Brother and lived out his life’s ambition – shagging Jodie Marsh.

9. Scatman John – Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)

Imagine a world where the only things that exist are you, Scatman John, a desert island, a CD player and a copy of the Scatman. To make things worse, let’s assume that you accidentally killed Scatman John’s wife in a fishing accident, so he doesn’t like you very much. Overtaken by rage, Scatman John decides that he’s going to torture you. Rather than conventional torture, the wily Scatman adopts a long game and ties you to the only tree on the island, puts the Scatman on loop and leaves it tantalisingly close, but ultimately away from your feet, forcing you to listen to this utter cack until you draw your last breath.

8 Lisa Maffia – All Over

The self-named “First Lady of garage” and So Solid Crew member managed to creep into the top 15 with this tale of Crystal popping club action, featuring the extraordinary lyrics “if you no cook you get no dinner” (what about restaurants?) and “ladies in the club shake your booty like dice” (is it possible to dislocate your own buttocks?). The video remains one of the most amusing things I’ve ever seen, largely because of the joker with the Burberry visor who screams “tiiiiiight!” and “diiiiiiice!” at the chorus, and the little kid at 3:58 who dances like an out-of-control epileptic. Gold.

7. The Rednex – Cotton Eye Joe

Words fail to do justice to this musical aberration, where a bunch of pissed hicks bang some drums, massacre a violin and sing the same two lines over and over again. It transpires from a bit of internet research that “The Rednex” were in fact a Swedish techno band (featuring a member called “Ace Ratclaw”), which makes one wonder how such a racist piece of work ever got into production. This view is compounded by the video, which features long-haired peasants with no teeth, a bird in a bikini riding a motorised bull and a wooden sign saying “horses outside”. Most alarmingly, the band is still going, with an eagerly anticipated new album – Saturday Night Beaver – due for imminent release in no stores near you. If you’re blind deaf and dumb and like Cotton Eye Joe, have a listen to their follow-up, Old Pop In An Oak, which doesn’t feature drums or a violin and definitely doesn’t sound anything like Cotton Eye Joe. Honest.

6. Romeo Dunn feat. Christina Milian – Its All Gravy

The second UK garage sensaaaaaation on the list. Like Ms Maffia, Romeo Dunn is So Solid Crew alumni, spitting one of my favourite comedy lyrics (“two multiplied by ten plus one, Romeo Dunn”) in breakthrough song 21 Seconds. While 21 Seconds was fresh and not unpleasurable, this duet with American grinder Christiana Milian is unadulterated toilet; the kind of depressing by-numbers R&B fodder that populated MTV and the airwaves at the start of the millennium. When I first heard the title, I thought the song was a ripping yarn about Romeo’s failure to buy chicken for a Sunday roast. Having read the nonsensical lyrics, it still could be. The video sees Romeo wearing a ghastly array of jackets before resorting to type and getting his six pack out. According to Wiki, Romeo’s second album, announced for release in 2008 “has not materialised”. Shame.

Part II to follow…

Last night I stayed over at my friends house and listened to music and chatted watched Sex and the City, girly stuff  you know lol. I fell in love with this song, it’s so fun! and the music video is quite entertaining. lol

Happy Veterans day!

XO N

Let’s face it, no one wants to be the number one advocate for auto-tune. The audio processing technology has been correcting pitch and degrading the true artistic capabilities of performers for years now. Some artists use it in concert as a safety net, while others crutch their entire career on the pop culture gimmick.

But auto-tune, has brought a few very interesting tunes to the web. Tunes, that were actually never meant to be tunes in the first place. Everything from Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech to CSPAN’s coverage of climate change has been converted into beautiful, in-tune songs with the use of auto-tune. One of the more recent auto-tune videos jumping in popularity is the Billy Mays “Auto-Tune Infomercial Ballad” and I can’t forget to mention that it features the also-deceased Scatman. Definitely worth a listen:

From the grave Billy Mays has just “one-upped” all the other television direct-response salespeople, again. Take that Sham-wow guy!

