Death By A Thousand Nows, Part 1

Everybody knows what this is, right?  It's one of those goddamn Now That's What I Call Music compilations.  The very first, in fact.  These things originated over in the UK, and they're collections of all the really ultra-ubiquitous megahits that were clogging up the airwaves during a particular era.  On October 27, 1998, the NOW people realized they could make a huge pile of (then valuable) American Dollars by starting a NOW series that plundered the US charts... and so they did.

Since then, the NOW comps have become part of our pop landscape.  They arrive with almost seasonal regularity (three a year, in general) and we now find ourselves staring down the barrel of Now That's What I Call Music 40, which "drops" in November.  It is a given that these things will gather up the current batch of chartbusters.  It is a given that the comp will sell like gangbusters (no it's not, their sales have dropped precipitously now that even your Mee-Maw is stealing Foster The People MP3s off teh interwebs).  And it is a given that I will NOT LISTEN TO IT.

Until now.  Friends, it is time for me to gaze into the abyss.  I have decided to challenge myself, so I might learn the truth about the rock candy heart that beats in the chest of American Pop.  I have decided to listen to EVERY US NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC COMPILATION EVER RELEASED.  IN ORDER.

It is possible that I am making a terrible mistake.

Here we go.

Now the First, released (as I mentioned) in October of 1998.

The first track is "Together Again" by Janet Jackson.  It sounds like the kind of music that plays when you are shopping for weapons in Final Fantasy 7.  Considering the kind of audio torture I was expecting, this is really Not So Bad, but a quick glance at the run time makes me realise that I am in for a rough four minutes.  After two minutes thirty I am ready to bail on this trifle, but I will hang in there because I AM A GODDAMN TROUPER.  Sure enough, my grit is rewarded.  There is a totally innocuous break and we are swiftly at the end of the song and on to...


"As Long As You Love Me" by The Backstreet Boys.  Jesus Christ.  This limp little number makes that Janet Jackson tune seem like Atari Teenage Riot.  Hearing this makes me get why people swooned so hard over Justin Timberlake's "reinvention" of himself as a White Stevie Wonder (only not blind)/White Michael Jackson (only not a pedophile)/Tall Sex Dwarf (only... no, that one's pretty on the money).  The acoustic guitar figure in the intro is particularly reprehensible, but by the end I'm begging to have it back, if only because it provided a break from the Wall Of Schmaltz.

When I saw that the next track ("The Way" by Fastball) was on this, I groaned.  I remember this song boring my ass off while I watched 120 Minutes and prayed for Rocket From The Crypt videos (it was the fucking 90's, alright?).  Now, I'm positively giddy because at least there will be actual guitars and actual drums on this jam.  Fuck yeah!  Hit me with the ROCK, Fastball!
Or not.  Man, this song is annoying.  The fake flamenco vibe?  Annoying.  The "eternal summer slacking" lyric?  Annoying.  And the fact that they're using some weird bassless compression effect for the first forty-five seconds so that they can just turn it OFF and act like it's some kick-ass dynamic shift?  FUCKING ANNOYING.  Also I am watching the video right now and the drummer needs to shave his fucking neck.  One hit wonders?  One hit too many, if you ask me.  Screw these creeps.

I am REALLY in the mood to like something, which is probably why I'm not ready to shit all over Harvey Danger.  "Flagpole Sitta" is up next, and it's sort of like punk made by creeps who think they're too smart for punk... which is like thinking yr too smart for Pro Wrestling, i.e. FUCK YOU.  But at least the guitars are nice and high in the mix and the dude's voice is less awful than that fartsniffer from the Decemberists and at least this guy had the decency to get miserable and bitter once his fifteen minutes were up.  Come back Harvey Danger, all is forgiven.

Just kidding, fuck off again.

