The best quote was from Bob George, director of the Archive of Contemporary Music: “These are songs people would recognize if they were white, middle-class, and old. It’s a great list for people who go to baseball games.” Isn’t that the truth?

 
This is made much more funnier in light of the fact that the show that lead into the Britney-bash-athon was a show about Eminem being a bad influence on popular culture, littered with comments by him stating that parents should be responsible for their children’s behavior and it’s all in good fun.

While Shep Pettibone did produce much of Madonna’s best music, “Justify My Love” was not one of them. That fine song was the work of none other than Lenny Kravitz, who also sings a spot of backup. Pettibone does have a remix on the single, but it’s not very good. Maybe she should try Lenny again; he’s easily better than William Bloody Orbit.

I know the sports song isn’t a purely American phenomenon; other countries have made a big event out of the soccer/football song. Why does this urge exist though? The songs are invariably awful, but people buy them. So, I’ve asked the question in I Love Music, and I’m truly curious as to who listens to these songs and why they exist. Some of them have become huge hits, like “The Cup Of Life”, so obviously someone loves them.

“Holler” is the sort of song that Rodney Jerkins has been doing for about 5 years now, with increasingly lower levels of success. It’s the kind of thing that just exists – you never overly notice it, unless forced to, and will quickly slip away after the initial, name-driven hit. Sort of like Kid A. The song is blandly inoffensive until Melanie C comes in. Whoever convinced this girl that she can sing and that screeching amounts to singing deserves a slap or two, because they’ve wrought some horrible stuff upon us. When she starts shrieking over the song at the end, I just have to wonder, “These girls, the ones that hammered Geri Halliwell until she was in tears (supposedly, etc), refuse to tell Melanie C to shut up? She’s not even muscular anymore”. I just don’t get why she gets all the flash parts of their songs. She’s not even as good a singer as Emma – Emma for god’s sake – and quite frankly I think her singles make that Posh Spice single look good. She was just this side of bearable when they first started and they insisted they all had to share the songs equally, even with the ones who couldn’t sing a note, but now she seems to have convinced everyone involved that she’s the stuff of this operation and should be allowed full scale racket over all that is done. U. G. H. Didn’t the producers actually hear that terrible Ibiza-style song that she did? You’d think that’d convince them otherwise, but of course not. We’re talking the same producer who thinks Jennifer Lopez is a hot talent.

Actually, I take that all back. The worst part of the song is when he starts doing that blathery shout out to the Spice Girls. “Spice Girls in the house, huh huh” or whatever he does actually say – when did the Spice Girls become bad asses? Next they’ll have inexplicable Snoop Dogg cameos in their videos, where he sits and watches them wash his car in a tarty fashion.

My only curiousity is what the Spice Girls themselves were thinking. I can’t imagine they all think this is a good song – for that matter, I can’t imagine anyone thinking this is a good song. Did they honestly think this would get them adult recognition? It’s a somewhat worrisome idea – I’d hate to think of Britney Spears doing some rubbish like this to get respect. Respect is such an overblown, overrated concept, especially if you believe you have to do clutter like this to get it.