toddintheshadows

POP SONG REVIEW: "The Fate of Ophelia" by Taylor Swift

Here's a video.

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll. Tiny bit more obscure, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" by Paula Cole vs. "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin. "https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-sunny-141986224

Please correct my errors.

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll!

We are doing "Werewolves of London" vs. "Godzilla." Because they're monsters! And it's Halloween! https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-of-vs-141047968

TRAINWRECKORDS: John Fogerty's "Eye of the Zombie"

Please go to the Song vs. Song and vote on our spooooooky matchup: Uh, "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" by Kenny Chesney vs. "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" by Big & Rich. https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-she-my-139745871

This video is almost certainly riddled with errors, I wanted to get it done before I had to put up the reminder to vote for Song vs. Song. So please catch them. I'm so sorry the video is so bad.

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll! "Hanging by a Moment" vs. "Kryptonite"

Link at the bottom of the page, please vote on these two songs that you, undoubtedly, love with all your heart.

Anyway, a little update on the next video: 1) it is a trainwreckords episode, 2) it is a sequel to a video i've done in the past (not necessarily a trainwreckords episode. maybe it is, maybe it isn't)

https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-hanging-138611244

Guess who forgot to charge for the THIRD TIME THIS YEAR

Why not watch the video again?! Seeing as I'm WASTING YOUR TIME with a STUPID NOTIFICATION because I FORGOT TO CHARGE FOR THE DAMN VIDEO.

Just so we're not wasting everyone's time completely, gimme your suggestions for Trainwreckords

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPoiv0sZ4s4

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Pop Muzik" by M

The last request, unless I forgot one. Please check my errors!

RAMBLE ON: "Bleed It Out" by Linkin Park

Steven Hyden once wrote something he called the “Winner’s History of Rock,” arguing that rock history tends to be written by (and for) the losers; critics lionize the outsiders, the marginalized, the rebels and outcasts, and they neglect rock’s “winners,” the commercial juggernauts beloved by the masses. One of the “winners” he profiled, alongside such luminaries as KISS and Bon Jovi, was Linkin Park, which didn’t feel right to me – if any band is the “winner” of that era, it’s Nickelback. Not Linkin Park, who screamed of angst and pain, whose scene evaporated quickly, whose tortured lead singer ended up another rock tragedy. Surely, that’s an outsider band, like Nirvana, like Black Sabbath, like The Cure, bands who did sell tons of records but were clearly a different breed than Pump-era Aerosmith or Load-era Metallica.

I could try and make that case if I wanted to, but it would wither in the face of Hyden’s profile, which depicts Linkin Park as a group of polished studio craftsmen making slick corporate rock with an almost Mike Love-ian focus on moving units. They didn’t even party on tour, Hyden notes with palpable disdain; they were pure professionals, there on stage to do a job. And indeed, a close listen to Linkin Park in any of their eras reveals a very well-oiled machine; for all their drama and fury, their trademark slick mix of rap, rock and electronica mostly reminds me of cross-genre streaming giants like Imagine Dragons or Post Malone. (And though their 2010s weren’t exactly successful, Linkin Park's move into a new decade required far less adjustment to their sound than it did, say, Nickelback’s.)

All of this makes their 2007 song “Bleed It Out” a giant anomaly in their catalog, and especially among their singles. Linkin Park had already announced a shocking move for their third album Minutes to Midnight: It would have almost no rapping. The rap-metal era was dead, and Linkin Park had no intentions of being left behind with Limp Bizkit or Papa Roach. The first single, “What I’ve Done,” was still recognizably Linkin Park but Mike Shinoda was more or less absent from it (and as further proof of their “winner” status, it appeared prominently in “Transformers,” for better or worse the summer blockbuster of 2007).

But “Bleed It Out,” the second single, was something different. It shouldn’t have been that different; if anything, the fact that it still had Shinoda rapping meant that it was the most stereotypically Linkin Park song on the album. But the very first sound isn’t the band, it’s the most startling sound ever heard on a Linkin Park record: party crowd chatter. The year before this song came out, the James Bond series rebooted with Casino Royale; in the first action scene, there’s a minor shot of debris hitting the ground as James Bond crashes through a construction site. That one throwaway shot was a dramatic announcement of a new world for Bond, one where actions had consequences; the background chatter served the same function for Linkin Park. That noise promised a different Linkin Park, one not created by ProTools; this was Linkin Park live, Linkin Park as a real honest-to-god organic band, with energy, with spontaneity, with reality, the garage punk version of Linkin Park rather than the studio creation.

