My Picks for "What’s the strongest 3-song run on an album?"

            I would not consider myself a music guy.  When I was in middle school, I took Chorus and I do have an ear for hearing and recall lyrics, but I did not get and substantive training in an instrument and did not stick with music as an extracurricular.

            I didn’t own any CD’s growing up and I still do not buy music to any level.  I think I occasionally get a copy of a video game soundtrack as a bonus item, but that is so rare as to be mythological in occurrence.

            This is all kind of moot, as today I am talking about my reaction to an AV Club article from April 2018.  The premise had to do with what is the best 3 songs back to back on any album.  I kind of hated the article, because aside from the Michael Jackson entry they start off with and the Kanye entry a little later… I had not heard of any of these songs.  I kind of know about Pearl Jam… But who the hell is Matthew Sweet?  What music nerd put this… Whatever.

Kudos to the AV Club's graphics team, this is a fun image.

            I decided to put together a few song lists that I feel represent great 3 song combos.  It was sort of a fun exercise, because I am a singles guy, so going to Wikipedia to find the track listings of albums I recall liking to pick the best 3 pack combo was a really different way to look at music.

            Who knew Albums could have such unique feels when looked at as albums as opposed to collections of singles?  Probably lots of people.

Might as well give my unasked-for opinion.

Opening to the Beatle's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

1. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

2. "With a Little Help from My Friends"

3. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

There is also the debut of the Police with Outlandos d'Amour,

1. "Next to You"

2. "So Lonely"

3. "Roxanne"

I am also an angry white boy so there are 2 runs of three songs from The Eminem Show

2. "White America"

3. "Business"

4. "Cleanin' Out My Closet"

and this one from the same Eminem Show is broken up by a skit, so I don't know how that counts,

10. "Without Me"

11."Paul Rosenberg" (skit)

12. "Sing for the Moment"

13. "Superman"

Anybody else like Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory?

4."Points of Authority"

5."Crawling"

6."Runaway"

This one is a little less remembered, but I loved the hell out of Gnarl's Barkley's St. Elsewhere,

2. "Crazy"

3. "St. Elsewhere"

4. "Gone Daddy Gone"

And before he became a public crazy person, B.o.B. had B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray,

2. "Nothin' on You" 

3. "Past My Shades" 

4. "Airplanes" 

            (Just for the record, B.o.B. has come out a “Flat Earth Truther” and is perhaps the most famous person to have such… Beliefs?  Suspicions?  Delusions.  And he released an antisemitic diss-track aimed at Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  It is called “Flatline” and it would be catchy if it were not such toxic garbage.)

Also, if we want to make it a 5-track streak, there is the opening to the Killer's debut album Hot Fuss,

1. "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine"

2. "Mr. Brightside"

3. "Smile Like You Mean It"

4. "Somebody Told Me"

5. "All These Things That I've Done"

Another 5 run, CCR's side 2 of Cosmo's Factory,

1. "Up Around the Bend†"

2. "My Baby Left Me"

3. "Who'll Stop the Rain‡"

4. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"

5. "Long as I Can See the Light"

            As I said, I am not a music guy.  There are better critics for music online, and I am sure that my various lists here would make a music nerd call me a pleb.  I have talked about what I like in music before, but that is just an unordered list of personal favorites.

            If you liked reading this and want to make your own list of things, do so in the comments, or put it in your own blog and post a link here.  And I mean… If you liked reading this, by all means share this with your hipster music snob friends so they can call me a piece of shit and then turn me on to “real” music.

            Or whatever.

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            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

My Favorite Music of 2017

It is the Grammys, so I wrote a blog on the music I liked in 2017.

            I don’t listen to a lot of music.  I have the Pandora app which I utilize for a solid 5-12 hours a month (I am more of an audio book guy), and regardless all of the stations I listen to trend in two directions depending on starting point.

If it is post-1990 it trends toward The Black Keys (which is odd, as I own none of their music).  If it is pre-1990 it all gravitates toward Blue Oyster Cult (less odd, I grew up as a classic rock guy).  There are of course times when I take deliberate sidetracks into Michael Jackson style pop, but I think that is because he is the star in the center of that pre/post 1990 split.

It is a "Pop Star".

I don’t drive much and the radio in there is often just plugged into… again audio books.  My contact with I Hart Radio (the death rattle of culture set to a steady rhythm) is limited.  As such, the only time I really listen to pop music is on youtube when I am at work.

