Ridiculous Song #19 - Bon Jovi, "It's My Life"

I just wanna live while I'm alive.

Good call.

Ridiculous Song #18 - 98 Degrees, "The Hardest Thing"

Poor 98 degress. Legitimately talented guys who were often cast aside in favor of the flashier, "cooler" Backstreet Boys and Nsync (and Westlife!!! Just kidding, that's everywhere except where I fucking live). They just back up my theory that you can have a band with legitimately talented singers, but if they're given shitty material that isn't catchy or, well, as good, they're not going to do as well. You probably remember "Bye Bye Bye." Do you remember as many of the words to "My Everything"? That's what I thought.

Like Dr. Zhivago
All my love I'll be sending
And you will never know cuz
There can be no happy ending

Advanced literary reference in a bubblegum pop song? Say what? If it sounds like a bad idea, that's because it is. Songwriters for these sorts of bands/groups know that they need to connect to the audience, which is basically 12-year-olds (which I was when this came out, more or less). To connect, they don't need much in the way of lyrical complexity. Boyband? They want a girl because she is important and hot and they will be in love forever, ooh baby, yeahhh! The teeny-boppers get this and respond to it in the form of their parents' $$$. Did they really think the 12-year-old girls would be like, "OMG! Dr. Zhivago! I completely agree with their analysis here, as it really represents the nature of the work! ZOMG my retainer just fell out!!"? Because that's not what happens.

OH SNAP!!! This entry just became a twofer! YEAH.

Will we meet again?

Fate is a place and time.

No, it isn't. It's an abstract idea. Fate is not a place; no one says "OMG have you been to fate? It's nice - sandy beaches, hot cabana boys, and the BEST caipirinhas!" Fate is also not a time; no one says "Oh shit! I was supposed to get up for work but I accidentally woke up at fate o'clock!" Darn!" Nice try, guys.

UPDATE! (The?) Saturdays - "Issues"

Hey readers hey. I already analyzed/ripped into "Issues," a ballad by the Saturdays, a new addition to the British girl band scene (obv. Girls Aloud and the Spice Girls make it a tough act to follow). I could go back and make this a two-fer, but I'm way too lazy, so I'm just going to pick it up from here because I thought of something else. Woop woop.

Boy you leave me hanging for so long

You empty out my life until it's all gone

Righty-o. I don't think it's possible to empty out someone's life. You can drain a person's life out of them, but you see, that's actually a metaphor commonly used by humans. Emptying out life? Not so much. That's like saying "you take a walk with my feelings" or "you take my mind out dancing." They could just be metaphors, since they're surely not literal, but then again, they're not metaphors. They haven't been...ever. So it just sounds fucking weird.

Ridiculous Song #17 - Leona Lewis, Better in Time

Thought I heard a knock
Who's there? No one.

Soooooooooo pointless.

(And a waste of her awesome voice. Come on, Ryan Tedder! Oh, sorry, I guess you were too busy making Halo and Already Gone sound the same...?)

Ridiculous Song #16 - 98 Degrees, "Because of You"

When you're touching me, kisses endlessly
It's just a place in the sun where our love's begun

I'm going to say the following very simply.

This song is so cheesy that it makes me question why I listen to pop music. (But then I look at Jeff Timmons, second from left, and remember. Hey Jeff. I know Nick Lachey overshadowed everyone else but no worries. I like you.)

Ridiculous Song #15 - High School Musical, "We're All in This Together"

Yep, I know that's just Zac Efron, but I think he's the most visually important element of High School Musical.

We're not the same

We're different in a good way

Way to set up false dichotomies. You establish different as being "in a good way," thereby making it possible for something to be "different in a bad way." Look, I know Walt Disney was an anti-Semite, but now being different potentially could be bad?

The multicultural group of kids on Movie Surfers was a FUCKING LIE.

Ridiculous Song #14 - Girls Aloud, "No Good Advice"

Before I address this hoot-nanny of lyrics (I just wanted to use that word), can we just look at that picture? I searched Google Images (as I do for all of these) for "Girls Aloud 2003." AKA when they were starting out, AKA when I didn't know who they were, AKA so much awkwardness that it would a grown man cry. Guys can look at Girls Aloud (Gorls Alyde for Nuhdeen) and think that they're so hot, man. Whereas girls like me can look at them as inspiration for their own style...JUST NOT IN THIS PICTURE. From left to right, we've got: Awkward unflattering pose, looks like a rejected Disney villain, if she can make the leap from that to national style icon then there is hope for everyone, slutty but her face makes it look as if her brain just died (sexy? no no no. GET IT OMG), and awkward skirt material ginger lady. FAIL.