This is essentially a con, a trick – as artificial as the electronica stutters on their first records. Bands and artists have been adding canned party noise to sound spontaneous since at least the 1960s and probably earlier. It calls attention to itself, like a lens flare in a CGI cut scene; it’s a band that has reached past perfection and aspires to imperfection. The music video, incidentally, is terrible in the way it undercuts those aspirations. It almost gets it right by having the band rocking out in an unbroken one-shot, but then it ruins it by also having a fight breaking out in reverse while the band plays forwards. It’s a showy display of technical mastery completely at odds with what the song is trying to accomplish.

None of this means the song doesn’t work; it very works. The idea of Linkin Park attempting to stage spontaneity is as interesting as them achieving it for real. And while the song’s engineering is as pristine as a Boston album, the notes themselves are simple. The bass line is beyond simple, the drums a hit-them-then-hit-them-again rhythm, the riffs easy to imagine playing yourself. It’s easy to tell why this song was the one they tried to make sound organic; I am shocked to discover it’s not their shortest song, it feels as punchy as Blur’s “Song 2.” Shinoda’s rap at times seems more fit for his side band Fort Minor (of “Remember the Name” fame) than the eternally angst-ridden Linkin Park. Hand-grenade pins in every line; make it a dirt dance floor again; cock it back and then watch it go. There’s still the requisite self-loathing and pain; Chester screams about scars and self-harm and Mike raps about hanging nooses and about how no one cares, but that’s not the feeling I get from this song. “Bleed It Out” is, above all, Linkin Park’s truest headbanger anthem; “One Step Closer” and “In the End” will reliably get a party lit to this day, but no Linkin Park song has ever been as honest-to-god fun to listen to as “Bleed It Out.”

The fact that I chafed at Linkin Park’s “winner” label means I’ve forgotten how much disdain I held Linkin Park with as a teenager. In 2001, labeling them a sellout corporate creation would have been the obvious call. Their broad and obvious lyrics about “crawling in my skin” and being “one step closer to the edge” were, to me, thuddingly lame generalities clearly designed for a dumb mainstream audience; why, they didn’t even curse. I grudgingly accepted “In the End” as a good song and by the second album I had given in completely – it was too fun to scream DON’T TURN YOUR BACK ON ME, I WON’T BE IGNORED, a good indicator of why they were still around in ’07 after their peers fell by the wayside. Hyden wrote his Winner’s History of Rock before Chester Bennington’s suicide, which would maybe have altered his opinion on whether they were “winners” or not; it would certainly forever change the tenor of those singles to me, into something darker and more genuine than I took them for at the time. “Bleed It Out,” though, I don’t know where that makes them fall on the winner/loser binary. Does making a spontaneous party song make them more real, or is it the closest they ever got to being Motley Crue?

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "In a Big Country" by Big Country

Another one down. Please check my errors!

And please vote in the Song vs. Song about two other '80s alt-rock bands, "The Whole of the Moon" by the Waterboys vs. "Under the Milky Way" by The Church! You don't know those, please learn them (and we glance a little off them in the episode above). https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-under-134008433

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "In a Big Country" by Big Country

Another one down! Please check my errors!

Also, please vote in the Song vs. Song poll where we are covering two more '80s alt-rock songs, The Waterboys' "The Whole of the Moon" vs. The Church's "Under the Milky Way." If you don't know them, we glance at one of them in the video above. Enjoy! https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-under-134008433

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll, also guess who forgot to charge for the last video

watch it again if you want! I think I forgot to charge for an earlier one too, i'm-a go check https://www.patreon.com/posts/pop-song-review-131430014

anyway, please vote in the Song vs. Song poll, we're doing a modern one, Chappell Roan's "The Giver" vs. Sabrina Carpenter's "Manchild": https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-vs-132784622

POP SONG REVIEW: "Ordinary" by Alex Warren

It's the biggest song of the year and it sucks!

