Goddamn this is funny.. I looked up that stupid song's lyrics... this person must be my twin.....
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Bubblegum Crap --Mariacha-- 01/10/02
In these days of cookie cutter music and air-thin lyrics, I have to stop and think about what exactly is it that makes a good song. Now, it's easy enough to identify a really bad song. Generally it contains thinly veiled innuendos, little or no meaning, and can be memorized after one listening. The backbeat is mechanical, there is little or no interesting instrumental harmony, and the rhymes are forced. If you are ever trapped driving through a god-forsaken part of the world that only plays bubble-gum pop, for example, I suggest that you amuse yourself by singing "Genie in a Bottle" to all of the songs that come on. I can guarantee you that it will fit.
But, like I said, that is the easy part. What is more difficult is finding the recipe for a good song, a good band or musician. To do this, I returned to my roots. If you will indulge me, return with me to 1983, when I, a humble three-year old, first discovered music. My oldest brother could disassemble and reassemble a computer in the time it takes most of us the boil water. Being eleven years older than I am, Aaron was the shining example of what I wanted to be...smart, kind, and creative. While my other brothers, ten and seven at the time, mostly enjoyed telling me ghost stories and pulling my hair, Aaron wrote me my very own program, Maria's program, that allowed me to compose musical paintings on our old Commodore. Now, I think that we can all probably guess what music Aaron loved. 1983, after all, was the year that the most influential album of my young life came out, spawning a slew of successful videos (at least on Nickelodeon, the only videos to which I was exposed). I speak, of course, of Weird Al's Weird Al, a masterpiece of comedy, sarcasm, and downright geekdom. And here, I am somewhat shocked and yet proud to say, that everything I ever needed to know about music, I learned from Weird Al. It seems to me that the best songs are the ones that conform to the standards I came to expect from the most famous son-of-a-polka-player alive today. Perhaps if modern musicians followed his lead in the following ways, we might be spared the torrential stream of crap flowing from our radios, but probably not. 1. Make the lyrics count.
Me and way, right and paradise… these are the trite sort of rhymes that I will allow only if the rest of the song is stellar. But unfortunately, most songs with these sorts of horribly forced rhymes don’t even make sense. They are usually part of some sort of cliché or buzz-phrase that we hear so often that it no longer even registers into our brains. A perfect example of this sort of rhyme comes from a song that I just saw on MTV, which inspired this article, called “A Thousand Miles.” As I have only heard the song once, forgive me if a word or two is out of place. The idea is there:
If I fell into the sky
Would time pass me by?
Now, what is that supposed to mean? I can only assume that this young lady was trying to produce a contradiction, which has potential, with her falling into the sky bit. But she ruins everything with her next line. “Would time pass me by?” What does that phrase even mean? I believe that if she had tried even the slightest bit more, she could have come up with a second line worthy of Weird Al, and my respect. If you “fall into the sky” you are probably going to find yourself floating off into space, where there is no air. So perhaps a better, but certainly a more amusing stanza would be:
If I fell into the sky
My veins’d explode, I’d die.
Weird Al, on the other hand, hardly ever has trouble coming up with a surprising, and amusing line. A prime example comes from his song, “Traffic Jam”
There's a yuppie on a cellular phone
I'm gonna puke if I here any more
There's a motorcycle zoomin' by me
Watch what happens when I open my door
Brilliant. There are few songs that really hold up to this standard of sheer cleverness, but a few stand out in my mind. The first Eve 6 album, for example, had masterfully crafted lyrics, as do all of the Live albums that I have heard. Where we often see a “smash things” mentality from heavy metal, System of a Down handles lyrics like Inigo Montoya handles the sword. But I must say that no one has ever come close to the sheer cleverness of They Might Be Giants. Their song, “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go” is frankly a masterpiece.
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part
that wonders what the part that isn’t thinking isn’t thinking of.
Should you worry when the skullhead is in front of you
or is it worse because it’s always waiting, where your eyes don’t go?
Set to music, these lines make me tingle with awe. But some songs hold up even without music to frame them. In fact, the first time I read the lyrics to The Downward Spiral, I was shocked. The songs are angry set to music, but the words by themselves are so beautifully violent they took my breath away. Try it some time.
http://www.tracelength.com/02-01-11Bubblegum.html
