If I wrote Britney Spears' "If You Seek Amy"

I fully realize how late I am on this...I know this song's been out for awhile now. But in my defense, I don't give a shit about Britney Spears or her terrible "music", so I never paid much attention to this song. However, the other day I was at a Subway, trying to choke down one of their sandwiches, and this song came on. I noticed the lyrics to the chorus, which go something like this:

"Love me, hate me, say what you want about me,
But all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy"

Now, I will reluctantly grant that the phrase "if you seek Amy" is a tad clever, only because I didn't get the reference the first time I heard it (in case you don't get it, it's kind of a double entendre; it sounds like she's saying "F-U-C-K me"). But therein lies the problem; it doesn't work as a double entendre because the phrase itself, taken by its literal meaning, makes absolutely no sense in that context. It's like whoever wrote the lyrics burned out their cerebral cortex coming up with that line, and so decided to just haphazardly throw it in the song so they could get back to coloring with their Crayolas. "They're begging to if you seek Amy"? They're begging to do what if I seek Amy?! I think I speak for all of us when I say that I expect a certain level of literary prowess from my mindless pop garbage, and that line leaves me with blue balls...of the mind. Which are the second worst kind of blue balls (the first being actual blue balls).

I decided to illustrate how badly the songwriting ball was dropped by re-writing that chorus right here, right now, off the top of my head. This is how the song should have gone:

"Love me, hate me, but you'll get cerebral palsy,
Like all of the boys and all of the girls that're dying, if you seek Amy."

See how easy that was? I think my version is better for two main reasons:
1. It makes sense on two levels, thereby qualifying it to be a double entendre.
2. It implies that if you fuck Britney Spears, you'll get cerebral palsy. Which I'll admit is unlikely, but I really doubt she'd even notice she's saying that. All she wants is attention, and telling people your vagina will give them cerebral palsy is in at least, like, the top 10 ways to get people to notice you.

Lady Gaga's "Telephone"- music video, or mind rape?

Great, there goes the logical reasoning center of my brain. There is literally no way to make sense of anything that goes on in that video. I get that Lady Gaga is supposed to be all edgy and shit, sort of like she's trying to be this generation's Madonna. I understand that, I really do. But at what point do you go from being "edgy" to being "laughably ridiculous"? I mean, dressing like you're an extra in a Luc Besson movie mostly just makes you look retarded. I don't know, maybe that's the point. Maybe some people think it's edgy to be a retarded pop singer. Personally, I think it's more inspiring than edgy, but that's just me.

This video sexually assaulted my brain for about nine and a half minutes. Like...why the fuck is the Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill in this video? What the hell does that have to do with anything? And do I want to fuck Lady Gaga, or run from her screaming and in tears? My body tells me to do both of those things at the same time, and last time I checked, running around screaming and crying while trying to fuck someone kind of creeps people out. Is this supposed to be funny, or...I mean, what the fuck?

Top 10: Songs to cheer you up- Part 2

And now, the long-awaited top 5 songs to cheer you up! I'll pause for applause. (You can find part 1 here.)

The Format- "The First Single (Cause A Scene)"
I don't know how popular The Format are (were?) outside of Arizona, but I do remember seeing a fat, presumably lesbian chick in Indiana (because Indiana is populated largely by fat lesbians. That's such a well-known fact that I feel like I just insulted your intelligence by mentioning it) wearing one of their shirts when I was there one time. Regardless, The Format was a fucking awesome band, and if you've never listened to them, you really should stop depriving yourself. Anyone who knows this song knows that it will instantly cheer you up; it's one of those songs that you can put on at a party and have everyone singing along to in minutes, sort of like the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" theme song.

Bebop has a fucking sword on his back. I can see it. Why didn't he ever use it?!?

Of course, as the parenthetical title implies, this song does instruct its listeners to "cause a scene", which can be confusing for first-time listeners. I'm not a fan of songs explicitly ordering me around to begin with, but as it turns out, The Format's idea of causing a scene- "clap your hands and stomp your feet"- is distinctly different from mine. See, when I need to cause a scene, I generally whip my dick out and do the "flying squirrel" (and no, I'm not gonna tell you what a "flying squirrel" is...use your imagination). And I will say this: if you think that the end result of "causing a scene" should be getting arrested at Warped Tour and being put in the sex offender registry, then I fucking win.


