Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke and All That Bullshit

So…the whole Miley Cyrus thing, eh? Wasn’t it shocking? I have never been so shocked in all my life. Not the twerking, that wasn’t in the least bit shocking, I mean that we have reached such a crushing nadir in pop music that a performance as awful as this was allowed on our screens in the first place. Jeez…no-one could sing, no-one could dance, Robin Thicke was dressed like Beetlejuice.



I choose to write about shit music on this blog, mainly as a means to justifying my hatred of a lot of the music I hate (apparently I can come across as a bit of an ogre in that regard). So, I felt it was my duty to speak up on this.

First thing to mention, really, is that MTV is so irrelevant now that this has probably been the best thing for it. Like when Kanye West invaded Taylor Swift’s speech a few years ago…



I mean, admittedly, Kanye was right. Taylor Swift does not deserve any awards. Unless the award is prefixed with the word “Worst…”. I dunno, is there a Razzies for music? There should be if there isn’t. Nevertheless, the “controversy” kept the VMA’s relevant for another year or two, and now the “controversy” surrounding this has kept the VMA’s relevant for another year. It’s gone so far down the ladder that Daft Punk’s Get Lucky can be nominated for a Video Music Award, despite the fact that it doesn’t have a video.

There has been a few reasons for the outrage. One is the sheer filthiness of the performance. First of all, clearly the people who have been complaining have never seen a pop video before. Secondly, the performance may have been over the top, but it wasn’t sexy. It was awkward and off-putting. If anything, it looked sad and desperate. In fact, it reminded me of two Britney Spears performances from the same awards show, the first one with the Madonna make out session (trying too hard to shock)



And, secondly, that weird one where she looked like she wasn’t even there and the whole audience were basically looking at her saying “what the ACTUAL fuck?”.



In fact, the song Miley was promoting, We Can’t Stop, comes across as pretty sad and desperate. It’s lyrics suggest it was written by one of those annoying people who use the word “party” as a verb, a “party animal” if you will. But the song doesn’t make you want to throw your hands in the air like you just don’t care. It sounds sad. It sounds like an addiction, not a party. Even the title of We Can’t Stop suggests addiction.



The second argument is that by twerking, Miley was blatantly stealing from black urban performance. Well, fuck me in a month of Sundays! That would be a lot more upsetting if it hadn’t been going on since the dawn of music. All popular music is rooted in the blues. The blues is black music. Even before the rock & roll era, the crooners of the 30s and 40s had their music based on jazz, which is also black music. I don’t think there’s any such thing as white music. Is it right? I dunno…but is it wrong? If it is, we’re not allowed to listen to the Rolling Stones anymore.



I also want to deal with Robin Thicke. Firstly, he did not seem thrilled that Hannah Montana was grinding on him. Secondly, if Aldi sold their own range of Justin Timberlakes, they would be Robin Thicke. Dude sucks. Seriously sucks. You can’t even say “oh, but he’s so sexy”, because he isn’t. He’s awkward and off-putting. He looks like the dad from Growing Pains - who, coincidentally, is his dad in real life - and the dad from Growing Pains was not sexy. Thicke was wearing a really tight Beetlejuice looking suit at the VMA’s…just what was needed to show off the weird fucking shape of his body. Thirdly, the lyrics of Blurred Lines are not sexy, they’re rapey.

Here’s a sample of some of the lyrics from Blurred Lines

And that’s why I’m gonna take a good girl
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it

Here’s a sample of some of the lyrics from Stone Temple Pilots’ Sex Type Thing, which was explicitly written from the point of view of a rapist

I know you want what’s on my mind
I know you want what’s on my mind
I know it eats you up inside
I know, you know, you know, you know

Yup. Basically the best, least rapey thing about Blurred Lined is the groove, which was sampled from Marvin Gaye’s Got To Give It Up. So just fucking listen to Marvin Gaye instead, OK?



Anyhoo…the performance did it’s job, because now everyone is banging on about it like it matters and has given Cyrus press she probably doesn‘t deserve. Every couple of years an artist that was formerly Disney owned acts out like this. Britney Spears did it, Christina Aguilera did it. Basically, when Disney owns a child star, they OWN them. They’re told what to wear, what to say, what to sing and HOW to sing it. So when they break free, they go a bit crazy. Then we forget about them. Would be great if we could just skip straight to that bit.

Either way, Billy Ray has to be upset about how his daughter is portraying herself. It's probably breaking his Achy Breaky Heart (thank you, I'm here all week, try the veal and don't forget to tip your waitresses!)

ARBITRARY LISTS: Top 5 Frank Turner Obscurities

Frank Turner’s arena tour goes on sale tomorrow. I first saw Frank supporting the Gaslight Anthem on a club date in Manchester (memory is hazy on the exactly when, but I think it was Gaslight’s first UK visit, so it must have been around 2008...?), and have followed him ever since. It’s actually kind of cool to see a guy whose been slogging away in small venues make it without any major press attention.

In fact, I met him once, but it went really fuckin’ badly, so I’m unwilling to meet him again. It was an unfortunate incident involving a squiffy yours truly, Frank’s hat and what may or may not have been a threat…saying it was makes for a better story, though. However, you’ll be delighted to hear I once met Rod, Jane & Freddy from Rainbow and it passed without incident.

The man is a workaholic, and so just buying his albums doesn’t give you the full picture. There are EP’s, b-sides, exclusives and all kinds along the way. A lot of these are compiled in the …Three Years collections. Some of them aren’t. In any case, here’s the Top 5 Frank Turner Obscurities.


5. Thunder Road Under The Influence Vol 8, 2009



Cover of the Bruce Springsteen song…which is one of my favourite songs of all time anyway. Weird thing is, given that it is such an iconic song, Frank somehow manages to make it sound like he wrote it.


