Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Music => Topic started by: House of Mustard on May 29, 2003, 10:44:38 AM
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There are two songs on the market that bug the livin' crap out of me.
1) Avril Lavigne's 'Complicated'. I really dislike her for several reasons, but this song in particular ticks me off. She starts off saying "Life's like that." and "that's the way it is." I always want to scream back at the radio (and I admit that I have) that "you're freaking fifteen years old! How the $%$#% do you know what life is like! Furthermore, why are YOU telling ME 'that's the way it is'!"
2) Pink's 'Don't let me get me'. Despite the fact that I find the title somewhat clever, the song generally seems a little contradictory. She says "LA told me you'll be a rock star - all you have to change is everything you are". The message is clear: she doesn't want to be like everybody else - she wants to be herself. Then, in the chorus, she says: "Don't want to be my friend no more - wanna be somebody else." Whaaa? So the song isn't about her wanting to be herself? She wants to be someone else?
Granted, I shouldn't look for greatness in teen pop, but it still ticks me off whenever it comes on the radio.
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Ugh.
Avril's song "Sk8tr Boi" is being made into a movie.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/28/film.lavigne.reut/index.html
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I'd say that's a sign of the apocalypse, but the magnitude of it is dwarfed by the quote I saw several years ago "The Spice Girls' movie is the Hard Day's Night of the nineties." <shudder>
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I think I'm going to go see Sk8ter Boi just to tick off Mustard.
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It would work, too, although it isn't really hard to tick me off. I could think of any number of things you could do.
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I bet I've done most of them at one time or another, and usually on purpose. I also hold the honor of being the only person to ever stab Mustard with a rake.
I feel really stupid arguing in defense of teen pop, and Pink in particular, but "Don't Let Me Get Me" is actually pretty good (at least lyrically). The contradictions in the song are probably purposeful, and fit the idea of teen angst quite nicely--the struggle between individuality and peer pressure is practically the hallmark of being a teenager. You could also look at it from another angle, and say that she wants to be somebody else because she doesn't like the way that fame has changed her. Both interpretations fit, and can even work simultaneously.
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Fell, please stop it. I really didn't want to have a logical discussion of this. I just wanted to say that I don't like Pink and I don't like Avril Lavigne, so there.
For that matter, I don't particularly like teen angst, so I don't think it should be defended. Maybe Pink said those things on purpose, but maybe she should also get stabbed with a rake.
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Maybe you should get stabbed with a rake. Or whacked with a shovel. Or forced to listen to Avril Lavigne.
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Well you know, life's like that.
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Or get hit in the head with a hoe. Wait...that's be the same as listening to Christina Aguilerra.
I hate both the terms Boi and Grrrl. Their use makes me want to poke my own eyes out with SARS infected needles. Woe be unto the person who would actually use such "language" around me.
Oh, and a funny Avril note. She claims to have written her first hit (can't remember the name) in two minutes alone one day. Funny, her writers claim it took them a few hours and she wasn't even involved. Now that's "Complicated"
Sheesh. Pop Stars.
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Try watching 10 minutes of American idol-fame to see just how much creativity these singers really have....
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I'm trying to figure out if Pleasington's first comment was a terribly clever pun or not. I'm going to give him the benifit of the doubt and say 'well done.'
Anyway, I'm always amused by Pink's semi-lucid lyrics, and equally amused by the fact that I really don't care for her songs. Perhaps they're just over-played, or maybe I'm just not in the demographic. However, while a part of me says 'you should encourage this--it seems somewhat original, as opposed to completly fabricated--the rest of me says 'ug. Not that song again...'
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I have a wonderful solution for this:
Dont listen to the lyrics.
I have perfected this technique over the years, so that i can listen to a song 50 times and yet not know a single word of the chorus. I'm better at spotting the chorus in ancient greek theatre than i am at spotting it in modern music.
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The Greek chorus would be easy to spot, being the large group of people standing on stage with no other specific role.
I have to admit I like a fewPink songs. I listened to several others, but I didn't care for them. Despite the fact that she is obviously trying to not fit into a demographic, I still like the songs.
Avril just whines a lot, and that kind of annoys me. The songs are just catchy enough to get stuck in your head but not catchy or deep enough to enjoy.
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Yes, EUOL, it was intended to be a double entende. Glad you liked it. ;D
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I can't not listen to lyrics--they're practically all I can hear. My wife is frequently exasperated that I can remember the lyrics to a song I've only heard once, and yet can't remember any number of little things people tell me a hundred times.
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I'm kind of the same way, at least, in that I can't not-pay-attention to lyrics. Perhaps it's the writer in me, but I am always very curious about what the song is saying--so much so that I often look up the lyrics and read them. This only happens, of course, if one of the songs makes me curious. I can listen to Ramstein and not care what they're talking about, since I don't speak German. (Actually, knowing Ramstein, I'd probabably rather not know...)
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I've gotten into (annoying as it is to Entropy) a habit of evaluating hwo the music and words affect each other. So yeah, I listen to them. Most pop artists are poor at working the two together.