Protest Songs Are Destroying Music
I was recently running my way through music television, which is currently one of my biggest pet peeves at the moment as I feel that music has gone past the point where it can be saved and is now, in fact, dead. When the only good thing I found on that browsing session was Lady GaGa then you know that something is definitely wrong with modern music (note: “Bad Romance” is actually a pretty good song and is her best work to date. It is also good to note that the video kicks ass). So I thought that today I would look back on what I have previously classified as crap and what I have classified as good and have a clear out of what I have previously said here. But I think that will be left until next time because there is a certain issue with the music industry that still keeps popping up. Namely, a certain song that has been pissing me off. This song passed under my radar for a little while, to be perfectly honest. The main reason was that I first heard it on BBC Radio 1 whilst I was on vacation (via Sirius Satellite Radio, who are awesome for getting Radio 1 to America). Over there I heard some good stuff, such as “The Captain” by Biffy Clyro (yes, I had to look up the spelling) and even, the aforementioned, Lady GaGa. But this just annoyed me to the point of insanity when it kept popping up again and again on my radar. With that said, let’s take a look at why this song sucks. This is “I Got Soul” by the Young Soul Rebels, or, as I like to call it We Have No Careers with their song: “Let’s Drag the Killers Down With Us”. Why? Because this song utterly sucks donkey balls. Don’t take my word for it though! Let’s take a look.
First off some of you are probably saying, why is he making fun of a charity song? The cause is worthy. True. But here is my arguement. Just because you are a charity song does not mean you are exempt from being critiqued. Just because you say “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” does not mean you can get away with anything. Band Aid 20 showed us this. You can give as much money as you like to charities. If I think you are a douche, you are still a douche.
As you may have probably guessed, this is a cover of “I Got Soul” by the Killers. No… wait… It’s a cover of “All These Things That I’ve Done” by the Killers. So, you are doing a cover without actually referencing in the title what you are covering? Seriously? I guess the only excuse to this is if they have completely changed the lyrics from the original. The answer to this is: of course they have! “What a shock(!)”, he lied. Do you all remember the original? It was a song that had a similar message to Everybody Hurts by REM (“If you can’t hold on, hold on” (from “All These Things That I’ve Done”)).What do you think those bastards over at The Young Soul Rebels did? They took a minor line, took it out of context and turned into the hook for the entire song. God this really sucks. I mean, this certain line gets repeated throughout and ruins the effect of the original song. By taking the line “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier” and turning it into a song about war children, you apparently have an instant hit. No you don’t! You have a hack job. It’s like taking the Ghostbusters theme song and slipping in stuff about paedophilia (“If there’s someONE strange / In your neighbourhood / Who ya gonna’ call? / 911!”). It doesn’t make it a good song. It makes it idiotic. So, these people have the power to take a great song and turn it into crap by taking it out of context. Next point!
The next thing to address are the artists involved. Here are a full list:
- VV Brown
- Pixie Lott
- Tinchy Stryder
- N-Dubz
- Frankmusik
- Kid British
- Chipmunk
- MPHO
- Ironik
- Bashy
- McLean
- Egypt
- Domino Go
You don’t need a degree to tell that these artists suck. These are all at the cutting edge of “modern British R&B”, apparently. But they suck. Don’t get me started on N-Dubz. Or Tinchy Stryder. I mean, what the hell kind of a name is that? But, I seriously digress. These are terrible artists when they aren’t all working together, and they are even worse when they are together. I seriously am wishing that the Zimmers would have done this song instead after this monstrosity that these guys created. I mean, the only saviours for this whole collaboration are Chipmunk, was is OK, and Dappy from N-Dubz, and only because he has an awesome hat. And that is so unbelievably annoying. I mean, I have a better singing voice than half of these bozos. Trust me. If you don’t believe me, listen to Control Point in a few episodes time; I have a parody coming (shameless plug is obvious).
The final point is this: which version was better? The original (and awesome) Killers version? Or the terrible remix version dubbed as a cover? Obvious. The crappy cover. Wait, what?
Seriously, according to the “Official UK Singles Chart”, or “Simon Cowell’s Best Friends” as it is dubbed by me (this is evident around Christmas time when the X Factor single that isn’t a Christmas song, but a crappy cover with opera singers in the background, gets to number one but I seriously digress), “I Got Soul” is the better song. It reached number 10 in the charts, whereas the original got to number 18. This proves one thing: The music listening audience of today are taking the piss. I mean, these people do not understand what good music is. It seems that if a lot of artists that chavs seem to like whilst “pimping it up around town” and mugging old ladies come together to make a song together, it will sell like Paris Hilton in an all-male prison. This is regardless of whether the song is actually good or not. This is getting utterly ridiculous. It seems that the people who are deciding what music is popular now are the most disrespected members of society who like anything with a crappy baseline to annoy people and Ironik “rapping” (read: fucking rhyming!) in the background with some whore from the Pussy-twat Dolls. I mean, I think I am giving the public too much credit these days. These are the same people who buy fucking Cascada singles and call it music. Putting a techno beat in the background of a song from the 1980s and singing the original lyrics over the top does not make it a cover. It makes it over-glorified karaoke. Running around your music video in a glittery corset also does not make a music video. It makes it soft-core porn, but I seriously digress again.
There is a problem with the modern youth. They have been brainwashed into thinking crap music is better than it is, and I am taking a stand against poor quality music by linking this post to the “I Got Soul” website and I honestly hope they read it. I suggest we all make a stand against poor quality music. I mean, don’t take it out on “I Got Soul” anymore. I have already done it to death. That is why the theme to this article’s comments is “Bad Artists”. Name your most loathed artist and why and I will do the same in a follow-up in the couple of articles time.
To summerise: just because you are making a charity single does NOT mean that you can put any crap together and expect us to accept it. Put some effort in next time! F minus, “Young Soul Rebels”! See me after class!
Filed under: Reviews | 3 Comments
Tags: chavs, i got soul, music, the killers, young soul rebels
Pop music is for the ignorant. For people who want to garbage fed to them, and don’t new music. It’s force fed to them by the music industry, who rely on marketing, rather than song writing skills to tell music.
I just gave up on pop music, rather than worrying about it
I wouldn’t normally worry about it, but this song just kept cropping up again and again. I wouldn’t normally respond to it, but it is such a giant cockslap across the faces of the Killers (one of my favourite bands) that I had to say something.
I was waiting until a blog post summed up how I feel about modern music, and it happened to be written by you! Music is dead. It’s true. Good people will try to revive it, but they’ll be stopped by the music industry.
I’m 13 and all my friends at school have this crap on their iPods. I haven’t heard of any of it. I’ve actually done pretty well to avoid pop music and it’s quite easy to do.
1. Don’t listen to the radio
That’s pretty much it.
I once watched some awards program on TV and the idiots that wrote “Number One” came on and said “Yeah! We made this song in 45 minutes!”. I’m sorry, but if that doesn’t tell you anything, then you mustn’t know what 45 mins mean.