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll. We are doing "Old Town Road" vs. "Tipsy (A Bar Song)." https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-old-vs-131338449

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll!

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll! We are doing Jay-Z's "Takeover" vs. Nas's "Ether." It was the biggest hip-hop feud of all time, try to have an opinion on it you nerds

https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-vs-130300405

RAMBLE ON: "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

I read Will Smith’s memoir “Will” for my Trainwreckords episode on him to get a feel for his creative process, but he doesn’t talk about it as much as I’d have liked. Mostly he talks about the arc of his life – his accidental entry into showbiz, his drive for superstardom, his turbulent marriage, his strained relationship with his abusive father. He does talk about his process a couple times; he talks about going so deep into character for his first movie “Six Degrees of Separation” that he couldn’t turn it off afterward. He says that he deliberately wrote “Summertime” as an impression of his then-favorite rapper Rakim. He details his training methods to get into shape as Ali. But most of these things are about him as a person, not him as an artist; him going goofy on the set of “Six Degrees,” for example, is the reason he thinks his first marriage failed. (I think Will’s admission that he was copying Rakim is to stave off the rumors that Rakim ghostwrote it himself.)

One interesting thing he says is that acting sidelined his music career because he simply prefers it. He thinks he’s better at it and he enjoys it more; it comes naturally to him, whereas he always felt like he was playing catch-up as a rapper. This is probably why he barely discusses his solo rap career at all; there’s not a whole of him in it. It’s an open secret that he uses ghostwriters for his solo career, the main one has done interviews identifying himself so it’s not super-hidden, and it’s not like anyone cares if the “Men in Black” theme was a deep expression of Will’s soul. But Will also doesn’t discuss his original rap career very much, before jiggy and movies and all that, except as a stepping stone along his career. He discusses liking hip-hop, he discusses the things he saw as a budding star in the golden age of hip-hop and the shit he got up to, but his actual lyrics, his thought process, not so much (which was disappointing for me, writing an episode about his most personal record). “Summertime” was one exception. His first career failure is another.

In 1989, 21-year-old Will (then still known as The Fresh Prince) demanded that the record label let him and DJ Jazzy Jeff record in the Bahamas for their third album. Sometimes artists go to exotic locales as a legitimate decision for their artistic process, or sometimes, like the infamous Happy Mondays album “Yes Please,” they go to waste time and party; this was one of the latter. In his words, the two of them immediately started getting smashed on “rum punch and chicken fingers.” Months later, they still had no record, Will had flown out all his boys to the studio to party with him, and also Will had graduated up from chicken fingers to jerk chicken, black beans and rice. (It took me weeks after reading the book to realize he wasn’t actually talking about chicken. I’ve related this insight several times and I’m always happy to do so again.) It was during one of these studio parties when his dad, having been alerted of the situation by the record label, burst in and dragged Will’s ass back home.

Will says he and Jeff would usually mark out time to brainstorm, work on ideas and consume chicken fingers – I imagine the room getting thick with clouds of chicken fingers – but they didn’t have time, so instead they hastily turn their half-assed recordings from the Bahamas into the record (titled …And In This Corner). That album fucking sucks. The worst part is the opener “Then She Bit Me,” which starts out as a joke about going home with a woman who turns out to be a vampire, but Will seems to not have a clue what the actual joke is; it’s just him fucking around without bothering to look for a punchline. This was clearly recorded in the Bahamas in a cocaine chicken bender; it’s not something that should have ever seen the light of day.

The only good song, and the only semi-hit on it, is the single “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson,” and of all songs, this is the one that Will sees as a metaphor for his life. It’s nothing deep or anything; it’s another ‘80s comedy rap song, and the idea behind this one is that Will stupidly talks shit about being able to take out the unbeatable champion Mike Tyson, he gets into the ring with him, Tyson murders him in two punches. Will admits that he shit his pants at one point. Good bit, one of his funniest.