            I often fall into tasks that require too much focus for me to simultaneously listen to a book, but are boring enough that if I did not have some other stimulation… I would probably walk myself into traffic…  Who can relate?

            SO!  Youtube....

Decided to slap together a short list of songs I liked last year.  I tried to pull only from songs that came out in 2017, though not all of them are hits I am sure you have heard a few and… liked them?  I don’t know.  Feel free to say that I focus too much on populist tripe.  I do.

            In no particular order, here are some songs I liked.

“Praying” and “Rainbow” by Kesha

            Let’s continue with two songs that kind of make me feel sad when I listen.  This is because of the ridiculous and unpleasant air that swirls around them at all times.  At least, it has a bad air if you know anything about the life and times of its creator.

            Kesha, even when she created the kayfabe esc character of the brain-dead party girl to play some cosmic bit of performance art on the world has always been operating on another level.  It was clear she had the mind that was able to shift and evolve as music shifted to something new.  It was only a matter of time before she changed from party music to something deeper and richer.

            REALLY wish she did not have to suffer a massive criminal victimization and lengthy legal battle in her life, but it is NOT AT ALL HARD TO SEE those events having an impact on her work and artistic voice.  I am a firm believer in this quote by John Green, “I don’t subscribe to the notion that suffering is somehow ennobling; it sucks.”

            It sucks that Kesha went thru what she went thru.  I hope that the sentiment of these songs, that she is moving on to make art and healing, is a legitimate sentiment and not a brave front.

“Obsession” by Ok Go

            And to dramatically shift tone away from sexual battery… Because this was supposed to be a fun blog about pop music…  Let’s talk about a band that I kind of have nostalgia for.

Ok Go won a Grammy for “Here it Goes Again” back in 2007, the year I graduated from under grad.  I recall walking to Target to buy that CD, and I think a season of “Justice League Unlimited” on DVD.  Probably different days.

            Regardless of the Justice League’s involvement, I listened to that album a thousand times and still from time to time drop into the world of Ok Go to watch their latest music video… ALL OF WHICH ARE GOD DAMNED MASTERPEICES.  “Obsession” carries on that trend.

“Hard Times” by Paramore

            To mix discussions of Kesha evolving and Ok Go nostalgia.

I am kind of nostalgic for Paramore.  They were always on the fringe of my awareness.  I think I confused them with Evanescence strangely enough.  But when I look back at their stuff it is hard to look at “crushcrushcrush” or “That’s What You Get” and say it is from the same band as “Hard Times”.  Their older stuff feels more angry and full of bravado, while “Hard Times” sounds floating and upbeat.

“Feel it Still” by Portugal. The Man

            For much the same reasons I have been listening to Bruno Mars’ music bringing a retro-funk feel to the world of pop music, “Feel it Still” flat out name checks the era of rebellious music it is channeling.  I can grove to this song, it makes me want to walk rhythmically down a hall while twirling a cane.

“Whatever it Takes” by Imagine Dragons

            Most of the songs by Imagine Dragons were kind of pointless and thudding this last year.  That while I initially liked them they quickly wore out the welcome.  “Whatever it Takes” does not have that deficiency.  It starts with a gentle floating instrumental, then hard cuts into a racing delivery of lyrics, before building momentum, and a chorus that hits triumphantly.

            Some songs pull and push images in my mind and often times when I find myself creating my own montage to the music I feel that it worked.

“Bad at Love” by Halsey

            I like Halsey.  Especially when she wails like she does in this.  The idea that the woman in this had relationships with both men and women and they ended for a myriad of reasons makes for a good little story/reminiscing song.  It is not so much the character is bad at love, it is that she fell for people that it did not work out with.  That isn’t bad at love, that is bad at… picking targets?

“The Story of OJ” by JAY-Z

            I am not a hip hop guy and I think that the music video sold this song to my white-guy sensibilities more than the song on its own.  BUT!  Let me emphasize that while I am not going to listen to this song for fun, I do feel that it has pushed a good bit of personal reflection on race and my place in it.  I admire Jay-Z as a guy who very much is the American Dream, starting from a low point and is now a king of his industry, artist and businessman.

            I would not have taken as much to this song without watching this review by the Rap Critic, a youtuber who did a detailed run down of the content and also links to reviews of the old style cartoons the music video uses as a reference for what it is presenting.

