A Little Something Left on the Cutting Room Floor

Right, I'm currently working on a big bumper article, which will be uploaded in two parts over this week, entitled the “Ten Most Baffling UK Number One Singles of All Time” which I hope you fine empty spaces enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing, which means partly because wanting to punch your brain for making you listen to some immensely awful songs. Now, the criteria isn't so much about terrible number one hits, but songs you can't believe ever made it; they just don't make sense, even if you go back to the era they came from. I'm intending to look at the ten most odd and make speculations as to what could have possessed the Great British public to buy these songs by the hundred thousand.

Now, I'm doing a top ten list, but there were so many I wanted to put on there, so I might do an honourable mention thing afterwards, but there was one I so desperately needed to put in there but just couldn't fit it in and had already removed some songs that would appear to be certain choices for this sort of thing. But I so very wish I had another place for this:

Every Loser Wins – Nick Berry (1986)

What?

And probably “Who?” to pretty much everyone except people in the UK over a certain age. Nick Berry was a soap opera actor who appeared in the most popular celebration of abject misery in England, Eastenders, as one of its central stars during its early years, and he along with a bunch of stage school graduates were part of a story that in hindsight everyone thought was utterly appalling, which saw the folk of Albert Square assaulted aurally by the 80s synthpop stylings of The Banned.

See, their first mistake was making a fictional band in a soap opera, since they work about as often as genuine rock bands making it into the pop charts. Their second was actually releasing music in the real world, which saw the top forty assaulted not once but twice, first by the abusively dated Something Outta Nothing, the song sung by the Banned in the show, where your ears are battered by a series of appalling samples, which might be fine if it didn't sound like an alien orchestra.

Of course we're not talking about that one, we're talking about the utterly tuneless ballad that came after it and went to number one. It's a breakup song apparently also part of this ludicrous storyline, where Nick Berry's character played the song on a pub piano or something, and has one of the worst, most insulting hooks in the history of breakup songs. “We nearly made it” rivals “Let's have a look at what you could've won” as one of the best ways to kick 'em when they're down. Also, because a lifeless piano ballad only gets radio play if you're a sixteen year old girl or Billy Joel, they pump this somewhat simple song full of synth gimmicks, trying to will it into becoming In the Air Tonight.

Most Ridiculous Part?

The video. The song is largely pointless I know, but what in the name of hell does riverboats have to do with Every Loser Winning? I should also point out the utterly pointless singing around a stripper pole by Berry himself, who looks and sounds utterly petrified.

Why?

Merchendise of course. At this point, Eastenders had been on the air for only a year or two, but was already a big hit, as well as a great money spinner for the BBC, and people as cynical as me could consider having a storyline with a real life counter part either a failed attempt at metafiction or a cash-in. People saw it on television and wanted a part of the story they'd seen, and this gave them a chance, which I suppose is fair enough, though I hope the next time soaps clumsily attempt metafictional stories they make them vaguely tolerable?

Insane Clown Posse Releasing a Song about a relatively recent Murder-Suicide. Exploitative or not? An impromptu review.

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.

Apologies for the Long Wait

A lot's happened in the last three months in my life, allow me to gloss over it by announcing the returning Clinkening. Updated three times a week this time! Honest!

Huggy Dave will return...

Normal service will be resumed shortly, but while you wait...

On Nick Clegg and how the term “dickless” now has an Avatar

Hello there, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. This rings particularly true in that weird disturbing, infinitely despicable world of politics, which appears to have replaced cockfighting as the national sport of the aristocratic elite. I can picture the lobby group offices as being in strange warehouses, illegal gambling dens in the Cotswolds betting on just which policy will screw the working class over the most. And then maybe a bet for which single politician is the most hated person in the country.

I suspect Nick Clegg would be close to the top of the list.

Before I get to the point where I claim that Nick Clegg is to politics what “We Built this City” by Starship was to music, I think a little bit of history needs to be put in order, both of Mr Clegg and myself.

