No intro this week so just enjoy this pic of GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray hanging out instead. Songs down below.
Luka:
Lionel Richie - Hello
My first song is Lionel Richie’s Hello. There’s no point in
me describing how great of a song or how many weeks it spent on the charts
since this is all well-known. Everyone loves this song and with good reason. It
has good lyrics, a good melody, it’s extremely catchy and to top it all off, it
is sung by one of the best singers of all time. The chorus is especially fun to
sing with everyone attempting a seductive “hello” in hope of mimicking Lionel but always end up sounding more like Uncle Leo. The main reason I picked this song
though is its insane/weird video that naturally makes it very fun to watch. The
basic plot of the video is that Lionel is crushing on a girl who is the subject
of the lyrics. Sounds normal right? Yeah, until you figure out that
Lionel is the girl’s teacher. Here are some highlights of the video. :21 – The
name of the fictional character in the video is Billyboy..? Really? They could
have picked anything else and it would have been less weird. :55 – We meet
Lionel’s crush in the video, his student Laura who appears to go to the same
barber as him (they randomly have strangely similar hair). 1:44 – Unrelated but
how fucking old is that guy? 1:55 – No one in this school finds it weird that
the drama teacher is stalking his student in the hallway? Nobody? 2:21 –
Laura’s friends save her from a Lionel sneak-attack from behind. 3:41 –
Creepiest moment of the video (big accomplishment), Lionel calling his student
late at night only to sing “Hello, Is it me you’re looking for?” before hanging
up. 4:34 – One of Lionel’s students (who looks to be the same age as him) tells
him something’s up in the sculpture class. 4:57 – Laura made a sculpture of
Lionel’s head and then begins touching his face. 5:25 – Thank god this video
ends at this moment because if it hadn’t, I’m pretty sure we’d all be witnesses
to a crime. Great song. I’m kind of sad that videos like this don’t get made
anymore.
Ja Rule ft. Jennifer Lopez - I'm Real (Murder Remix)
It was late 2001 and I was just turning 10. What else was
happening at the time? Ja Rule and Jennifer Lopez were releasing this great song.
I don’t know anyone who hears this and doesn’t immediately start having a good
time. It has that laid back summer vibe that just makes you want to put on your
doo-rag and go play ball in the Bronx (or is that just me?). The song has J-Lo
on the chorus as well as trading lyrics back and forth with Ja Rule who was
huge at the time (if you’re young and reading this, you’re just going to have
take my word on this one). The video has Ja and J-Lo (J-Lo is in her full ‘Jenny
from the Block’ persona in this one. Also, how well has she aged? She looks
just as good now as she did back then. Unreal) just lounging in their
neighborhood, in front of a basketball court, and on the hood of a car. A simple
concept for the video but you don’t really need anything too complicated for a
song such as this one. What the video does have is two clothing styles that sadly
disappeared after the early 2000’s. One being the Doo-Rag (pretty sure that’s
how it’s spelt) which every single rapper wore back in the day. These seemingly
all disappeared at once and are now nowhere to be found. I personally blame
Kevin Federline for this. After he starting wearing them in the mid 00’s the
African-American community probably got together and just decided that they had
to go. Thanks K-Fed. The second thing in the video that you never see anymore
is the “one sleeve pulled on, the other on top of the shoulder” style of
wearing your shirt. I blame people’s common sense for that one since I can’t
believe people ever thought that looked good.
S Club 7 - S Club Party
For my last song I chose to pick this one because of all the
S Club 7 reunion rumors flying around this week and simply because it’s a good
song. When listening to this people always sing along, sometimes to the whole thing
but always with the insanely catchy chorus. The lyrics are typical late 90’s
boy-band level but who cares? You’re not listening to S Club 7 for the deep
lyrics (once I figure out why you would want to listen to S Club 7, I’ll let
you know). The video is great too with the 7 of them being transported back in
time to the year 1959 where they encounter what appears to be a American group
of teens from the south who immediately challenge them to a race (This seemed
less weird when I was 8). Also I don’t want to be that guy but Bradley (the
African-American member of the group) and his comebacks probably wouldn’t be
accepted so easily in the southern United States during the late 50’s... but
moving on. This song is strangely sung by just one member of the group, Jo, while
the other 6 just do awkward dance moves in the background. Funniest part of the
video is during the roll-call at 2:15 where Jo calls out Jon who proceeds to do
something that is pretty indescribable (seriously if anyone can explain to me
what that dance-move was, that’d be great). The best way I can explain is it
“complete lack of muscle control combined with a giant shiver going up his
spine finished off with a point”. I remember jamming to this song back in the
day (and having still have a huge crush on Rachel) and not worrying about any
of that though because fuck it, there is no party like an S Club party (at
least that’s what I hear).
Jovan:
Barenaked Ladies - Go Home
The guys don’t have too many songs that I can listen to, but this is one of the few that has a good flow and is actually enjoyable. Of course, no other BNL song can have the flow of One Week. Go home is probably unknown to the majority of people who’ve heard their best single, If I Had a Million Dollars, but it’s worthy of a listen. I first heard it in the movie ‘My Boss’s Daughter’, an underrated comedy that successfully manages to make racist comments without actually offending anyone. If you like other BNL songs, you should also like Go Home, but less and less people are listening to BNL genre music.
R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix)
This song may be eight years old or so, but I’ll bet you can still put it on and rap to the lyrics and enjoy every single moment. Kells has really fallen off (and everyone knows why he lost popularity – besides the fact that his recent music has been subpar), but he does have some quality songs that still deserve to be in people’s current playlists.
Bonnie Tyler - I Need A Hero
There are many versions of this song, but none of them can match up to the original by Bonnie Tyler. I can’t explain what makes this song so good, besides the amazing singing by Tyler and the very catchy chorus. It also makes the ending of Shrek 2 all that much more interesting. There aren’t enough songs in the same genre being released today, and I’m getting tired of hearing club bangers and other forgettable songs on the hit radio stations (and apparently every radio station is the #1 station), which is why I’m thankful there exist stations that still play these slightly more aged, but quality songs.
Hope you enjoyed it!
Follow us on Twitter
@MillenniumSandE
No comments:
Post a Comment