Hello there
fans of the Clinkening. I know I've been absent for a while due to
graduation, applying for loans and jobs and really stuff that doesn't
matter to anyone who reads this blog (as in the empty space) and I
have been working on material for the site, which should come up in a
day or so (I'll start a 3 a week update schedule though the things I
do will for the most part be two short things and a long thing each
week, or something that equates to that.)
But enough
about that, what could rouse me from my thousand year Avalonian
slumber? Why, it's the controversy surrounding the Insane Clown Posse
and their brand new video entitled Chris Benoit. If you exactly how
offensive calling a song that is, welcome Pro Wrestling fans, there
is nothing for you here. But ICP, their connection to pro wrestling
and the harrowing events surrounding Chris Benoit's last days are all
irrevocably connected in this piece, so first I'm going to have to
show anyone who doesn't know why this is offensive the ropes (pardon
the horrible horrible pun).
Chris Benoit
was a professional wrestler, but really what he did in the ring
(which was a lot) is in the minds of most who know of him irrelevant
compared to what he did in the last few days of it. In 2007, Chris
Benoit was found strangled to death in his home where his wife and
son also lay dead. Extensive reports suggest that Chris Benoit
murdered his wife and child before killing himself and that bit of
the story is regarded as impossible to refute. The problem was why he
did it, the leading theories either being steroid abuse (though
unlikely given forensic evidence) or the sheer abuse on his body (and
particularly his brain) basically destroying his ability to reason.
Really, the
reason for his actions is largely irrelevant as the fact that it's a
deeply controversial and relatively recent tragedy concerning
professional wrestling, and has for the most part relegated the
once-prominent sport to the sidelines of modern pop culture. The
Benoit case tends to be something to rather avoid, as most
discussions about him tend to lead into loud abusive cul-de-sacs with
each side accusing each other of being murderer's cheerleaders or not
open-minded enough or something. The petty feuds of wrestling fans
really hide the issues of this and really stops the event from being
seriously explored, not helped by the somewhat partisan attitude of
the people who have written about it. Thus, as utterly odd and
moronic as it sounds, perhaps a song could use the song as a metaphor
to explore the deeper issues surrounding Benoit and the tragedy of
his family. And even more oddly, perhaps people who are neutral
regarding pro wrestling and the incident may be the ones to do it!
People like the Insane Clown Posse!
I think that
last paragraph may have cost me my credibility, my sanity and my
dignity in one well aimed swoop.
However,
what is absolutely the case is ICP and the Juggalos have a very
interesting relationship with professional wrestling, particularly
the emergence of the backyard wrestling and extreme wrestling scenes
within it. You know, the bits people mock of kids wearing slipknot
t-shirts hitting each other with florescent light tubes while forty
illiterates catcall and wail? ICP own a promotion called Juggalo
Championship Wrestling but before that they had a big connection to
wrestling, having stints in the three main promotions of the era; ECW
(the guerilla pro wrestling association), WCW (owned by AOL Time
Warner which at the time was the biggest corporate entity in the USA)
as well as WWF/E, also known as the only one left at the time of
writing. And I don't just mean they went and plugged their crap; they
actually wrestled as well. Not very well but they did! So if anyone
had the right to create a song based on such a distinctly
wrestling-centred tragedy, it would be the Insane Clown Posse surely.
I was going
to say, maybe it should be someone with talent, tact, subtlety and
not a front for evangelical Christianity, but that'd be unfair (and
in the latter case not entirely confirmed). Most of what I've
personally heard about ICP is from second hand sources and the very
scant number of songs I've heard (Yes, including the meme-tastic ode
to stupidity Miracles), so I'm willing to give them a try. If only a
relatively neutral artist can get away with a song about Benoit,
maybe only someone who's not a predisposed hater or Juggalo should be
the one to review it.
It starts
off in typical ICP fashion, with a discordant pseudo-carnival
backbeat, like Hunter S Thompson going to the circus. It tends to
work quite well and actually creates a slightly unsettling atmosphere
for some of the songs, though its abuse like in the celebratory
Miracles means that occasionally it lapses into sarcasm, parody or a
simple lack of imagination, quickly launching into our hook, with a
male and female voice duelling “A Catastrophic Demise” and
“Unmeasurable regrets” (oddly also parsered as “I'll measure up
all regrets” which makes distinctly less sense) chants. This kind
of works although you can tell just how badly they have to mangle the
words to get them to fit the meter.
The first
verse by Violent J (and yes, I had to look up which is which) is
actually not too bad, relatively simple flow but it works, and the
lyrics discuss a deranged damaged mind going over the edge in a way
that won't blow anyone's mind but at the same time gets the idea
across without cliché or really stupid metaphors, although “pull
your tongue out with pliers dispatch” (oddly parsered in the lyrics
I read as “player dispatch” which doesn't even sound right) is a
bit of an odd metaphor to use, an odd time to use hashtag rap when
the rest of the song seems to avoid a lot of what makes modern rap
music so unlistenable. And then we get to our chorus, which again
sounds okay, a crescendo to the talk of nearly being at your limit,
all the anger, outrage and negative emotions burst out of you and you
go insane, or as the song puts it, you're “heading for the worst”.
While not, bad, you have the issue of the backup vocalist “I'm
Chris Benoit!” after every single line, which I assume is to
connect the subject of the title to the chorus, which is your thesis
statement about the themes of the song. The song appears to be
claiming that Chris Benoit was slowly being driven insane by
everything around him and that he suddenly snapped and killed his
family. I'll spare you the insane nitpickings about how that's
impossible and just say that based on the police reports done it is
indeed impossible.
Shaggy 2
Dope's verse doesn't really do much different, essentially being
another series of synonyms for being pushed over the edge to the
point where you lose control. Now, generally when you have more than
one rapper in a rap group (like Run DMC, Public Enemy, NWA etc) it's
because you have several rappers who each have their own flow and
verbal ability, which spices up a song which could start flagging by
the third verse otherwise. My issue with the ICP is that they don't
seem to do this. Other than the paint and the fact one's thinner than
the other, they're hard to tell apart, probably not helped by the
very slow beats that they create. Also, while “Eject my controller”
is quite a clever line, it doesn't rhyme with “over” no matter
how hard you try.
At this
point, the biggest mention of Benoit (the title of the song after
all) is just Shaggy and the backup singers saying it. Until of course
after the second chorus where they include one of Benoit's wrestling
promos in the middle. Benoit's main characterisation in pro wresling
was that he was a bringer of pain, the crippler that could make you
feel so much pain you'd surrender and hope for mercy. In other words,
the promo they used was just like any other wrestling promo so I'm
not entirely certain why it was used. I can only assume because of
the connection between the pain he caused in the ring and the pain he
caused out of it, which suggests that the duo read Ring Of Hell in
lieu of doing research.
The song is
really not bad. It's pedestrian, with a rather weak flow, lyrics that
aren't offensive but are in effect a series of synonyms for “I've
gone insane” and a beat that while initially rather good doesn't
ever go anywhere or do anything of interest (though not to the same
banal degrees as Soulja Boy). However, by naming itself after a
murderer, it forces itself to be a thesis statement on the man, and
other than some very transparent references to his name, the use of
one of his promos and the music video being set in a makeshift ring,
the concept is largely wasted in favour of a song about insanity I'm
almost certain they've released about a dozen times by this point.
And so an attempt to understand real tragedy through art is once
again wasted. 'Tis a shame.