Again, context is everything.  Thus, I am DELIGHTED to be listening to "Say You'll Be There" by The Spice Girls right now.  Fake Dr. Dre synth noises?  Check!  Lyrics about having "Far too Much Emotions"?  Check!  And a harmonica solo?  Checkeroo!  I am laughing and doing a sassy little dance in my chair that is pissing off the cat.  As an added bonus, I am reminded that my pal Kell did a cover of this where he sang it like Lou Reed, so I have that going for me as well.

My bonhomie does not last, as K-Ci and JoJo (I know, right) are up next with "All My Life" and FUCK I AM ONLY A THIRD OF THE WAY THROUGH THIS.  Boilerplate R&B ballad with predictably risible lyrics.  I am so pissed that this is not R. Kelly.

I must be getting desperate, or drunk, or both.  I can TELL that "Never Ever" by All Saints is shit, but I'm kinda feeling it.  The lyrics are ludicrous ("I'll take a shower/I will scour"), but it's well executed quasi-soul, and the spoken intro is so awkward it could almost be The Shaggs.  Which is a big help, obvs.

Tonic and "If You Could Only See" next.  I will admit that when the guitars kick in I almost give this a pass.  I'm a sucker like that.  But then the fake-metal part starts, and the contrast between the ultra-sappy chorus and the "intense" verse makes me think these dudes probably love 'em some domestic violence.  The song is also a full minute too long.  I don't understand AT ALL why this was a hit.  Must have been an "alternative" hangover from earlier in the decade.

Oh, man, really?  I gotta listen to "MmmBop" by Hanson?  I couldn't smash myself in the face with a brick or maybe listen to the Spin Doctors instead?  Fuck.  Did the record scratches on this jam presage the entire second act of Sugar Ray's career (the band, not the boxer)?  Discuss.  Also, how weird is it that one of these kids is now in a band with Bun E. Carlos from Cheap Trick?  

"Zoot Suit Riot"?  OH FUCKING COME ON.  Okay, this is The Cherry Poppin' Daddies, and whenever I hear this I think about the drummer for the glam-punk band I was in back in Tacoma.  Dude was heavy into the swing scene and we used to give him a grip of shit about it.  I think his smooth-smoothie act got him laid a couple of times, but liking the Cherry Poppin' Daddies is only like one step above Roofies on the "Shameful Shit You Do To Get Laid" scale.  Other than that he was a great guy, and I'm sure he never raped anybody.


I have never heard "Shorty (You Keep Playin' With My Mind)" before, nor have I ever heard of Imajin, but that's who I'm listening to now.  Not awful.  Yes, it's R&B, but the beat is kinda hard and... FUCKING KEITH MURRAY!  YES!  Actual rap by an actual rapper!  And he's quoting Prince?  This is totally acceptable.  Thank god for rap cameos.

"Anytime" by Brian McKnight is next and it's an R&B slow jam.  As a white middle-class punk rocker I am totally unequipped to discuss this.  All I can do is try to pay attention and wait for...

"Barbie Girl".  Aqua.  Fuck.  Yes.  Remember what I said about thinking yr too smart for punk and wrestling?  Well, don't go thinking yr too smart for AQUA, because you are NOT.  Hyper-moronic techno bubblegum.  The only way this could be better is if it were Shampoo, but they didn't have any hits in the States cos Americans are BORING.


Boof.  "Karma Police" by Radiohead provides one of the most abrupt and savage comedowns in history.  What fucking sadist put these two songs back to back?  I can't really hang with this level of pretension anymore (the piano fills, the strings) which is why Radiohead and I parted company shortly after this album.  Still, this is some high-grade misery from back when these dudes actually wrote songs.


Everclear next, with "I Will Buy You A New Life".  It's pretty much the same song they always play... mid-tempo post-grunge schmaltz that resolutely refuses to rock and guitars that go "nur-nur-nur-nurnur-NUR-NUR".  It's pretty crazy how dull this band (and this song) are/were.


