Kind of Interesting
May. 1st, 2004 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxEW.com's Lyric "Garbage or Genius" ratings...
Music
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..
Hooks and Lines
Do rock and pop lyrics matter? Two of Entertainment Weekly's music critics square off -- read their debate, followed by their lists of favorite songs by Rob Brunner & Chris Willman
ROB BRUNNER It's no surprise that the worst song ever written -- America's whiny, monotonous Neil Young rip-off ''A Horse With No Name'' -- has horrible lyrics. There ain't no way for to enjoy a song that contains lines like ''In the desert, you can remember your name/'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain/La la la-ah la-la la/La-la la, la la.'' But the truth is that most lyrics suck. Dumb, awkward, self-important, or just plain silly, the words to the majority of rock songs don't hold up to real scrutiny. Even the supposedly great lyricists aren't so hot when you actually read their words on the page. Springsteen, Costello, Lennon/McCartney -- they've all saddled their catalogs with overwrought, cliché-filled prose that wouldn't make it past a romance-novel editor. Even the mighty Bob Dylan is an overrated wordsmith: Many of his songs consist of little more than long strings of references and evocative imagery that often add up to not very much. Try out this Dylan clunker from ''Idiot Wind'' next time you get in a fight with your wife: ''You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.'' What does that even mean?
CHRIS WILLMAN I'll resist the temptation to respond by singing, ''You're an idiot, Rob...'' But you just dismissed one of my favorite lyrics, from one of the funniest songs ever written. It was not two months ago, I swear, that I put on the remastered ''Blood on the Tracks'' and began laughing so hard that tears came to my eyes. No insult comic, not even Triumph, has ever arrived at a better or meaner put-down than Dylan's assertion that his ex is so dumb she can barely remember to inhale and exhale. In some ways, rock & roll and hip-hop have supplanted stand-up comedy -- look at Eminem -- and Dylan is a seriously underrated comedian.
I sort of agree with both of them. Personally, I am someone who listens to the lyrics. I LIKE the lyrics and would rather they have meaning. On the other hand, I absolutely agree that a lot of the lyrics are gibberish or much sound and fury signifying nothing (I say... as the radio plays an old song with the refrain "everybody needs a bosom for a pillow..." :)
Anyway, the stuff that they polled:
There's so many fish in the sea
That only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury
-- Elvis Costello, ''Accidents Will Happen'' (1979)
39% Good
34% Kind of lame
18% Poetic genius
8% Garbage
Walking side by side with death
The devil mocks their every step
The snow drives back the foot that's slow
The dogs of doom are howling more
-- Led Zeppelin, ''No Quarter''
(Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, 1973)
37% Good
28% Kinda Lame
25% Genius
10% Garbage
H to the izz-O, V to the izz-A
Fo' shizzle my nizzle used to dribble down in VA
Was hurtin' 'em in the home of the Terrapins; got it dirt cheap for them
Plus if they was short with cheese I would work with them
-- Jay-Z, ''Izzo (H.O.V.A.)'' (2001)
57% Garbage
16% Lame
15% Good
13% Genius (wha-huh?!)
For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels
Rumbling through this promised land
Tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea
And wash these sins off our hands
-- Bruce Springsteen, "Racing in the Streets'' (1978)
47% Genius
34% Good
14% Lame
4% Garbage
Well since age twelve, I've felt like I'm someone else
Cause I hung my original self from the top bunk with a belt
-- Eminem, ''My Name Is...'' (Eminem and Dr. Dre, 1999)
43% Good
25% Lame
23% Genius
9% Garbage
Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye.
Crab a locker fishwife pornographic priestess.
Boy, you been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down.
-- The Beatles, ''I Am the Walrus''
(John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1967)
35% Genius
25% Lame
20% Good
20% Garbage
Nobody likes you when you're 23
And you still act like you're in Freshman year
What the hell is wrong with me?
My friends say I should act my age
What's my age again?
--blink-182 ''What's My Age Again?''