Will talks about comedy as a weapon; if you can get people to laugh at a bully, he’ll leave you alone. (This didn’t work for Chris Rock, apparently.) But the Fresh Prince mostly clowned on himself. All the time, he was getting into wacky situations that left him making goofy perplexed faces at the camera. His mom makes him wear goofy clothes and everyone laughs at him; parents just don’t understand! This one girl didn’t tell him she had a boyfriend and they got caught; girls ain’t nothin’ but trouble! Freddy Kreuger attacks him! What a nightmare! But I guess those don’t make him the butt of the joke exactly; “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson” does. Even though the song is silly, the entire concept of fighting Mike Tyson is something Will takes very seriously, it’s his go-to metaphor. For Will, there’s no shame in getting beaten by Mike Tyson, as long as you tried your hardest. The Fresh Prince doesn’t do that, though. He challenges Iron Mike on a whim, undertrains, comes in unprepared and gets his teeth knocked in. Tyson didn’t beat Will; Will beat himself, just like he did in the Bahamas. “My career’s over as far as fighting,” Will says at the end of the song. His career in anything could have been over. The single did sub-mediocre numbers, the album tanked, and if not for a fortuitous meeting with Quincy Jones about a possible sitcom, there’s a good chance that DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince are footnotes in showbiz history. Will describes fading fame as the worst feeling in the world. When his career got a second wind, he decided that he wasn’t just going to act; he was going to be “the biggest movie star in the world” (direct quote). The way he tells it, it sounds like he vowed never to lose to Tyson again.

And spiritually, you could argue that he did defeat Tyson. Tyson himself is as funny as Will in the video, dancing with a goofy smile in the face because he knows he’s about to murder this poor child, but in 1989 he was actually starting to fall apart; he only had two, very unmemorable fights, he wasn’t training very hard, he was distracted by his divorce. Arguably, beating the shit out of the Fresh Prince was his last hurrah. Just forty-two days into the 1990s, Mike Tyson was on the receiving end of his first KO, ending his aura of invincibility once and for all and starting a miserable decade for him. Seven months after that, Will Smith started his sitcom, and his ‘90s would be nothing but success after success (at least until “Wild Wild West”).  

But I think he lost something in doing it. It's easy to forget this but Will Smith was once very funny (on purpose!), and I don’t mean funny like he is in Independence Day or Men in Black or Aladdin. The comedy in “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson” is different. The stumble he does in the video after Tyson one-shots him is hilarious. The panicked mugging he does at the camera when he lies about his training (“I did four million sit-ups! I-in a minute! I ain’t lyin’, I did it!”) The Fresh Prince’s face is comically swollen and bruised post-beatdown. Will’s face also comically swells up in Hitch, but that’s different. That’s funny because it’s a too-cool smooth-talker getting taken down a peg. The Fresh Prince wasn’t cool, he was a doofy skinny kid with big ears. He says that after he broke himself on Six Degrees on Separation Carlton had to handle the bulk of the comedy on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for a while because he completely forgot how to tell a damn joke. For as funny as he was in his later movies, maybe he never really re-learned it.

One thing I realized listening to the young goofy Fresh Prince is that Will Smith has become a very selfish, exhausting actor. He’ll chase whatever project lets him turn on the Acting, lets himself self-glorify in the most showy way possible. He says he always felt like he was playing catch-up with hip-hop, and it’s pretty clearly true; he came up at a time when all you had to do was tell funny stories and you could be the biggest name in rap, and when that era ran out, he was always chasing after the next trend. On his most recent album (the one that no one asked for and has already been forgotten) he tries to sell some kind of redemption arc after The Slap, like he’s learned hard lessons but now he has some peace and wisdom. I don’t buy it; it’s too sweaty. Tyson, meanwhile, seems very relaxed whenever he pops up in things these days, the pain of his faded glory and disastrous personal life all eventually faded, and everyone seems happy to have him around (whether they should is beyond the scope of this discussion). An athlete must eventually retire, but a movie star doesn’t have that blessing; he can always add more trophies to his wall. Will claims at the end of his book that he’s learned to let go of his drive to be #1; I think The Slap proved he was lying to himself. I think he'll spend the rest of his life trying to beat Tyson.  

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll!

