Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best Comments

Shocking discovery of the day: Redfoo was already 35 when this song hit #1. Yet another example of the Ting Tings effect, where novelty glasses take years off a man's real age.

I’ve heard good things about these guys. Worth checking out?

As a parent of two elementary schoolers, this song is still in relatively high rotation for that crowd. At school concerts, at parties, at dance shows, wherever high energy music is needed. Maybe it's because there's not a massive wealth of music in the last decade that hits all of these:

• Highly recognizable by the adults making song choices

• High energy/'fun'/danceable

• Hooks for days

• No dirty lyrics in the chorus

(There's not NONE of this - Uptown Funk exists, for instance - but it's in shorter supply than it should be.)

Jesus fuck, between this and the bandcamp news, it feels like the music industry chodes looked at the writers strike and said “let’s just kill them all before they can do anything”

I'm afraid it's the same grift that the whole rest of the country is running in the wholesale devaluation of the arts. 'You should do it because you love it, and even if you don't make money on Spotify, you'll still get eXpOsUrE.' To be alive and do anything remotely creative with yourself in this country is basically to sign up for a permanent unpaid internship.

It's a great, great record. In and of itself it's not my favorite B-52s song- that would be my first, 'Rock Lobster,' which seemed back then to belong entirely to people our age.

But here's the thing- my mother's maiden name is spelled with about 63 consonants, but pronounced Shack. So I remember various cousins being serenaded on the dance floor at their weddings-'Tommy Shack!'- and most memorably, everyone at my sister's wedding chanting 'Bob Shack!' for my uncle, who'd just had his 70th birthday, as he and my aunt showed off their prizewinning dancing in the center. And this is another thing I love about pop music, the weird, wonderful ways it can lodge in your life.

And Flying Up The Modern Rock Charts On Its Way To Peaking at No.3… it’s time to “REACH OUT AND TOUCH FAITH!!!” with Depeche Mode and “Personal Jesus.”

I don’t know how original or hot a take this is, but I’ll just put it out there: “Violator” is the synth-pop “The Joshua Tree.”

Think about it: a decade into their career a cult-band from the other side of the Atlantic break into the American market, by hanging out in the desert a lot and wearing cowboy hats. Also by playing something vaguely approximating “the blues.” Very vaguely in this case.

The success of both bands appeared to be related, at least partially, to singing about religion. In the case of U2 I’m mostly thinking about “I Still Haven’t Found…” More specifically, both bands seem bemused by the commercialization of religion a la the existence of television evangelists, a la Bono’s ‘the God I worship isn’t short of cash, mister!” on “Bullet The Blue Sky.” To be fair, I’m pretty sure feeling bemused by the existence of television evangelists is pretty much standard for anyone visiting America.

Having said that, “Personal Jesus” is apparently not about a 1800 number you can call to speak to a dedicated 24-hour Jesus. It’s about Elvis – another Bono-infatuation as it happens, he wrote a poem about Elvis once, every line beginning with elvis – or at least, the way Priscilla thought about Elvis. None of which really explains the bit where they sound like a dog panting.

Even the rose on the “Violator” cover is a sickly looking twig, not unlike a Joshua Tree, but smaller, and more red.

“Personal Jesus” is a 9.

My feelings as a Gen-Zer who grew up to this can be roughly summarized by the old storkknees adage:

Is this a good song? Not really

Has it aged well? Not really

Is it one of the greatest #1 songs of all time? Yes, absolutely

I love this song without reservation. I have vaguely music-theory-adjacent reasons for this, but mostly it just makes me feel deeply warm feelings.

Not saying this is the case but I’m just imagining being in my 50s and sweaty Billy Corgan is dressed like a space pope and chewing me out like JK Simmons in Whiplash.

I haven’t had much time it listen to new music. I got married yesterday! We eloped with my siblings and some of our friends as witnesses. Listen to the Stop Making Sense version of “This Must Be the Place” for me and the Mrs.