(Tom Delonge and Mark Hoppus, 1999)
Heh. I actually enjoy this song. It always puts me in a good mood. Love the part where he calls up his girlfriend's mother for a prank. "The state looks down on sodomy..." It's not like this is a serious or earnest song. It would be like trying to find the literary merit in the song "pretty fly for a white guy." :)
36% Lame
31% Good
21% Garbage
12% Genius
Poetry or Garbage? Rate the Lyrics
Lyric No. 8
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido
A denial, a denial, a denial, a denial...
Nirvana, ''Smells Like Teen Spirit''
(Kurt Cobain, 1991)
Whoa! I'm impressed anyone knew what in the hell he was saying! I always laughed at the "he's the voice of a generation" crap with Cobain. Dude, if he's the voice of my generation... my generation is unintelligible!
38% Genius
25% Good
23% Lame
14% Garbage
Tight hip huggers (low for sure)
Shake a little somethin' (on the floor)
I need that, uh, to get me off
Sweat until my clothes come off
--Chistina Aguilera, ''Dirrty''
(Christina Aguilera, Jasper Tremaine Cameron, Bale'wa M. Muhammad, Reggie Noble, Dana Stinson 2002)
58% Garbage
21% Lame
15% Good
7% Genius
I was drowned, I was washed up and left for dead
I fell down to my feet and I saw they bled
I frowned at the crumbs of a crust of bread
I was crowned with a spike right thru my head
-- The Rolling Stones, ''Jumpin' Jack Flash''
(Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, 1968)
60% Genius
31% Good
7% Lame
2% Garbage
In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey
Butane in my veins so I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray paint the vegetables
Dog food skulls with the beefcake pantyhose
-- Beck, ''Loser''
(Beck, Karl Stephenson, 1994)
Yeah, but I always enjoy it when they play it on the radio.
40% Genius
30% Good
17% Lame
13% Garbage
I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky, then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold and all the trees are shivering in a naked row
I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go
-- Joni Mitchell, ''Urge for Going''
(Joni Mitchell, 1966)
79% Genius
17% Good
4% Lame
1% Garbage
Blind to a broken man's dream, a hard lesson
Court cases keep me guessin', plea bargain
ain't an option now, so I'm stressin', cost me more
to be free than a life in the pen
Makin' money off of cuss words, writin' again
-- Makaveli (2Pac), ''To Live and Die in L.A.''
(Tupac Shakur, Val Young Andrews, Snoopy 1996)
52% Good
26% Genius
11% Lame
10% Garbage
O what a rush of ripe elan!
Languor on divans
Dalliant and dainty!
But the smell of burnt cocaine,
The dolor and the drain
It only makes me cranky.
-- The Decemberists, ''Los Angeles, I'm Yours,'' 2003
(Colin Meloy, 2003)
35% Lame
30% Good
20% Genius
15% Garbage
Starfish and coffee,
maple syrup and jam,
butterscotch clouds, a tangerine,
and a side order of ham
If U set your mind free, baby
maybe you'd understand
Prince, ''Starfish and Coffee''
(Prince/Susannah Melvoin, 1987)
40% Lame
28% Good
19% Genius
13% Garbage
And you fall and you crawl and you break
and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty
and promise me I'm never gonna find you fake it
-- Avril Lavigne, ''Complicated''
(Avril Lavigne, Lauren Christy, Graham Edwards, Scott Spock, 2002)
34% Garbage
31% Good
30% Lame
5% Genius
I start to think and then I sink
Into the paper like I was ink
When I'm writing I'm trapped in between the lines
I escape when I finish the rhyme
-- Eric B. and Rakim, ''I Know You Got Soul''
(Eric Barrier/William Griffin Jr., 1987)
42% Good
26% Lame
24% Genius
8% Garbage
Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
-- Bob Dylan, ''Visions of Johanna''
(Bob Dylan,1966)
64% Genius
26% Good
6% Lame
4% Garbage
Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal
I walk tha corner to the rubble that used to be a library
Line up to the mind cemetary
-- Rage Against the Machine, ''Bulls on Parade''
(Zack de la Rocha, 1996)
44% Good
25% Genius
20% Lame
11% Garbage
Just as Christ was a superstar, you stupid star
They'll hail you then they'll nail you, no matter who you are
They'll make you now then take you down
-- Lauryn Hill, ''Superstar''
(Lauryn Hill, James Poyser, 1998)
Heh. I enjoy this song too.