 “Castle on the Hill” by Ed Sheeran

            This is his best song.  It is perhaps the best song about nostalgia I have heard in a long time.  It is an earnest reminiscing about a time in one’s life that started a trajectory.  It feels real, and whether that is because it comes from a real and true place in Ed’s life, or he is just that gifted a performer, I do not know.

I have found myself rather nostalgic, not for when I was a teen/kid, but instead for recent history, seeing the multitude of little failings, little shortfalls that ate up so much time and so much effort and wanting to return to those moments, not wishing I could change them, but to grant myself peace over those mistakes, that I have felt guilt enough, that I should be allowed to move on.

“New Rules” by Dua Lipa

            Maybe it is just me, but I think that most of music is about the positive aspects of being in a relationship and the worst aspects of a relationship falling apart.  The old expression, “You know you are in love when all the songs on the radio start to make sense”.

            But I think “New Rules” is a place I haven’t heard a catchy tune to before.  A person trying to get out of a relationship that is destructive, and it requires an act of will.  Bad relationships can still be fun, fulfilling, or just hot.  There are reasons people stay in those relationships and get back into them once out.  A song about making yourself stay out by recognizing the pattern you fall into and trying to break it… that is interesting.

“Chained to the Rhythm” by Katy Perry

            This is a strange song that seems to be about how deadening to the senses pop culture (and really all of Americana culture) can be.  The music video is explicitly about that and illustrates it thru a variety of cute visuals.  I find this song strangely catchy, and I suppose that irony pushes it up a notch for me.

            I liked her other single “Bon Appetit” too, but as it is her second song that is a protracted metaphor about sex and is not nearly as good as “Birthday” so I am not giving it its own call out.

“Beautiful Trauma” by Pink

            One day I may get tired of this one type of song Pink has been releasing for the last decade.  I doubt it though, as she keeps putting a fresh spin and presentation on the ideas presented in it.  I like her.  I have never been the type of guy who gets celebrity crushes, but I find Pink to be super attractive, her look, her vibe, the fact that she clearly has lived an interesting personal history that she has grown thru and from.

            I also just find eclectic short hair on women attractive (to tie this in with Katy Perry and Halsey above).

“1-800-273-8255” by Logic ft. Alessia Cara and Khalid

            I feel that the topic of self-destructive behavior and the idea that death is an escape needs to be addressed.  This song got a lot of play and while it is not the only song to deal with such a topic, and it is by no means a perfect song (Who can relate!? WOO!)  I feel that it has a haunting quality that makes the subject matter stick harder.

            Even the “WOO!” has a kind of layer to it.  Let me slow down and decompress that “WOO!” to illustrate all the subtext: “WOoooo I can only explore the topic of depression and feelings of hopelessness paving the way to my self-annihilation thru veils of irony because the stigma against suicidal thoughts is so ingrained in our culture that it contributes to the feeling of being trapped and death being a reasonable outlet oooooOOOOO!”

            There is a lot being said in that “WOO!”

“Heavy” by Linkin Park, featuring Kiiara

            Let’s end this light-hearted exploration of pop music from 2017 by keeping on track and talking about suicide.  Chester Bennington took his own life last year and it affected me more than I had anticipated.  While Linkin Park’s music had always had a dire element to it, I felt that was something that was to be overcome.  To fight back against.

            It is impossible to look at the ultimate fate of Chester Bennington without that event retroactively contextualizing the entire discography of Linkin Park.  Every instance of unbearable pain; lasting anguish; anger being thrown in all directions; and the ever-present sense of departure, divestment, and letting go.  All of these things are tied into songs like “What I’ve Done”, “Breaking the Habit”, or “Crawling in my Skin”.

            The song, “Heavy” serves almost as the last epitaph for the man whose songs often expressed the directionless teen and young adult anger and sadness that I just could not wrap my own head around.  Where do you go when you are your own worst enemy?  How do you deal with a world that feels like a load too heavy to hold?  I don’t know, and I am sorry that Chester did not find a way to deal with his inner demons a little longer.

            I am going to leave that there.  I hope that the Grammys are entertaining to those who watch them (I don’t) and I hope that they give awards to a variety of artists that are pushing the artform (I respect lots of performers while admitting that their stuff is not really my thing, hello Kendrick Lamar, I hope you are well, “DNA.” Is pretty good.)

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            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

My Favorite Disney Song

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and fluffed it out to 31 entries (since December has 31 days).  I have done a 30-day challenge before for movies, though that one was poorly executed (I started it in the middle of a month, at one point I posted 2 entries on one day, it is a mess).  I did another one just this year in August on Video Games, that one was better, go read it after this one, all of it.  Or don’t, no pressure.

