Five Song Friday: It's the One That You Want
This Week: Hit Makers, Rump Shakers and Heart Breakers
America has a drug problem and it’s ruining my childhood.
But it’s not opioids or marijuana or crack cocaine.
It’s nostalgia.
We’re all addicted to that sweet, sweet “back in the day” buzz and Hollywood is more than happy to hook us up.
This is the golden age of sequels, prequels and reboots.
These days, you can get anything you want.
Loved it as a kid or a teenager? It’s coming back.
Because Hollywood is one big giant Pet Semetary. Nothing stays buried forever. And sometimes dead ISN’T better.
Sure, the studios and networks could have doled out nostalgia in moderation. Exhume one or two bodies and delight us with some reanimated corpse puppet-show versions of our old favorites.
But that’s not how you deal with addicts.
So they emptied ALL the graves.
Instead of Weekend at Bernie’s, we get The Walking Dead.
Now we live in some pop culture upside-down where time has folded in on itself.
Everything old is kinda sorta new again.
If you haven’t heard, Paramount is giving us a TV series called Rise of the Pink Ladies. It’s an ORIGIN STORY about the girl gang from Grease.
Sounds exciting, right? I’ve always wanted to know the ORIGIN STORY of minor characters from a musical.
How did Rizzo become Rizzo? Was she sent here from another planet? Did she emerge as a toddler from a crashed spaceship, snapping gum and cracking wise with a cigarette dangling from her lips?
What about Frenchy? Was she bitten by a radioactive ladybug? Or did she accidentally overdose on gamma rays from one of those old-fashioned hair dryers?
Could Rydell High School be the new MCU?
Can you imagine a Coach Vince Calhoun standalone movie? So cool.
(Of course, there’s only one person in the world who could play a young Sid Caesar. Say it with me folks… Ryan Gosling.)
Don’t even get me started on the possibilities of Sha Na Na in the Multiverse.
Unfortunately, we have to wait until April to see any of that.
But don’t worry, because Hollywood is your daddy and your daddy knows you’re jonesing for a fix.
Nostalgia is now legal in all 50 states. You want to get high right now? Forget about every street corner, you don’t even need to leave your own living room.
You should try it. All the once-cool kids are doing it.
Just ease back in your fancy recliner. Grab the remote and let’s go back… to once upon a time in… 1984.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself there…
Reagan is in the White House. Karate Kid, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Beverly Hills Cop are in movie theaters. And John Larroquette is a cranky lawyer on Night Court.
Open your eyes! Guess what?
John Larroquette is back in a reboot of Night Court!
There are now 50 episodes of a Netflix show that pick up the Karate Kid story after all the main characters get old and puffy.
AND they are coming out with a new Indiana Jones movie and a Beverly Hills Cop sequel!
Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan is still very dead and won’t be joining us.
But otherwise, it’s just like the GOOD OLD DAYS, right?!
It’s exactly like then… but now.
All good! Right?
I don’t think so.
I think our obsession with yesterday’s stuff is bad.
It’s mentally unhealthy, creatively lazy and massively dumb.
When a Swiss doctor first coined the term “nostalgia” back in 1688, he considered it a “demonic neurological disorder.”
Military physicians at the time believed it was the result of brain damage suffered by soldiers in the Alps after prolonged exposure to cowbells.
That fact makes this whole Reboot Renaissance feel a bit sinister.
It’s like Hollywood spent decades giving us brain damage with mind-numbing entertainment when we were young and impressionable. They programmed us to love all the noise and the pain. And once we got older, they knew we would long for it again.
Smash cut to now. Some of us are older and more tired and sometimes sad. And in those moments, when we want something… but we’re not sure exactly what… Hollywood is there, as if by magic, with the stuff we crave more than oxygen.
More cowbell.
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete
Five Song Friday 047
“sun keeps on shining” - almost monday
I wanted to hurry up and share this song before it gets a billion streams and ends up in a White Claw commercial or something.
It’s gone up by a few million since last week, so I’m playing with fire here. The last thing I want to do is wave the flag for a smash hit. I’m not trying to be the next Dick Clark or Ryan Seacrest. This is not American Top 40 or I Heart Radio or the Ellen DeGeneres Power Hour.
I have a very serious, old-cranky-hipster reputation to maintain and if I somehow, even by accident, help spread the next San Diego indie-pop sensation like a highly transmissible, COVID-level ear worm, then I’m just going to be so disappointed with myself.
But dammit, this song IS delightful.
“Planet X” - Calimossa
Calimossa’s main mission is to get your rump shakin’.
He says so right in the lyrics of the song. Doesn’t even try to hide it.
I tell you this just in case you’re listening to this song and you’re like WHOA… my rump just moved on its own. Relax. It’s not something you need to get looked at and there is nothing wrong with you.
What happened is this: Calimossa’s dope beats and fresh grooves traveled through the air and penetrated your clothing and skin, all the way to your rump’s meaty center. Once inside, those fresh beats and dope grooves get trapped and highly agitated while trying to escape from your rump.
There’s nothing you can do except wait for the end of the song. You may as well enjoy it.
“Waiting for the Light to Change” - Luke Lalonde
I wonder if when Luke Lalonde is waiting for the light to change, he does the same things that I do… like try to look “busy” and “mean” so that the panhandlers don’t come knocking on my window.
In my defense I never have coins or paper money anymore and the dumb joke I make about Venmo never goes over well, so I just try to avoid contact altogether.
Maybe Luke Lalonde is a better and kinder human being than me and enjoys nothing more than trading a crumpled dollar bill for some quality small talk with disheveled strangers. If so, then God Bless Him!
“simmer down” - Fousheé
Fousheé sings that “you haven’t seen crazy ‘til you pissed off a Jamaican.”
Luckily, I’ve never done anything in my life to make a Jamaican angry. I’m always opening doors for Jamaicans. I say “please” and never interrupt. And when dining formally at their home, I ALWAYS place the napkin on my seat when I excuse myself to the restroom and follow up the next day with a formal thank you note.
That’s just how I roll.
“Cradle Your Device” - Tom Brosseau
Even though Tom Brosseau wrote this way back in the iPhone 5 days of 2013, it’s as relevant as ever.
Who knew that the siren songs of Candy Crush and Wordle would create such a cold and icy chasm between otherwise loving couples all over the world. I mean, wasn’t this technology created to bring humans CLOSER together?
Didn’t the inventors of Fruit Ninja, Subway Surfer and Angry Birds create these games to make us long for the warm embrace of our loved ones?
No? Okay. I was mistaken. Play on.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on YouTube Music
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
“A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn’t.” - Mark Twain