Oh, the shame!
You have to wonder whether I really have the credentials to take responsibility for the running of things here at Casa Del Toad while Matthew’s away. Perhaps Rrandy’s (sic) comments about me following The Vines review were right after all.
I mean, I have terrible taste in music. It’s frankly embarassing. There are truly awful songs out there which, despite their terrible-ness, remain capable of putting a huge grin on my face, getting me jiggling my wobbly bits, and howling along ecstatically but no doubt sounding like a cat in a deep-fryer.
And here I am at the helm of a respected, well-regarded and popular music website. It simply beggars belief.
But we’re all a bit like that though, aren’t we? Is anyone really so despicably cool that they don’t secretly love a bit of Madonna? Or Kylie? Or Cradle Of Filth?
If it wasn’t for the crap music we love we wouldn’t be human, we’d be inescapable bores. We’d be saddo muso anoraks with no mates and no sense of humour. It’s our ability to say “Fuck you, I like this. And I’m going to blast it out at 3am and sing along at the top of my voice and you can’t stop me, officer!” that brings balance to our appreciation for music overall.
If I meet someone who claims to only like the most achingly cool new stuff that fourteen people have heard of, I immediately lose my trust them, and not just in musical terms.
So, to restore your faith and belief in me, dear readers, here’s some godawful shite that I absolutely love. It’s totally inappropriate content for a website such as this, and Matthew will kill me for this, but I bet you love them too, really.
Philip Bailey & Phil Collins – Easy Lover
Men At Work – Overkill
Van Halen – Why Can’t This Be Love?
when’s matthew back?
You are a courageous man, Dylan. All respect…but good Christ what truly horrible songs these are. Now if you’d chosen Hot Blooded by Foreigner, Turn Me Loose by Loverboy, or You’ve Got Anothing Thing Coming by Judas Priest then I’d be right there with you, white man’s overbite stretching my face into a Billy Idol snarl and air guitar in hand. But Philip Bailey and Phil Collins?
Yes, I know. There’s no excuse for posting Van Halen on a Monday morning.
I just needed a little cheering up after spending most of yesterday listening to that wretched Vines album.
I think señor Toad’s back toward the end of the week.. Thursday-ish.
Won’t be long, hang in there.
Sorry C&B, that first reply’s to Headlunging.
Come on.. I defy you not to do the air drums after the “Ah-ah-ah-ah” bit!!
Don’t listen to headlunging, Dylan. You’re doing great. The Milltown Bros. post in particular; that’s something I’d never have had a chance to hear if you weren’t doing this thing.
You have defied me, and I managed to resist somehow. Do I get a prize? Because the video for Part Time Loverwas played on MTV at least 47 times a day when it first came out, I know that the guitar player’s name is Daryl Sturmer or something like that. That’s the kind of damn thing that rolls around inside my head for 20 years and then drops out, turd-like, just at the right moment. Who could’ve guessed that I’d ever have occasion to repeat that bit of trivia (which in this case is truly trivial)?
Did you mean Easy Lover or Part Time Lover.
The video for Easy was fantastic (I think we can drop the Lover parts from now on – we’re all friends here. Apart from Headlunging.) , it had a helicopter in it! And there was that bit where Phil Collins tried to cross the microphone stands over that was never going to work.
Was the video for Part Time the one where Stevie Wonder was filmed driving a convertible Rolls Royce?
Easy Lover is what I meant. Wasn’t Part Time Lover Billy Ocean or some such? Good Chirst, this conversation is making me feel sick. You’ve begun a chain of assocations in my mind that is leading into some very dangerous territory. For example, I now can’t shake the memory of the video for Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me, and I fear PTSD.
No, Part Time Lover was definitely Stevie Wonder. It was the follow-up to I Just Called To Say I Love You which is such a bad song it’s listed under the Geneva convention as a crime against humanity.
Billy Ocean did Caribbean Queen at around the same time, bemusing American audiences by pronouncing ‘caribbean’ correctly in the chorus.
There was a dance song a couple of years back which sampled that Rockwell track, but they only sampled the hookline. However, instead of building the sample somewhere into a new song, the dance-maestro-producers responsible for the track simply repeated those few seconds over and over ad nauseum.
There were stories that people in nightclubs were actually begging DJs to put on I Just Called To Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder instead.
Or Black Kids.
Also, and I’m sure rrandy is a nice fellow and all but, is there any phrase that says “I only have balls when typing on the internet” like “and if you knew anything…”. Good gravy!
I may have to spring to the defence of Stevie Wonder here. I was dragged kicking and screaming to his concert by my wife. It was a spectacular amount of fun. And listening to a country version of ‘Signed Sealed Delivered’ (I think it was part of demonstrating how music is universal or some such nonsense) was fantastic. The man has written a lot of good music. Just… you know… not that song.
Oh good Lord, Stevie Wonder is an absolute genius. His output from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s is hardly to be rivalled. Innervisions, Talking Book, and Songs In The Key of Life are all legitimate classics, and Music of My Mind is not far behind. It’s just that Part Time Lover sucks whole fat yummy fucking elephant dicks.
I know Rrandy was trying to put me back in my place, but I’ve never been called a “Rock Critic” before. I was quite chuffed with that!
I agree, Mr; Wonder’s not all bad. I actually have a soft spot for I Believe When I Fall In Love…. I think I would need a lot of convincing about a country version of Singed Sealed Delivered though, but I’ll keep an open mind on your recommendation though, Ben.
wait….. there’s a *correct* way to pronounce Caribbean? WTH?
“A country version of singed sealed delivered”? Singed indeed.
Will all love and affection: piss off both of you.
Pedantic shit like that makes us dyslexics want to hide from the internet altogether. You know that and fear of waking up next to Rod Stewart.
Didn’t you mean With all love and affection? Sorry, Bne, didt’n mena to poek fnu.
You know, I actually proof read that post four times knowing that a typo/spelling error would set me up for further ribbing with extra hot sauce. Never saw it. Still, I read somewhere that people with lysdexia almost certainly have an IQ of 125. Which is what I tell myself to stop the night weeping.
If I remember correctly, the Jack Black character in High Fidelity actually kicks someone out of the record store for asking for a copy of “I Just Called To Say I Love You”. I don’t particularly see the harm in that song, but maybe that’s just because I’m young and unschooled in the ways of the world…