You know, I could make a joke about today being 4:20 but I’ll stay away from the easy humor regarding bloodshot eyes and cases of the munchies and the like. But hey, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
Ok, there were two comments on the blog last night that need addressing. Actually, the first one doesn’t need to be addressed as much as acknowledged. Someone commented on the blog pimping a website dedicated to quotes from The Great Gatsby. Obviously that is a topic close to my heart and I was rather surprised to see that the comment was made on a post that I made last July. Now, I understand that my writing has such great appeal that people scour through the archives to relive my greatest efforts but this is just a bit much.
(Oh, and the site didn’t even have “Boats against a current, borne ceaselessly into the past.” Or even “Her voice was full of money.” You can’t call yourself a Gatsby quote page and not have those two on there.)
The other quote is back on the idea of one hit wonders and it is interesting that Mark Mothersbaugh was mentioned since Devo’s Whip It was one of the songs featured while I was watching it. Now if Mark is bitter about this fact it could be due to a couple of different things. First of all, he is now recording music for children’s television, which probably would turn most people against the world. But I think his issue is somewhere between a) that Devo didn’t have more hits and b) the fact that Devo even had a hit at all.
Even VH-1 said that Whip It looks and sounds ten years ahead of its time today and this song is nearly twenty five years old. Now for a band that was that revolutionary and influential to only have one commercial breakthrough is a little disheartening. I think Mark’s real problem is the fact that he views that people equate one hit wonder with being a novelty act. That people now only think of Devo as those guys with flowerpots on their heads and miss the entire electronica/performance art part of the band. Now that is where I can understand there being issues with one hit wonders, where an otherwise great band is viewed as being a throwaway act.
But while I am a music snob, I like a lot of the novelty acts and bands that know that they only have one song in them. I’ll always argue that despite the fact that it constantly shows up on the worst songs of all time lists Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” is one of the ten best songs of the nineties. Why? Because it is nothing more than what it set out to be: a silly little dance song that took itself just seriously enough to be interesting. Would I buy the album or even the single? Hell no. But I still smile every time I hear the song and for the rest of my days when I hear it I will immediately think about the early nineties.
My thing is that I don’t dismiss an artist for being a one hit wonder. Sometimes that is just the way that things work out and the hit might not even be anywhere close to their best song. Popularity does not equate to brilliance. Still, there is something to be said about being famous for a moment. In a world where everyone lives a life of quiet desperation to the point that you go deaf from the shouting that might be all that we can hope for.
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