So before I make this next post, I want to be clear that I personally hate April Fool's Day. The essence of humor is surprise. There is no surprise in April Fool's Day! Everyone's actively bracing for it! April Fool's Day on the Internet has long since stopped being about "jokes" and devolved into a series of exhausting, repetitive, occasionally-cruel pranks, often enacted by the world's biggest corporations against the captive audience of their customers.
But anyway
What I'm listening to today: "Ante Up", Mash Out Posse (ft. Sesame Street)
Gangsta rap in a cartoon register but deadly serious, this 2000 breakout hit is so charming it became the favorite rap song of everyone who doesn't listen to rap; it was in last year's TMNT movie and a KFC ad. Meanwhile the song itself is a full-throated endorsement of/how-to guide for street mugging. Here it is being sung by Ernie and Bert.
The government does *not* want you to watch this video
What I'm listening to today: "Difference", Red Five & Exile + DJ Mickey Finn + Ragga Twins + MC Navigator (ft. Sesame Street)
I have only indirect knowledge of the 90s British hardcore electronic scene. But, Jungle grew out of reggae culture, and tracks we in the states knew only as instrumentals were meant to be spun as backing tracks for improvised vocals.
This short clip was from a party called "Future Winter Session 1998" (full set is on YouTube). This is all live.
What I'm listening to today: "Hey Ya", Outkast (ft. the Peanuts Gang)
Okay, yes, this got overplayed. But give it a chance. Andre 3000 puts his entire self into this. He performed almost every instrument. The lyrics swerve dizzyingly between literal last-second improvisation about Lucy Liu, and him pouring his heart out about his divorce. This song is so *sincere*.
Here's an exacting shot-for-shot HD remake of one of the earliest videos on YouTube (orig. Mar 30, 2006)
What I'm listening to today: "God's Away on Business", Tom Waits (ft. Sesame Street)
A funeral dirge for our fallen universe. Listening to this song, the sense I get was Tom Waits was one of those people in the 80s who understood the Reagan administration really was the end of the world and it was all downhill from there. …or so I was GOING to say, but then I looked it up and this album was released in 2002, one year into the Bush administration. Well, same difference.
What I'm listening to today: "A Divine Proclamation of Finishing the Present Existence", Last Days of Humanity (ft. Sesame Street)
In every art form, we need that *one person* to go All The Way, we need the Merzbow or Malevich or the John Cage who finds and crosses The Line so, lines established, the rest of us can draw within them. "Putrefaction in Progress" is that for metal. 25 minutes of music of uniform, maximal density. You can't go harder than this. We checked.
What I'm listening to today: "Fat Cat", Sesame Street
If there's one thing children crave, in media or otherwise, it's being taken seriously. The genius of CTW and the Jim Henson Company is even if they were making disposable TV to teach very small children letters or the concept of "rhymes", they were going to give it their all. Anyway, here's Jim Henson in a rare repeat appearance as "the Mahna Mahna guy", in a song that's so much more of a banger than it needs to be.
What I'm listening to today: "I'm So Blue", Sesame Street
I really want to convince you of this: Sesame Street took its music *very* seriously.
This song drops halfway through "Follow That Bird". The context is basically silly: Big Bird has been kidnapped by an evil carnival, painted blue and forced to perform as the "Bluebird of Happiness". But the song— written by Grammy-winning country music veterans (this soundtrack also won a Grammy)— is a bullet in your heart.
@mcc this made me remember Twelve
@gsuberland That's the actual Pointer Sisters, you know.
@gsuberland @mcc
I think that broke my.brain.
@mcc Oh that's 25 minutes for the whole album.. from what I've seen it described as, that might be as long as it should be allowed to be - and this is from a metal enjoyer. Definitely going to give this a watch though!
@mcc
The music on that show…! I mean…
@inthehands @mcc I once read that the vocals to this are by someone improbably famous. I think The Pointer Sisters?
@fishidwardrobe @mcc
Yup, that’s correct!
@inthehands @mcc Oh wow, I haven't seen that in ages!
@aerique @inthehands that's the Pointer Sisters, by the way. That is the actual Pointer Sisters singing
@aerique @inthehands wait somebody already said that
@mcc That's the mná-mná guy, where I'm from, but totally this, thanks!
@mcc OMG this unlocked a childhood memory for me; I remember seeing this when it first aired...
@mcc this is amazing, thank you.
It's also weird not knowing for sure whether I've seen this before (but if so, it wasn't in the last 30 years).
@mcc omg this is brilliant.
@clockworkfish I like the little funky rhythm section flourishes
@mcc you don’t have to convince me of anything in this regard. Muppet show album is proof all its own. Their cover of tenderly is funny and then you realize that they are really playing a good arrangement of the song
@griotspeak I think what really sells me is their version of "Fever". I have permanently associated that song with wild jazz drum solos
@mcc rare lore: in the Netherlands, Big Bird is always blue. When they localize American books and stuff that have yellow Big Bird, they say he’s blue Big Bird’s cousin
@0xabad1dea @mcc there's a whole bunch of big bird cousins all over the world!
@mcc Not on this one, but they had Bob Cranshaw, master jazz bassist just anchoring the show for like 30 years. They took the music seriously, they took the animation, the art, everything was deep and forward-thinking for a LONG time.
@mcc This is theeeeeee thing! You do your purpose well and to the limit without underestimating the primary audience, and making it a finger snapper for the secondary audience...
That's magic on TV!