Thursday, January 22, 2009

What did we do before iPods?

Seriously. I have just the foggiest of notions of what it was like. I think it was a time filled with lots of "long blocks of classic rock" and "two-for-Tuesdays."

I bring it up only because over the past few weeks, I've been forced to travel back into to the bizzaro world of no ipod. Kids, don't try this at home.

I had thought my ipod had bitten the dust. It's an oldie (3rd generation!), the one with no video features and the old click wheel. But I LOVE it. 40 Gigs of awesomeness. Unfortunately I had disconnected it too quickly one day when trying to rush out of the office, and long story short, lost all my music. Now the good news is that the ipod itself is fine, so I've been slowly rebuilding it back to a new level of awesomeness. I call it my Steve Austin project.

Anyways, over this time I haven't been taking my ipod to the gym when I work out. BIG mistake. And just to prove to you dear blog reader just how big a mistake this was, I submit to you this actual playlist of songs that played during my workout today. I am not making this up. There's no way I could make up this selection of "music":

Song 1: "What's Love Got to Do With It" Tina Turner. I knew I was in trouble when I entered the weight room and this 80s slow jam was the first song I heard. Not exactly the tune you need when you're struggling on the lat machine.

Song 2: "Thunderstruck" AC/DC. OK, this is a little better. I'm definitely down with some AC/DC for a workout, althought if I was spinning it would definitely be something off Back in Black. This jam isn't their best, but it's also not their worst ("Jailbreak", anyone?)

Song 3: "The South's Gonna Do It Again" Charlie Daniels Band. Really!? AC/DC into the CDB!? That trainwreck of a segue should be outlawed in all 50 states. And Florida. I didn't think it could possible get any worse. Until...

Song 4: "The Neutron Dance" The Pointer Sisters. At this point I'm wondering if due to budget cuts, the radio station has trained a chimp to program the music. I have this running ice breaker in party settings, "What's the worst song of all time?" For years, I haven't been able to decide what's number 1: "Susudio" by Phil Collins or "We Built This City" by Starship. But now I know. It's neither. It's "The Neutron Dance" Don't believe me? Watch the video and argue differently. I defy you.



At this point I cut my workout short because it was getting too hard to handle. And then, almost as if on cue, I heard the DJ say, "Coming up next..."Hard to Handle" kicks off another long block of the best rock....

Riiiight.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Challenge laid down...challenge accepted.

Kris and I disagree on Susidio, which makes me worry a bit about her, because it is indeed the worst song of all time. Here's how it went...

Phil Collins: Hmmm, haven't had a hit in while...how can I fix that? I know!!! I'll just make up a word and stick it around a catchy beat that my bass player came up with.

I can at least forgive Starship a wee little bit since "We Built This City" is an ode to their hometown or maybe just to local radio stations(at least, I'm hoping it is), but there's absolutely no forgiving for "Susudio."

At least with "Neutron Dance," you get a clip of Eddie Murphy back when he was funny, that famous laugh, Cameo ("Word Up"...YouTube it) dressed in drag to look like June Pointer channeling Tina Turner, and a positive link to a movie that wasn't half bad.

But back to the original point..."Neutron Dance" is 10x the song that "We Built This City" and "Susudio" ever thought about being.

Here are other songs that are worse than Neutron Dance. Consider this my 3-8 list:
*3 Don Johnson singing "Heartbeat"
*4 Celine Dion and "My Heart Will Go On" (hey, it's a trend)
*5 Ricky Martin and "She Bangs"...she what???
*6Corey Hart and "Sunglasses @ Night"...my MOST hated song of the 80s.
*7 "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield; I pretty much hate any dude talking about taking another guy's girlfriend AND getting major credit for it from the opposite sex. This is the kind of guy you drag outside and don't feel bad when you're kicking them while they're rolling on the pavement in agony.
*8 Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder losing ALL rock credibility (and for these guys, that was tough to do) by singing "Ebony and Ivory"
*9Heart and "All I Wanna Do (is Make Love to You)...if you listen to these lyrics, that's pretty much the LAST thing you'd wanna do.

Most of the time, you'd see this kind of list in a "Top 10" format, but none of these songs is even worthy of THAT distinction, hence only a top 9.