48% Good
27% Genius
15% Lame
9% Garbage
Music
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
..
Hooks and Lines
Do rock and pop lyrics matter? Two of Entertainment Weekly's music critics square off -- read their debate, followed by their lists of favorite songs by Rob Brunner & Chris Willman
ROB BRUNNER It's no surprise that the worst song ever written -- America's whiny, monotonous Neil Young rip-off ''A Horse With No Name'' -- has horrible lyrics. There ain't no way for to enjoy a song that contains lines like ''In the desert, you can remember your name/'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain/La la la-ah la-la la/La-la la, la la.'' But the truth is that most lyrics suck. Dumb, awkward, self-important, or just plain silly, the words to the majority of rock songs don't hold up to real scrutiny. Even the supposedly great lyricists aren't so hot when you actually read their words on the page. Springsteen, Costello, Lennon/McCartney -- they've all saddled their catalogs with overwrought, cliché-filled prose that wouldn't make it past a romance-novel editor. Even the mighty Bob Dylan is an overrated wordsmith: Many of his songs consist of little more than long strings of references and evocative imagery that often add up to not very much. Try out this Dylan clunker from ''Idiot Wind'' next time you get in a fight with your wife: ''You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.'' What does that even mean?
CHRIS WILLMAN I'll resist the temptation to respond by singing, ''You're an idiot, Rob...'' But you just dismissed one of my favorite lyrics, from one of the funniest songs ever written. It was not two months ago, I swear, that I put on the remastered ''Blood on the Tracks'' and began laughing so hard that tears came to my eyes. No insult comic, not even Triumph, has ever arrived at a better or meaner put-down than Dylan's assertion that his ex is so dumb she can barely remember to inhale and exhale. In some ways, rock & roll and hip-hop have supplanted stand-up comedy -- look at Eminem -- and Dylan is a seriously underrated comedian.
I sort of agree with both of them. Personally, I am someone who listens to the lyrics. I LIKE the lyrics and would rather they have meaning. On the other hand, I absolutely agree that a lot of the lyrics are gibberish or much sound and fury signifying nothing (I say... as the radio plays an old song with the refrain "everybody needs a bosom for a pillow..." :)
Anyway, the stuff that they polled:
There's so many fish in the sea
That only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury
-- Elvis Costello, ''Accidents Will Happen'' (1979)
39% Good
34% Kind of lame
18% Poetic genius
8% Garbage
Walking side by side with death
The devil mocks their every step
The snow drives back the foot that's slow
The dogs of doom are howling more
-- Led Zeppelin, ''No Quarter''
(Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, 1973)
37% Good
28% Kinda Lame
25% Genius
10% Garbage
H to the izz-O, V to the izz-A
Fo' shizzle my nizzle used to dribble down in VA
Was hurtin' 'em in the home of the Terrapins; got it dirt cheap for them
Plus if they was short with cheese I would work with them
-- Jay-Z, ''Izzo (H.O.V.A.)'' (2001)
57% Garbage
16% Lame
15% Good
13% Genius (wha-huh?!)
For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels
Rumbling through this promised land
Tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea
And wash these sins off our hands
-- Bruce Springsteen, "Racing in the Streets'' (1978)
47% Genius
34% Good
14% Lame
4% Garbage
Well since age twelve, I've felt like I'm someone else
Cause I hung my original self from the top bunk with a belt
-- Eminem, ''My Name Is...'' (Eminem and Dr. Dre, 1999)
43% Good
25% Lame
23% Genius
9% Garbage
Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye.
Crab a locker fishwife pornographic priestess.
Boy, you been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down.
-- The Beatles, ''I Am the Walrus''
(John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1967)
35% Genius
25% Lame
20% Good
20% Garbage
Nobody likes you when you're 23
And you still act like you're in Freshman year
What the hell is wrong with me?
My friends say I should act my age
What's my age again?
--blink-182 ''What's My Age Again?''
(Tom Delonge and Mark Hoppus, 1999)
Heh. I actually enjoy this song. It always puts me in a good mood. Love the part where he calls up his girlfriend's mother for a prank. "The state looks down on sodomy..." It's not like this is a serious or earnest song. It would be like trying to find the literary merit in the song "pretty fly for a white guy." :)
36% Lame
31% Good
21% Garbage
12% Genius
Poetry or Garbage? Rate the Lyrics
Lyric No. 8
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido
A denial, a denial, a denial, a denial...
