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

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 03.10.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, 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:

* “Brass in Pocket,” The Pretenders
As suggested by Cuzzin Loutie. I like The Pretenders, I like Chrissie Hynde, and I like this song. But now I see a batter coming up to the plate as Chrissie sings, “I’m special…so special..I gotta have all of your…attention… give it to me.” That mental image makes me cringe. Totally inappropriate as walk up music. Except for A-Rod.

* “Lucky Man”, Emerson Lake and Palmer
As suggested by TheWhiteBoomBoom. I imagine the batter making unreasonable demands of the crowd, kinda like with the Bright Eyes song I mentioned here a few days ago. But in this case, I picture some batter who’s really into prog rock, and he makes everyone in the stadium be quiet during the endless synth solo.

* “That Smell”, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Even for the low standards I ascribe to Skynyrd, this is an awful song. Every time I hear it, I think to myself, “Seriously, someone wrote a song with a chorus that goes “ooooh, that smell”?!

Cinematics

Loglines for the Next Seven Nicolas Cage Movies

niccage.jpg* The secret to clean coal technology is tattooed on Thomas Jefferson’s bones. Can Nic Cage and a ragtag group of misfits rescue his corpse from the evil clutches of Greenpeace?

* Nic Cage is Wrecker Jones, the undead descendant of Genghis Khan. Can he defeat the Werewolf Pancho Villa in time to save his village?

* Nic Cage is a government-trained super-assassin with one mission: go back in time and kill Helen Keller.

* An underground kickboxing tournament is held by an international terrorist organization to determine the champion of the universe. Little do they know that ex-Marine Nic Cage has come to break up the organization’s little party–and marry its leader.

* Nic Cage stars as some comic book character who hasn’t been done yet.

* Accomplished jazz composer and bandleader by day, street vigilante by night. Nic Cage is: Duke Killington!

* A former matinee idol seems to make horrible movie after horrible movie with no quality control over his career choices at all. Little does the public know, Nic Cage has discovered the secret to eternal life hidden in pieces across some of the worst scripts ever written. So when the rest of he world dies off one by one, only he shall be standing. AND THEY ALL LAUGHED!

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants