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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2661 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 22, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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My wife asked one of her typical "Long drive stuck in traffic" questions the other day, and I want to pose it to theMotte: What pop song written this century would you propose as the new national anthem for the United States of America?

I settled on Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me. It perfectly captures the modern American middle-class self-conceit. It's got a little twang to it without being Morgan Wallen, a dash of country but not too much, reflecting a people that still thinks of themselves as descendants of frontier farmers but really drive a lawn tractor around a suburban three-quarters of an acre; a driving rock beat but not heavy metal, a cultural artifact that honors rock music's past but neither pushes it forward into avant garde strangeness nor slavishly imitates what went before.

The femcel narrator's view of herself as the putative underdog ("She wears short-skirts I wear T Shirts, she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers") is the kind of self-view every American takes of themselves. We Americans all think of ourselves like that, we're all middle-class or working class underdogs striving against the "system" and its head honchos. We think that about ourselves, even when we're billionaires who have been elected president, superstar athletes who pushed other superstar athletes out of the sport that we already dominated, or the literal richest man in the world. Americans picture themselves as the underdog when they fight wars against impoverished tribesmen across the globe, when they play sports we barely care about against tiny countries. How better to capture that than a song by a thin, young, rich blonde about how she just can't get a guy to notice her. The video presentation adds to the hilarity: she's the only one who really understands the (checks notes) star wide receiver on the football team, they're the most conventionally attractive high school couple imaginable, but they're so unique because she unlike his current girlfriend "listen[s] to the kind of music she doesn't like, And she'll never know your story like I do."

The conclusion of the song ("Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find, That what you're looking for has been here the whole time, If you could see that I'm the one, Who understands you, Been here all along, So, why can't you see?, You belong with me") reflects America's inherent hopefulness and future-orientation. We all think that one day the world will wake up and realize what we have. If we just stay in Iraq long enough, if we just really make the case for democracy in China, if we get antidiscrimination right this time, if we create a path to good jobs for the working class...Americans believe in so many impossible plans it is hard to keep track.

What's your pick and your justification?

You get credit, I really just didn't want to get into the classic rock era. I feel like there's too many boring picks there.

I was going to go with Bowie's I'm Afraid of Americans, is that classic rock?

It's a very catchy tune, and even children can sing along with it (even the very young ones can join in on the na na na na nanana bit).

As someone that came of age in the 90s, it really bothers me that 90s music not 70s music is now classic rock.

The sad part to me is that the station that used to be "classic hits without the hard rock" now plays AC/DC. Sad because both/either

A: we no longer have a totally inoffensive easy listening station, even the most milquetoast stuff on the radio still features TNT and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

B: AC/DC is now too lame to offend anyone, it is easy listening.

I feel like the radio is missing gears it used to have. There used to be light stations, jazz stations, classical. Now there's rock from 1960-2005, pop from 1960-2005, pop of today, LATIN, and assorted country potpourri on the commercial stations. I only listen to college radio in my own car.

It is 100% missing some gears. Radio stations got heavily consolidated in...I think the 90s, but it could have been a bit later.

My go-to is our local KERA branch, which runs a good bit of local programming. There's a segment on Sunday where a local jazz musician plays user submissions. It's folk-heavy until it suddenly isn't. Hearing Deep Ellum industrial metal in between blues standards and classical was...surreal.

Though I do miss my college town radio. I remember one time hearing a station play some vaguely familiar rock, but it just kept going. It was all nine parts of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond."

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