Passion Pit- "Little Secrets"
Ian Cohen over at Pitchfork said it best in his review for this album when he stated: "What happens when you're scrambling to think of why a record is worth hearing and you keep coming back to 'it makes me happy'?" Listening to this song is like basking in the glow of Julia Roberts' smile while cuddling that teddy bear from the Snuggle Fabric Softener commercials and baking cookies for all the toothless orphans from Oliver Twist (but not for Annie; instead of baked goods, you're forcibly feeding her numerous knuckle sandwiches, delivered directly to her creepy, soulless, ginger face). Incidentally, the previous sentence was probably the most accurate description of anything in the history of both descriptions and things.

Passion Pit is what would've happened if Micheal Jackson was a hipster. In fact, obvious musical influences aside, Passion Pit may have a bit more in common with ol' Thriller than is at first apparent. Observe, the chorus of "Little Secrets":

Singer: Let this be our little secret, no one needs to know we're feeling...
Chorus of Children: Higher, higher and higher!

Um... huh. That's... hm. Well, despite the beating these guys are probably about to receive at the hands of Elliot Stabler, I stand by what I've said here today.


MGMT- "Kids"
I have to say, it still amazes me how popular Oracular Spectacular got when it came out- not because it isn't good (it's actually very good), but because it sounds almost nothing like the other stuff that gets radio play, or it didn't at the time anyway. Not to mention, the album itself switches back and forth from high energy pop masterpieces sporting monster hooks like "Kids", to psychedelic experiments in mind-fuckery.

I saw them play a free show at Tempe Marketplace one time, and because of their surprising amount of radio play, the frat boys were out in full force. MGMT responded to this by opening with one of their catchy popular tunes, and then proceeded to fuck with the audience for the next hour and a half in the single greatest instance of a band alienating their fans that I've ever witnessed firsthand. If memory serves, it was pretty much just one long, droning jam session that made Iron Butterfly look like N*SYNC. At one point, there was a drawn-out flute solo that came out of nowhere. A fucking flute solo! I have to admit, even I didn't see that one coming.

Pictured: Jethro Tull, the grandaddy of flute-based rock.

Piebald- "American Hearts"
Sometimes, we all need to feel like we belong to something that's bigger than ourselves. It's a basic human need; it's what makes people do seemingly illogical things like join cults and/or college fraternities. And it's also what gives this song the ability to cheer you up: the anthemic choruses of "Hey! You're part of it!"

But to what, specifically, is this 'it' that we are supposedly indeed a part of? That's open to some interpretation; personally, given the rest of the lyrics, I gather that it is about at least one, if not all of the three following things:
1. It is a retort to the types of people who blame all of the evil and suffering and general malaise in the world on "society". Kid shoot up his school? "I blame society." Religious zealots commit mass murder? "I blame society." Nickelback continues to somehow sell albums and continue their epic quest to ruin everything that anyone has ever liked about music? "I blame society." This is Piebald looking at those people and saying, "You can blame society if you want, but hey- you're part of it."
2. On a narrower scope, it is about American society, and the discrepancy between the idea of the "American Dream" and the reality of life faced by many Americans, particularly those who are born into poverty. Racism still exists, albeit in a much more institutionalized rather than blatant form. Socioeconomic and sociocultural biases only seem to be less prevalent in modern society than they were in the past because it's gotten easier to ignore it. And, because most people don't even realize this, much less actively do anything to change things for the better, we're part of it.
3. A zombie apocalypse.

Guy Getting Eaten: "Man, this zombie apocalypse sucks."
Piebald: "Hey, you're part of it."

Whatever the case, it's delivered in such a cheery way that it's sure to bring a smile to your face.


The Rocket Summer- "So Much Love"
Confession time: I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on in the first verse of this song. I used to think it went "Hats need a C like a rake needs some leaves". I just looked it up, and that's not the case, which is kind of disappointing, because I took that as evidence that Bryce Avery had finally completely lost his mind.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, this is the mother of all happy, cheer-up songs. It's so cheesy, so over the top, that it's impossible not to smile at the level of enthusiasm and joy with which Avery delivers the lyrics about someone having "so much love" in them. And just when you think it can't possibly get any more joyous, BAM! In comes the saxophone solo to punch what's left of your sadness in the gut, and then crotch-stomp it over and over again until it chokes to death on a mixture of its own blood and vomit.
...I was going to include a picture here, but after Google Image searching "crotch-stomp", I think I'll just go cry in the corner instead...


