 In their May 2004 issue, Blender
magazine ran an article called "Run For Your Life! It's The 50 Worst Songs
Ever!" It was written by a collective of ten authors. You can read the
opener to the article, as well as #50-#41, at
http://www.blender.com/articles/article_786.html.
First off, Blender is not what anyone
would call a magazine about good music. Just perusing their home page will
show you that. Basically, there were ten writers whining about songs they
personally didn't like... and usually offering reasons that didn't make
much sense. (But the article begins by using the poorly-designed
portmanteau word "crap-tastic" and includes such amazingly original
clichés such as "the songs we love to hate," so you can already see what
age level you're reading... I mean, come on, Courtney Love is on the
cover. These writers seem like they're writing for an eighth grade reading
level... and probably the highest level of writing of which they're even
capable anyway.)
I NEVER get all annoyed and write letters
to people who could care less, but with Meat being picked on with "I'd
Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" led me down the
letter-writing path. Here's what they said about Meat:
44
MEAT LOAF
“I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” 1993
Bitch-titted balladeer seeks dictionary
Forget that this song comes from Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell
and that pop albums can’t really have sequels. Forget that it’s 12
minutes — and crammed with pianos, choirs and every over-the-top
adornment that producer Jim Steinman could get his hands on, it feels
twice that length. No, this epic chunk of histrionics’ worst offense is
that it doesn’t make any sense. You wouldn’t do what, exactly?
It’s OK for rock songs to be dumb. But not stupid.
Worst Moment Shamelessly aping “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,”
the boy-girl duet kicks in at around the nine-minute mark.
Well, any Meat fan knows that those are
fighting words. But of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion... so
it's hardly worth complaining to Blender about. But an opinion is
one thing; writers showing themselves to be just plain stupid is another,
and this article appears to be filled with such stupidity. There were only
three songs on the first ten about which I had any reasonable knowledge,
so I emailed them. They had a "let us know what you think" email, after
all (and, I discovered after sending the email, I could win an MP3/CD
player! Well, little chance of THAT happening after the letter I wrote,
but what the hell... it was mildly therapeutic to write the thing anyway).
Nothing is more annoying to me than idiots
who have no writing skills getting paid to write... especially when their
writing consists of nothing more than revelations along the lines of
"Dude, I don't understand this song, so I'll put it on my list of songs
that suck! DUDE!" Well, that's the sense I got reading the article. Hell,
I could care less for Celine Dion, Ja Rule, New Kids On The Block, or
Uncle Cracker, but their commentary on those artists' songs was just plain
mindless.
I'm certainly not interested in buying this
rag to read the other 40... nor am I interested in seeing what is being
touted on their site as Blender and VH1's "50 Most Awesomely Bad
Songs Ever" (awesomely bad, huh? ...yet another telltale age giveaway...
perhaps actual age, certainly mental).
Enough of that. Here's the letter. (For
more insights into any confusion regarding what "I won't do THAT" means in
the song "I'd Do Anything For Love
(But I Won't Do That)," visit that song's page.
LETTER TO BLENDER
MAGAZINE -
your2cents@blender.com
I can’t believe I’m writing this, because
things that make me shake my head in amused disdain never get me so
passionate that I feel like writing a letter. But there it was, a link
saying “Tell us what you think,” so here I am.
“The 50 Worst Songs Ever” article: What a
disappointing excuse for self-righteous “writers” to bitch and whine. Now,
I think everyone is entitled to an opinion. But for a group of whiners to
get together, write an article based entirely on their opinions, and then
be frankly insulting to the artists WITHOUT at least checking to see if
their mindless commentaries actually make any sense is well below any
magazine I’d actually pay money to read.
It’s at least honorable to say “I just
plain hate this song.” And to follow it with “…because I just do” is
reasonable. But to follow it with “…because <insert alleged fact here>” is
another—be prepared to back up a statement at least with common sense.
One can almost imagine an editor saying
“Okay, you ten writers all pick the five songs you personally hate the
most; then, write the most ignorant commentary you possibly can… but be
careful not to actually listen to the songs first—and for Pete’s sake,
whatever you do, don’t even pretend to understand difficult concepts like
figures of speech or more basic things like the English language.”
I am not familiar with many of the songs I
saw on your site, so I can only offer insight into those with which I am
familiar.
Meat Loaf: “I’d Do Anything For
Love”
These folks start off by ingeniously borrowing
the “bitch-titted” bit from Fight Club. Really original. They then
insinuate that Bat Out of Hell and BOOH2 are pop albums. BOOH and BOOH2
are rock and roll, top to bottom. (Ask the Brits, who know a bit about
rock opera, where BOOH spent 471 weeks on their national charts.)
But the crowning moment is their assertion
that the song makes no sense because it isn’t clear what “won’t do” in the
“But I won’t do that” part. If they had actually listened to the words,
the answer is blatantly obvious. Every time the phrase "But I wont' do
that" occurs, it echoes something just said. For example:
I'd never forgive myself if we
don't go all the way … I won't do that.
But I’ll never forget the way you feel right now … I won’t do
that.
But I’ll never do it better than I do it with you … I won’t do
that.
But I’ll never stop dreaming of you … I won’t do that.
This is consistent, proper grammar. Do
these writers actually listen to the songs before they crap on them?
As for “aping” ‘Paradise’ with the boy/girl
bit: oh, come on… Jim Steinman specializes in teen angst and boy/girl
relationships. He’s used this after ‘Paradise’ and before BOOH2, like with
Cher on "Dead Ringer." This is a style, not a shortcoming.
Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the
Fire”
They COMPLETELY missed the point of the song.
The song came into being when a friend of Joel’s made a comment about how
nothing interesting had happened in their lifetimes. Joel was shocked and
said, “What, are you crazy? Plenty of things have happened!” To prove his
point, he wrote WDSTF… fitting the lyrics to the tune of a song he’d done
before.
As for Tiananmen Square and Michael
Jackson/Pepsi: I hardly think “conflation” was the intent. Did the writer
not notice that the song was mostly an ongoing shopping list of
unconnected events? Maybe your writers are too young to remember things
Billy was talking about MANY YEARS BACK when this song was released. Or
maybe your writers need to pay attention in history class. Or maybe they
need more detentions.
Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of
Silence”
This is perhaps the worst violation since these
opinionated sorts claim to be writers. They bitch about the opening line
to Simon & Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence, where darkness is addressed as
"my old friend" ...do these "writers" not even understand things like
personification and poetic license?
Holy crap!
Send your writers back to school… where perhaps
they already spend their days, working for Blender after school and
in-between things like football and cheerleading practice. It staggers the
mind that these people are getting paid for this. A better use of
Blender’s time and money would have been to conduct surveys. And the kids
could have spent more time in writing class.
But hey… I’m a freelance writer and if this
is all it takes to get paid, hell, hire me! If you cut me a check, I’ll
crap on everything I can’t stand, and do my best to be as annoying,
ignorant, and uninformed as possible. I’ll start with country music and
work my way into rap.
This mindless opinion-whining is fun!
Best regards,
-David M. Fitzpatrick
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