Category Archives: Videocracy

Tuneage, Videocracy

The Soundtrack for the Impending Idiocracy

Over the weekend, I saw (most of) Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s last doomed film. It has yet to achieve the cable/DVD cult status afforded to Office Space, mostly because it’s not nearly as funny. But the movie does a good job of fleshing out the universe contained in its premise: what happens when all the smart people in the world stop breeding, and the planet becomes overrun with morons?

The little cultural touches of the universe work better than the actual plot and characters. In the world of Idiocracy, the most popular TV show is called “Ow! My Balls!”, the president is a machine gun-weilding “smackdown champion”, and a film called Ass won 8 Academy Awards

Conspicuously absent from the film is what music would be like in this world. Dumb is much harder to achieve on purpose in music than in other media. In fact, I can’t think of too many people who have tried to capture the essence of Dumb in music and succeeded, other than Spinal Tap. Apart from “Big Bottom” and other Tap tunes, actual Dumb music made by actual Dumb people beats out manufactured Dumb Music by a mile.

But I think I found the soundtrack to a world filled with people with IQs of 60 (found = saw it posted to several message boards I frequent). This song is perfect for the world of Idiocracy–it’s violent, emotionally stunted, sexually
ignorant, aggressively misogynistic, and idiotic. I mean, truly, deeply idiotic.

I wanted to say “unapologetically idiotic”, but the people who made this song/video would be unable to apologize for their idiocy because they haven’t the slightest clue how idiotic they are. When I first saw this video, I thought it might be a put-on. But after a minute or so, as I fought the urge to vomit, I realized that only truly shallow morons could make music this moronic.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you the absolutely worst song I’ve ever heard in my life, by the worst group in the universe: brokeNCYDE. And don’t think too hard about how these mind-corpses are already on tour and playing IRVING PLAZA TONIGHT and probably making huge bank, because if you dwell on that horrifying factoid too long, you’ll wanna kill yourself. I know I do!

Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009, Videocracy

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 03.05.09

santo-shea.jpgFor the original Inappropriate Walk Up Music post, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

* “Closer to Fine,” Indigo Girls
Suggested by Cuzzin Loutie; we also would have accepted “Galileo”

* “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”: Paul McCartney
I like this song, but I’m amused by the thought of someone taking practice cuts during the jaunty Admiral Halsey section. Like, Albert Pujols staring down the pitcher while Sir Paul toots “He had to have a berth, or he couldn’t get to sleep…”

* Charlene, “Never Been to Me”
They used to reference this song all the time on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. In fact, I was unaware it was an actual song for the longest time; I just thought “I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me” was one of those touchy-feely Me Decade phrases. If you’ve never heard the song, it’s just as ridiculous as that line implies.

Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009, Videocracy

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 03.04.09

mlbtheshow09.jpgMy brother recently purchased MLB 09:The Show for Playstation 3 (ME WANTEE). One of the many features of this game is that you can upload your own MP3s to the hard drive and customize walk-up music for all your favorite players.

You can also record your own crowd noise. Seriously, if I had this game (or a PS3), I would spend so much time customizing the game environment, I would never actually play a game. I’d spend an entire day recording hateful taunts for Chipper Jones alone. Most of them wouldn’t be the least bit clever, either. Stuff like, “Chipper, I hope one day everyone you love abandons you and die alone and afraid!”

This revelation led to the discussion of awesome walk-up songs, and what we would pick for our own walk-up songs if we were major leaguers. Me, I’d opt for either “Right Brigade” by Bad Brains or the intro to “Little Friend” by Minor Threat. Yes, I gave this a great deal of thought.

But this also led to a parallel train of thought: What would be the worst walk-up music ever? Not necessarily the worst songs ever (although bad songs would surely have an edge here). But these tunes would have to be the exact opposite of the kind of intimidating, in-your-face songs that most hitters opt for.

Real-life example: Robin Ventura gets a lifetime pass from yours truly. He hit the grand slam single, which means I would totally bust that guy out of jail if he asked me to. But during the 2000 season, his at-bats were accompanied by various Bob Dylan songs. Most often, “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Positively 4th Street.” *

* I possess several bits of video/audio evidence that will attest to this fact, but I dare not post them for fear of MLB’s mighty lawyer-filled wrath. So you’ll have to take my word for it.

Now, far be it from me to impugn either of these classics. But they’re really not songs a major league baseball player should hear as he steps to the plate. I would pick 8 million songs I can’t stand before I picked ruminative, existential tunes like these.

So, my little project from now until Opening Day (or  for as long as I can stand it): come up with three songs a day that would be completely inappropriate as walk-up music.

Paint yourself a mental picture: You’re in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

* “Poker Face,” Lady GaGa

* “Caught a Light Sneeze,” Tori Amos

* “The Loadout,” Jackson Brown