            Today is day 13 and the topic is “Favorite Song”.

            The song is “Let it Go” from “Frozen”.  I heard and enjoyed the song as a pop-song before I even knew it was in the movie.  It is good to listen to while running up hill.

            What is ironic is, even though I like the song on its own, it is not a particularly triumphant song in the narrative, as it is Elsa in denial about her place in the world.  She just ruined her own kingdom and abandoned her sister.  Neither of these things is good, and the fact that she is so mopey when confronted later shows that this song, in the context of the story anyway, is just a big lie to both the audience and to the character.

            It would have made more sense had they just made Elsa the villain, but they decided to instead shoehorn in a couple instead when they decided that Elsa would be the secondary protagonist.  Too bad, as a song about a crazy powerful and dangerous person cutting loose would make for the most upbeat villain song in Disney.

And I guess they couldn't make the bad guy a protagonist...
Unless they want to give her a tragic back story about getting raped.

             Share your own thoughts on this in the comments.  I know I am not the only person out there who is nostalgic for Disney products, and I am sure many people disagree with my selection for today’s entry. 

I picked Disney stuff just because I knew there was so much of it to talk about and it lends itself to discussion in the comments.  So please, tell me how my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon movies is objectively right.

______________________________

If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

"Worst Disney Songs" and "Racism!"

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and fluffed it out to 31 entries (since December has 31 days).  I have done a 30-day challenge before for movies, though that one was poorly executed (I started it in the middle of a month, at one point I posted 2 entries on one day, it is a mess).  I did another one just this year in August on Video Games, that one was better, go read it after this one, all of it.  Or don’t, no pressure.
(For some reason the formatting is being a jerk, and I can't get everything centered)

            Today is day 12 and the topic is “Worst Song”.

There are really only two possible contenders for this crown made of thorny twigs held together with poo.  And really, it is because Disney is such a venerable institution that they have a metric ton of OLD SHAME hanging around tainting their legacy as an American icon.  Family entertainment used to be kind of racist on multiple levels, and these two songs are racist on the most obvious level.

Is it fair to judge modern Disney by the actions of their company at a time when social norms were different?  No, and I am not judging modern Disney, I am judging them as a whole.  Looking at weaknesses in their legacy makes sense, and shouldn’t be held against the modern company who is obviously not too appreciative of this stuff.  Both of these tunes keep appearing at or near the bottom of every “Best/Favorite Disney Songs” list on the internet to no objection and nobody at the company seems to be lionizing them.  All that being said, let’s look at these things.

You know how white people are the default race?  Like how everyone used to be white till some folkloric BS turned them into their current race?  Some people actually think this stuff—which is fucked up when you hear some people claim that black people are the descendants of Cain, the Bible’s first murderer, cause Adam and Eve were not only literally real, but also definitely white according to these people—yeesh!  So what race is just discolored white people according to an old Disney movie?  “What Makes the Red Man Red” from “Peter Pan”.

What is sad is that this song happens in an otherwise good movie.  Peter Pan is an energetic figure who embodies a fun idea of never having to grow up and just having adventures forever with one’s friends.  The adventures have pirates, Indians, mermaids, hidden forts, and FLYING!  The movie even has subtle stuff like how Captain Hook and Wendy’s father have the same voice actor.  “Peter Pan” also introduced Tinkerbell, the—I going to say first—in a long line of strange pop culture sex symbols; a tiny mercurial-backstabbing-jealous-insecure pixie obsessed with a 10-year-old boy; Harley Quinn was not the first unhealthy animated fixation.

Maybe I am reading too much into a woman in a short skirt standing on a mirror floor.
There is nothing sexually suggestive about that right?

So what is the other song? This one is less obvious for reasons.  Rather than having minority characters they have animals that embody racial stereotypes singing about how they are a particular ethnicity.  You know, cause using animals to embody de-humanizing stereotypes is okay!  No, not really.  Not when you explicitly point out the ethnicity as the source of the stereotypes, if anything it makes them worse.  This sort of racial coding is what was wisely avoided in “Zootopia”.

The song is “We are Siamese (If you Please)” from “Lady and the Tramp”, a movie that many people probably would have forgotten existed if not for the iconic image of eating spaghetti leading into a kiss.  Overall this is less racist, as it is just buck toothed, slant eyed, and devious cats introduced with the sound of a gong…. I guess that is—strictly speaking—less racist than “What makes the Red Man Red”.

