The First Annual Random Music Awards, hosted by Steve

To randomly celebrate by 550th post (this one right here), I thought the best thing to do would be to award some random songs. I am arbitrarily making up these categories as I sit here. If you're one of the artists, feel free to send me a check for $500 - for shipping - and I'll send you your glorious award. And everyone else, feel free to nominate others for some awards, or to heap glorious praise upon me for my 550th entry or just "me" in general.


- Best Love Song Involving The Holocaust: "Alive With The Glory Of Love" by Say Anything. First, I've always liked this band for the simple reason that its name is based on the absolute best John Cusack movie. Some people swear by High Fidelity, but that just gets hype because it's about music. He acts like a conceited asshole that entire movie. No, I much prefer Say Anything as a straight-up romantic comedy.

Second, I also like Say Anything because they have incredibly catchy songs like this... even though it involves the Holocaust, you know. I'm a sucker for just about any kind of pop punk, so this song and "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too" are both good to move. (Although, this one is much, much better than the other.) Say Anything also does a neat cover of "I Got Your Money", which was originally done by Old Dirty Bastard. You can find it on Punk Goes Crunk, purchasable here. Speaking of covers...


- Best Acoustic Covers of Rap Music by a White Girl: Karys Rhea shushyermouth. I was originally going to give this award to Karys Rhea, a singer I really liked on YouTube who did a bunch of acoustic covers of artists like Usher, M.I.A., The Beastie Boys and others, but she took down all of her videos. Womp womp womppppp. So, while I support her still, because she has a nice voice and what not, I'm (not so secretly) disappointed that she took down all the covers. Shame!

Therefore, the winner by default is shushyermouth, mostly because I like her YouTube name, and even though she is Asian (maybe?) and not white. Her video is the one above. I was tempted a bit by the version by Karla Davis, but I didn't quite care for her rant at the beginning of the video. Just get to the coverin', not the moralizing!


- Best Music Video For A Song I Don't Like At All: "Come Into My World" by Kylie Minogue. YouTube must know that I don't really care for the song, since it won't let me embed the video, which you can watch here. The use of repetition in the video is awesome, and reminiscint of "Star Guitar" by The Chemical Brothers, except that's a song I actually like. And because I can actually link that video, you can see it above. (Sorry, Kylie. I still think you're mad attractive though.)


- Best Job Deciphering Daft Punk Tunes: tombola2004. It's linked above. All I can say is, good work. That's a job well done, tombola2004. It's a proud day for your family.


- Best Chorus In An Otherwise Bad Song: "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To" by Weezer. The lyrics from this song are horribly whiny and wimpy, but that chorus? That's good times. I don't give an eff about Rivers eating meatloaf even though he don't eat meat.


- Best 1990s Song That Almost Everyone Universally Likes: "No Diggity" by Blackstreet. We used to play this song all the time at college parties, because girls liked to dance to it (and girls liked to dance when they were drinking) and because it was one of the few rap songs my prickly roommate liked.

On attraction, romantic comedies and Valentine's Day

Nobody puts Baby in the corner.

I generally don't like to do personal posts on this blog. Because of a horrible, stupid past experience on my part, I realize how harmful it can be to get really personal on a blog read by everybody. I can't even read features like "Modern Love" at The New York Post, because they make me squirm way too much. While I consider myself a relatively open person, I definitely wouldn't want to reveal everything, like many of those letters.

That being said, I thought I'd talk a bit about romantic comedies and the new movie Valentine's Day. Basically, a couple of friends have noted that they think romantic comedies suck because they aren't reflective of real-life. I agree with them - Most feature somewhat dweeby guys getting with women way out of their league, or someone pining for their best friend. In most real-life situations, someone would have made a move at some point.

However, that being said... Some of the things in romantic comedies are correct. For example, I think (practically) everyone has 1) at least one friend that they have a crush on, that the friend is completely oblivious to and 2) are probably the object of someone's affection, and they have no idea that this is the case. For myself, #1 is true, and obviously, I don't know if #2 is also correct. If there was some way to take a poll on the matter, I could prove it, but I don't feel like doing such a thing.

Does this mean you'll ever end up together? Probably not. I mean, most people end up as friends for a reason. (The most prevalent one being that you don't ask a person out because you're pretty sure that they'll say no, so you settle for friendship.) Of my current friends, I know of one relationship that arose out of the pair being long-term friends first.

Now, to segue randomly to the movie Valentine's Day, I am a bit annoyed that they're defiling my birthday - my 26th, for the record - with what essentially seems to be a movie of romance vignettes featuring big name stars. That is the impression I got from the trailer and overloaded cast, and it is a sentiment shared by Ebert and Dana Stevens of Slate.com. In fact, a quote from Stevens' friend in her review - "Fine, mush your boring faces altogether already." - reminds me of something my friend and frequent blog commenter Danielle would say.

So really, if you're looking for a Steve-approved movie for Valentine's Day, don't see Valentine's Day. Just stick to my favorite romantic comedy ever: Say Anything.



Picture from this blog.