Wrather, Lee, and Fenzel overthink peak oil and peak rock, the meaning of hip-hop, the ringtone bubble, politics, pornography, and artistic protectionism and offer a new feature, OTI picks, while Wrather manages to say something offensive to every nationality, ethnic group, and world religion. Spoiler alert for Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger.
Warning: This podcast may be NSFW. Also, a lot of the offensive stuff is meant facetiously.
Many rock purists and music snobs (myself included) often lament the quality of most modern pop/rock music. “Music these days is so trite and derivative,” they say. “It’s just been downhill since the 60’s and 70’s. Those were the days.”
A few years ago, Rolling Stone magazine added fuel to the music snobbery fire with its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list. Anyone casually paging through the list would notice that the bulk of the list was comprised of songs from the 60’s and 70’s, just like the music snobs always say.
I, however, wasn’t content with the casual analysis. So I punched the list into Excel, crunched some numbers, and found an interesting parallel between the decline of rock music quality and, of all things, the decline in US oil discovery and production:
I really wish I could blame the Chinese for this one, but alas, it seems like the Brits censored their own Led Zeppelin and forced a minor lyrical change for a performance of “Whole Lotta Love” at the Olympic Closing Ceremonies. Two reasons are cited in the news report; 1) organizers deemed a particular lyric “too racy” and 2) female singer Leona Lewis who sang with Robert Plant thought that the lyrics weren’t fitting of a female singer.
BEFORE: I’m gonna give you every inch of my love.
AFTER: I’m gonna give you every bit of my love.
As the Brits say, BULLOCKS. What’s rock and roll without double entendres? See what happens when you start to sanitize some of rock’s greatest penis references after the jump:
As some of you know, I write and produce Hotnewz.tv, the best darn news show for college kids on the web. We recently started a blog where we talk about some of our favorite segments. After the jump is something I wrote for it, on the enigma that is Andrew WK.
First of all, l’m a big fan. The fact that you spent your evenings down at the drive-in in the summer of ‘69, when you were only nine years old, is truly awesome.
But I have an issue with “Heaven,” your first big hit. The lyrics of the chorus have always bothered me:
Baby you’re all that I want
When you’re lying here in my arms
I’m finding it hard to believe
We’re in heaven
To me, that always sounded like:
Baby, you’re all that I want when you’re lying here in my arms. I’m finding it hard to believe we’re in heaven.
Which makes it sound like you’re really underwhelmed and being sarcastic about it. “This is heaven? If you say so.”
That’s not you, Bryan.
Of course, it’s actually supposed to be read this way:
Baby you’re all that I want. When you’re lying here in my arms, I’m finding it hard to believe. We’re in heaven!
But to me, it just never scanned right.
So here’s my suggestion - just change the lyric “I’m finding it” to “It isn’t.” So the revised quatrain reads:
Baby you’re all that I want
When you’re lying here in my arms
It isn’t hard to believe
We’re in heaven
I think that would clear up a lot of confusion. Thanks, Bryan.
Dear Bryan,