But here is the thing, it is a worse “song” from a musical perspective as it has no energy.  Slinking background music taken from some stereotypical Asian den of inequity of the era, and insidious back and forth rhyming by two characters who—I am guessing—are only two characters so they could get the rhyme of saying “we” at the beginning of the tune.  I would even say that their interchangeability could be seen as another Asian stereotype.

So which of these two is the worst song?  Do I have to choose?  In addition to being awful by the standards of subject matter they sound like crap!  They have no redeeming features and serve only as mill stones strung around the necks of their respective films.  Neither really tie into anything, they are not about or by substantive characters, they just show up, make female leads of their respective movies miserable, and then bug off.

If I had to pick one, I am going with “What makes the Red Man Red” because it uses human characters the stereotyping and racism is less masked and thus worse.  It is a close call.

If I had any memory of "The Aristocats" I might have spent some time on whatever the hell this is.

Bonus Topic: Racial Stereotypes

            I have talked about perceived racism in movies before but there is an aspect I haven’t talked about until here, the idea of racially charged stereotypes and characters.  The two above examples came from an era in which they were common and seen as part of comedy, laugh at the minorities by exaggerating traits or pointing to those traits as somehow “wrong” or “distorted”.

            What about stuff from the modern day?

            Recently the TV shows of “Supergirl”, “Legends of Tomorrow”, “Flash”, and “Arrow” had a mega-crossover.  An alien menace was threatening all for shows with complete domination.  These aliens were called… The Dominators… Not the most creative thing, but aptly titled.  Why am I bringing up a CW/WB owned and operated property here?  Because the Dominators look like this in the comics.

Can you see the issue people might be having?
I mean, they're not cats singing about their Asian origins, but you can see what people might have issue with.

            They are based on—if you couldn’t tell—lots of traditionally racist Asian stereotypes.  So you might think I would be among the first to say, “having these things as the bad guys in the modern world is racist.”  You’d be wrong.

            The Dominators are aliens.  The yellow skin, yellow in the sense of yellow not in the sense of Asian; the huge teeth, huge in the sense of menacing fangs rather than goofy buck teeth; long fingers, in the sense of monstrous claws rather than portraying an Asian person as sub textually a manipulator; and the other exaggerated traits are all dehumanizing.  When taken together they do look like an old time racist cartoon of an Asian person, but the story makes no comparison between those aliens and Asian people.

Though it would help if there were more Asian cast members on the good guy team.
Or if there were more Asian roles in superhero stuff at all.

            Generally speaking, those old cartoons were about Asians and drawing them with these features was to dehumanize them, to make them alien, because these features of claws, teeth, and jaundiced skin were creepy.  You could take anyone of those features and it would make for an alien race in Star Trek or Star Wars, because they are alien, and those alien features are weird.  They are not scary because we associate them with Asian people, real Asian people don’t look like that.  Those traits are scary because they are alien.

            By saying that these traits are inherently racist you are missing the forest for the trees.  The reason the traits are racist is because they were used as racist tools, there is nothing inherently racist about the traits themselves.

            Now you could say that putting all the traits together is evoking the image of the racist caricature, that it draws on a vague cultural awareness of that image to make it scarier.  I don’t think so.  Aside from Fu Manchu there are not a lot of Asian stereotypes still floating around that look like this.

Let’s look at another example of these things with a Marvel property, the Mandarin, who in the comics is this sort of racial pastiche.  Even the Mandarin’s live action presentation in “Iron Man 3” was rightly deconstructed and mocked as a racist idea created to scare people.  The Mandarin is evoking stereotypes and breaking them, the Dominators I would argue are not even evoking stereotypes, they are using the exaggerated features of a stereotype because those features make for a good alien.

THOUGH!  These guys came to predominance in the 80's a time when fear of Japanese economic world domination was reaching a fever pitch, and they do have a bit of Japanese flag on their face.  So maybe I am giving too much credit to the creators when I assume they aren't racist.

            Boy did this turn into a completely different blog than what was intended.

            Share your own thoughts on this in the comments.  I know I am not the only person out there who is nostalgic for Disney products, and I am sure many people disagree with my selection for today’s entry.

            Feel free to comment about how racism in pop culture is not a big deal, or how I am racist for excusing the use of discredited tropes being used as such.  Whatever.

I picked Disney stuff just because I knew there was so much of it to talk about and it lends itself to discussion in the comments.  So please, tell me how my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon movies is objectively right.

