I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: D12-“Bizarre” (2001).

Hornby said that this track, a skit on the D12 album, was “I think the single most dispiriting moment of my professional life so far this millennium.”  Which meant I had to see what was so horrible.

I didn’t want to listen to the whole D12 album because I basically agree with his sentiments, I just think he;s way over the top into curmudgeonland.

So this skit starts with guys talking about hos and general sex ideas.  Then a guy introduces Bizarre (one of the D12) to Cindy.  She asks about Eminem (which is pretty funny) and he says he doesn’t know who that is.  He starts hitting on her and then farts very loudly.  When she protests, “the fuck you didn’t” he says, “Girl chill out, that shit came from my soul.” Which also made me chuckle.

Then he farts loudly again and asks for a kiss.  And that’s pretty much it.

It’s juvenile and light-hearted (which is probably necessary given how dark and misogynistic the rest of the album seems).  But I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hear it more than once if you were actually listening to the album.

Nevertheless, you have to be a real curmudgeon to not enjoy humor in music.  And, given his reaction to Blink 182, I’m guessing Hornby likes his bands to be Sophisticated, only.

[READ: September 10, 2020] “Pop Quiz”

I have enjoyed recent essays by Hornby in which he jokes about being a curmudgeon.  But boy was he ever a real musical curmudgeon in 2001.

He says that back in July 1971, the top ten list included Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones, Whats Going On by Marvin Gaye, a live album by CSN&Y and Aretha Franklin Live at the Fillmore East.  He says even the most curmudgeonly critics probably gushed over this list.  [Let’s gloss over the fact that there were a lot fewer albums released back in 1971 and that record sales were pretty well determined by radio airplay etc–so you had a pretty set idea of what would be popular].

But now there are many different top ten lists, probably because most critics don’t like what’s on the actual top ten list.  Many of those critics from 1971 are still critics today.

He says there is literary, critically approved pop–Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Nick Cave–none of whom trouble the Billboard statisticians much.

But he was unfamiliar with most of the people on the top ten on July 28, 2001.  So he decided to listen to them all

• Alicia Keys-Songs in A Minor
• P. Diddy-The saga Continues
• D12-Devil’s Night
• Staind-Break the Cycle
• Destiny’s Child-Survivor
• Jagged Edge-Jagged Little Thrill
• Blink 182-Take of Your Pants and Jacket
• Li’l Romeo-Lil’l Romeo
• Melissa Etheridge-Skin
• Linkin Park-Hybrid Theory

Much like Hornby, I don’t know most of the artists (even 19 years later), although it is quite impressive that couple of them are still active.

Hornby marvels that most of the artists on this list thank God claiming that he is being responsible for such songs as “Where the Party At,” “Bootylicious,” “Bad Boy For Life,” and “Pimp Like Me.”  [That’s the kind of curmudgeonliness that I like].

He jokes that one of the members of Destiny’d Child said of God “there is no one like you”, “which is, on reflection ,one of the tidiest ontological arguments you could wish to hear.

He says there is nothing offensive on Destiny’s Child’s record or on the Jagged Edge album (despite the pun on Alanis Morissette). [I have never heard of Jagged Edge even in 2020].  They are both sweet-natured and competent contemporary R&B despite being completely unmemorable and utterly derivative.

Also harmless are the albums by Li’l Romeo and Alicia Keys.  I have heard of Li’l Romeo I think, but mostly as a joke.  I didn’t realize he was actually L’il when he made the album–he was 12!  I find little kids singing love songs to be very very creepy, even if this one has a line like “I’ll be your Mickey Mouse and you’ll be my Minnie.”  Romeo is still making music (he has dropped the Li’l).

Alicia Keys is the one album he says he would listen to again on purpose.  [She recently did a Tiny Desk Concert and I was really impressed by her, although I didn’t know he music at all.  He says it’s “overproduced and overpolite” but at least it recognizes that there was Black American music before Whitney Houston.

Then its on to the midnight worlds of P. Diddy and D12.  He says anyone who has lived through the Sex Pistols and Nirvana must feel like they cannot be shocked by a parental advisory sticker.  But “an hour in the company of P. Diddy is a dismal sordid experience.”  He realizes that to disapprove of gangsta rap is pointless, middle class and smug.  Nevertheless one is entitled to feel queasy about the enthusiasm for and endorsement of the gansta life which can be summarized:

Some rich, powerful, violent people have been away for a while (who these people are and where they have been remains a moot point) and if in their absence, you have been trying to muscle in on their turf, then they will not be happy about it. These rich, powerful, violent people seem to be on speaking terms with people who own firearms, beyond that it is perhaps best not to speculate.

I had no idea who D12 was and then he reminded me that it is (was?) a collective of rappers around which Eminem in the star.  By comparison to D12, the Sex Pistols nihilism seems thoughtful and politically engaged.  See above about the skit for Hornby’s general take on the album.

Interestingly, though he says that The music on Devil’s Night “is frequently superb–terse and springy with a wit and energy that blows P. Diddy’s stale pompous beats away.”

Then its on to Blink 182 and their “chirpy pop-punk.”  After the nihilism of the other two you’d think that the goofiness of this band would lighten him somewhat (he doesn’t even give a side nod to the title).  He says that most of their songs deal straightforwardly and unimaginatively with youthful alienation. He says that his copy of the disc came with four bonus tracks, one of which is called “Fuck a Dog,” [actually it’s called “I Wanna Fuck a Dog in the Ass”] “but maybe i was just lucky.”  I listened to this song and it is one minute of stupid goofy acoustic nonsense–nothing to get upset about, Nick.

I don’t know Blink 182’s music although of course I know of them.  I always assumed they were juvenile and puerile, but I had no idea they were quite that gross though.

Amazingly, he says it is with some relief that one turns to Staind.  I had heard of them vaguely before but recently learned that the lead singerhas become an avid right wing nut job and a huge loser on top of it [read any article about Staind at in Metal Sucks to get a good laugh].  Although he says the compliment is not for the music–they basically just cop old Black Sabbath songs but because the band sees the gloomy side of life but actually seems to care about it.

Linkin Park is a rap rock hybrid band.  The album had been out over a year at this point and was still in the top ten. But this is where Hornby loses me completely

Neither Staind nor Linkin Park not Limp Bizkit is dissimilar to just about any other band that has played an electric guitar very loud in the past thirty years.

That’s the kind of nuanced objectivity I want in a music review!

The only artist over 40 is Melissa Etheridge and yes the music sounds tired, clapped out.  He thinks its unlikely to be a best seller for too long because it’s too grownup.

Then he gives some of his pretentious artists that are in his top ten.

But just think, he concludes, someone might be listening to “Fuck a Dog” right now.  [And I just did!   I liked it more than “Bizarre”].