Italians Do The Stanky Leg, Too

We did it again.

Considering there has not been a new post in well over a month, some people might consequently deem this blog “lazy,” “effortless,” “unintelligent,” “defunct,” “stupid,” or other derogatory descriptors.

Well, that’s not nice. Stop it.

Three-fifths of the current writing staff are currently studying abroad, whereas the other two are assuredly busy at work doing what college students do. Needless to say, this is reason enough for the abrupt and probably inevitable stoppage in posting.

Until now. (Cue the fanciful fanfare.)

Having been more or less immersed in Italian culture for the past five-plus weeks, I thought it would be an opportune time to answer the most burning question that everyone wants to know about my experience in Italy: How’s the tunes, brah?

It was certainly a mystifying topic that I pondered before departing for my semester abroad in Italy for four months. To be honest, I really was unaware of what to expect to hear over here. I mean, did this semester spell the end of all English-speaking tuneage for a whopping (almost) four months? Would Italians share America’s penchant for overplaying to-be-classic American tunes like “Poker Face” and Flo Rida’s ubiquitous “Low”?

No and um, yeah, sort of, respectively. Surprisingly, there has been an overwhelming amount of American music being played here. Perhaps it is the limited number of public locations with music that I have been to that has skewed my perception. However, just like with my lovely previous employer, here is a novel-sized dissertation on what I have discovered thus far.

In essence, the most adequate summation of the music here would have to be some combination of a small sample of recent, popular songs, coupled with arbitrary, sometimes forgotten pop gems from the past, spiced up with a dash of left-field gems to provide some pizazz. Let me explain.

The music should probably be divided into two categories: Nightlife and Not Nightlife. In the smaller Not Nightlife division, we have “21 Guns” by Green Day. That’s about it. Seriously, I must hear this song every place I meander around here. It could be a lot worse, but “21 Guns” is 21^st Century Breakdown’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”: Melancholy, extremely crossover, beyond over-played, and, um, not what I would call “Green Day’s magnum opus,” to put it über-lightly.

The award for “Most Pleasantly ‘Popular’ Song of ‘09” may have to go to “Daniel” by Bat for Lashes. Not only did it infiltrate the otherwise stagnant Kohl’s playlist, but I have heard it in three different locales here in Italy, including the supermarket of all places. I always thought the song was just one degree away from being just another pop song with a female singer, but “Daniel” is still one big degree away from being lumped in with the rest of the scrap heap. Two Suns, and especially “Daniel” in particular, are some of my favorites of the year, and if weren’t for those pesky instant classics by those other hyped indie darlings, “Daniel” could have a shot at Song of the Year. It is such a strange feeling to hear such a good song in such a bizarre place (that is, anywhere but your iPod or iTunes.) I’m not going to complain, because it could be (pick your favorite Top 40 female pop artist), but it is almost like the song loses its extraordinary aura when it is played at a supermarket with the utmost nonchalance.

One of the cool things about living in Italy is I live with a host family, including a college-bound host brother and a 10-year-old one. On several occasions, the 10-year-old one has sung some American songs, despite knowing basically no English. The reverse situation would be kind of funny: What if your 10-year-old American brother started singing or was simply bombarded with all Italian music? Here, it is kind of expected, considering America’s surprising influence on almost all forms of media (a lot of the TV is just dubbed versions of American classics. I Simpson, for one.) Anyway, Katy Perry’s “I’m not just a one-hit-faux-lesbian-wonder” follow-up to “I Kissed a Girl,” “Hot N Cold”, has been uttered by my little host brother, as has the inescapable “Poker Face” by the ambiguously hermaphroditic Lady Gaga. It is a shame that this is the music that gets imported, but did I really expect Dominico to be humming “My Girls” by Animal Collective? Alas, only in a perfect world.