We're doing "Let's Stay Together" vs. "Let's Get It On!" https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-lets-vs-129031446

RAMBLE ON: "Like a Rock" by Bob Seger

Since my pop-deprived childhood left me so far behind, my introduction to a whole lot of music was Weird Al parodies, and since Weird Al only had so many records, I went looking for more radio DJ parodies online, once I had the internet, which expanded my knowledge base exponentially. (I first learned of the OMC song “How Bizarre” via a song parody about Mike Tyson called “I Bit His Ear.” I laughed at a song called “Middle Aged Waistline” which I would later become more familiar with in its original version, “Baba O’Riley” by The Who.)

One of the funniest to me, one I can still recite completely from memory, was for a song I definitely already knew, “Like a Rock” by Bob Seger. It went:

                Buy a truck! Keep this country great!

                Buy a truck! Get a big rebate!

                Buy a truck! You’ll probably get laid!

                If you buy a truck!

This was a revelatory song parody for me. It didn’t just change my opinion of the song; it told me what my opinion of the song already was. All these joke lyrics (“Buy a truck! A four-wheel drive S-10! Buy a truck! Prove that you’re a man!!”) were just telling you what “Like a Rock” was actually about: buying trucks. Perhaps it meant something else in 1986 when it was first released, but by the time a teenage Todd first got the Internet, Chevrolet had destroyed its original intent and beaten it into the ground with its eternally-running TV ad campaign, which is all anyone will associate the song with from now on. All that Seattle DJ/song parodist Bob Rivers did was turn the subtext into text. “Like a Rock” is about soft-focus shots of big ol’ trucks flying through clouds of dirt, hard-working blue-collar Americans who do stuff with their hands, and the implicit appeal to patriotism and masculinity and the ways they can be supported through rampant consumerism.

Anyway, “Like a Rock” is obviously on my mind because my colleague Pat Finnerty is campaigning for Chevy to bring it back (instead of their current ad song, the unlistenable “Chevrolet” by Dustin Lynch and villain-arc speedrunner Jelly Roll). It’s also on my mind after reading Niko Stratis’s memoir “The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman,” which has put dad-rock on my mind in general. My esteemed co-host Lina argues that Springsteen’s “Glory Days” is the quintessential dad-rock song, a basically unassailable take. But while Springsteen’s entire catalog is canon for the genre, I’d argue that Bob Seger is the quintessential dad-rock artist. Stratis has a lot of thoughts on what dad-rock actually is, but she argues that earnest masculinity and traditional instruments are important to its definition, but that dad-rock’s key trait is wisdom, wisdom hard-learned through a lifetime of bad experiences.

This makes Seger more equipped than any other, since Seger gives the impression of being born old. Seger became a star the hard way, through relentless touring, a road act that slowly built up a massive fanbase despite album after album that failed to sell. By the time that his ninth album Night Moves and, more importantly, the concert album Live Bullet finally broke him through in 1976, he was a weathered veteran at the ripe old age of 31. If he seems even older than that, it’s because he was already pining for his lost youth; all his biggest songs are about the past – “Still the Same,” “Old Time Rock and Roll,” “Against the Wind,” “Night Moves.” Even “Turn the Page,” a rare present-tense hit, carries the burdens of a misspent life chasing stardom on the road. (1968’s “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man,” his only pre-stardom hit, is also the only song in the Seger canon where he sounds youthful and energetic.)

Ten years after his breakthrough, he releases “Like a Rock,” one of his biggest hits, and I could be persuaded that it’s the most quintessentially Seger song in his discography. It’s a perfect song; no other song could do what it does better than “Like a Rock” does it. I’m not a huge fan. I don’t think Seger die-hards hold it in particularly high esteem either, compared to its prominence, and I don’t think it’s just the commercials (although the commercials did ruin it, let’s be clear). The first problem is that it’s just a really long hang, man. A full six minutes of mid-tempo wistfulness with a guitar solo that seems to last for three eternities, it’s a lot. Also, there’s a huge difference between the sound of 1976 and the sound of 1986. Ad execs picked “Like a Rock” out as their big campaign song for a reason; it’s just too slick. Bob Seger’s big appeal was his killer live show, but no song of his (except “Shakedown,” which doesn’t even count as a Seger song really) sounds more canned.