God, I'm in the home stretch but things ain't getting any easier.  Lenny Kravitz is doing "Fly Away" and I would literally rather listen to ANYTHING ELSE on this compilation than this.  Yes, even the Zoot Suit one.  This jam has it all... most boring music, most inane lyrics... pure tedium.  It's "Rock and Roll" for first-year sociology students who just realized that the Rolling Stones are kind of sexist.


And, the last jam... "Sex And Candy" by Marcy Playground.  Creepy creep alt-rock from a dude with "So much time to think about [him]self".  Thank Jahweh these jerks never got another hit.


Well, that was painful.  Clearly All Saints, The Spice Girls, and the sainted Aqua were the most talented artists of 1998.  And now, to wash away the nightmares... Australia's Useless Children with their best song ever!  It's "People Come, People Go" off their 2009 EP and it sounds like if the Birthday Party added a girl singer and were signed to AmRep.  In other words, it's fucking PERFECT.

It Says Nothing To Me About My Life

Smart guys like Jon Spencer know about a thing called semiotics.  Without paddling out past my intellectual depth, it is the system of "signifiers" that exist within almost every aspect of culture.  If, for example, a man in a Western is wearing a white hat, we understand that he is Our Hero, not because it is explicitly stated, but because the white hat is a signifier conveying purity (among other things).  Pop Music is of course no exception, and the semiotics of Pop function as an invisible language that separates a fluent speaker like Lady Gaga from the awkward pidgin of someone like Rebecca Black.

When I found the album pictured above on the shelves of the Public Library, my hands started to shake.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered.  "What, semiotically speaking, the fuck?" (My spell-check program is trying to tell me that "semiotically" is not a word.  Silly bastard must not have gone to a good college.)

The album in question is by Tiffany.  Lest one forget her pedigree, the album cover helpfully explains "I think we're alone now '80s Hits and more" (capitalization and punctuation unchanged).  It features a mildly unflattering picture of 1980's era Tiffany in front of what appear to be a series of arcing pastel foam swim toys.  The back cover features more swim toys and three balloons.  It also, predictably, lists what songs are on the album, as well as the logo of the record label responsible for this semiotic Dagwood.

I think we're alone now - 80's Hits and more was released by Cleopatra Records.  Cleopatra, for those of you who are not compelled to know such things, was originally a goth-industrial label, putting out releases by the likes of Psychic TV and Leaether Strip (yes, that's how it was spelled).  The latter had a song called "Go Fuck Your Ass Off", if that gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here.

The semiotic plot thickened.

The album was released in 2007, and features re-recorded versions of three of Tiffany's big chart hits (one of which was itself a cover of a Beatles song) as well as nine other covers, most of which are temporally centered in the '80's.  Most.  Not all.  

The re-recordings range from the faithfully pedestrian ("Voices Carry", "Forever Young", "Call Me") to the more outlandish (and satisfying, if you've got a mind like mine).  The new version of "I Think We're Alone Now" bears strong tonal similarities to the first Nine Inch Nails album (no shit, the beat is a fairly beefy synth throb and the guitars are much more intense than anything on a Tiffany album has a right to be) and perhaps goes some way to explaining what the ass this thing is doing on Cleopatra (the massive turf-out of the world economy explains the rest... Cleopatra seems to have abandoned its roots and become an all-purpose reissue factory, which probably pays much better than putting out Leaether Strip albums ever did).  "The Beat Goes On" turns the Sonny & Cher chestnut into a Big Audio Dynamite-esque slice of chirpily awkward sample madness.  Oh, and then there's a Smiths cover.

"Panic (Hang The DJ)", aside from getting the title wrong (the original version did not add a parenthetical) is reworked as a sensuous, sinewy techno dancefloor behemoth.  This, given that the lyrics were intended as  a venomous condemnation of England's then-burgeoning Rave Culture, is perhaps more than just a bit ironic.  