Daddy told me, look into the future

Sit at your computer

Be a good girl

What good dad tells his daughter to look into the future (hi, that's impossible), and worse yet, sit at the computer? Shouldn't a dad (esp. one that they'd complain about) tell his daughter to do her homework or wash the dishes or take care of one of her younger siblings or something useful? These lyrics suck because they don't make sense. What dad tells his daughter to just randomly surf the net or play computer games instead of getting shit done? "I know you have a biology (I AM HILARIOUS) test tomorrow, but you should go on Facebook for a few hours, and then play some Bejeweled." THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN.

Ridiculous Song #13 - Taylor Swift, "Our Song"

I was riding shotgun with my hair undone

In the front seat of his car
He's got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel
The other on my heart

The other hand is on your heart? Is it, though? Because it sounds like something people do in private, and not in a fucking car. Come on, Taylor, how can you expect to respect yourself when a guy can't respect you? I'm glad we had this talk, and yes, I already made your lunch for tomorrow.

This blog just had a three-way love child with What Taylor Swift's Mom Would Say and an after-school special. Do you need to wonder anymore why it's the shit?

Ridiculous Song #12 - Girls Aloud, "You Freak Me Out"

I think you're weird, it's written on your resume

No, it probably isn't.

Ridiculous Song #11 - Blue, "U Make Me Wanna"

I'll take you home real quick
And sit you down on the couch
Pour some Dom Perignon and hit the lights out.
Baby we can make sweet love.
Then we'll take it nice and slow.
I'm gonna touch you like you've never know before
We're gonna make love all night.

You know how there's always that one person you know who doesn't hesitate to tell you everything about their sex life? But you don't want to know about it? That person would love the above section of this song by rando British boyband, Blue. You can just imagine them reciting what they did last night to you using similarly specific language, and you making whatever stock "uncomfortable face" you have out of necessity/habit.

I really like this song, except for this part. The chorus is catchy and so are the verses. When I get to this part, I just fast forward and feel awkward. These guys are just wayyy too specific. There really aren't rhymes here, either, which I guess could justify the absurd amount of detail. Couch/out? Slow/before? And then ending with a weirdly vague, "no duh!" statement? No shit, you're going to make love for the entire evening?!?! I had NOOOOOO IDEA.

Ridiculous Song #10 - Enrique Iglesias, "Don't Turn off the Lights"

So don't turn off the lights

I don't wanna be in the dark tonight

Cause I can't read your mind
I need to know if what I'm doing is right

Don't people usually like to turn off the lights to be romantic? When are people like "Yeah, let's take this to the next level! YEAH! Fluorescent lights? That's so hot!!!"? That's right, (almost?) never.

He also needs to know if what he's doing is right. Bitch please...you're Enrique. But seriously, such a declaration gets the scientific nomenclature of TMI. Cheeeeeeeeeell.

Ridiculous Song #9 - Westlife, "Obvious"

Now I'm reading into everything*

But there's no sign you hear the lightning, bayybayy

I'm pretty sure the same guys who wrote Fool Again wrote this gem. (Sad part is, I'm not being sarcastic when I call this a gem. Whatevah.) Almost no deficiences within the lyrics, except for insane cheesiness (but what else is new?) and the opener of "We started as friends, but something happened inside me." (Does it rhyme with shmamydia?)

But Westlife is sad that their addressee doesn't "hear the lightning." But you know why they don't? Because it's impossible. In Ireland they probably just spend school preparing for what they would say if they meet Westlife walking down the street, but when I was in school, I learned that thunder goes BOOM (makes noise!) and lightning doesn't make any noise and just makes light, hence the word (?). Maybe Ireland is just topsy-turvy world, though, which'd be awesome for me, as this straight girl would be a gay man, which would give me ridonculous amounts of carte blanche to dance around in hot pants to Girls Aloud, Lady Gaga, and Westlife. YES.

(Sorry if I offended any Irish and/or gay people. I didn't mean to. YOU'RE AWESOME! Yay.)

