Shitty Music Monday 8

I already know that I'm going to sound like my dad writing this goddamn post...It's really an inevitability, even within the first few sentences of this post, my fate is sealed. But whatever...here goes...

Do you remember that time when you were a kid, probably in middle school, first setting out to explore and discover the wide world of music on your own? Think back to that time, that time that you finally found something really awesome, that you loved and that hadn't been force fed to you by your parental types. Do you remember that feeling of epiphany? That feeling of realizing there was more to this world than the motown, Beatles, classical and jazz that your parents ALWAYS played in the car? You felt cool, independent, like a motherfucking adult for that moment in your life. You were so proud of yourself for having found something so wonderful, so glorious, so beautiful, and you wanted to share that feeling with your parents. (Of course, this could all just have been my personal experience of breaking out from my incredibly sheltered childhood...remember I said we didn't have cable until I was in college? Yeah...THAT sheltered...) Well, if you, like me, went straight from Vivaldi to Blink 182, naturally your (my) parents were likely in for one HELL of a surprise. Well needless to say, they weren't happy with my newfound choice of music, decrying it as "meaningless noise", claiming that if gave them "headaches". But none of that mattered to you. You found what you liked and by god you were going to stick with it right up until your musical tastes changed drastically 6 months later. Well I hate to sound like my dad right about now, but I honestly find it difficult to believe that anyone, even stupid, young, impressionably teens and pre-teens are listening to this shit.

I present to you:
Scream For My Ice Cream - Blood On The Dance Floor

1) Music: Apparently I missed some kind of memo, but when did 90's style rave-pop become awesome again? (And yes, you can correctly infer from this previous sentence that I still do absolutely rock out to Cascada, Alice Deejay, and Darude...) Seriously, between this song and that poor excuse for a bridge those crabcore weirdos came out with, I like to think that that overly cheerful, needlessly bright ecstasyrave is back. Though while Alice Deejay and Cascada kept to old, outdate topics like love and happiness, Blood On The Dance Floor have localized ravepop for a whole new generation of misanthropic teens with weird hair. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here the music is best summarized as something that I think I can safely say we all knew and loved, a reminiscent memory of a past life, the smell of your childhood home, the familiar creak of a playground swing, the feel of your favorite article of clothing, this, like those, is like a familiar sound of something you held dear to your heart, now played through the shit colored filter of terrible lyrics.

2) Vocals: (I'm going to sound like a terrible person...but here goes). You know that voice that everyone does to sound like a flamboyant gay guy or a ditzy blonde valley girl? Well that's what these vocals are. That's all they are. And yes sure sure you can make the argument that these guys are bi (yes I did some research, no I didn't look it up on wikipedia, this time the youtube comments section was my source) but that doesn't make these "vocals" acceptable by any standards. Maybe they're trying to be different, maybe they're trying to be Ke$ha (why do I keep coming back to her for some reason???), maybe that's just the way they talk, but the fact of the matter is, in the end, in a performance piece, to me anyways, it simply comes off as needlessly obnoxious, kind of like how your younger sibling would be annoying you by holding his/her finger as close to you as physically possible while screaming "NOT TOUCHING YOU NOT TOUCHING YOU NOT TOUCHING YOU!" Yeah, THOSE are the memories that these vocals bring to mind...And then the song goes to screamo...(so I guess that makes this the inversecrabcore...and no BOTDF, if you're reading this, inverting someone else's style does not make you not formulaic...just FYI)

3) Lyrics: Once again, here is where things quell up the majority of my bile. These lyrics are beyond filthy, and once again, that voice isn't doing them any help. Now this isn't the first time anyone has used the lollypop analogy (HE MEANS HIS PENIS) but somehow, it just seems creepy now. And once that bit is done, let the screaming begin. Now I've always assumed that screaming had it's place, mostly to express some kind of inner angst that's filling you up to the point that you just have to scream it out loud (see what I did there?). Perhaps this is a narrow point of view, but somehow, screaming about dancing and moving one's body on the dance floor (you know, modern, hip, poppy bullshit?) just seems beyond stupid. I mean you could scream about your goldfish dying and we, the consumer, would be understanding. We know that goldfish meant the world to you oh poor emo child, we know now that it was the only one that got you...and now that fish, your one and only friend has met its demise. You scream and we get it. But this? It equates to something like "AAAAARGH I'M HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME! RRARARRAGGGGHHHH I'M SO GLAD WE CAME TO THIS CLUB! BLUGHUGHUHGBLBGUHUHLGLLGBGH I SEE AN ATTRACTIVE FEMALE THAT I WISH TO SPEAK TO!!! PERHAPS SHE WILL DANCE WITH ME RAHGHAHGHAHHUHGUHGH!!!" That's right BOTDF, you've even managed to fuck up screamo...and that was a sentence I NEVER thought I would have to type...All in all, the lyrics are a sad mess of hypersexualized content, misplaced lyrical/musical decisions, overused (and now creepified) penis/lollipop metaphors and a whole lot of repetition (you know...so the kids REALLY get the point)...I think I've said enough, the video has all the lyrics in it, when you're done reading along, you'll want to take a shower too...

4) Video: There is none, only lyrics that some fan put up on youtube. That's probably because whatever label they've signed to is too destitute to produce one for them, and so they've gone to the likes to myspace and other such social media sites to spread their word to all the poor little teen girls who have all finished twilight and are looking for their proverbial edward cullen in something more concrete.

5) Summary: Some quick background, does everyone know the story of Jessi Slaughter, the 11 year old girl who managed to piss off 4chan and suffered their wrath for it? (If not, go look it up...it'll make you lose faith in this country's future) Well SHE listened to this nonsense religiously and that's how she turned out. I'm not one to draw conclusions from just this one instance, but I reeeaaaalllllyyyy can't think of any adult listening to this and thinking "Hmm yes, this is a fine specimen of a tune. I cannot wait to show this to all my friends so that they too may partake in this glorious example of modernity and cultural advancement!" (did you read this and imagine me wearing a top hat and monocle while sipping daintily on a cup of tea?)

Suggested Audience: Your parents. No seriously, send this to your parents, because if they listen to this, you can simply point to BOTDF and all of a sudden, your obsession with GWAR and Turisas (or whatever else your parents deem offensive) seems perfectly reasonable by comparison.

PS: Thank god that's over, I really started to sound like my dad there...also did y'all manage to make it all the way through the song? I didn't, not even for the sake of journalistic integrity...in this case, FUCK journalistic integrity right in the eye...