I think the Boomers get a bad rap these days, but I get annoyed when I listen to the Boomer rock of the late ‘80s, which was overwhelmingly huge. People think that 1986 was all about Madonna and Prince and “Sledgehammer” and Janet Jackson’s Control but the hits of 1986 were overwhelmingly bad. A lot of it that can be blamed on the Boomers’ sheer outsized demographic advantage; there were simply too many of them. Hence, we have a lot of music from 1986 to 1989 about being old, either subtextually or quite literally in “Like a Rock”’s case. Seger reminisces about his youth; he was strong, like a rock, standing boldly and sweating in the sun with steady hands and clear eyes. His walk had purpose! Presumably he doesn’t anymore, although he can still scream and holler as good as he ever could (“And I STOOOOOOOD arrow straight!!”)  As I get older, I find complaining about getting older more and more obnoxious, and I’ve vowed to never do it, even though I’m not a fan of aging either. When I hear “Like a Rock,” I almost get annoyed. Get over yourself, Bob Seger, take off the nostalgia goggles. You probably weren’t as lean and solid as you thought you were at age 18, and a lot of that old time rock-and-roll stank.

I’ve seen “Like a Rock” pop up in one other place, 2005’s The Weather Man, in which a bland TV personality (portrayed by a horribly miscast Nicolas Cage, who couldn’t play bland with a gun to his head) confronts his own inner shallowness and empty life. In one scene, he tries to explain to his dying father (an also somewhat miscast Michael Caine) why he compared him to Bob Seger at his tribute ceremony, and they sit there listening to all six minutes of “Like a Rock” which Cage hopes will convey the depth of his respect for him. It completely fails, the diffident Caine sitting there completely unmoved; it’s yet another humiliation for Cage’s character, that the Chevy truck song of all damn things is the most meaningful tribute he can think of. Then again, what better song to play for someone nearing the end of their life, with only memories to look back on? Seger more or less disappeared after “Like a Rock,” his last grand hurrah (unless you count “Shakedown,” which, again, you should not). In a better world (one without truck commercials), I could actually see this as a fitting send-off, a song for the end credits. Maybe that’s how it will be seen again, once the last ‘90s kid forgets about Chevy truck ads. I guess that’s a pretty good way to remember someone. After all, dad-rock and roll never forgets.

TRAINWRECKORDS: "Results May Vary" by Limp Bizkit

This one got away from me a little. This one's long! Please help me catch errors.

Anyway, please vote in the Song vs. Song poll. Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" vs. Adele's "Someone Like You." https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-back-to-127624446

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll! Also I'm charging for this post

Okay, first, please vote in this poll, we got a cool guest and I want some votes for it. It's "One Headlight" vs. "The Way" for all you late '90s kids.

Anyway, I'm also charging for this because for some reason Patreon never charged for the "Bad Day" video. I thought maybe I missed the deadline but it didn't charge for this month either. So here it is again if you want to watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYIXn9L8PMY&t=145s

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Untouched" by The Veronicas

/edit 10:12 PST 1/1/2025 I have uploaded yet another version with hopefully less errors

Wooo! Finished processing just in time! I get to eat next month.

Anyway, please check errors for me, and of course also please vote in the Song vs. Song poll, we're doing "Wake Me Up" by Avicii vs. "Don't You Worry Child" by Swedish House Mafia. An EDM episode! Hopefully it doesn't suck. https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-wake-me-125398334

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll!

We're doing Vogue vs. Rhythm Nation. That's a good one! New video on the way! It's another request! It's one of the most recent I've ever done! What could it beeeeeee

RAMBLE ON: "Can't Catch Me Now" by Olivia Rodrigo

This review contains spoilers for The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The Hunger Games franchise is a story about stories, about narratives – or to put it more cynically, about marketing. Its key innovation to the “deadly competition” genre, the thing that sets it apart from The Running Man, Battle Royale, Squid Game and so on (and one largely botched by the film adaptations), is the audience participation aspect – viewers will pitch in to help the contestants they like the most, which means that the key to victory is selling yourself to the audience, coming up with framings and storylines to make yourself more sympathetic. (The second-most important innovation is that unlike every other entry in this genre, we are denied the pleasure of viewing the games like a spectator; we only ever see it from Katniss’s perspective, making the fabrication of the narratives all the starker. This is why they keep trying to turn Squid Game into a real-life game show for your viewing pleasure but could never do so with The Hunger Games.) This doesn’t end once our protagonist Katniss leaves the world of deadly game shows – as both a reality show contestant and as a rebel leader, Katniss’s hair, makeup and wardrobe are of paramount importance.