Access to affordable health insurance for everyone and 41 essential oils that eliminate the worst odors? What could be more important. Maybe having a message about the 47 million uninsured in auto-tune will get the message across to the folks on Capitol Hill!

RIP Mr. Mays and Mr. Scatman!

OMG, I just (re)discovered this song and its video!

The Scatman… I never knew what the title of the song was, nor who sang it. All these year of oblivious listening… And now I present to you Scatman John.

Scatman smiling at... Your mom.

John Paul Larkin, as he normally goes by, is a musician who sadly departed from this world in 1999, succumbing to lung cancer. Surprisingly, although he seemed to be a one-hit wonder, he had 3 commercially-released albums.

Now here’s another video from yesteryear’s “Crazyfrog”:

You will be missed, Scatman John… a decade into your death.

So, last year I made up a fun little, “let’s kill time” game.  The rules:  You must go to youtube.com and type in any artist/song THEN type the words “anime” and “music video” after it.  I had forgotten all about it until a few nights ago when I introduced it to Cole.  We were able to kill a good couple of hours with it; however, the ‘couple of hours’ took place after 2 am… is that a good thing?  I don’t know.  Back to the game.

So you can’t put a song that is too obscure or else it isn’t that fun anymore.  So far, there were only a couple of songs that we couldn’t find videos for — the one I remember being Achy Breaky Heart.  Now the only explanation that I can think of for this phenomena would be that the song sucks so much ass, that even the nerdiest of the anime nerd doesn’t want to listen to it long enough to throw a bunch of clips together.  This is a challenge going out to anyone reading this : make me an anime video to the song Achy Breaky Heart.  It can be as crappy as possible, I don’t care… I just want to know that its out there waiting to be watched. (You are probably thinking, “why not just do it yourself?” Well, I don’t want to listen to it either.)

So doing this little activity really reminded me just how much the anime-obsessed really get on my nerves.  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against those who watch it recreationally -  a few movies here and there and the occasional few TV shows that you watch but tell your friends that you “only watch them because the plotlines are so good.” Hey, I know where your coming from; I watched Teen Titans. (I only watched it for the good plotlines — I promise!)  Yeah, that is fine.  Hell, even read some manga if you wish… (but if I catch you jerking it to that hentai crap then we are going to have to talk…)  It is those culture-obsessed, cat ear wearing, geeks that make the music videos that I love making fun of so much.  I mean, comeon, how can someone not find you annoying if you are in your room with a boner while you compile a music video of Dragonball Z clips to Scatman.

But hey, before you bring it up, to whoever makes me the Billy Ray Cyrus MV, I won’t judge you.

(Disclaimer:  This blog post is not meant to offend anyone… and I don’t own Scatman….)

In my next blog I will hopefully post up the pictures that I have on my phone of the South Austin pedophilic ice cream truck that keeps driving around my ‘hood.

]]> http://ablogwithanattitude.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/sunt-acele-melodii-care/ Sun, 13 Sep 2009 12:10:00 +0000 Ioana http://ablogwithanattitude.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/sunt-acele-melodii-care/

• iti fac pielea de gaina.
• te pun in garda inca de la primul sunet, pentru ca ti le amintesti, desi nu mai stii exact de unde.
• te incanta, cand te gandesti ca oricare din ele ar putea fi prima pe care ai ascultat-o in viata ta.
• mereu vor avea loc in inima ta, pentru ca au “crescut” odata cu tine. Pe ele ai invatat sa dansezi.
• aveau videoclipuri tare aiurea, dar asta nu interesa, pentru ca aduceau valoare in muzica.

Spor la ascultat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpHLEm9-0bg

Avec un peu plus de 26 000 gkoot (sur gkoot.com), vous avez sûrement du déjà écouter ce groupe très prometteur ! Nous avions envie de vous faire découvrir un peu plus leur univers…

Comment le groupe « COLORSPAT » est né, votre rencontre ?