I myself come from a working class family in the northwest of England, pretty steadfast labour voters for the most part, me and my brother sharing someone lefter wing views than the most but still for the most part supported that Labour, while under it's Nu-Labour guise that meant it had to be Tory and capitalist baiting, at least seemed to give a shit about the people of which it has been voted to govern. Then scandal after scandal and disaster after disaster rocked Labour and it's unfortunate dour leader, Gordon Brown, who seemed to have little going for him up against Tony Blair replicant David Cameron. Cameron's early pitches for the Tory party, telling them “Don't go blue, go green!” and making every single simpering pathetic possible attempt to prove his hipster liberal principles. I mean, kids you gotta vote for someone who listens to The Killers and Radiohead! But this boneheaded attempt to appeal to a set of voters who have ingrained memories of their parent's struggles with Mrs Thatcher didn't just consist of Desert Island Discs and impossibly bad slogans, oh no! His policies consisted of just two for the first 3 years he spent as leader of the conservative party; Hug a Hoody and ride a bicycle into work (Limo escort behind optional).

It's the wonderful irony that gets me.

Anyway, the British public seemed to be forced to make a choice between an increasingly compromised Gordon Brown, who was blamed for every single misfortune befalling the country, some being very much his fault (“Oh, the economy is sinking, I blame the previous chance- oh wait, that was me...”) while others, like the floods and the expenses scandal (which in fairness affected all two and a half major parties at the time) really were stuff he didn't really have a hope in hell of doing anything about; or David Cameron, a genetically formulated politician who often seemed more reptilian than man and has to be taught what human feelings, emotions and values are.

I'd personally sack the incompetent dolt hired to teach him those things.

This was the way of the world until late 2009, when a new saviour swept the lands in the eerily similar shape of fresh faced Nick Clegg, a kind of new liberal democrat, trying to sweep away the vaguely old dour aged image of the party, and this was for me a little bit of an alarm bell. You see, I'm a fan of that old Lib Dem view of politics, and was a huge fan of Charles Kennedy in particular, a great political mind ruined by his own very public weakness. He was succeeded by Menezes Campbell, touchingly nicknamed “Ming Campbell” by journalists whose jokes were somehow older than Ming himself, who seemed to consider the building of the Pyramids to be a recent memory. After he left to fight Flash Gordon, Nick Clegg stepped up to the podium, and brought with him a mix of that wonderful Lib Dem idealism and values as well as a pragmatic gift of gab that was enough to make a lot of people seriously consider him as having the potential to actually win an election, helped a lot by a lot of very crowd pleasing decisions, such as vows to improve the NHS, a promise to not increase the tuition fees, which he famously (well, infamously now) posed with while on the campaign trail, and a general view that he was a new face that understood and connected with the people as opposed to the dinosaur and the reptile. Things were so hot for Nick that in live debates the main way that the other two parties scored points was to say “I agree with Nick”

Still leaves a sore spot for a lot of you doesn't it?

So many people fell for this hook, line and sinker, almost including me. That by the way isn't some kind of “I told you so” on the majority of the British population; I don't think too many people really saw what he did coming, but I do fear that I must have had an omen in that polling booth, my pen hovering ominously over the Liberal Democrats box, before I quickly took it away and voted for the Green Party. An omen that, some how, in some way he wasn't quite on the level. Regardless of my actual vote for the most part I believed in the hype, mostly because I wanted to believe. I wanted for Nick Clegg to swoop in and save Britain from itself, and I thought the curious ending to the 2010 general election (where no party got enough of an overall majority to actually win) which led to the first coalition government in the history of Great Britain. Alright, so it was with the Tories, but we all thought it would eliminate the nutters on both sides; the Tory racist/sexist/homophobic bigwigs wouldn't get a word in edgeways, and Lib Dem policy would be refined to be less idealistic but more possible, and so the potential for change was there.

We all probably know what happened in the next year and a half. Everything got so much worse so quickly. The Tories very quickly shed their skin of humanity in scenes reminiscent of the show V, while Nick Clegg very blatently, very clearly and very pathetically whimpered and backpedaled and simpered and cowardly broke his promises on education, in a similar way to how Cameron betrayed his promises about the NHS. The heroic, brave Lib Dem Nick Clegg became Cameron's poodle, a little pet that's carried around sometimes as an odd curiosity to rich Tory aristocrats, and basically pulled the Lib Dem party down with it. For a year and a half the so called “ConDem” coalition was really the Conservatives dominating while all the Lib Dems could do was lie back and think of England. All that hug a hoodie nonsense went out the window in the summer, as Cameron essentially called the underclass a cancer on society, a philosophy which has been echoed in his constant attempts to rid the country of mythical “Benefit scroungers” who must be stopped by ruining everyone else's lives.

All the while Clegg has done nothing.

After a year of this, there are louder and louder rumblings of rebellion in the Liberal Democrat ranks, and honestly who can blame them? The people at top, mostly Clegg himself but some of the upper Lib Dem brass, is dragging the party through the mud and basically ensure that there is no possible way the Lib Dems will ever get into power again.