The Hunger Games soundtracks never became a music powerhouse the way its rival YA franchise Twilight did, but its one big hit, “The Hanging Tree,” is important to the war itself; in-universe, it’s a dark folk ballad about an execution that turns into a battle cry for the rebellion. Music, just like everything else in this universe, is propaganda.

Katniss only became a fan favorite through her spontaneity, giving her reality show a strong dose of actual reality; in most other regards, though, she never really liked or understood the camera. The female lead of the prequel, meanwhile, understands the camera instinctively. Lucy Gray Baird (a member of some fictional ethnic group that’s basically Romanis with Floribama accents) is a traveling entertainer by trade, and she starts singing the second she is dragged onstage as a tribute. She sings, and from then on out, it seems like she never, ever stops; she’s just constantly singing, in joy, in defiance, in fear. Even before she learns that this is going to be vital to her survival (she’s in the first games with audience participation), she’s a born spotlight hog. (She is played excellently in the movie by Rachel Zegler, who has theater kid energy written into her bones.)

The Hunger Games marketing team attempted to find some analog for Katniss in the pop world – first with Taylor Swift, then still a supposedly small-town girl from Appalachian country like Katniss; then, as our heroine becomes more entrenched in the rebellion, with Lorde, a revolutionary in her own right. These songs never became massive but they did well enough. For the prequel, they conveniently had another pop singer lined up to symbolically portray their protagonist: the hottest starlet of 2023, Olivia Rodrigo. She had the same hair as Lucy, same complexion, same dramatic energy; it couldn’t be more perfect. Olivia was the obvious choice to sing Lucy Gray’s theme song.

Or was she? The more I think about, the closer Lucy Gray Baird is to Olivia’s opposite than being any kind of parallel. Olivia’s two albums are excellent but if I had to define Olivia as a persona, I would say that, for such a poised performer, she projects extreme insecurity. Her ‘90s chick-rock influences give her music some edge, but she’s no riot grrrrl; “drivers license,” “brutal,” “get him back,” even her angriest ones like “déjà vu” or “vampire” or “good 4 u,” all of them depict a very young woman who is losing her shit and struggling to get a hold of her own life. When this song came out, she was also promoting her second album, “GUTS”; “guts” not as in "bravery" but in "spilling your guts," Olivia as always vomiting out her insecurities. None of that describes Lucy, the hero – but not the protagonist –  of her story; she’s not happy about being in a contrived death game and being attacked by ridiculous genetically-engineered mutant snakes, obviously, and she’s afraid for her life, but she doesn’t project fear, or weakness, or frailty (even though she’s one of the least combat-ready contestants in the games). To the end, even at her lowest, she expresses only defiance. It is impossible to imagine this character getting upset because her ex is now getting strawberry ice cream with someone else.

“Can’t Catch Me Now” is the song Rodrigo wrote with her regular producer Dan Nigro (and also with backup vocals from Olivia’s tour opener, aspiring pop starlet Chappell Roan; check her out if you’ve never heard her stuff, I think she’s going places). It’s obviously an Olivia song but at the same time at once feels anomalous in her catalog. It’s a folk ballad, of the kind favored by the Hunger Games franchise; it’s also brooding and ominous, mysterious in a way that Olivia has never been. There is no Olivia in “Can’t Catch Me Now”; it’s all character work, all Lucy, Lucy’s story, her attitudes, her persona. It’s not even in lowercase letters, an Olivia trademark. Again, Lucy is not the protagonist; the POV character of Songbirds and Snakes is Coriolanus Snow. Snow will be the future Big Bad of the franchise; Lucy’s future is an enigma. In the end, Snow (and the audience) realizes we didn’t really know anything about her; she never showed her cards. She has nothing to do with someone with as few secrets, and with as much main character syndrome, as Olivia. Olivia is big because she’s relatable; Lucy is anything but.

