Dirty Pop

originally posted on 5/9/07

I can't promise that there won't be any spelling errors in this blog, or at least well fewer than usual, as I am typing this directly into myspace instead of on Word, as my computer is once again ill. Which shows how much I love you people, I'm at a fucking web cafe writing this instead of just waiting until tomorrow. Also, this is the second blog I've written while being 87% happy with my current circumstance, so hopefully it has some bite. Prefaces aside...

I'm a sucker for situational pop songs. I imagine that I'm not the only one like that, but my iPod is absolutely littered with cheesy throwaway pop songs that I would almost certainly not care for, dislike, or despise if not for the specific circumstances surrounding said songs, especially early in their lives, or at least in their relationships with me (ie, their lives, so far as I'm concerned.) I am cognitively aware that, say, Lou Bega's "Mambo # 5" or Eiffle 65's "I'm Blue" aren't particularly luminescent tracks, though both have catchy hooks. Yet, both were completely intertwined with my Euro days, thus will always have a home in the pod, and both will always get me on the floor in the (increasingly) rare times they are played in a club.

I could say the same for certain shitty rock songs, shitty punk songs, shitty rap songs, and shitty country songs that I only like due to the situation I first heard them, but the pop songs are always more embarrassing. It's easier to explain why I like and posses a shitty Ignite song or Motley Crue song or 50 Cent song than, say, explaining why I like and posses a shitty Backstreet Boys song.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that, not surprisingly, a new shitty pop song has come into my life. I had little control over it. And I don't even have an official memory of the first time I heard it, the input time, the time that really mattered.

Recently, I was shooting darts with a buddy at Dragon Bar (the local joint where everybody knows my name - Toodah) and the song came on. The connection was near primal. I knew this song. But from where? And why? It's just a cheesy pop song at Dragon, one of a hundred, so why should I connect to this? What made me listen intently throughout its 3 minute duration? What made me go up to the bar staff to ask its name? Clearly, this song had mattered to me recently. Though I had cognitively (I know, time for a thesaurus. And a diksionariry.) forgotten it, my internal pod had remembered it and given it 4 stars.

I mentioned, though not in name, Spy Bar in my previous blog. It was in the venerable Spy Bar in Itaewon where I was dancing with the previously mentioned gorgeous girl in the previously mentioned top-5 weekend. It occurred to me that it was in Spy Bar that I had first heard this song, while in a key point of the pursuit of her. Due to the overall craziness of Spy Bar that night (read: bourbon) the song totally escaped me at its origin.

Needless to say, I downloaded the song the next afternoon, and listened to it 4 times in a row. What song was it? Does it really matter? You know it's a cheesy throwaway, and it's the significance that matters, not the title, right? Alright, alright, it was Nelly Furtado's new song, "Say it Right." And yeah, I'm not a Nelly Furtado fan, and I've hated all the songs on her new record. But you know what? "Say it Right" has a good hook, and top notch pop production quality, complete with a faraway sound and a chorus proclaiming "You don't mean nothing at all to me." Did I mention I was dancing with an insanely hot girl when I first heard it?

It's on the pod now, likely to stay. I don't care what you think. That song, despite it's apparent suckiness, is a fucking awesome pop song. Just like Mambo # 5.

Endnote - other than the preface, I wrote all of this in my notebook in a bar a week and a half ago, which out here seems to be about 38 minutes long, as well enough time for a whole shitload of stuff to happen. And, as the Spy Bar girl has already become yesterday's news, so has Nelly Furtado. In fact, while hanging out with a new girl last night, what song happened to come on at a key point? yeah, that's right, none other than Mambo Motherfucking Number Five.