brendanhalpin
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Yeah, I know what you're thinking ('cause I have powers!): it's something along the lines of "O Dear God! If Count Smokula is one of his proud pleasures, what could a guilty one be?"
Well, it could be this slice of '90's cheese I heard last night, the last, dying gasp of the AOR radio format. (remember that? It used to be all you could listen to!)
Oh, there's plenty to hate here: the vocal-and-drum-only part so the guitar player and bassist can clap their hands over their heads and encourage the audience, the meaningless, up-with-people chorus, and the fact that it was covered by execrable pop country outfit Rascal Flatts.
And yet, I love it. In fact, I wanna ride it all night long.
Last October, I wrote a lot of posts about music that was, in one way or another, horror-related. Yet only recently have I seen straight into the black heart of evil, only recently have my ears burned with the sounds that make Satan himself scream, only recently have I discovered the perfect, hair-raising, sphincter-clenching horror that is the music of Count Smokula.
Press the red button---if you dare!Comments
Wow, I did dare and do not regret. I've just checked his website and found him to have a weird resemblance with our Mogger friend Mike the Knife
(Scot: that's a beautiful poster)
It's hard for music geeks to get passionate about music that's actually popular. We tend to get passionate about these bands that seem to speak to us but not to other people in adolescence, and this habit sticks with us. Thus we complain when a band that was formerly "ours" gets popular--they sold out, we cry, when what we really mean is "liking this band no longer identifies me as a cool outsider!"
(Exception--we can also get passionate about pre-fab pop music, but this is usually a pose struck to infuriate our fellow music geeks. "Oh, that new Britney Spears album is brilliant," we say, confident that we'll annoy the hell out of the guy who thinks that adjective can only be applied to Dylan records.)
So whenever the next Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (remember them? Me neither! I think they're working at the same Quiznos as The Polyphonic Spree) comes along, the mog and blog o spheres will be all abuzz with the discovery of a band fundamentally designed to be unpopular, and meanwhile, right under our noses, U2 keeps chugging along year after year churning out good-to-great records.
I'm guilty of this as well--I've only owned one U2 album, which I actually stole from my mom (long story, but it's in my memoir It Takes a Worried Man), and I listened to it so much during a horrible time in my life that I can't stand to listen to it anymore. And why own any others, when at least three formats of radio station kick out a U2 song several times a day?
And the song that probably comes up more than any other is "One". I suppose it is their greatest hit. And, like "Satisfaction" and "Stairway to Heaven" and all those other songs that I've heard more times than any pop song should ever be heard, I should be sick of it. But I'm not. In fact, I'm here to say, as uncool as it may be, this is an incredibly good song.
Witness the three versions associated with this post. (One is a cover, and two have members of the band associated with them, so I'm not sure if they count as covers or not, but anyway). In each of these versions, the singer manages to make the song sound like it was written for them. This may be just because Johnny Cash, Michael Stipe, and Mary J. Blige are (or, you know, were) gifted singers, but I think it's because the song is so damn good that a pretty wide variety of talents can find enough of themselves in it to really make it their own.
Here's Michael Stipe & Friends:
And here's U2 with Mary J. Blige. This one's really worth watching to the end because she completely tears the roof off the sucker. 
The button gives you Johnny Cash, whose version was recommended to me by a helpful record store clerk. (Yes, young moggers, there once was such a place as a record store and such a thing as a helpful clerk! True!)
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Loved the post B. Looking for the next underdog? Guilty! I've got most of U2's catalogue, but been quite awhile since I've listened.
You've managed to infuriate me with this paean to U2. Seriously Brendan, you knew I would have to respond to your post with another irritating and poppy tunage.
Now seriously and properly, what you say about popular songs which have taken hold of our collective cochlea for better or worse is very true. What matters is the way a true artist makes it their own. I know it'll sound clichéd but you will not find a better example than Coltrane's appropriation of "My Favourite Things."
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You could also add to the hate-list: video with '64 Chevy Impala, straight ribbon of road with double row of telephone poles and wide open spaces, man standing in field singing, interaction with colorful (american spelling) locals at gas station, dancing in middle of nowhere because - hey! - we're full of life! But I can hear why you like it.
yuck.
I'm with you on Rascal Flatts. no accounting for taste.
steve
Guilty as sin??? Is that what you're getting at? Perhaps, I'm just a philistine.