This deserves a second post.
-
Artist:
-
Album:
-
Track:
As I anaesthetize myself with the soothing gospel charms of Justin Timberlake's "Losing My Way" (really, this is a fine song), I can't help but notice that the track currently being karaoke-screamed-en-masse at the party across the way is "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson.I hate this song.I don't believe I've hated a song more than I hate this one since it came out. Not even "That's My Word" by Keak Da Sneak (maybe my least favorite song of 2006) inspires this level of vitriol in me.Here's what I wrote in December of 2005: This isn't exclusively a Pitchfork rant, but I have to begin it with them: This song is in the top 10 of Pitchfork's singles list. Tell me this: what would they rate the previously-unfairly-dubbed-as-0.0 Matrix-produced Liz Phair commercial record now? 8.2? Sasha Frere-Jones labeled this song at some point (I'm not going to bother to look again, but suffice it to say if it's not still true, it was a month ago) as the NUMBER ONE single of the year. Mike Doughty loves it. Ted Leo loves it. Did I say "Ted Leo loves it," because I meant he covered it. Hipster bloggers love it. I do not understand. Where were these saviors of unbearable teen-girl-angst-chunk-pop when "Complicated" hit the scene? I don't recall people liking that tune much, am I wrong? I'm so confused. I don't like accusing people of posing, because I understand loving ABBA and other "guilty" pleasures with the whole of your relatively-language-free music-enjoying self. Hell, I even liked Annie when P-fork broke her, and I liked Robyn back when my friend Jamie played her for me some months ago in Santa Cruz. But those are not of the genre I scorn here today, the Avril/Kelly/Ashlee/Hilary thing that I hear more often in either Wendy's or California Pizza Kitchen than anywhere else I go in my life. 'Course, just hearing it inspires just about the same reaction in me as any song by Franz or the new Strokes single, which might explain something... [The song] is pathetically formulaic in a genre I have tried to avoid, a genre that has been disgusting to me every time I've witnessed it in action. And now I love to listen to things like Mexican sons huastecos-- I genuinely love it, but I also wouldn't write it off if someone suggested that it was at least partially a subconscious effort to remove myself from the demographic that now enjoys the soundtrack to Party of Five. Wasn't that show on Fox? What channel is American Idol on? Hmm...I don't know if that rant even makes sense, but I think it proves that the song inspires a particular brain-clouding brand of hatred in me. The title phrase alone-- "Since U Been Gone"-- makes my blood boil. Why do I care so much? Why the Pavlovian scorn?Well - why not, I guess...
Comments (11)