To sum up:  1980's diva joins forces with a former goth-industrial label to release an album of covers (in some cases COVERS OF COVERS) remade to sound like music from the 1990's (or, occasionally, like music from LATER in the '80's).  Said Diva, an American, manages to completely invert the message of an iconic song by a likewise iconic English band.  Her cover of Sonny and Cher's ode to the eternal qualities of Pop (itself NOT from the '80's) is rendered in a style that is (amazingly) both futurist and anachronistically retro.  The cover art features a picture of her from the past that is LESS FLATTERING than what she currently looks like, and seems to have been made either with an early generation of photoshop or particularly inexpensive mall photo booth.


I hope it doesn't seem like I'm making fun of this album, because I'm not.  I love it.  The insane variety of semiotic signals it sends out give it a depth and richness that most artists are purely incapable of creating. If Tiffany had made a concept album about the vagaries of fame, it would not be able to convey these same ideas with one half the freshness, charm, and fun of I think we're alone now - '80s Hits and more.  Tiffany's distance from the Pop Zeitgeist gives her covers the quality of translations... by approaching them with a semiotic gloss that differs not just from the original conceptions but from the current set of acceptable pop signifiers, she manages to reveal hidden depths in the material and in herself.


Here's my favorites, so you can play along at home.  


Postscript - Tiffany is currently working on a Country Album.  My cup runneth over.

I Just Saw God and/or Die Antwoord

For the unintiated, please view the above. The initiated could probably do with watching this fokken masterpiece again, anyway.

So, Die Antwoord were live in my town and I was really conflicted. This was, after all, an unabashed product of gross internet hype, a flash-in-the-pan bit of (shudder) comedy rap tarted up with some vaguely international cred. Culture tourism with rave beats. Comedy rap. Performance art intellectuals masquerading as sub-working-class South African slum dwellers. Afrikaans Ali G's. Did I mention comedy rap?

But the album was amazing and the videos were better, and the kind of people who sit on the internet wringing their (virtual) hands over "authenticity" are the lowest kind of scum, so I kind of wanted to go.

But years as a hip-hop fan have taught me one thing: rap shows fucking suck. Basically, if the performer is emotionally invested in their craft at all, you get some dude yelling at you while jumping up and down for an hour. If he's not invested, you get his weed carriers yelling at you while NOT jumping up and down. For twenty minutes. When the greatest live example of your genre is the Anti-Pop Consortium, you are in BIG FUCKING TROUBLE.

So I waffled. I thought about Cage, and how he sucked. I thought about Ghostface and how he sucked (yes, I'm white... how could you tell?). I thought about Mr. Lif and how even though he kind of ruled, he also pretty much sucked. But then I watched Die Antwoord's videos, and I wondered... is there any chance at all that I'm going to get this level of awesome? Is there any chance at all that this show will be a rave-rap black mass complete with hooded robes that have alien faces and horns on the hoods of said hooded robes? Can any simple stage show contain the Keith Haring Boner Party that is Die Antwoord's mis en scene? Will there be Prawn Hands?

So after much waffling, I paid my twenty bucks (more like conned my friend Bill into paying my twenty bucks, but I'll get him back later. IN THEORY.). I bought the ticket, I took the ride, as a wise man once said.

Alien face horn-hood? Check. Keith Haring Boner Party? Check. PRAWN HANDS?!?!?! CHECK!!!!

Also: Lesbian tit mouse-mask porn. Yolandi Vi$$er constantly threatening to display the lower half of her boobs but just not quite. Near-total Hipster Scum saturation. Epic five-minute intro of chanting monks droning while we stared at Leon Botha's face. "Portland, why are you so fokking cute?" Rave-rap tentacle sex armageddon. There were also two people jumping up and down and shouting at me, but since one was a four-foot-tall sex bomb, I didn't mind so much. Easily the best twenty dollars I almost spent.

Did I mention the mouse-mask porn? Fuck, I can't wait for the album to drop... and the album after that, etc.