Some Candian girl no one’s ever heard of got big with “Call Me Maybe.” Talking to you, Carly Rae Jepsen. And if I’m not mistaken, I think Beiber had something to do with her getting signed to a record label, which makes it even worse. I think Beiber is just handing out record deals now, I don’t know. But anyway, you hear “Call Me Maybe” everywhere now, and I’ve never heard another song by her. We frankly don’t need to; she could probably retire off the royalties on that song alone. And the parodies? Don’t get me started.
I was perusing failblog.org the other day, and I found this:
To read the full version, go here: http://failblog.org/?s=carly+rae+is+crazy+maybe
But to break it down, this guy basically wrote a Facebook post aimed at Carly Rae Jepsen and explaining how little sense her song actually makes, and then asking for clarification. He mentions the fact that you don’t throw “a wish in the well.” That’s not how wishing wells work. He basically breaks down lines in the song and picks them apart, also stating that the possibility of calling her (maybe) is entirely misleading; she says “here’s my number” but never gives a number to call her at, hence nulling the entire concept of the song. It’s a little long, but I highly recommend reading the whole thing. It’s hilarious, and I don’t do it justice.
This is basically the fate of popular music. I could go on and on about terrible song lyrics that are all the rage with the kids these days, but I just don’t have the strength. What is our world coming to??!! Who listens to these songs and enjoys them??!!
To be fair, I didn’t know it was recording. Okay fine, I was completely aware. I admit it! This song is a complete and utter guilty pleasure for me to jam out in my car to and sing terribly off key to. So sue me. You win, Carly Rae.
So let’s hear it: what is your guilty pleasure? Are you a closet Carly Rae Jepsen fan like me? Do we like these songs because they’re terribly awesome?
I think Carly Rae has to get a pass because look how happy she made you! Her song makes zero sense but it was super fun to sing. Also, total side note, the dude in her video has not even real-looking abs. I think the song went viral after Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber and some other Disney stars got together with Carly Rae and lip synced the whole song. It's dumb but it makes me smile when I watch it.
ReplyDeleteI am all ABOUT the guilty pleasure music. I have an entire playlist devoted to it on Spotify. Maybe more than one, actually. I think it's probably always going to be like this - there's the music you like and there's the music you like that you'll admit you like around your friends.
I've been trying to pick a single artist that exemplifies my guilty pleasure taste but I can't. I am a bad music lover. If it was written in the 70's and included The Carpenters, I know all the words. If it was written in the 80's and involved the synthesizer, I know all the words. If it was written in the 90's and involved body glitter and the pop n'lock, I know those, too. Some call it a curse. I call it a secret weapon.
The funny thing? I probably know all the words to those 70's, 80's, and 90's songs too. We can be bad music lovers together and be proud of it.
DeletePretending to not understand common language is one of the worst forms of communication, like "what's up?" - "the sky" or in this case "call me maybe" - "I thought your name was Carley". Every once in a while that sort of thing manages to be clever, but it's usually easy and formulaic. In this case the author sounds like he's the one with poor communication skills and ignored the point that bothers me about "call me maybe" which is putting way too much worth in adolescent hormonal confused emotions. Rather than putting billions of dollars into propagating this song, we could just explain to preteens that they are dumb and inexperienced and they are going to do horrible things to each other because of the feelings they're having, but that's an important part of learning and we should try to eventually be better than that. Despite all that, I can totally get down with that song.
ReplyDeleteAndy S
True, the writer of that thing sure wasn't a Pulitzer winner. And I like your analysis, I just know we would never tell our youth anything like that. We won't even let kids truly "lose" or fail anything until we deem them strong enough to handle it.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, everyone can get down with that song.