John et moi étions étudiants à Toulouse et vivions dans le même campus lors de notre rencontre. Ce qui a engagé la conversation entre nous, c’est que nous étions tous les deux originaires de la côte d’azur… Très vite on s’est rendu compte de notre intérêt commun pour la musique électronique façon Justice, Surkin, Yuksek, enfin toute cette famille d’artistes montants, dans la lignée des Daft Punk.
Avant de lancer COLORSPAT, j’étais DJ et John mixait chez lui pour le plaisir. Puis un jour on a organisé une soirée qui a réuni environ 200 personnes de notre campus, et on a mixé à deux pour la première fois. Suite au succès de la soirée, on a décidé de s’associer. Peu de temps après, on a créé notre premier morceau, un remix de “Scatman John – Scatman” sous le nom et les couleurs de COLORSPAT . (sourire)

Pourquoi un univers si coloré ?

Et bien toute cette couleur c’est pour représenter la fête, la jeunesse et une sorte de trash attitude version bonbon !

Avez-vous des nouveaux titres de prévus, des collaborations ?

Actuellement on travaille sur la finition d’une prod’ déjantée aux paroles… incompréhensibles ! (rires) On est plutôt du genre perfectionniste, donc on ne sortira rien officiellement tant qu’on aura pas le sentiment que le travail est bel et bien terminé. C’est également ce côté perfectionniste qui fait que nous ne sommes actuellement sur aucun label. Nous ne nous considérons pas encore assez “bons” pour signer nos productions. Nous avons du temps pour progresser devant nous, alors nous ne nous précipitons pas sur les premières propositions.
En ce qui concerne les collaborations, nous avons une liste assez conséquente de projets, mais il va falloir que l’on fasse des choix car malgré notre volonté, tout ne sera pas réalisable dans l’absolu.

Qu’es ce que Gkoot vous a apporté ?

Gkoot, pour nous, c’est un moyen de partager notre passion, de découvrir de nouveaux artistes, tout en nous faisant connaître. En avril dernier, on a été sélectionné par le fameux magazine Onlyfordj grâce à Gkoot, et notre titre “Fucking cat” a été désigné N°1 de la sélection “Onlyfordj’s Top 10″, ce qui est très gratifiant pour nous !
En résumé nous pensons que ce site peut être un réel tremplin pour les jeunes artistes comme nous. (sourire)

>>Merci Dorian d’avoir répondu à ces quelques questions. COLORSPAT , un groupe à suivre de près. Retrouvez leurs titres « Fucking Cat! , Rocking Again, From a Dream (live 2009)… “ en écoute et téléchargement légal et gratuit sur www.gkoot.com

Do you know 「ウルトラマン」 (Ultraman), probably Japan’s most famous super-hero?

I wrote a post about him last March. Click here to read it.

How about “Scatman John“? Do you know who he was?
He was an American musician who became internationally famous for his hit song “Scatman” in 1994.
He died, though, only five years later.

Like numerous other musicians, including The Stray Cats, The Ventures, and Deep Purple…Scatman John was more popular in Japan than anywhere else in the world.

When Japanese people are fans of something, they are extremely loyal.

At the height of his popularity here (in Japan), there were Scatman John toys and he even recorded a couple of songs for the Japanese TV commercials titled 「プリプリ・スキャット」 (“Puri Puri Scat“) and 「Su-Su-Su-Super キ・レ・イ」 (“Su-Su-Su-Super Ki-re-i“).

I remember when his songs 「Su-Su-Su-Super キ・レ・イ」 (“Su-Su-Su-Super Ki-re-i“) and 「プリプリ・スキャット」 (“Puri Puri Scat“) were on TV many times about 13 years ago.

「プリプリ・スキャット」 (“Puri Puri Scat“) was for a pudding TV commercial, and 「Su-Su-Su-Super キ・レ・イ」 (“Su-Su-Su-Super Ki-re-i“) was for a make-up commercial (the name means “Su-su-su-super pretty”).

Here’s his video for 「Su-Su-Su-Super キ・レ・イ」 (“Su-Su-Su-Super Ki-re-i“):

The reason I mentioned 「ウルトラマン」 (Ultraman) at the top of this post…and this post is titled 「スキャット・ウルトラマン」 (Scat-Ultraman) is because at the height of Scatman John’s popularity in Japan, a song and video titled 「スキャット・ウルトラマン」 (Scat-Ultraman) was recorded which featured Ultraman and monsters from the show.

