At one time I was very into music and it was a big part of my life. With that came the worst archetype of the music world: the asshole who knows everything about music and thinks your taste sucks.
Not surprisingly, this archetype was always a man.
Which is why I greatly enjoy this song, as it seems to skewer a particular brand of music asshole. I was all about music, but, given the constraints of the time, I could only listen to the music that played on the radio, MTV and stuff that I could buy myself or tape off of stuff that my friends bought. My music tastes were as broad as it could be, but there were huge gaps, which asshole blowhard music guy was always happy to remind me about.
A good detail from Heavier Than Heaven, Charles Cross’s extensive biography of Kurt Cobain, was the large music gaps Cobain had. Which, of course he did, he was a poor kid with a Walmart for a music store. I remember a scene in the book where a now-famous Cobain was blissing out to something like Peter Frampton’s “Baby I Love Your Way” and the other musicians in the room–for which this was a completely cheesy song–were unsure if he was serious or not.
I afforded my rock & roll lifestyle as much as I could, but there were many people who could outspend me.
I also greatly love Cake, whose music is sort of a 90s-era cool oasis for me. Plus they have horns. I’m a sucker for a good horn part. When we saw them several years ago, the horn player was a hard working man, covering not just the horn parts, but also backup vocals and extraneous rhythm things.
As a side note, I was interested to note that the guitar riff in this song reminds me of one in one of my favorite Cake ditties, “Stick Shifts and Safety Belts”
Also, the above video is weird.
It’s such a weird thing, to be a music snob, given that taste is entirely subjective. Someone having different tastes than you doesn’t make them *lesser* but some people seem to have a very difficult time grasping that. Musically, there are few things that annoy me more than people who hate popular music just because it’s popular. Whether you like it or not, it’s popular for a reason (i.e. because it appeals to a wide audience). There are plenty of bands I like that are relatively obscure (The D.O.T., for example) but I’m not above liking stuff that’s on the radio (I own several One Direction songs).
I was never a big fan of Cake, but I had a friend in college who was REALLY into them, so hearing their music always brings back fond memories of him.
Boy do I love Cake, too! I own Fashion Nugget. Thanks for sharing this song! I had not heard it before.