Alright, so what's on tap for today, got a couple things that I was thinking about and want to discuss them here. First off I was listening to my iPod the other day and a couple songs came on back to back, which seemed kinda odd to me, but then got me thinking, these songs are very similar titled, but completely different songs, which one is better. The songs in question are:
"Everything About You" by Ugly Kid Joe and
"I Hate Everything About You" by Three Days Grace. Which you could argue also could have been the title for the Ugly Kid Joe song. Now, clearly the Ugly Kid Joe song, was a little more goofy then the Three Days Grace song, but ultimately It's a song about a guy hating You, But then that got me thinking, well there are certainly a lot of songs that have similar or in fact the same title, but generally speaking it's a one word title and the content is usually very different, case in point, I have 8 different songs titles "Alive" in my iTunes, but other then sharing the title and probably at some point using the word Alive in it. This also got me thinking about what is the most common title for a song, I have no idea, anyone have any idea, but 8 is a lot. This is kinda a rare case, especially sharing a title that not one work. But ultimately, the question is, which is the better song?
Moving on, another topic that I've been thinking about, there was a trend that took place in the 80's and early 90's in movies and TV show also to some degree, well, there was probably a lot, but there was one in particular that recently caught my attention, and that is the whole coming up with dances seemingly spontaneously. Part of the reason i started thinking about this was cause of Threat Level Midnight, where Michael Scarn comes up with "The Scarn." Don't know what the hell I'm talking about, well then check it out sucka:
So, it got me thinking about which other movies and shows had their own dances and which one is the best. There are sure a lot, so I narrowed it down a bit. First up is a classic, might be the best, certainly had me trying it when I was younger and that of course is this:
I'm trying to use the Phone! Ok, now I realize that Pee-Wee Herman is extremely polarizing, people either love him or hate him, I of course loved him growing up, but either way, there's no way that you can hear that song and not think of that dance, it's just not possible at this point.
Next up is another polarizing character that also had his own dance, you may remember him from Friday Nights when you were younger, he had quite the run, and he knew how to dance:
Yup, that's right, Steve Urkel, and in fact this dance was so popular, it crossed over to another show:
Do The Urkel, ok, well this one I don't think was quite as memorable as Pee-Wee's dance, but still pretty solid.
Moving on to the next one, this one is probably not as memorable to most people, but I remember it and it might be the most ridiculous, and I'll explain why in a minute, but first, here it is:
The Wolf dance, he had the paws all working and stuff, good stuff, but the best part is clearly the point at which it's pretty damn obvious that it's not Michael J Fox doing that dancing, pretty solid. Now I was debating how to go with this one, cause this movie really kinda had 2 instances of unique dances, but this was the wolf dance, the other one not really a dance per se, well, you be the judge:
Technically this is surfing and not dancing, so not sure it should count, but it was probably more memorable then the other dance. I also am kind of surprised that there wasn't a big controversy about this whole thing, seriously, there must have been a bunch of stupid kids trying this out at some point, I can only imagine that someone got serious hurt trying this out. I mean anyone else remember that whole thing in that movie The Program where the kids laid down in the middle of the street and then some stupid kicks tried it and got hurt, maybe even killed, don't remember exactly, but then they had to remove the scene from the movie. No? well, it happened.
Next up we are going back, yup back to Pauly Shore, all the way back to Encino Man, and this was actually another reason as to why I thought of this whole thing:
This one is probably the stupidest and that's saying a lot, when they hell did they have time to come up with this elaborate dance and yet everyone catches on pretty quickly, course then there's the whole thing about him being a caveman, does he even know what dancing is? This did get me thinking about something else though, apparently the early 90s was a big time for unfrozen caveman, cause in addition to Encino Man, you may or maynot remember Phil Hartman's SNL character Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer:
I don't know, which one is better? Interesting that I don't think there were any unfrozen cavemen on movie or tv before these 2 and I don't think there have been any since, or at least that I can think of.
Finally, and this probably doesn't count cause it's Music, and there are a lot of songs in music that have to do with a certain dance, like The Twist, or Electric Shuffle, or Chicken Dance, or whatever, but given that we are talking about Urkel, and Pee-Wee and Pauly Shore, seems like this kinda fits, and that of course would be The Humpty Dance:
So, what do you think, which is the best, let me know. I think my personal favorite is still Pee-Wee, but they are all really great. Did I miss any others that I'm thinking off at the moment, probably, so America, Denmark, France, Canada, The World, let me know.
Folks, it's time to discuss the year of 1987 in Music Videos, now, 1987 wasn't quite as memorable from a Boston Sports standpoint as 1986, but the thing about 1987 that I remember, is that there are things from 1987 that I remember very well, I was 5/6 so I guess that might be the time that you really start remember things. Granted there are certain things that I can remember that happened before that, but just random things here and there, and it was usually something traumatic, 1987 was the first year that I can really remember stuff. Problem I have with this, it was 24 years ago, so I feel old. 1987 marked the return of the King of Pop, after kinda laying low for a few years, Michael Jackson was back, and for some reason he was a few shades lighter now, and with a different nose. I mean really, what the hell happened, here he is on the Thriller cover:
Now, I realize that a lot can happen in 5 years, and if I looked at a picture of me from 5 years ago and then one from today, I'm sure I would look a little different, but that's very different. But anyway, Michael Jackson had returned with his new album bad, and tried to attempt to recreate the magic of Thriller, first with his music video for bad, which was directed by Martin Scorsese, yup, the Martin Scorsese, and it resulted in this, first the movie part of it, then the music part of it:
But while 1987 marked the return of Michael Jackson, it was the debut of these guys:
Granted this wasn't their best Music Video, they got much better, it was the song that jump started them, and it was an interesting story as MTV kinda refused to play it, but then they finally gave in and decided to play it one time at like 3 in the morning or something, but they kept getting so many calls requesting it, that they finally put it in their regular rotation.
1987 was also a breakout year for U2 and they actually had 3 video nominated for video of the year that came out in 1987, one was nominated in 87, the other 2 in 88, they all lost, but hey, there you go:
That video lost out in 1987 to Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel, which we covered last time, cause it actually come out in 1986, but Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and Where The Street Have No Name lost out at the 1988 VMAs to this video:
This video was everywhere that year and in 1988, it's kinda funny cause at this point in time U2 and INXS were pretty much neck and neck in terms of popularity, and in terms of number 1 hits, this was actually both the peak for them, but U2 would continue to pump out hits after hits and go on to become one of the biggest bands in the world and of all time, INXS would kinda disappear and ultimately their lead singer Michael Hutchence would eventually die in an embarrassing way, initially ruled a suicide, it was later said to be a result of an accident during autoerotic asphyxiation, which was the same thing that happened with David Carradine.
Ok, that's all for today, thanks for reading, but as always gonna leave you with another treat, and today to do along with the title of this post, here's some Zakk Wylde:
You're just losin' you're mind
Neutron dance please
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