iTunes Running Diary – June 28, 2009

This week's artists.

- “I Got A Man” by Positive K. This song is great because the lyrics are utterly unbelievable. “I'm clean cut and dapper, that's what I'm all about / My man buys me things and he takes me out / Well you can keep your man because I don't go that route.” It is the ghetto, hip-hop version of ridiculous lyrics in songs like “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base; just so corny, you can hardly believe what you just heard.

If anyone wants another reason for the success of gangster rap, realize that this was the other crap polluting the airwaves outside of socially and politically-minded fare of Public Enemy, and the pure quality of A Tribe Called Quest and Run DMC. Even stuff like 2 Live Crew, Little T and One Track Mike (please excuse the stupid video), and The Great Adventures of Slick Rick show more lyrical and musical development.

- “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” by Nine Days. Some day, when VH1 does an update to their one-hit wonders list, I hope they remember this song. It is completely cheesy, but cheerful, and it seems heartfelt. I'll remember and like this song far more than a cheap, pandering song like “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer, even if that song did better because it was linked to a 1990s teen romantic comedy. (P.S. Linked off the YouTube page of "Absolutely" is Vertical Horizon, another awesome 1990s band.)

- “Start the Commotion” by The Wiseguys. I don't have much to say about the actual song, which is a good if repetitive, sort-of-techno song with a grinding guitar and bass. Instead, this is merely a song that makes me think of yet another commercial. (Like anybody with a pulse, I dislike commercials, but my pop culture obsessed mind never has trouble remembering them.)

Piggybacking off my post from a few days ago, this song is more frequently remembered because it was in a Mitsubishi ad. I have no idea what the point of the ad was, except that it featured a woman who seemingly would have sex with me (the one at the end). I mean, I think she is supposed to be attractive or hot, but she just comes across as kind of coked up and slutty. This does not make me want to buy a car at all, and it just disturbs me in general.

- “Easter Eggs” by Patton Oswalt (NSFW!). This isn't really music, but hey, it popped up, and hey, I like Patton Oswalt. No, you don't understand – I REALLY like Patton Oswalt. Although he definitely skews toward “nerd” material, it's incredibly well done. Feelin' Kinda Patton, the album this track comes off of, is shockingly dirty, horribly offensive to every group imaginable and hilarious throughout.

This track refers to the egg-coloring monopoly held by Paas, who in the 1970s had the little wire thing, the four color tablets and the box, which worked as an egg holder. And today it has... four color tablets, a little wire thing and the box. Patton talks about the hypothetical board meeting with Harry Paas the Fourth exclaiming, “We're not changing a god damn thing!” Ahhh, so good, so good.

- “I Just Wanna Love You” by Jay-Z, MTV Unplugged version (YouTube link is unfortunately the regular version). Yes, that's right, Jay-Z has an Unplugged album, and it is incredible. Either fact might surprise you, because it surprised me when I stumbled upon it a year ago. Without looking up the information on it, I have no idea when he did it. There are no songs from the black album on it, but that is such a monumental work that is deserves its own Unplugged performance anyway. (The gray album, with the Beatles as a sort of acoustic backup band, kind of suffices in that area though.)

I'm guessing this came out in that dark period between the last gasp of the video era on MTV (meaning when TRL briefly made them relevant again) and before MTV completely sold out to reality crap like endless Real World and Road Rules challenges.

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I can't watch most of what's on MTV right now. I've always thought that networks lose their way when they make a grab at ratings as opposed to just focusing on quality programming; it's just that simple to me. NBC is in such a funk now because instead of replacing their aging programming (Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, ER) with good new shows, they got seduced by the ratings shit like Joey got because of its lead-ins. NBC used to have an unassailable block of programming on Thursday nights, but the lack of new blood allowed other networks to gain a foothold, and now, legitimately good shows like The Office don't have enough quality surrounding them to be a ratings winner for NBC.