Nirvana, ''Smells Like Teen Spirit''
(Kurt Cobain, 1991)
Whoa! I'm impressed anyone knew what in the hell he was saying! I always laughed at the "he's the voice of a generation" crap with Cobain. Dude, if he's the voice of my generation... my generation is unintelligible!
38% Genius
25% Good
23% Lame
14% Garbage
Tight hip huggers (low for sure)
Shake a little somethin' (on the floor)
I need that, uh, to get me off
Sweat until my clothes come off
--Chistina Aguilera, ''Dirrty''
(Christina Aguilera, Jasper Tremaine Cameron, Bale'wa M. Muhammad, Reggie Noble, Dana Stinson 2002)
58% Garbage
21% Lame
15% Good
7% Genius
I was drowned, I was washed up and left for dead
I fell down to my feet and I saw they bled
I frowned at the crumbs of a crust of bread
I was crowned with a spike right thru my head
-- The Rolling Stones, ''Jumpin' Jack Flash''
(Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, 1968)
60% Genius
31% Good
7% Lame
2% Garbage
In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey
Butane in my veins so I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray paint the vegetables
Dog food skulls with the beefcake pantyhose
-- Beck, ''Loser''
(Beck, Karl Stephenson, 1994)
Yeah, but I always enjoy it when they play it on the radio.
40% Genius
30% Good
17% Lame
13% Garbage
I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky, then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold and all the trees are shivering in a naked row
I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go
-- Joni Mitchell, ''Urge for Going''
(Joni Mitchell, 1966)
79% Genius
17% Good
4% Lame
1% Garbage
Blind to a broken man's dream, a hard lesson
Court cases keep me guessin', plea bargain
ain't an option now, so I'm stressin', cost me more
to be free than a life in the pen
Makin' money off of cuss words, writin' again
-- Makaveli (2Pac), ''To Live and Die in L.A.''
(Tupac Shakur, Val Young Andrews, Snoopy 1996)
52% Good
26% Genius
11% Lame
10% Garbage
O what a rush of ripe elan!
Languor on divans
Dalliant and dainty!
But the smell of burnt cocaine,
The dolor and the drain
It only makes me cranky.
-- The Decemberists, ''Los Angeles, I'm Yours,'' 2003
(Colin Meloy, 2003)
35% Lame
30% Good
20% Genius
15% Garbage
Starfish and coffee,
maple syrup and jam,
butterscotch clouds, a tangerine,
and a side order of ham
If U set your mind free, baby
maybe you'd understand
Prince, ''Starfish and Coffee''
(Prince/Susannah Melvoin, 1987)
40% Lame
28% Good
19% Genius
13% Garbage
And you fall and you crawl and you break
and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty
and promise me I'm never gonna find you fake it
-- Avril Lavigne, ''Complicated''
(Avril Lavigne, Lauren Christy, Graham Edwards, Scott Spock, 2002)
34% Garbage
31% Good
30% Lame
5% Genius
I start to think and then I sink
Into the paper like I was ink
When I'm writing I'm trapped in between the lines
I escape when I finish the rhyme
-- Eric B. and Rakim, ''I Know You Got Soul''
(Eric Barrier/William Griffin Jr., 1987)
42% Good
26% Lame
24% Genius
8% Garbage
Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
-- Bob Dylan, ''Visions of Johanna''
(Bob Dylan,1966)
64% Genius
26% Good
6% Lame
4% Garbage
Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal
I walk tha corner to the rubble that used to be a library
Line up to the mind cemetary
-- Rage Against the Machine, ''Bulls on Parade''
(Zack de la Rocha, 1996)
44% Good
25% Genius
20% Lame
11% Garbage
Just as Christ was a superstar, you stupid star
They'll hail you then they'll nail you, no matter who you are
They'll make you now then take you down
-- Lauryn Hill, ''Superstar''
(Lauryn Hill, James Poyser, 1998)
Heh. I enjoy this song too.
48% Good
27% Genius
15% Lame
9% Garbage