*In this song, it sounds more like "every-thayy-hayyng," just sayin'.

Ridiculous Song #8 - Westlife, "Fool Again"

Baby, I know the story

I've seen the picture

It's written all over your face

Not gonna lie here, I'm a fan of this Westlife song. So is my friend, whom I've converted to Westlife-loving-dom. So finally other people in the US like Westlife. NBD.

But what the fuck is up with the above lines? How can a picture be written all over someone's face? Still don't see? Read on.

Person #1: Hey, what are you doing?

Person #2: Aw, nothing much. Just writing a picture.

Something about that is very wrong. You can't write a picture. Swedish songwriters are behind these guys, Nsync, BSB, Britney...AND (now) Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, and so on. They have a good command on the English language - enough to write catchy and popular songs. But there are slip-ups every so often and, oh man, is this one of them. Gotta go. I have a picture to write.

Ridiculous Song #7 - All-American Rejects, "It Ends Tonight"

(I know, a band that plays their own instruments! I hope you were sitting down already. Oh, and THIS ONE IS A TWO-FER, GET PUMPED.)

Your subtleties, they strangle me

I can't explain myself at all

I'm not even going to get into how something intangible like subtleties can literally strangle someone, but you know what? Let's give that to them, chalking it up to poetic license. But really, anything subtle cannot really "strangle" someone (assuming "strangle" can be figurative here). Subtleties usually go relatively unnoticed. But if you're being strangled, you notice. So this part really makes little sense, even if you take it in the least literal way possible. I mean, it's not like you're being strangled by something and then say "Wow! How subtle. I barely even noticed." And you can't explain yourself at all? Really? Because I think you ARE doing that for four minutes and six seconds (I have it on iTunes because I'm just THAT COOL).

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The walls start breathing, my mind's unweaving

Walls are breathing? How is that even symbolism? I'm rifling through my brain, trying to find a precedent for this as some metaphor, but it's an epic fail. When walls start breathing, either your heavy-breathing neighbor/family member/lover is invisible, or you just love acid.

And how is your mind unweaving? Again, not really a metaphor that's reflected in erudite literature. This makes no sense. Unless your mind is Tyra Banks between treatments. (Work!)

Ridiculous Song #6 - (The?) Saturdays, "Issues"

Why fight it, cant hide it
Truth is I think I like it
Confusion, illusion
Still I don’t know which way to go…

I decided to make this fledgling little blog because of Snacks and Shit, which does what I do to rap songs, except eleventy gazillion point four times better. Entry #99 is genius, as it makes fun of E-40 for saying "Forty-five, fifty-five, sixty-five, seventy-five, gouda. Eighty-five, ninety-five, wait, what am I doing? Chalupa." The author rightfully states that you can't just "sing" by naming numbers and foods. Those just aren't lyrics.

Similarly, the middle 8 (I have no idea?) of this song, which includes the chorus of "Me and my heart, we've got issues," contains two lines that rhyme: "Why fight...like it." Cool. But then they just sing "confusion, illusion," as if a) these are complete sentences and not just abstract, intagible nouns and b) as if these measly two words extend the idea expressed in the first two lines of this excerpt. Um, but they don't. Just like with E-40, you guys are just saying words. These words have nothing to do with anything.

Good job, (probably Swedish) songwriters, you did a multisyllabic rhyme. Too bad it makes no fucking sense.

Ridiculous Song #5 - Westlife, "Swear it Again"

I'm never gonna say goodbye

'Cause I never wanna see you cry

Okay, who is this freak-ass bitch who will cry whenever someone says goodbye? They're NEVER gonna say goodbye? Really? Hm...

Man: Okay, honey, off to get some groceries. Be back soon. Goodbye!

Woman: [Uncontrollable sobbing, interspersed with gasps for air]

Westlife, you look ridiculous in this picture, which is probably from 1998 when every boy band member had a blonde middle-part haircut (and you were still called Westside). Ygggblecchhhhhhhchh.

Wait, that's not what I wanted to say. Oh, right. Just saying...you have this girl (Mark: guy) who will cry whenever you say goodbye. That's fucking weird. You deserve people who are more stable/awesome...like...uh...me. Except you, Mark. You get a free pass. Damn it (he's the brunette).

