Cecil Adams gives up the Straight Dope on earworms...The most loathed tune? No surprise here: Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart.”
Lately mine has been Single Ladies for multiple reasons, not the least of which is this. Any earworms inflicting you of late?
Disgusted and bored with the current state of new music? Me neither, but Limp Bizkit is and is here to save us!
Thank you, Fred.
I got you good with that scare yesterday, didn't I? Yep, well today I have an even bigger one!
Happy Halloween.
MySpace is going after iTunes. Gack. I can hardly spend more than two minutes on MySpace - and I only do so to mine for Too Poppy-worthy artist updates. What a terrible site stuck in the late 90s.
With that said, be my friend at myspace.com/toopoppy!
Gack!
The record industry - or what's left of it - has introduced a new format that seems to me to be egregiously out of touch. slotMusic (yikes, I hope they didn't pay too much for a branding firm to come up with that) is a 1gb microSD meant to go straight into your computer (via "small USB dongle") or mobile device so you can access an album's worth of music along with artwork and liner notes.
Sure, as we increasingly move toward a wireless and digital world, let's invest in a new format that remains grounded in an old approach - and one that could be quite easily eaten by your dog. At least its DRM-free, but it seems so passé. I've seen the new Ringo Starr album already in stores in a similar format, but that's hardly a way to launch something new. Well hey, at least some money and waste will be saved with smaller packaging, right? No. "The cards and dongles will come in boxes similar to current CD packaging..." That longbox mentality creeps back in.
I see no purpose to it beyond appeasing consumers who need something to hold in their hands. If this replaces CDs, well, I'll eat a slotMusic of your choosing.
Sigh.
Looking for something to groan about? How about Yahoo's "25 Best Alternative Rock Bands of the 1990s?" As mellowy cool a sound as Mark Kozelek generated through Red House Painters (Cars' cover All Mixed Up rocks rolls,) I can hardly see him at #2! And doesn't Tom Waits at #1 completely defy the author's own rule to only include artists that started in the early 90s?! And no Jellyfish?!?!?! Bah!
I'm done with this.
Oh, uh, gee, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah...
fuck."It's something we've waited for for seven seasons now. Sony has agreed to release the Lennon and McCartney songbook to us," producer Nigel Lythgoe told Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show.
I don't get it. They're rightfully so protective of the Beatles catalog that you never hear the originals in commercials and rarely in movies. Hell, they're not even digital yet. But Sony is willing to whore the songs out to a shitty reality show with a pitiful track record of producing, er, idols? Does not compute.
I sense I'm overreacting.
First, a goofy choreographed treadmill video ripe for viral marketing, now LED jackets for their tour. Does OK Go even make music, or is it all gimmicks for these guys?
End a week with unfortunate Beatles news -- begin a week with unfortunate Beatles news.What a dreadful impression they must have given the rest of the world.
It's a bad day in Pepperland as The Beatles are selling diapers and are being depicted as Poison. How fun for a Friday.Among the objections is that the idealistic song, popular in the counterculture "Summer of Love" era and among Vietnam War opponents, is being used at the time of another war, in Iraq, to evoke soiled diapers.
Just in case you're begging for punishment, Deep Blue Something is playing People's Court in Des Moines tonight.
I saw them at the somewhat legendary People's Bar & Grill in Ames (now closed) when Breakfast at Tiffany's was hitting big. It was the most atrocious show I've ever seen (not counting opening acts - Musico anyone?) and the only show I've ever walked out of early. We stayed until the hit was played mercifully in the middle of the set. I'm pretty sure we weren't the only ones who left at that time. DBS's music is something I would probably like normally, but they were such idiots in concert that I can't listen to them with a straight face anymore, even though I especially like(d) BaT. The epitome of the assitude came when lead singer whatshisname said, in all seriousness, "It's a fucking rock concert, dude," while lifting his devil horns over his head and sticking out his tongue ala Gene Simmons. If it was an ironic gesture, it was lost in the delivery. Our clear impression was that they thought, based on the success of one single, they were the next U2. They weren't, and aren't.
So, there's history there. I will not be seeing them tonight and was surprised to find out they were even still around. More power to them and best of luck, but you lost one potential fan for good over a decade ago.