Here it is:

Scatman + Ultraman = ScatUltraman!

Stuttering is a problem that many people deal with, yet its something that shows up again and again in popular songs.  What is it about stuttering that makes it useful for songs and that people seem to like it?  Is it the repetition of a sound in a certain way?

Here’s a list of a few.  If you have more please comment. 

Lady Gaga Paparazzi  poker face  eh eh nothing else I can say 

Rihanna Umbrella

Jeremiah  Birthday Sex

And of course there’s Scatman by Scatman John who says in the song that

(Scatting by Scatman John)

Everybody stuttersone way or the other
So check out my message to you.
As a matter of fact don’t let nothin’ hold you back.
If the Scatman can do it so can you.

Everybody’s sayin’ that the Scatman stutters
But doesn’t ever stutter when he sings.
But what you don’t know I’m gonna tell you right now
That the stutter and the scat is the same thing.
Yo I’m the Scatman.

In 1965 the BBC refused to play The Who’s “My Generation”, saying they did not want to offend people who stuttered. When the song became a huge hit, the broadcaster relented and added it to their play list.

Seems that people like stuttering in songs, but not in speech.  What do you think about this?

Kagehime

An update, I think, to pass the time between my spate of Apprentice commentaries. I’ve been working on some longer posts, but until I get a bit more time, I’m finding it’s been difficult to finish them.

Well, lets turn to musical matters, first of all: I’m very much enjoying Kingdom of Rust, the April released album from Doves. It’s not a perfect mix, but there are enough highlights that keep you going: Jetstream is a great opener (and currently my favourite exercise track on my shuffle), 10.03 takes things a little slower but no less enjoyably, and also worth noting, if you’re planning on only downloading a few songs, are The Greatest Denier and the eponymous single. There’s a very Elbow-ish feel to the whole affair, so if you liked The Seldom Seen Kid, you know where to look.

Also on my tracklist are a mix of songs that have been hanging around for a while: The Wanting Comes in Waves is still there, but so are the likes of Woods by Bon Iver, which, I don’t think I mentioned here, probably won’t be passed this year in terms of quality. Slightly newer are Bat For Lashes hits Glass and Daniel, which are worth a look.

Meanwhile, if you’re at all interested in adventures on the internet, check out the best from the past year here. I found this, there, and was not disappointed. A simple idea, perhaps, to take 1000 ordinary awesome things and write a blog about them. The guy that does it, though, manages to capture the perfect tone such that, even when writing about a very sad personal loss, you can’t help feel moved and yet uplifted.

And If you still need cheering up, try this.

Semesterbeginn heute tatsächlich mit viel Tamtam und noch viel mehr heisser Luft: Der Werkleiter vom hiesigen Daimler-Werk sülzt am Rednerpult und begiesst die nervösen Erstsemestrigen mit viel dickem Schleim. Er freue sich ausserordentlich, so lächelt er schal, hier zu sein. Gerade in diesen nun wahrlich stürmischen Zeiten. Ob er zwei Stunden später vor seiner Betriebsvollversammlung immer noch so sülzt, wenn er Stellenkürzungen und Sparmassnahmen verkündet?
Auf ihn folgt ein Studentenvertreter der schneller spricht als Scatman John – ihr erinnert euch. Ein wahres Maschinengewehr, dass über die eingeschüchterten Grünschnäbel hingwegfegt und viel verstörte Gesichter hinterlässt. Die Veranstaltung  zum Semesterstart ist allerdings spassig, es gibt Schampus und Bratwürste, Hostessen verteilen Redbull aus umgehängten Dosen in Übergrösse und ich wähne mich schon bald an der Züspa, auf jeden Fall hatte ich seit der Berufswahlmesse anno ‘98 – 3 Jahre nach Scatman’s World – nicht mehr so viel Papier, Broschüren und Werbegeschenklein in der Hand. Dass die Fachhochschule seit dem heutigen Tage das beschämende “Fach” weglassen darf und sich eine Hochschule nennen darf, tut dem Stolz der neuen Studenten und sichtlich dem Befinden der Vorsitzenden dieser Bildungseinrichtung gut. Die Seitenhiebe gegen die angeblich schlecht organisierten Universitäten zeugen jedenfalls von einem angekratzten Selbstvertrauen, dass es zu heilen gilt. Ein Namenswechsel ist ja immerhin mal ein Anfang.