______________________________

If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Top Disney Villain Songs

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and fluffed it out to 31 entries (since December has 31 days).  I have done a 30-day challenge before for movies, though that one was poorly executed (I started it in the middle of a month, at one point I posted 2 entries on one day, it is a mess).  I did another one just this year in August on Video Games, that one was better, go read it after this one, all of it.  Or don’t, no pressure.

            Today is day 11 and the topic is “Favorite Villain Song”.

            Much like yesterday I was confronted by a strange issue when looking for the best villain song: that most are quite good and should be looked at as such.  While I still have a favorite there exists something else to talk about, the mix of emotions that go into each song.  What does a monster feel so passionate about to drive them to sing?  Ego wins in a landslide, but there are a few others. the nature of their powers, encouraging the darker impulses in others

Ego

            Let’s just go ahead and start out with the category that is most prevalent and exists on some level within all others.  Almost every Disney villain song is about how they are awesome on some level, but this one is explicitly about how awesome the bad guy is.

            “World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” from “The Great Mouse Detective” is a camp musical sing along that just lists accomplishments and sings the praises of the bad guy.  Chanting his name is the chorus.  Not to say there isn’t a better known example of this, Gaston has a song sung to him about his greatness just to cheer him up.  Ratigan’s song beats Gaston for one simple reason, he’s the one that starts the music, that is more egotistical.

What’s My Plan?

            The most obvious one of these has got to be “The Mob Song (Kill the Beast)” from “Beauty and the Beast”.  Up until this point in the story the character of Gaston has already had another villain song about how awesome he is, but at this point in the story he has not actually had any sort of plan or goal beyond schemes of having sex with Belle.

            This is when the story turns completely.  All at once Gaston is shown that there is a monster, that the target of his bravado has affection for the creature, and that can’t be allowed.  In an instant he fear mongers, gathers resources, and then takes off to murder what he doesn’t understand.  His whole plan and the thrust of the song is, “Kill the BEAST!”

My Methods

The key to a good villain is making them effective, by granting them legal, physical, or intellectual power you make them a potential threat.  Singing about the armies they have or how many eggs they eat to maintain their musculature makes sense for those who have mundane power, but for those who have magic at the core of their abilities you need something flashier.

“Friends on the Other Side” from “The Princess and the Frog” explains completely how Shadow Man manages to do what he does but also explains his desperation for getting his goals to come thru, he doesn’t want to upset his friends, they are the sources of his powers and his drive to attain his goal in one package.  His plan though, that is not revealed in a song, that comes later thru dialogue.

Tempting Others

“I’m not a bad person, I am doing what is necessary and right, it just looks evil because getting rid of you is part of doing right.”  I am sure lots of villains have this sort of justification rattling around their deluded minds, but there is a different way to go about things.

“Sure I am a greedy and traitorous individual, but I do it because it is fun, you should do it too.”  Offering help to someone’s worst impulses is a great way to be a bad guy, in the Christian mythos that is Satan’s whole thing.  So who is the Satan of the Disney mythos, Ursula who sings “Poor Unfortunate Souls” in “The Little Mermaid”.

She is taking a stupid child, offering her all the poorly thought out dreams and desires her stupid child mind could want, and all for a price she only has to pay if she fails.  And she won’t fail, says Ursula, she’s got body language.  It is not often you see a Disney villain encouraging a teenager to be explicitly sexual to get what she wants, but here you are.

Fire up the Troops

Sometimes it is not enough to talk up your own ego, or to demonize your enemies, sometimes you have to blend them to get your troops in line and go to war.  This element is present in “The Mob Song (Kill the Beast)” above.  But that effort is more about a clear statement of goals that are rushed, rather than getting existing resources together to finally institute a plan that has been in the works for a good long while.  I will admit, it is a fine distinction that most people wouldn’t bother to make.

“Be Prepared” from “The Lion King” is a call to arms.  I have the plan, I have the talent, and you all will give me the troops necessary to get and hold onto the prize I seek.  Yes, this is very much about Scar’s ego, but that is an element of getting people to follow your leadership, no one wants to follow a mastermind who is cringing and timid.  It is a blend.  A purer example of this (and worse song) would be “Savages” from “Pocahontas” but that is a step closer to “The Mob Song” in content and execution.

This is My Drama

Last type of villain song is the one that tells the audience about the inner turmoil of the bad guy.  Not all bad guys believe they are bad, and they often feel conflicted about what they are doing, especially when they are smart enough to see the contradictions between what they are saying and what they are doing.

