Five Song Friday: Ride the Monster Wave
This Week: Russian Suckers, Toxic Masculinity and The Groovy Nutcase
I asked Google how many songs exist in the world.
The answer was “too many.”
Okay, maybe not in those exact words, but most of the calculations came to the same conclusion:
There are way more songs than minutes in any one person’s lifetime.
So if you were planning to listen to every song ever recorded? Forget it. It’s impossible.
It doesn’t matter if you just stick to rock and pop, there’s still no way.
Even if you started alphabetically in the womb with ABBA and ABC, you’d be a shriveled husk long before you made it to the Kinks, the Killers or the Kooks.
Which brings up a sad thought. Even sadder than getting dead before you can enjoy “Waterloo Sunset” or “Lick It Up”? Yes, even sadder than that.
My thought is this: No matter how much music you listen to during your time here on Earth, there will always be centuries worth of songs that go unheard.
Picture a vast Amazon warehouse that stretches over several city blocks, stacked floor to ceiling with records still wrapped in plastic. Take a good look around. This is just some of the music you will never hear.
Acres of albums never opened. Miles and miles of grooves never dragged by a needle.
Notes and lyrics that never had the chance to get your head nodding or booty shaking.
It’s a tragedy, right? I mean, art is meant to be appreciated. We make it to share with other people. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.
What does it say about the world when most art is never beheld and most music is never beheard?
It says that there’s too much goddamn entertainment in the world.
We’re burying ourselves in creative expression.
Amazon has almost 50 million books for sale. Globally, Netflix offers almost 20,000 movies and TV shows. And Spotify is closing in fast on 90 million songs.
I’m no expert, but that sounds overwhelming.
If you wanted to listen to every song on Spotify starting now, you could be done in about 550 years or so. Skip the Phish albums and you could maybe get that down to an even 400.
That’s provided everybody stops making music TODAY. The problem is that tens of thousands of new tracks are added every single day. At that rate, there’s no hope of getting ahead.
How did we get here?
The idea of streaming platforms started out so simple and serene. The concept was sold to us like a lazy river of entertainment in which we could float leisurely, while sipping a fruity cocktail and cooling our tootsies in the water.
“It’s like walking through a Blockbuster, a bookstore or a browsing a record shop on your computer,” they said. “Whatever you want will be at your fingertips!”
They failed to mention that in addition to “anything you want,” they would force you to wade through tons of shit you absolutely DID NOT WANT, in addition to playing with your mind by giving you shit tons more stuff you never knew you wanted, but somehow can no longer live without.
(A show about Japanese toddlers running errands? Yes please!)
Things quickly got out of hand. The winds picked up, the water got rough and that lazy stream became a 50-foot tsunami of terror.
Streaming services unleashed the same kind of monster murder wave that dragged George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg to the bottom of the sea, except instead of saltwater it was a foamy juggernaut of Korean soap operas, serial killer documentaries, baking shows and high-concept, lowbrow reality trash that drowns everything and everyone in its path.
Musically, we get an endless torrent of bootleg albums and remix EPs and re-recorded compilations of greatest hits. Fresh albums from big names. Reissues from dead legends. Indie releases recorded in bedrooms. Every single Friday it’s a 100-year flood event’s worth of songs from every Tom, Dick and Harry Styles who can sing or play guitar.
That’s why we all need to face the truth that we cannot consume it all.
And more importantly, we shouldn’t even try.
Instead of mourning all the songs we’ll never hear, maybe we should just slow down and appreciate and embrace the ones we do.
I humbly suggest that you start with these five.
Thank you for reading.
DJ Crankypete
Five Song Friday 014
“New Day” - The Surfing Magazines
Back in the eighties, surfing magazines were the coolest. They were a weird combination of glossy sports pub and punk rock zine. They carried the same kind of street cred as skateboarding magazines, but with more bikinis.
In middle school, carrying around dog-eared copies of Thrasher or Surfer got you high-fives and thumbs up. You were accepted and welcomed. Even the lunch ladies liked you.
It’s strange to think about now, but your magazine choices really defined your identity.
There were the tough kids in denim who smoked and read Circus and Creem. Weird loners who subscribed to Soldier of Fortune. Mean girls who carried around thick issues of Vogue like textbooks.
Those people defined their own lanes. People respected their choices.
But when I bring a copy of Log Home Living to the cafeteria, suddenly I’m a FREAK? Just because I’m interested in log homes, you start calling me Abe Lincoln? Pioneer Pete? That doesn’t seem fair.
Have you ever read the classifieds in Soldier of Fortune? You could HIRE MERCENARIES to kill people.
I liked rustic homes. BIG difference.
“Glad I Found You” - Silver Jackson
Remember back in 1867, when the United States bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million? And remember how the Russians were like, “Thanks for the millions of dollars! Enjoy the volcanoes and bears and glaciers you dummies!”
And then we were like, “No, thank YOU! I know it seems like a lot, but we basically paid you 2 cents per acre for something that’s bigger than California, Montana and Texas combined!”
And the Russians were like, “Wait… what?”
That was hilarious.
We definitely got the sweet end of that deal. If it wasn’t for those greedy, shortsighted Communist weirdos, the world might have missed out on cool stuff like Northern Exposure, Jewel and Silver Jackson.
Silver Jackson is the alias of visual artist and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Galanin. Based in Sitka, Alaska, Galanin is a Tlingit and Unangax̂ artist whose work draws from his indigenous background.
“Glad I Found You” is from his 2012 album, It’s Glimmering Now.
It does not contain any songs about volcanoes or bears, but it is still amazing.
“Schatze” - Ohtis, Stef Chura
“Schatze” is the German word for sweethearts.
This collaboration from country rockers Ohtis and Detroit indie musician Stef Chura is not a typical love song.
But it does owe a debt to those corny, catchy duets from the golden age of country music.
I have a deep love for those classic country conversations between couples like Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, George Jones and Tammy Wynette or Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner.
They could be sweet or sassy, sad or spiritual, but they always felt like a genuine conversation between two people in love. They were like marriage counseling set to slide guitar.
This song is just like those, except for millennials. And instead of boozing and gambling, the argument is about drugs and video games.
The language is frank and salty and when I say salty, I mean they say “fuck” about 25 times. So if you don’t like that word, this is not the song for you.
I don’t mind it.
And I love this fucking song.
“I Don’t Really Like It” - Panic Shack
“I Don’t Really Like It” is the name of the song and the main refrain.
It should be enough. No should mean no.
The female members of this Welsh five-piece punk band take turns making their point, but you get the sense that the dumbass on the receiving end is still not getting it. And I know he’s a dumbass because in the video he is running through the woods in bikini briefs with ping-pong eyes and a panty on his head.
The basic idea behind this song is that men can be toxic predators who ignore what women say. If you’re a man, you need to cut that nonsense out.
If you’re a woman? I’ve already mansplained enough. I’m sorry that some men are horrible.
I’ll stop talking now.
“Metamorfose Ambulante” - Raul Seixas
I know this is like the third Brazilian musician I’ve featured in the last few weeks. You might be thinking I have a thing for Brazilian musicians. Maybe you’re right.
Maybe I’m not going to apologize for it either.
Raul Santos Seixas was called the “Father of Brazilian Rock” and “Maluco Beleza” (aka “the Groovy Nutcase”).
I don’t speak Portuguese, so I don’t understand this song.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.
Because I do.
I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my soul.
And sometimes I even feel it in my groovy nutcase.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on YouTube Music
That’s all for now.
Thanks for reading!
“Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.” - Kurt Vonnegut