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Life & Arts Blogs
 
Bad music I love
By Sara Foss
Thursday, October 2, 2008
I love listening to the radio when I’m driving in my car. It wasn’t always this way. For years I listened to mix tapes, and nothing else, in my car. I didn’t know what was on the radio. I didn’t care. I assumed that the songs that received frequent airplay were terrible. But in recent years, my attitude has changed. The Capital Region is actually blessed with a couple of decent radio stations, but even if it wasn’t, I would still enjoy listening to the radio. I mean, I can’t think of any circumstances under which I’d purchase “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake, or “Bad Medicine” by Bon Jovi, but I take pleasure in hearing them, every now and again, and where am I ever going to hear them, if not on the radio? And if you’re good at sifting through all the crap, occasionally you’ll hear songs that are actually good, like “Superstition,” by Stevie Wonder, or “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell. I credit my college roommate with educating me on the wonders of the radio and pop music in general. Like me, she mainly listens to indie-rock punk alternative stuff. But she’s not afraid to embrace catchy, mainstream songs, which explains my familiarity with the Spice Girls song “Wannabe” and my love of the song “Tubthumping,” by the one-hit wonder Chumbawamba. We listened to so much schlock during our senior year (Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, Bette Midler’s “The Rose”) that at one point my roommate said, “You know, I think I like bad music better than good music.” I thought of that declaration this week, while driving around in my car, listening to the radio. I have six radio stations programmed into my car, and although I tend to spend more time listening to the area’s independent stations, which tend to play music I like, I bounce around the other stations: an oldies station, a classic rock station, a pop/rock station. I turn to those stations when the allegedly good stations disappoint me, and this week, when they were playing stuff like “Interstate Love Song” by the Stone Temple Pilots and the latest insignificant tune from the latest insignificant alt-rock band, I was delighted to stumble across “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC. I hesitate to call “Thunderstruck” a bad song, because how can you call a song that sounds so good bad? Still, I felt slightly ashamed. Instead of supporting the radio stations that play local music and up and coming bands, there I was, listening to AC/DC on some Clear Channel-owned station. Clearly, I was part of the problem. But what can I say? “Thunderstruck” was by far and away the most fun song I heard on my commute. In fact, I came up with a whole list of songs (I won’t call them bad, although I’m sure some of them are) that I love so much it makes me wonder if I like bad music better than good music. 1. “Right Now” by Van Halen Got your own list? Let me know. Comment below, or email me at sfoss@dailygazette.net.
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July 4, 2009
1:47 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
"The Safety Dance" by Men Without Talent, I mean, Men Without Hats. The opening of the song still drives me nuts! That is my list.
2:10 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Back in the days when Gazette reporters made late stops in local bars after work, we'd have some places with good juke boxes and some places with bad juke boxes.
One song that used to drive us crazy --- at least me, Bill Buell and Tim Layden --- was "Morning Train" by Sheena Easton. I think it was Tim's idea to "boycott" the song ... whenever it came on, we would all have to leave our beers at the bar, walk outside and wait two or three minutes before Sheena's love made it back to her on that "Morning Train." Ugh.
I asked, "What happens if we hear it on the car radio?" Tim said it wasn't enough to switch to another station ... to truly punish the song, you had to stop your car - with the song still playing - exit, stand outside the car and get back in once the thing was over.
That might have been a little extreme ... and I never followed that advice for "Morning Train."
I am tempted to, however, whenever I hear the worst ballad of all time ... "Escape ... The Pina Colada Song."
4:29 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
When I hear "Right Now," I still think of Crystal Pepsi. And when I hear "Come Sail Away," I immediately think of Cartman -- and sometimes start singing along in his voice (I just can't help myself).
I'd say a lot of things from the '80s qualify for this list. I loved "Down Under" by Men at Work. And I still have a soft spot for anything New Kids on the Block, even though I know now how schlocky and awful their stuff was.
10:04 a.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Throw Menudo onto that list:-)
10:59 a.m. [ Suggest removal ]
I know this sounds weird, but when I hear "Come Sail Away," I think of Dennis De Young trying to make some grotesquely excessive Andrew Lloyd Webber musical - and visions pop into my head of chorus girls in silver spandex spacesuits on roller skates rolling down the on-ramp to a giant space ship on a Broadway (or Proctors?) stage, which slowly lifts off as the curtains close and the chorus rings on, "we headed for the skies, we said come sail away, come sail away...." And then I compulsively say aloud, "show tunes!" But pretty much all of De Young's contributions to Styx sounded to me like show tunes. I told you it would sound weird. And yeah, "Right Now" is forever a Pepsi Clear commercial to my mind, but then again all Hagar era Van Halen songs sounded like they were calculated to be TV commercial jingles. Just think...."it's got half the taste, so tell me whyyyyyy can't this be Bud? Oh tell me whyyyyy can't this be Bud?"
7:33 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Ah, yes. Where to start....
I'm also fond of slightly more recent bad music, and the one that REALLY comes to mind is "All The Things She Said" by t.A.T.u. I mean, come on - a Russian pre-teen fake lesbian pop duo? What's not to love? And give it a listen. It's like an Ace of Base for the new millenium.
I'll also frequently delve into old bad music, as in pre-80s. I just downloaded "Brand New Key" by Melanie. Brilliance. And we should mention somewhere that being able to purchase and download single songs is a bad music lover's dream. How else would you ever agree to acquire Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind"?
Throw those in with your standard bads like Britney, Gwen, REO Speedwagon and that's a mix-tape I may even take over the radio.