today is the day...

Do you know what today is? Well here is a hint, its Saturday, its no longer November. Thats right its "The First of the Month." In the 7th grade I was so into this song that I drew clocks and wrote Bone Thugs all over my book covers. To those of you from the other night who did not know "Crossroads" when it came on at Rue Bar, respect son, respect.

reunion

WE BACK BABY, WE BACK

Todd the Prince

Where were you, when this happened

Our Tour De Force takes a serious detour as Todd names himself the King of Wishful Thinking.

MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE

The Force is touring

Call and Response

Our next installment of our musical journey takes us to one of the bangingest genres of all, Call and Response music. You might be saying what is this? Yo yo yo, check it.

When I say Doo Doo
Yall say Rhymes
DOO DOO
Rhymes
DOO DOO
Rhymes

That my friends is call and response. Nothing gets the party going faster. Old school Hip-Hop be known for this. You probably first caught up on it with "Hip Hop Hooray" by Naughty by Nature. Lord knows you couldn't escape from it during the Julia Styles style white girl in the inner city trying to make a name for herself but ends up on the wrong side of the tracks grooving to Fatman Scoop songs over and over teen dance movies. I honestly think she did the same movie like 4 seperate times.

Fatman Scoop probably provided the soundtrack to my highschool experience. No lyric probably characterized my senior year more than this:

u got a $100 dollar bill put your hands up
u got a $50 dollar bill put your hands up
u got a $20 dollar bill put your hands up
u got a $10 dollar bill put your hands up

single ladies i cant hear you
single ladies make noise
single ladies i cant hear you
single ladies make noise

all the chicken heads be quiet

I myself never carry cash on my person, its filthy.

So the best artists in this genre probably are the older fellas, your Biz Markie, your Doug E Fresh. The best song of this genre however, is performed by the best hypeman in the industry. A certain DJ Kool and it is entitled "Let me clear my throat." This song is just powerful. It starts off with that good sample from Kool and the Gang and then just explodes in your ears. Before this song I never knew the whooping cough could be so fun.

Peep this video, its the fraggles. They me be subterranean, but OH snap can they get down.

Actor Turned Musician Music

Our next installment takes us to one of my favorite genres in music history, the actor turned musician genre. You know this kind of music, you are watching MTV and all the sudden some not so great song and video comes on the tube. You start to groove a little bit and then blam, you are like wait wait wait hold up, ain't that Marg Helgenberger from CSI, and why the hell is she singing a rap song. Thats the kinda ish you get from this genre, that real funky ish.

It's hard for me to talk trash about this genre because I love it soo much. I owe it to you my loyal 2 readers to address the crap bands of this genre. In no particular order, you got your Bruce Willis, Keanu Reaves, Bacon Brothers, Kevin Costner, Hasselhoff, Jada Pinket-Smith, et al. Did you ever know there was another Bacon who is not Kevin, a fatter less talented guitar toting Bacon. Paris Hilton, she had a crap song that was out very recently.

However, there are some great songs to take in. Pretty much anything Lindsey Lohan and Hillary Duff do is great (see let the rain fall down). Don Johnson had "Heart Beat", a classically good song. Patrick Swayze of all people had "She's Like the Wind." I can't honestly say a bad word about Swayze's song, I just love it.


Feel her breath on my face
Her body close to me
Can't look in her eyes
She's out of my league
Just a fool to believe
I have anything she needs
She's like the wind

Those lyrics are tuff as shit, that brother is feeling some real pain. I just want to take him to a strip bar and shake him till he forgets all about her.

The best song of this genre is Eddie Murphy's "Party all the Time." It has everything you could want: Rick James, a synthesizer, a catchy beat, patent leather jump suits, and at least a kilo of pure Columbian cocaine.

sorry kids, there is no cover that does it justice available

90's SOCIAL STUDIES ROCK

The year was 1994, you were old enough to know that there was an Ireland, but you might not have been to able to point to it on a map. Did you know that there was some serious turmoil in the world, no you did not. All you knew about was Ace of Base and Toni Braxton. And don't forget about that Hotstepper.

There was probably one band above all others, that signified the essence of political disorder, and that was the Cranberries. They sung some serious songs. Songs that I don't think the average person can full understand. I think to understand a Cranberries song, you have to know what its like to work in a steel mill. You have to know what its like to mine coal. You have to know what its like to grow up in the shadow of the IRA and Sinn Fein. You have to know what its like to have an accent. These are just things the average middle schooler did not know.
It was hard to pick the song to narrow down to this list, but I did it. The best song of this genre is "Zombie." As wiki describes it "It is about the conflicts in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles, with references to the Easter Rising of 1916." After you heard the line below you wanted to know more about this Ireland, and who is this St. Patrick.

Probably the most poetic line in all of social study rock:
In your head, in your head they are fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns.
In your head, in your head, they are crying...

Bombs you say, guns you say, where do I sign up.

Behold the video below. Is this what girls do in their free time? They have clearly spent the morning burning their braziers and getting henna tattoos. Ryan, I think shop at Inti. Anyway, these girls can really play, when not cracking up at their dog who makes several cameos. I also really like how they never look at the camera and only stare off into space, a class rock and roll move.

Late 90's Rock/Pop

In the late 90's you had many rock bands who were more sissy than they were Megadeath. I don't know if I would consider them pop, maybe power pop. And I say that because also during this time frame you had some really pop boy bands and Celine Dion. I would say these bands had much more talent than the boy bands because they could play their own instruments and some of the jams were pretty dope.

The best bands of this genre are hard to pinpoint, I would say maybe there are none. There are however some super sucky bands from this genre, they include Matchbox 20, Vertical Horizon, Goo Goo Dolls, 3 Doors Down, and Nine Days. Please don't get this twisted, all these bands are pretty bad, and you would definitely be a sissy if you said you enjoyed them, but each one individually could have a good song. However, Goo Goo Dolls "Iris" is not something you can listen to while lifting weights and drinking whey protein. But then you can have Goo Goo Dolls "Slide" which is better, and I will allow it to be played in my presence. If you are a girl of course, this whole paragraph doesn't apply to you so calm down you are allowed love this ish.

Now a classy band of this genre was Third Eye Blind, they really didn't cater to 14 year old girls with braces. Their lead singer rocked a thin beard way before anyone else. The best song of this genre is their "Jumper." In this epic jam, brus number 1 tries talking this other brus down from the ledge. The chorus of this song is totally choice. This song probably gets played at every relay for life gathering. This song has it all, catchy chorus, an actual message, and lyrics that you can just scream for those of us who can't sing.

Regard this video, this is an actual band, Daphne Loves Derby, covering it, I don't much about them, but I think their fan base is exclusively female if that means anything to you. Ladies guard your panties.