Thursday · October 30 2003
Enjoying:
- "Hey Ya" by Outkast - If you don't like this song, you don't like people.
- "Bastards of Young" by The Replacements - I'd rather be known as a "bastard of young" than a "Gen Xer" anyday.
- The quality dinner I had with my dad last night - Sharing future plans over a medium rare buttsteak
- Why the world needs a best of retrospective of Robert Plant's solo career. If I wanted "Big Log", "Tall Cool One", and "Sea of Love" in one place, I wouldn't have sold the records back in the first place. Becoming aware of Led Zeppelin was a turning point in my music listening history. Realizing that Plant without Page is not Led Zeppelin was another.
- How close the California fires are to my father-in-law's house in San Berndardino and if everything is okay.
Shoot, I just put on "Bastards of Young" and forgot to listen to it because I was so busy writing my other comment. :)
Yes, I hope all is OK in San Bernardino. Couldn't get a call through last night, so will keep trying today.
I too love Outkast- their new album- 2 disc is pretty cool- both discs are very different but good...
medium rare butt steak huh Jay? where'd you guys go for dinner?
We went to Jonathan's. I think you've probably been there.
Next time he said he'll show me how to "manage" my potato better. lol. There's a right and efficient way to do *everything*. We had a great time.
I heard "Hey Ya" in the shower today and remembered this post.
Although I like it, I don't LOVE this song, and every time I hear it I can tell it is definitely not going to be on my "best of 2003" memory list. I think it will shortly be more annoying to me than entertaining.
What I want to know is what the big fuss is about this song? The first time I heard it, I thought it was an 80's tune I somehow missed the first time around. bubblegummy. Especially for Outkast. It kind of misses something on some level for me - hard to explain but I always feel like I want the beat to take it up a notch and it never does. But everybody seems to LOVE it. What does everybody LOVE about it? I keep listening to it to try to figure it out, but I still don't know.
Most pop music gets annoying after enough listens. By nature, there's not enough complexity to hold you forever. Read Nick Hornby's chapter in Songbook on Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird." (Actually, read the whole book, it's great) He writes it much better than I could. Pop music has hooks and it sucks you in with them.
"Hey Ya" has many hooks and it's immediately appealing. The verses have that sing-songy rhyme thing going and then the chorus has the great falsetto "Hey Ya" which is just as catchy. That, together with the other gimmicks, like the shake it like a polaroid picture thing and the falsetto flourishes make for 4 minutes of catchiness.
Also, never underestimate "how much other people like something" as why something becomes annoying to you. That's just our nature. It might eventually become annoying if you were the only one that knew about it, but everyone around you LOVING it, makes that moment come much quicker.
I just wrote 3 paragraphs on why "Hey Ya" is catchy, so I'll stop now.