“Hellfire” from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is the best villain song in this regard… Mostly because it’s the only one that does this.  Frollo wants to be a pious person, he wants to destroy those who he sees as impure, but he lusts for an “impure” woman from a culture he wishes to destroy.  He is conflicted.  Ursula isn’t, Gaston isn’t, Shadow Man isn’t.  Scar isn’t.  Ratigan isn’t.  Frollo is.  This is my favorite villain song, both because it sounds great and because of that distinction.

            Share your own thoughts on this in the comments.  I know I am not the only person out there who is nostalgic for Disney products, and I am sure many people disagree with my selection for today’s entry.  Did I miss talking about something?  Was there a song I left out?  Do you see any contradictions?

I picked Disney stuff just because I knew there was so much of it to talk about and it lends itself to discussion in the comments.  So please, tell me how my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon movies is objectively right.

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If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Top 5 Disney Love Songs

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and fluffed it out to 31 entries (since December has 31 days).  I have done a 30-day challenge before for movies, though that one was poorly executed (I started it in the middle of a month, at one point I posted 2 entries on one day, it is a mess).  I did another one just this year in August on Video Games, that one was better, go read it after this one, all of it.  Or don’t, no pressure.

            Today is day 10 and the topic is “Best Love Song”.

            I am going to start off by saying, there are lots of these and they are near universally good.  The reason I start with that is I also have to point out that the songs skew HEAVILY toward romantic love and neglect almost entirely friendship and familial love as things to sing about—there are plenty of songs about friends, but not about loving a friend.

            To that end I decided to look at what I feel are the 5 most iconic songs about romantic love, a top 5 list in no particular order seemed like a great idea.  Then I recognized a fun quirk about each of the five, they each emphasized a different stage/aspect of romantic love so I decided to put them in that order.

Trepidation

From “Hercules” you have “I won’t say I’m in Love”

            This song captures the hesitation related to entering a new relationship, in this case those feelings issue from having been hurt previously—or in other cases just being scared of entering into a new relationship.

The best aspect is that the song is presented in a statue garden that presents numerous instances of a romantic ideal—a modern Western heteronormative ideal that is, in real Ancient Greece there would have been a lot more sculptures of gay wrestling—so even while surrounded by depictions of love and having the muses singing with her about the subject she is still trying to keep her emotional walls up.  She fails, but still.  

(If you want to learn more about Aphrodite, the love goddess barely appearing in the movie about Greek gods and has a subplot about romance, watch this video, it also talks about the Greek ideas about love.)

Swept Away

From “Aladdin” we have “A Whole New World”

            We have moved on from being afraid, both in this blog and in the movie, “Aladdin”.  Jasmine has been resistant to suitors and Aladdin has met that resistance as best he can with charm and wonder and… well, if a princess showed up to my house with a parade and then took me on a magic carpet ride (Euphemisms!  They’re great!) I think my resistance to entering a relationship would melt away too.  Allowing yourself to be swept up in the charms and taking your emotional barricades down is important to starting up an emotional journey.

It was my favorite Disney song for a long time because I think it captures the emotions they are going for perfectly, both in the animation capturing the rises and falls—subtext(!)—and the nature of the duet starting off as an invitation, answering with acceptance, and then coupling.  It’s great.

Making the Move

From “The Little Mermaid” there’s “Kiss the Girl”

            While the previous two have either trepidation or breaking thru trepidation at the start of a relationship this song takes place during a relationship that is going from quasi-platonic and flirty to full on romantic.  And the song is full on about reading signals and making moves.  Which can be difficult.

            Not everyone is taught how to seal the deal and not nearly enough people know when you should be trying to.  This song is about that little voice in your head telling you to do it because being around this person is making you so emotionally charged that every noise in your vicinity starts to sound like music.

Sexual Chemistry

In “The Lion King” they have “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”

            First and only song on this list that is non-diegetic, aside from the opening and closing by Timon and Pumbaa—and you can cut those elements from the song without losing the meat of it—all of the singing that is done by Simba and Nala takes place within their own heads while most of the music comes from an unseen chorus.  But that aspect is not all that important to what the song is really about.

            This song is about sex.  Unlike the other songs about romance, this song is about sex framed in a romantic sense.  It is not even all that sub textual, at one point in the song he gets he gets her wet and she is shocked by it.