All because Clegg was willing to sacrifice everything, especially his balls to get even the slightest whiff of power.

Even if he had to become a dickless yesman to do it.

Lazy Day?

Hello there, sorry this update is going to be very rushed and not particularly interesting, since I've not really got that much to talk about. The news is abuzz with Georgie Porgie cutting the tax rate and the NHS slicing bill coming to the wire, along with the fierce manhunt for the iPhone destroying menace that is Russell Brand, but I decided to take a little break from being a bastard in order to relax and take stock.

On the grand scale of things, past a bit of emotional crap I've muddled through, consistently going between poor and literally penniless, hating everything to do with politics, advertising and the general hyper-conservative nature of society, and wanting to rip the throat out of pretty much every sexist prick in the south of North America, life's not all that bad.

I've got a roof over my head, the emotional crap has got to the point where I'm not exactly depressed at any specific thing anymore, I've enough food to eat most days, people seem to inexplicibly like me for whatever reason, and the ludicrous lawmakers in the States are a massive rampaging raging ocean apart from my world.

So yeah, lazy relaxed day. Sorry guys, I'm not mad at anything in particular. As a way of making amends, have a picture of a sleepy cat in a hammock:

Stay Safe and hug it out guys.

Huggy Dave

The Metafrustration: Blogging about not thinking of anything to blog about

Hello there. When I started writing the blog again, I committed myself to a schedule to wit I would write a blog post every other day, and make sure I had a good split between discussing contemporary news, writing reviews on music and views on writing and philosophy and stuff. I guess this counts as stuff but I do apologise for the complete lack of anything resembling fascinating discourse or argument in the next thousand words or so.

In life, things tend to appear in cycles. As we move between boom and bust in the financial front, most things around us tend to move in similar cycles. We move from slickly produced committee-created music in favour of wonderfully earnest “real” “alternative” music. We stop stuffing our minds with popcorn films and watch more frugal artistic fare. Clothing styles change with the tide. To a degree these are financial based: Who would fund overpriced crap in a recession for instance? And as for music, why do people want to hear about people bragging about being so mind bogglingly rich it causes most people to transcend sanity. In the past it's how art and life interlinked: Art fit the needs and attitudes of the people and to a degree vice versa...

The new millennium may have changed that a little bit.

Maybe this is just me looking back, but with the evolution of the internet going far beyond anyone's expectations and its simple far-reaching nature meaning that uprising and protest and world change is increasingly returning to the hands of the people. People in large numbers can incite change, for good or bad. But what has been lost in the midst of riots and uprisings and despots being upturned is the other massive revolution of the internet brought by its sheer scale and vastness; the fact that there is room for all voices to be heard on it in some form. Hell, the very fact you're reading these words proves it, and the media has fought like Canute telling the tide to go back is the fragmentation of the audience. In the past, music tastes being cyclical made sense; you heard music in record shops and on the radio, and so when audiences got bored and turned off, something else would take its place to begin the other step of the cycle. People picked up their guitars, then put them down when they got sick of the earnestness. I use music as an example primarily because the difference between the two cycles is so readily apparent; on one end you have digitised slickly produced music with relatively simple messages appealing to an audience that likes the way the hegemony is treating them, and when people get sick of that, the underground rises; the music of the people gets its time in the spotlight to shine. With the internet, everyone has the chance of getting the best of all worlds; commercialised music thrives but at the same time the individual taste of a lot of underground subcultures gets their chance to be catered for, and it's hard for a usually very single minded set of old industries to get their head around, over 20 years after the internet started to thrive in earnest, they still don't.

What does this have to do with anything, let alone the frustration of creating a blog post?

My point is the internet is everything and nothing in the world and in terms of media and communication has an appeal for all niches. If you want to write tiny messages about your day, you have Twitter and Facebook to suit you. I've heard various stories over the years in typically graceful moderate language of how the internet is ruining language, industry, music, film, literature and pretty much anything else. The arguments typically being given from old industries and folks who are not entirely well versed on the Internet’s great power for communication, and would rather see the locking down and ruination of it than allow the world to change around them. Either the internet will change society to fit, or as many enterprising individuals and small groups have realised, ways to make money on the internet will be found and really the only thing at risk from the internet as it is are the huge monoliths who crow about it.

It's such a shame they seem to be the lawmakers now...