This has been said elsewhere plenty recently, but John Hughes’ untimely recent clog-popping reminded us that, without the killer soundtracks, his movies wouldn’t have been quite so fondly remembered. While Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson are among the first things I think of when I hear The Breakfast Club mentioned, so is “Don’t You Forget About Me”.
Watching the marvellous Adventurelandat the weekend I was struck at how worthy it is of joining the pantheon of Great, Funny, Sweet Teen Movies With Amazing Soundtracks. Is Kristen Stewart going to be thought of as the new Molly Ringwald? She’s certainly angsty enough, if, perhaps, a tad too pretty.
Anyway, the Adventureland soundtrack is helped by the fact that the film is set in the 80s and that the kids like smoking dope to forget their lousy jobs and dysfunctional families. They drive around feeling tortured and listening to Lou Reed, David Bowie, The Replacements and Husker Dü.
Which brings me round to my admission that this post is really just an excuse for me to stick up one of my favourite Replacements songs, “Unsatisfied”, which appears towards the end of the film. This is frontman Paul Westerberg performing the song in 2002, and it’s lent a poignant something when you read the band’s nearly-made-it history.
The dancefloor is traditionally a place of joy, somewhere we can all forget the stresses and strains of everyday life by flailing our limbs rhythmically alongside friends and/or people we are keen to sex on.
However, over the years numerous pop songs have detailed disturbing events to have taken place on the dancefloor. Arson, indecent exposure - even bloody murder - have all occurred, calling into question the security arrangements at the nitespots in question and almost certainly ruining many people’s nights out.
These are the top five lyrical crimes committed on the dancefloor.
That Louise Doherty went along to see that rapper Example the other night. Here she talk:
I swore I’d never go to another Example gig after the last time, when the man himself called me an idiot.
I’m certain there are many things I’ve done which deserve that charming accolade, but going to a gig on my own because I’m a long-time proponent of Example’s particularly unique brand of dysfunctional electro pop - while my friends aren’t (yet) - is not one of them.
The incident filled me with fury and resentment: “But I forced my friends to watch your new video on TV! I made a special effort to tune into your hilarious Radio 1 interview! I bought your first album! I’ve seen you play THREE times! I follow you on Twitter, and I’m your Facebook Fan! Hell, I even find you strangely attractive!”
If anything, I should have got a shout-out at that gig for being a super-fan and helping to spread the Word of Example (that’s Elliott Gleave by the by, initials E.G. - geddit?).
(Readership, when I asked Louise if she wanted to go to this show I didn’t realise quite how much “baggage” was attached - Ed)
You might need to be “of a certain age” to recall Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile”. If you’re not that age, this is it:
“Psych”.
Well, while you might assume Shanice fell down the same pop/R&B plughole as Ralph Tresvant, Urlesque recently revealed that she’s still going. Even if “still going” in this case means “uploading videos of herself singing in her living room to YouTube”.
Here she is doing Christina’s “Beautiful”. Warning - it may start understated, but some severe wailing soon follows:
Comfy-looking sofa, isn’t it? Mine’s PVC :(
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Monday September 7th, 2009 at
8:30 am
Poor Jane Bradley. I made her write about this ridiculous video by some people called The Octopus Project:
Apparently, there was a “pretty gnarly fog” when The Octopus Project filmed the video for “Wet Gold”. Maybe I shouldn’t let this choice of adjective irritate me such an inordinate amount. But I don’t think words like “gnarly” or “bodacious” should be used by anyone, except maybe Bill and Ted (of Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey fame), or kids on council estates pretending to be Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. That’s still on, right?
The concept for “Wet Gold” seems to be that the Octo-chaps are lost at sea, in a white rubber dinghy with a cutesy cartoon face. Like the milk carton from the video for Blur’s “Coffee and TV”. Except much cheaper and nowhere near as endearing. Continue reading »
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Thursday September 3rd, 2009 at
8:30 am
Basshunter (real name: Ian Basshunter) has produced a very odd piece of work here. Let’s overlook the fact that he commits a common lyrical crime in switching between “she” and “you” with abandon, and instead focus on a couple of things about the video.
Thing 1: He rolls with a crew who are so much bloody fun that he literally never gets five minutes alone with his missus to propose to her. There he is on a yacht, or a piece of reclining beach furniture, fumbling about in the pocket of his cargo shorts for the ring, when his “boys” come and grab him and drag him off for some laddish larks. You’d think Mr Basshunter might have enough cash these days to take his beloved off for a holiday sans his spitroast buddies, but apparently not.
Thing 2: I don’t want to ruin it for you, but you should really watch until the end. To say the video’s conclusion jars with the tone of the preceding footage - and indeed the euphoric eurospaff of the song in general - is an understatement. There is a “message” there, but it’s pretty unsubtly done unlike the rest of Mr Basshunter’s oeuvre.
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Wednesday August 26th, 2009 at
8:00 am
This trailer is not quite as funny as the cast and subject matter led me to hope for. I don’t suppose Ang Lee’s especially well known for his comedies though, is he…
Taking Woodstock is released in the UK on November 13th
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Tuesday August 25th, 2009 at
8:00 am
When I was a child I used to sing along to records of Disney movie soundtracks. I remember when George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” was deemed too risqué for radio. How times done changed, my kittens, how times done changed.
These days YouTube is littered with videos of little kids being filmed singing and dancing along to songs with delightfully inappropriate lyrics. You’ll see them singing along to Akon and Fergie, wondering if the parents - who are nearly always behind the camera egging them on - will next enter them into one of those icky child beauty pageants.
You just know somewhere there’s a blog or a forum of paedos sharing this stuff with “like-minded” souls, too. So let’s join them! Here are five cute/disturbing/funny/miserable clips of children singing Flo Rida’s “Low”, the poignant tale of a lady - in possession of a big booty, of course - being plied with alcohol, drugs and stacks of dollar bills by Mr Rida one evening in a local nitespot.
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