 

Go ahead and tell me there is nothing symbolic about this!
DO IT!

True Love

“Beauty and the Beast” has the most aptly titled “Beauty and the Beast”

            Moving past all the previous entries there is one final aspect that needs to be covered, the romantic ideal.  This song contextualizes the romance between Belle—Her name means Beauty, You Get IT!?—and the Beast as “story old as time, song as old as rhyme”.  This is not just their relationship it is THE relationship.  The bad boy who will only be good to the one girl, the shut off girl who will only open up to the one boy.

            While the previous songs see the object of the affection as some sort of ideal that they are distant from.

“Who d'you think you're kidding?  He's the earth and heaven to you” -Muses from “Hercules”

“A whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew!”  -Jasmine from “Aladdin”

“Sitting there across the way, she don’t got a lot to say, but there’s something about her” -Sebastian from “The Little Mermaid

“Why won’t he be the King I know he is; the King I see inside?” -Nala, from “The Lion King”

            But this song is about Belle and Beast’s relationship starting from a completely different point and moving into romance organically allowing them to see each other as who they are rather than what they imagine the other person to be.  They are in love on a deeper level.  It is what the whole movie is about, seeing someone for who they are beyond appearances.

 

I am, admittedly, taking the exact opposite perspective most comedically oriented people do on this movie.
I mean, the old and tired joke is about Stockholm Syndrome.

“Barely even friends, then somebody bends, Unexpectedly.” -Ms. Potts in “Beauty and the Beast”

            There is one other song I could have included that blends elements of these and that complexity I think elevates it, so it will get its own entry down the line.  But for right now, these are five Disney Songs that explore love.

Bonus: Not a Song

            Let me be clear, as most of these movies are made for little children the idea of romance as something new to be explored means that romance skew young in these movies, but there is another stage of love that goes past first kisses and dances in a ballroom.  There is the sort of love that makes you feel incomplete without it and drives you to go on mad cap adventures trying to prove to yourself and the one you lost that it was all worth it.

            There is more nostalgic and wistful romance in “Up” than any movie with a prince or princess in it.

  

Beg for Attention

            Share your own thoughts on this in the comments.  I know I am not the only person out there who is nostalgic for Disney products, and I am sure many people disagree with my selection for today’s entry.

            Do you have a favorite?  Can you tell me why?  Is there some stage of courting I missed in this simplistic list of five things?  What would you suggest?  Please comment below.

I picked Disney stuff just because I knew there was so much of it to talk about and it lends itself to discussion in the comments.  So please, tell me how my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon movies is objectively right.

______________________________

If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Best Video Game Soundtrack

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and will be writing out entries, hopefully I can get all thirty days without any breaks, and if I manage to do that (since August has 31 days) I will think of an additional entry to write about.  I have done a 30-day challenge before, it for movies, but that was a while back, feel free to read those too if you like.

            Today is day 19 and the topic is “Best Game Soundtrack”.

            “Halo 2”.  I didn’t even have to think about this one.  This music is awesome and the envy of all creators who have followed it.  It perfectly captures the mood of the world you are in and the actions you are performing as the Master Chief Jon Spartan 117.  It has action and awe in equal measure.

I am just going to use the same image I used yesterday.  It's not like there stopped being Halo's in the second one.

            To everyone who might be pointing out the laundry lists of songs that come over the radio in “Grand Theft Auto: Wherever” and other crime games, those are robust, and frequently chosen for their popularity in real life and how they fit in the setting.  “Vice City” has a lot of great moments of listening to Michael Jackson while driving a stolen car in the rain and everything is neon and awesome.  “Saints’ Row the Third” I think has some of the best musical moments including the climax of the game in which you battle to save your friends and allies from being murdered all while “I Need a Hero” blazes as you go, or parachuting into a penthouse to shot gun all of the guests while Kanye West plays over the gun battle.  Regardless, these are the juke box musicals to “Halo 2” having something original and I think that deserves my attention.

            This and tomorrow will probably end up being the shortest entries in this series because pointing to audio elements and saying, “sounds good” only takes up so much space.

            Was there a moment in any game in which the music blew your mind?  I am guessing “Katamari Damacy” would get a mention if I had a number of readers big enough to get a bunch of responses (I only got a Playstation 3 in the last 5 years, so I never played this series, I just know that people list the music as a bright spot).  But what about you?

If I wasn't 70% sure this game would destroy me because of my fastidiousness I would definitely be picking up the PS3 entry.

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If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.