And one more for the road:
Onelinedrawing- "Smile"
All the feel-good twang of the Gin Blossoms, minus the depressing alcoholic imagery, and featuring a guest solo from intergalactic plot device and jambot R2D2. Bonus Fact: all you hard-core punk kids out there can feel safe listening to this song, as the singer/sole member of Onelinedrawing also fronted such seminal post-hardcore bands as Far and New End Original! Of course, if you were really a hard-core punk kid, you would have already known that...

This week in annoying music trends...

It's possible that this phenomenon is located entirely within the Arizona local music scene, but I doubt it. It appears to be spreading throughout pop punk bands faster than zombies in an urban setting where apparently not one single person has ever heard of zombies before.

The illustrative properties of this image are endless.

I'm talking, of course, about the apparent need of every pop punk band lately cover a hip hop song.

I first noticed this when that "Punk Goes Crunk" CD came out and subsequently launched the career of The Maine due to their cover of "I Wanna Love You". Their career didn't stay launched for long, mind you; most people stopped caring about them the second they realized that their original songs were, well... not that good. However, courageously ignoring that second fact, a whole bunch of pop punk bands decided to follow suit, boldly going where many, many bands had gone before.

I'll admit, at first I liked it. The covers were catchy and fun and all that, but mostly, I thought it was some sort of social commentary. By taking the mainstream hip hop culture and stripping away all the manufactured tough-guy posturing and leaving only mostly inane, nonsensical lyrics and overbearing themes of misogyny camouflaged by catchy hooks, these covers were essentially holding a mirror up to the genre and the people who buy into it, and asking them all if they liked what they saw. I thought it was trying to make a statement. Of course, it's not like most people would see it that way; but then again, that just kind of proves the point, doesn't it? A good social satire's strength comes from its subtlety, and if the point is to prove that most people who actually like mainstream hip hop are tasteless drones, then those same people not getting the parody would make sense.

Alas, after about the forty thousandth band that put out a cover like this, I started to get the sneaking suspicion that perhaps I was giving these bands too much credit. It's become a prerequisite that if you're a pop punk band and you hope to be popular, you goddamn better have a great fucking hip hop cover, or else, get the fuck out of my face, goddamn it. It isn't social commentary, it isn't clever, and it's not even original; it's just a gimmick.

Pop Punk's biggest musical influence.

It's my fault, really; while the first generation of pop punk grew up listening to bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat and The Descendants, the current generation grew up listening to Good Charlotte and Simple Plan. I shouldn't have expected any deeper punk sensibilities than what was on the surface, and for that, I'm sorry.

But still, it doesn't make sense to me. Ask yourself, if you were in a band, would you want to be known as "the band who covered 'I Wanna Love You'", as opposed to "that band who covered 'In Da Club'"? Or would you want to be known by your band name, and for your original material and live performances? It makes more sense to want to be known for the latter, but by spending money to record a version of someone else's song, you're setting yourself up for the former.

Not to mention, a cover like this often serves to make your original material seem very weak in comparison. So please, pop punk bands, enough with the hip hop cover recordings. Practice a lot and work hard on your song structures and at putting on dynamic, entertaining live shows, and don't rely on a gimmick that is quickly becoming played out and boring.

Or don't. I don't pay much attention to you local pop punk bands anyway.

Top 10: Songs to cheer you up- Part 1

Let's face it: sometimes, we all need some cheering up. We all have different ways of doing that, but I think that the right music at the right time can be one of the quickest ways to change one's mood. Therefore I present to you, in no particular order, my top 10 songs that have historically done the best job at cheering me up.

Andrew W.K.- "It's Time to Party"

I don't give one-half of two fucks (that's right, a math joke. Anyone who says my writing is unintelligent and classless can lick my hairy nuts) what you think about Andrew W.K. in general. The first time I'd ever heard of him, I was watching Saturday Night Live and he was performing. As I sat and watched this big, hairy, sweaty man-child jump around and contort his face into expressions that would make Jim Carrey burn red with envy whilst playing one note over and over again on the piano, my first thought was, "What the fuck...?". My second thought was also "What the fuck...?", but my third thought was that even though this was the most over-the-top yet somehow simultaneously simplistic bullshit that I'd ever seen, I couldn't help but immediately like it.

Andrew W.K.: like Jesus, but with more partying.

