Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best Comments

GLOBAL SUCCESS - Source: Wikipedia

Thrift Shop - Bruno Mars.

=

#1 in the USA

#1 in New Zealand

#1 in Canada

#1 in Australia

#1 in Ireland

#1 in the UK

#1 in Europe

#1 in the World

=

GRAND JACKPOT! I bet you didn't see that coming.I sure didn't, even though I knew it was huge in my country.But, sometimes novelty songs do well everywhere.

So I basically relaunched blocland with the blessing of the big man himself. It’s called Woodhouse so Doris doesn’t flay me alive. But you can expect interviews, round ups and writing from @lobster man and other SG regulars: https://www.drwoodhouse.com

How you know the post is a banger

And Flying Up The Hot 100 On Its Way To Peaking at No.7 was … Icona Pop featuring Charli XCX and “I Love It"!

Okay everybody, scream along:

"I GOT THIS FEELING ON THE SUMMER DAY WHEN YOU WERE GONE!!!!

I CRASHED MY CAR INTO THE BRIDGE!!!!!

I WATCHED, I LET IT BURN!!!!!

I THREW YOUR SHIT INTO A BAG AND PUSHED IT DOWN THE STAIRS!!!!!!!

I CRASHED MY CAR INTO THE BRIDGE!!!!!!!

I DON'T CARE!!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!"

Finally, "I Love It" was here!

For at this point the song had been floating around the Internet for over a year! It hadn't even been released in the UK yet... when it finally was it would debut at Number One, at which point Popjustice will outline the whole convoluted story of how and why the most unignorable pop hit of its generation was... ignored.

https://www.popjustice.com/briefing/icona-pop-from-the-dumper-to-number-one-in-28-easy-steps/

As Popjustice points out in that article “It's not the sort of song that makes you think 'this is not a Number One hit single', is it?”

Indeed.

"I Love It" sounds exactly how ALL NUMBER ONE SONGS should sound! It's 100% reckless youthful abandon!! They CRASH A CAR INTO A BRIDGE! They LET IT BU-URN!! They THREW YOUR SHIT IN A BAG AND PUSHED IT DOWN THE STAIRS! They CRASHED A CAR INTO A BRIDGE!!! (again?) And you know what? THEY DON’T CARE!!!!!

(Honestly, I was tempted to compose this entire comment in all-caps, but I was somehow able to restrain myself…  feel I should apologize to Icona Pop and Charli for this, since sentence-case is clearly not in the spirit of the song)

“I Love It” is the kind of song that makes me wish I was twenty years younger, and also female, so that I could claim that “I’M A NINETIES BITCH!!!!”

Sadly however, I am from 70s.

And thus, despite not appearing in the video, Charli XCX became a star!

“I Love It” and it’s a 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxxajLWwzqY

“I Love It” is currently being used in a series of KFC ads in Australia where someone goes “did somebody say KFC?” and then Charli XCX yells “I DON’T CARE!!!!!!” which is frustrating me to death they VERY CLEARLY DO!

Well, Tom wasn't quite as tough on this as I expected him to be, so there's that. Although he did exhibit his tendency to view people who are sincere and well meaning but who he deems to be corny as worse human beings and worthy of more scorn than people who have literally committed felonies but whose music he likes more (see also Owl City).

Is Wanz the oldest artist to top the Hot 100 for the first time?

OK, time to tread on risky territory. I think the critique of the song's message is off base. I've always interpreted the message as don't waste your money on empty consumer goods and overpriced items that others say give you status if you want to build wealth, especially generational wealth. This is a cross-cultural truism, as old as at least "The Tortoise and the Hare." With issues of disparities in generational wealth being a huge issue nowadays, dismissing this is short sighted.

And moreover, he is dead on with his critique of capitalism and how the overinflated price reflects neither the cost nor the value, and how the item does not give you any indivuality or get what you want. The capitalist class seizes value from both the worker (refusing to pay them the full value of what their work creates) and the consumer (persuading/tricking/misleading them into paying far more for an item than its intrinsic worth). And the people amassing this wealth, and causing the income disparities that have grown so much today and cause so much hardship, are, almost exclusivity, from communities that already have a lot of wealth and power.

But unfair criticism seems par for the course for Macklemore, who had the misfortune to rise to prominence at a moment when the critical and social discourse was shifting under him. Jumping ahead a bit, but when "Same Love" became a national hit he was criticized for bandwagoning on the "popularity" of same-sex marriage, which not only was not yet a popular cause but actually was released in 2012 in support of a Washington State referendum that was one of if not the first statewide measure passed by voters in the US to legalize gay marriage, and was credited by bill supporters to help that passage. So, no bandwagoning there.

And also jumping ahead - his Grammy win over Kendrick Lamar was somehow deemed to be his fault, to the point where he was compelled to apologize for it. It was the fault of Grammy voters. Even Macklemore thought Kendrick should have won. And Kendrick was incredbily gracious about the whole thing (unlike Drake).

So yeah, Macklemore bore the brunt of a lot of things he shouldn't have had to. And for a recovering addict, I bet the added pressure wasn't exactly helpful.

loved this trip down memory lane 🤩

I was at that Seattle event in 2022 with Tom.I even introduced myself to Tom by saying "I'm danp, from TNOCS!" which Tom responded to with a slightly puzzled look but genuinely heartfelt "thanks for reading the column."Enough to make this fan boy's evening.And the audience reaction to the Macklemore comment I think was less about our civic love of Macklemore than Tom's use of an easy target.Macklemore is liked but not universally loved up here - when "Can't Hold Us" replaced "Louie Louie" as the post 7th inning stretch song at Mariners games it was VERY controversial.Macklemore also used to work out at my gym and was very nice and approachable so there's that too.

In any event Thrift Shop is a fun 9 for me.I agree with one of the previous commentators that it's a more likely a commentary on a particular type of Seattle hipster than on anything else.And it's catchy and you can dance to it.

I am digging that super distorted synth/guitar on both tracks. Boat shoegaze?

Also jumping off at FOTB was a mistake

Naval Gaze!

Looking forward to the post credits sequence in which Samuel L. Jackson tells Timothee Chalomet's John Lennon that he's putting together a team.