4. This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The One Of Me Campfire Punkrock EP, 2006



This is a song I sometimes still feel a great affiliation to. There was a point when I was almost convinced Frank was singing about my life, given how so many of his songs summed up my feelings on various subjects. This is probably one of them.


3. The Next Round Rock & Roll EP, 2010



The ballad of a drunkard.


2. The Ballad of Steve Buddies by Frank Turner & Jon Snodgrass, 2010



Frank and Drag The River’s Jon Snodgrass locked themselves in a hotel room and vowed to write and record an entire album in 24 hours. They did OK. It’s obviously not supposed to be a stirring work of art, it’s just something they did for a bit of a laugh. This is definitely the best track on the album, and made me howl with laughter when I first heard it. It’s about a guy called Steven Slater, a flight attendant who quit his job in spectacular fashion. I won’t ruin it, but it’s a true story. They saw it on the news. Honestly. Google him if you don’t believe me.


1. Heartless Bastard Motherfucker The Real Damage EP, 2007



It just puts a smile on my face. And who amongst us hasn’t been a heartless bastard motherfucker at some point?

POP WORLD: Slave 2 The Rhythm - Michael Jackson & Justin Bieber

The continued string of posthumous Michael Jackson releases continues. Later in the year, expect the unreleased Freddie Mercury collaborations, but until then you can make do with a post-production collaboration with the modern day Freddie Mercury, Justin Bieber.



Sorry, did I say “modern day Freddie Mercury”? I meant “modern day Leif Garrett”. You probably don’t know who Leif Garrett is, and you’d be wise to keep it that way.

The song is called Slave 2 The Rhythm, and it follows MJ’s latter day attempts to appear down wid da kidz at the expense of writing a decent song. In fairness, much of Jackson’s solo career did put commercial success over creative possibilities, which is why every album he did after Thriller pretty much followed the Thriller format (a funky song to open, a rock song, a few slow songs mixed in, a song that reflected whatever was popular at the time, a “save the world” type song from Bad onwards). However, at least up until 1991’s Dangerous he backed it up with great pop songs. This began to change on 1995’s HIStory album, where around 50% of the album was decent enough, but was hindered by a host of self-indulgent trite. By the time we get to 2001’s Invincible, you get the feeling that he’s really starting to phone it in. In fact, this song is apparently from the Invincible sessions…



Anyhow, the point I’m making is this; a lot of people accuse Jackson’s estate of exploiting his legacy for a fast buck. But, really, he’d started doing that himself.

And that brings us to this Justin Bieber “collaboration”. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Jackson would have collaborated with Bieber anyway. He always featured the commercial golden boys of the era on his albums. It was likely his way of appearing more contemporary. And listening to Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo on Beat It, it’s often hard to argue with the results. But there’s something quite off-putting about this whole production.

The first problem is Bieber (who’d have thunk?). Is it just me, or is he trying to do a Michael Jackson impression here? At one point I thought it was Jackson singing when it was Bieber, it was only when Jackson’s superior vocals came in and blew Bieber completely off the mike that I realised my mistake and felt dirty as a result (although, when I did mistake Bieber for Jackson, I did think "Michael sounds like shit". It really shows how little character Bieber has in his vocals and how much MJ had, even on a bad day.

The second problem is the lyrics.

She dances at the break of dawn
And quickly cooks his food
She can’t be late, can’t take too long
The kids must get to school

She’s a slave to the rhythm
She’s a slave to the rhythm of
A rhythm of love, a rhythm of love

First of all, “food” and “school” don’t rhyme. Second of all, this is a very uninspired metaphor. Here we have two millionaires singing about the life of an ordinary woman who cooks and takes her kids to school. Why? Apparently, they had no time to consider why they were bothering to tell us this because they had to get to the chorus, which builds up to one of the most over-used phrases in the history of popular music. “Rhythm of love”. Wow. Talk about anti-climatic.

Eventually, over two minutes into the song, we’re finally given some conflict in the story;

She danced the night that they fell out
She swore she’d dance no more
But then she did, she did not quit
And she ran out the door

She danced through the night, in fear of her life
She danced to a beat of her own
She let out a cry, swallowed her pride
She knew she was needed back home

But I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel about this. Dudes, you’re telling a story. Is she abused by her husband? Is she suffering from postnatal depression? You say she wasn’t appreciated, but is that just how she feels, or is that the reality of the situation? How did they fall out? Was it his fault? Was it hers? Are you even talking about her husband? THIS IS NOT HOW YOU TELL A STORY. I need to be invested in the character before I give a shit that she tried to leave and then go back. For all I know, she’s just a whiny bitch going through a mid-life crisis and has started going out clubbing and wearing a mini skirt because she wants to be 21 again.

Musically, this is just another dull-as-fuck dance tune production, that actually sounds pretty similar to a 1997 remix of Jackson’s song HIStory that was released as a single to promote his Blood On The Dancefloor remix album.



But there’s no groove to it. MJ’s best dance songs all had GROOVES. They made me do the lame white guy dance. I couldn’t help it. All this makes me do is yearn for the DJ to throw on Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ or Get on the Floor instead. It’s really dreadful. It’s dull, it’s uninspired, it’s lazy. There’s no atmosphere. The Michael Jackson of 1982 wouldn’t have even considered recording this. If this song didn't have Michael Jackson's name attached to it, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would give a shit.

In all fairness, it was culled from an unfinished demo. I don’t want to blame Bieber too much, that would be a cop out and the demo version posted above doesn't exactly suggest Michael had anything special to begin with. It's an outtake from his worst album...consider that. It wasn't good enough for his worst album.

But, this is bad even for Bieber. For Michael, it’s truly woeful.