Ridiculous Song #4 - Girls Aloud, "Graffiti My Soul"

We should be getting it on

Fly DJ's playing my song

Ok, Girls Aloud/Gorls Alyde (if you're a member whose accent sounds like the linguistic love child of Northern Ireland and Mars). You're probably in a club somewhere, as evidenced by the rest of your INSANELY DEEP lyrics. But you "should be getting it on" just because there's a song you like? That's gross, and pretty trashy. You want to make babies on the dance floor?

Look, I know people make out (and even do more...ew) on the dance floor. But "getting it on" is just taking it WAY too far. No, Neckola, Kimbarlay, Sheeiiiryl, Nuhdeen, and Sayyra!* I don't care if a "fly DJ" (really?) is playing your song. Not an excuse to be a total ho bag.

(This song is legitimately good - yes, I know the title is weird - but some of the lyrics make me vaguely uncomfortable. See above.)

*Wikipedia-ing their names + Northern Ireland/Mars accent = enough to make me giggle.

Ridiculous Song #3 - Girls Aloud, "Wake Me Up"

Was it just the margaritas or are you [unnecessary pause] talking to me?

Feels like I'm back in school

Makes me wanna break the rules!

Okay, what "feels like [you're] back in school"? Does that refer to the previous line or the next line?

If it refers to the next line: You associate being in school with breaking the rules! Rock on! Yeahhh! KISS forever! You guys are such badasses! Forget pop - you guys are the modern-day standard bearers of ROCK AND ROLL!!! You write your own songs and play your own instruments! What do you mean, you don't? Well...you opened this song with (I hope you're sitting down) a guitar...yeah, I guess you fooled me.

OR...do you feel "like [you're] back in school" because of the previous line, the cringe-worthy one about margaritas? What I really want to know is, what school serves margaritas? Because I WANT TO GO TO THAT SCHOOL.

Ridiculous Song #2 - Nsync, "If I'm Not the One"

I wanna call you up 'cause in the end

I keep writing letters to my garbage can

- Nsync, 2000

This is a random song that wasn't even released on their US albums. So how do I know of it? I don't really. I haven't heard this song in a few years but those god-awful lyrics remain stuck in my head. Writing letters to your garbage can? Really, JT? Weird shit. Well, you know, at least he's moved on from gray cylindrical receptacles to Jessica Biel...oh...erm...

Ridiculous Songs #1 - Boyzone, "Love Me For a Reason"

Love me for a reason,

Let the reason be love.

- Boyzone, 1994

People often tease me about liking shitty boybands, but then again, I never got caught up in the Boyzone or Take That craze. One song from each, maybe ("Picture of You" and "Greatest Day," respectively...they're good!). But seriously, songs like this make me almost violently ill because they are so fucking redundant. Love someone for a reason. Why? Because of love. Que?

Girl: Bobby, love me for a reason!

Boy: Okay, Cindy...well...I love you.

Girl: But WHY?

Boy: Because of love.

Girl: What?

Boy: I love you because of love. I love you because I love you.

Girl: We're done.

The video is also cringeworthy. I've seen about 20 seconds and then died of laughter. Ronan Keating...you do not give good face. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tkePfq1f6k (if you dare!)

Intro like Whoa

Hey everyone! I love music, but most of it is (admittedly cheesy) pop. I live in the US, so this becomes something people tease me about quite often. People do it lovingly, so I take it in stride, but it is at times frustrating because many other countries (e.g. the UK) are still hospitable to boybands, girlbands, and solo artists. (Quick example: Irish boyband Westlife tried to get their hit song "World of Our Own on the US radio. Radio hosts initially said yes, since they liked the song, but they rejected it once they found out it was from a boyband.)

A lot of people know me and know how I just love learning in general. I love to get lost in literature, politics, history, whatever...so people often wonder why I take such joy in lyrics like "Ain't no lie, baby, bye bye bye" or "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friend." I don't have much of an answer, except to say that I feel inclined (sorry if any of this sounds pretentious) toward intellectual books, movies, magazines, and other forms of media. When it comes to music, hey, I guess that's just an outlier.

As much as I love pop that's popular (sup redundancy) in the US as well as outside of the US, there are times when pop songs from artists I like (and dislike) make me cringe. They're either overly cheesy or just absurd/ridiculous. And when I think this of songs...well...you know it's bad. That's why I have this blog. It's all in good fun.