Ein bisschen irritiert stelle ich fest, dass die “Neuen” im Studiengang Kommunikation alle etwa in meinem Alter sind. Und ich bin ja durchaus kein Frühstarter, was das Studieren anbelangt. Dann erfahre ich, dass es hier in Berlin für Kommunikation  anscheinend Numerus Clausus gibt. Zwei Wörter, die alle Fast-Studenten erstarren lassen! Entweder man bringt eine 1,5 mit oder man wartet 13! Semester auf die Zulassung. Das kann ja heiter werden!

Ich geniesse die Sonne auf dem Campus, es ist sommerlich warm. Wenns so weitergeht, wie der Spass hier anfängt, dann kommt das richtig gut mit mir und Berlin.

Y sigo de nostálgico…

El otro día que fui a una fiesta, me di cuenta que sólo los que estamos cercanos a los 30 o que ya están en eso, le damos su justo valor a estos bodrios de canciones de los 90 y, por lo tanto, las bailamos. He aquí unos ejemplos:

Roula – Lick it

Gillette – short short man

Scatman John – Scatman (¿ya vieron que es igualito al comediante Teo González?)

Real McCoy – Another night

La Bouche – Be my lover

Haddaway – what is love?

2 unlimited – no limits

Culture Beat – Mr. Vain

Snap – rhythm is a dancer

Whigfield – saturday night (di ri ra ra rá?)

Se dico di pensare al film “Selvaggi” che canzone vi viene in mente?

E’ triste pensare che per la stragrande maggioranza delle persone questa canzone sia solo questo, quando invece è il cavallo di battaglia di uno dei più particolari interpreti del panorama Dance.

Un uomo che ha vissuto per la musica, uno che ha passato anni a girare il mondo suonando musica Jazz fino ad arrivare a Berlino dove per la prima volta affrontò una sua grandissima paura…cantare. Infatti John Paul Larkin, così si chiamava, aveva problemi a cantare a causa della sua balbuzie, ma fu proprio questa che lo rese famoso a livello internazionale trasformandolo in Scatman John.

Nell’ormai lontano 1994 decise di fondere la sua appena nata dote nello Scat, tecnica di canto jazz usata specialmente per l’improvvisazione vocale, con la corrente che stava andando di moda in quegli anni in Germania. Così nacque la canzone “Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)” in cui Larkin espose il suo problema di comunicare come tentativo di convincere i bambini balbuzienti a superare la loro difficoltà di relazione. Questo brano portò Larkin, ormai diventato Scatman John, al successo in tutto il mondo e nessun’altra sua canzone riuscì a raggiungere quel livello (anche se il brano “Scatman’s World” raggiunse entrò nelle classifiche di molti Paesi).

In un’intervista Larkin ha dichiarato:“Io spero che i bambini, mentre ascoltano le mie canzoni o ci ballano sopra, sentano che la vita non è tutta così brutta. Anche solo per un minuto”, ed è proprio la bellezza della vita il messaggio che ha sempre voluto trasmettere, infatti le sue ultime parole in un’intervista prima di spegnersi nel 1999 furono proprio “qualunque cosa Dio vuole per me va bene…Ho avuto una bella vita. Ho provato la bellezza ” .

E’ inutile dire che “volente o nolente” chiunque ha sentito almeno il ritornello di questa canzone, dato che annualmente viene riproposta nel trailer di “Selvaggi”, in ogni caso probabilmente pochissimi sapevano chi era Scatman e soprattutto qual era il suo messaggio.

Postado por: Paulo José