A lot of people tend to write Andrew W.K. off as an overgrown retard who writes nothing but songs about partying, and that's all very true; but that's also exactly what makes him appealing. I don't care who you are, on a Friday evening, after a long week of work, listening to this song in the car on your way to the bar will immediately make you shift gears, emotionally speaking (hopefully not literally; that could be dangerous). Clocking in at just over a minute and a half, it's a furious outburst of pure positive energy. And if you're just in a bad mood in general, well...at the very least, this song will make you smile. Sometimes, that's all you need, and it sure as hell is all you can ask for from a man who also has written a song called "Party Til You Puke" and frequently appears on VH1 shows wearing T-shirts that read "Andrew W.K.".


Creedence Clearwater Revival- "Lookin' Out My Back Door"
As far as I'm concerned, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better song to sit out on your front porch, smokin' cigarettes and sippin' whiskey to. If you're in a bad mood, there's no way this song won't cheer you up. There's not much more I can say about it than that, so instead I'll tell you an embarrassing story about myself. When I was a kid, I remember being annoyed by CCR because they would always get mixed up with the Creed CDs in the record stores, and it made it hard for me to easily find the Creed CD I wanted. So there you go. Laugh all you want, but Creed is still a huge guilty pleasure of mine, in the same way that watching MTV's "The Real World" religeously is: I wouldn't admit to it on a first date or anything, but maybe once we've gotten to know each other well enough that you can laugh at my poor taste without immediately thinking I'm a loser, well...girls like guys that can make them laugh, right?


Third Eye Blind- "Semi-Charmed Life"
Picture this: you've just had a long day on the street corner, hustlin'/sucking dick, and man, you are just beat. You break out the pipe and the revolver and are smoking meth and contemplating suicide, when this song begins to play on the radio. The second the immediately catchy "do do do, do da do-do" vocal hook comes in, the corners of your mouth start doing this weird twitchy thing. Are...are you smiling? Why, yes you are, and even though it has been so long since you've smiled that your facial muscles have atrophied, causing excruciating pain (also, that vicious meth habit ain't helping either, buddy), you're starting to feel a little better.

Aw, what a happy crack head.

Here's a song that really gets you. After all, you've been feeling lately that your life's a bit semi-charmed. Suddenly, you decide to check into rehab, drop the habit, get a job, and get your life back on track.
You are promptly murdered leaving your apartment by another meth head.
...Whatever, here's my point. This may be a controversial statement, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that this is the happiest, most positive-sounding song about crystal meth addiction out there. Even if you don't do drugs (let's be honest, if you're reading this, you probably do), it's still one of the most uplifting sounding and catchy songs that I've ever heard. Add to that the nostalgia factor, which comes from the fact that this song came out when we were younger, and it's hard not to be put in a better mood by it.


Goldfinger- "Superman"

If you're anything like me, your junior high days were spent playing "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater", restarting the levels over and over until either Goldfinger or Suicide Machines came on instead of going outside and getting better at real skating. And while today a whole new generation of kids are busy playing "Guitar Hero" instead of learning how to play a real instrument, I still look back fondly on my simpler days of Nintendo 64 and semi-credible ska-punk. For me, the nostalgic feelings for a time when I had absolutely no responsibilities and my biggest concern was trying to figure out how to see some boobs/touch a vagina that this song conjures up alone are enough to cheer me up. However, it also sports one of the best horn section hooks I've ever heard (and I fucking hate horn sections in punk), as well as immediately singable lyrics and an easily-relateable sentiment. Break out the skateboard, remember to quit pretending you're a Superman, and cheer the fuck up.


Wheatus- "Teenage Dirtbag"
You forgot this song even existed, didn't you? Remember when this song was on the radio, and they censored the line "he brings a gun to school", but not "her boyfriend's a dick"? Man, as a culture, we sure are sensitive, aren't we? I don't doubt for one second that concerned parents would have complained about a song on the radio talking about someone who brings a gun to school- talking about it, mind you, not advocating it. What I find ludicrous is the fact that anyone could think that listening to a song as ridiculous as "Teenage Dirtbag" would be enough to make disturbed individuals want to act it out. Hey idiots: the type of kids who would consider going on shooting sprees don't listen to Wheatus. I can almost gurantee that.
That being said, I'm convinced that this song is almost impossible to dislike. From the oddly high-pitched singing voice of the singer, to the baffling obsession with "listening to Iron Maiden, baby", this song is tailor-made to bring you out of whatever funk you may find yourself in. There's something oddly therapeutic about singing "I'm just a teenage dirtbag, baby" over and over again at the top of your lungs.

Pictured: Teenage Douchebags. Similar to the teenage dirtbag, but not quite the same thing.

Be sure to stay tuned for Part 2!