If The Hunger Games is about narrative, then it offers Olivia the chance to correct her own narrative. Joshua Bassett claims that fallout from “drivers license” stressed him out so badly it sent him to the hospital; its success hurt him, but I doubt the song alone could have done it. “drivers license,” or even “déjà vu” or “good 4 u” or “vampire,” are good at expressing pain but they’re not good at drawing blood. I don’t think that was really her objective, and if it was, she didn’t succeed – compared to a true asskicker like Adele or Beyonce, Olivia is just a teenage girl who got dumped. But on “Can’t Catch Me Now” she’s a taunt, a ghost, a revenge, an absence. It may well not even be the real Lucy, but Snow imagining Lucy in her head. Playing a character gives Olivia the empowerment she’s never had writing as herself. Olivia tried to wound by spilling out all her pain and emotions so you can see how much you’ve hurt her. Olivia as Lucy realizes that what is truly cutting is silence.

A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is quite easily the best book in the franchise (if only for not being written in first-person present tense, a stylistic choice that constantly reminds you you’re reading a book for ten-year-olds). It’s not perfect. The biggest complaint about both book and movie is its shockingly abrupt ending – the second Lucy realizes Snow’s true nature, she’s already launched her final plan; before any of this has registered to the audience, she’s already disappeared. The book is the same way, like the author realized she had only five pages left to wrap everything up. This bothers me less the more I think about it. The song follows the movie by abruptly ending, in the middle of a thought, “you thought that this was the end,” the pre-chorus left hanging with no chorus following. It’s a weaponized anti-climax (maybe my favorite pop moment from that year), the lack of resolution demonstrating all the way the singer can hurt you with her absence. Two albums in, on a one-off soundtrack hit, Olivia has finally figured out the truest maxim in showbiz, the key to a good narrative in pop music, film, reality TV, romance and deadly YA dystopian game shows alike – always leave them wanting more.

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter

Ugh, finally. A song I have been avoiding since forever.

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll! It is "Machinehead" by Bush vs. "Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple Pilots. https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-vs-love-123271861

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll!

"Billie Jean" vs. "When Doves Cry." Booyah. You know them, you love them, please vote. New video in two days, I swear. I haven't forgotten you. I will be back soon. I love you.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-billie-122204310

Please vote in the Song vs. Soll poll (it's a big one!)

We're doing Lorde's "Royals" vs. Billie Eilish's "bad guy". I think we could get the most votes ever for it.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-royals-121227358?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

The Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2024

There are many errors in this video. If you find them all by the time I wake up, you win.

/edit couldn't sleep, fixed a bunch of errors, I'm going back to bed. i'm so tired. if it hasn't finished processing yet check back in a half hour at most

Please vote in the Song vs. Song Poll. We are doing George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" vs. Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky." https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-spirit-120264857

Please vote in the Song vs. Song poll!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-friday-118919099 We're doing "Friday" vs. "Miracles" for a people-we-made-fun-of-in-2010 showdown.

This isn't the Best List! I'm working on it! I'm miserable and my city is on fire.

The Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2024

I am dead. I am exhausted. I am so tired. I am sure this video is riddled with errors but I have too much to do today so if you see any please let me know and when I have time later tonight hopefully I can fix them, I did my best. I hate that the holidays coincide with the worst list, I'm so busy.

Anyway, please also go to the Song vs. Song poll where we are voting on "Espresso" vs. "HOT TO GO!" Please vote. https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-vs-hot-117833808

/edit edited some of the more egregious errors but I bet there's more

Please vote in the Song vs. Song Christmas poll!

I am working, I swear, on the worst list. Goddamn this year for having such good music! It's hard this year, the best list will be easier.

Anyway, please vote in the Song vs. Song where we're doing "Santa Baby" vs. "Baby It's Cold Outside." Gettin' awkward up in here! Go vote! https://www.patreon.com/posts/117124330

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora

New episode! Hope it came out well.

Anyway, please also vote in the Song vs. Song poll where we are doing "Fuck the Police" vs. "Fight the Power": https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-poll-fuck-vs-116215569

And as always catch my errors, because I can't catch them alone

We're gonna try that again

I think it might be just my dumb ass forgetting to charge, not Patreon's weird fuckery. At least I hope the issue was me. So here's the same video again! Let's see if this works.

Uh, were any of you charged for that last video?

Because it doesn't look like it.