DJ Earworm has come out with his 2014 year-end mix. For those who have not hear them before, he makes mashups at the end of the year with the top 25 songs. Since he started making ‘Summermash 13’ and ‘Summermash 14,’ the songs from earlier in the year don’t get as much love, which is sort of too bad if the good songs were earlier in the year, but OK since you can hear him use the same bit quite differently. Assuming you don’t know these songs (except three maybe, except none maybe) the lines of the song and even words of a line are all from different songs.
Lots of people online have been saying it’s not that great, not like back in the day. Partly because everyone must ritualistically claim that 2009 was the best, ever, forever. This is defensible but non-obvious. It blew everyone’s mind, and it is beautiful, but there is a lot of Blackeyed Peas and Miley Cyrus’s first solo album in there and you’re not telling me that’s right. What there is is good Lady Gaga songs. I want some of those. Partly people are saying it’s weaksauce because the songs (raw material) sucked. This is a fair and an unfair point. Fair, in that they mostly sucked, but by no means all, since Lorde’s Team is great, and I like Happy a lot (shut up h8ers) and…and…mmm, there was plenty of suckage. No, screw it, “Fancy” is idiotic but kind of fun, what do you want in a song. I mean, other than an Australian chick trying and failing to sound like…(considers YouTube history)…this totally random rapper Yolanda laying it down in front of egg-crate foam. Seriously, who is this? Not really anyone, and yet her flow is so much better than Iggy’s. Is this evidence that we live in a just world?
Unfair (the criticism of 2014’s mix) in that every year most of the songs are terrible. This year suffered in not having an EDM track to bring the EPIC. Last hear there was only one: “Don’t You Worry Child.” If you listen to last year’s mix you can hear that it made the chorus rousing (like starting at 1:11.) This year DJ Earworm relied on the crazy lead-in to the stupid chorus of Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” for this purpose, and took 0 sung sections from the song, a WAY SOLID decision [not linking to this because if you want to see Katy Perry turn someone into a glass of wine because he gave her a massive basket of Spicy Cheetos carried by slaves that’s on y’all]. The thing he did that was inspirational was he made the ridiculous Charlie XCX “I’m so fancy/Everybody knows/In the fast lane/From LA to Tokyo” part of “Fancy” be the chorus and be all moving and sweet. Like the ending of last year’s mix made “Thrift Shop” and a Justin Timberlake song beautiful. How? Is he magic? He’s magic probably, is the answer. Belle, why do you even know all these shitty songs? Do your children like these shitty songs? No, they only like good music, actually. I, um, I ride in the taxi all the time and hear Singapore radio stations? I see the mashups and think “what the hell song was that?” Checks. “Oh god, it’s Maroon 5. If Adam Levine bleeds or gets blown up one more time in a video he will die of blood loss, and I will not mourn his passing.”
ANYWAY speaking of Magic, one of the not-good songs in the year-end mix was a meagre Canadian reggae song called “Rude,” which you must now go listen to the first 45 seconds of so you can fully appreciate the genius of this cover. No, go. No. Seriously, I’m not posting it until you—OK, then. Now this you really want to watch. This is not you humoring me, this is straight awesome and not in some abstruse possibly ironic way where I double back and like Christina Aguilera (I don’t obvs.)
See! I am in love with this kid now! I feel, re-reading this, vaguely defensive and like I need to reassure you that I spend lots of time listening to Can and Ike and Tina Turner and Parliament/Funkadelic and Porter Wagoner and am a good person, but whatever. I’ma let my freak-flag of ‘hating things by knowing about them in intricate detail’ flag fly (please ask me if you’d like me to synopsize all the Twilight books. My daughters wanted to know where I even learned the name of the Vampire pureblood association that is all mad at Edward and Bella for their forbidden creation of a half-etc. child, and even granting that I read it on the internet why did I remember it? I have no defense.)
{ 11 comments }
JakeB 12.07.14 at 4:31 am
I think it’s become totes clear that Postmodern Jukebox is the musical equivalent of wetlands in an ecosystem — they take wretched and morally hideous songs like Blurred Lines and We Can’t Stop and Timber and make them something gorgeous and sweet — just listen to that quick break at 1:05 of Timber or see Robyn’s gestures at 1:28 of Blurred Lines.
That said, for reasons I cannot explain, I am currently fixated on the 1969 single “Only One Woman”. Anyone who checks out the link and is an old-school metalhead like me will be delighted at recognizing the singer (the dark jacket, not Samwise Gamgee, who plays the backup guitar).
raboof 12.07.14 at 5:44 am
Hadn’t seen ‘rude’ before – well done & thanks for the link. Visually a lot like Puddles – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmCJEehYtU
Belle Waring 12.07.14 at 11:44 am
Yeah, it’s the Postmodern Jukebox backing Puddles up although he was his own act before, I think.
Fuzzy Dunlop 12.07.14 at 4:52 pm
I love the way Postmodern Jukebox matches the singers to the songs. The Archie look this guy has is just perfect here. Morgan James covering all the soul songs also really works.
Tom Bach 12.07.14 at 10:05 pm
Thanks ever so much for this post.
john 12.08.14 at 3:11 am
Lovely post but really Belle, you should be in love with the bass player
Tom Slee 12.08.14 at 1:24 pm
I am angry. My entire Sunday was ruined by this post because I had to listen to everything by the Postmodern Jukebox. I’d been happily ignorant of them until then, and was being productive and useful; now I sit in a chair and have to listen to just one more song…..
Bufflars 12.09.14 at 5:48 am
Great post Belle, I am enjoying your DJ Earworm / pop music posts.
I’m with you, I actually like the 2014 recap mix better than most of the previous ones, I think it flows better as an actual “song” than many of the previous years’. I think most of the hate is due to the top songs from this year being not-so-great in and of themselves.
Also, thanks for introducing Postmodern Jukebox, what a delight. I’ve found the Lorde covers with “Puddles Pity Party” the sad clown to be especially…delightful?
Martin Schafer 12.11.14 at 9:43 pm
I wonder if you have run across Gen IP’s annual filmographies? She does what dj earworm does but with movies instead of songs. Her 2014 should be out soon. My Favorite is 2011.
Martin Schafer 12.11.14 at 9:47 pm
for some reason the previous pulled the 2010. This is the 2011
JPL 12.13.14 at 8:21 am
“Rude”: Yes, very not good! (I am a reggae fan.) But this cover is really nice. I loved it. The guy’s got a great voice, and his subtle expressions of attitude are more accurate than the punk in the original video. I had never heard of this “Postmodern Jukebox”, so I’m really grateful to you for showing it to us. I listened to a lot of them (instead of doing tasks that urgently need doing), and I think the vocalists especially are without exception of very high quality, with a variety of interesting voices. I especially liked the “Powerpuff Girls theme”, but Miche Braden (the only participant here who I knew of beforehand) on One Direction’s “Story of my life” gives a flat-out awesome performance that even a P-Funk fan needn’t feel guilty liking. But I would like the CT world to give a listen to this one: the singer’s vocal chops are quite impressive. (Are you going to tell us your “song of the year”?)
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