Most of the other instances of music in Italy have come at a variety of bars and clubs throughout the country. The trend seems to be the same, however: It’s the same shit you would find at a typical American bar or club. You’ve got your Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, you’ve got your Flo Rida and Soulja Boy, and so on and so forth. And that God forsaken new Pitbull song. If it was “Bojangles,” I’d let it pass, because it has a sick beat. But, instead, every 19.3 seconds, he feels compelled to count to four IN TWO LANGUAGES. How talented! Fuck Pitbull and fuck that song, especially because it has an infernal capacity to remain stuck in one’s head for hours. Also, for whatever reason, almost every place I have been has been treating DMX’s 1999 pop crossover classic “Party Up (Up in Here)” like it is going to go out of style. A random aberration among the otherwise typically recent music played, but it is definitely noticeable to a meticulous music nerd like me.

True story: One of the more popular rendezvous points for nighttime bar hopping is one bar that plays its music from a 24/7 music video channel. I have seen some videos multiple times in only a few visits (despite the song, Shakira’s “She Wolf” video is hot as shit) but most of them are “meh” at best. One time, Daft Punk’s “Around the World” came on, though. I was super-stoked. No one else seemed to have a clue who they were or what the song was. I died a little on the inside. True story. This is a microcosm of why Flo Rida will always be on the airwaves and a catchy-as-fuck band like Passion Pit will not. I might as well make this my college Honors Thesis.

I have cracked the 1,000-word barrier, which probably means I should stop furiously clacking away on my laptop. Whatever, this is the first entry since August. Savor it, because at this point, no one knows when the next one could be. Don’t think of us as “dead”, we prefer “consistently hibernating.” Until next time (?), stay golden, Ponyboy.

Review: Kohl's radio

What?

In an effort to have more posts in a single calendar month since the frigid, truncated month of February, I present to you, the hypothetical reader, an in-depth analysis of the music played at the department store known as Kohl's.

Exactly. What?

Re: Absurdity and obscurity of this post, consider me a recently-liberated employee of the reasonably-priced clothing store. Having just finished my last day before my next endeavor (i.e., studying abroad in Italy. i.e., if humanly possible, even less updates than now!), I couldn't help but reflect on the music that the store selectively played.

Perhaps a slice of unimportant minutiae for some (read: typical) employees, also consider me an atypical employee. I took careful notice of the music every day I was forced into this working establishment. It really wasn't all that careful of notice, however, since the store recycles its songs essentially every day, just in some different order. Y'know, to keep shit fresh, yo.

YES, THAT MEANS I WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HEAR NICKELBACK EVERY TIME I WORKED! Better yet, because of the seemingly randomized nature of the playlist, it was always such a pleasant surprise to hear Chad's dulcet tones out of the blue. Indeed, a breath of fresh air from all of the other shit.

Of course, I jest, I could never take a Nickelback joke quite that far. As expected for a family-oriented, PG-rated, well-established department store like Kohl's, all of the songs are inoffensive and relatively tame in both musical and lyrical nature. God forbid they offend any of their dedicated clientele, which could accurately be summed up as a majority of "middle-aged housewives in varying shapes and sizes." Alas, that means none of Nickelback's better cuts, like "Animals" or their more recent couldn't-be-more-obvious sexual romp "Something In Your Mouth", were played ad nauseum. It was more along the lines of their "attempt to be crossover and adult contemporary."

Think for a second. Nickelback, who can't even do their main genre any justice whatsoever, attempting to do adult contemporary. Let that sink in. Then, realize I had to hear one or two of these gems every fucking day. If you couldn't tell, I don't like them all that much.

Moving on, because God knows I could blab about those Canadians forever (they don't even have flappy heads, the assholes.) To sum up so far, yes, they played a share of generic, throwaway adult contempo shit that truly was forgettable and unnoticeable. I think it's a requirement. Can't have music that distracts the precious customer from the pseudo-deals over which they're salivating.

Although debatable, I'm not entirely a cynical asshole. There actually were some bright spots in the redundant radio. There were a few tolerable '90s jams, for one. Sugar Ray's breakthrough hit "Fly" could be heard in the store. Unfortunately, it was the utterly neutered version without Super Cat. Is a quasi-rapping black dude too offensive for Kohl's? Like, really? I guess this version is actually on the studio album, but I had never heard it before. Again, "neutered" really sums up the track well. As does flaccid. Other '90s songs making the presitigious Kohl's cut were Matchbox 20's ubiquitous "3 a.m.", No Doubt's "Just A Girl", Barenaked Ladies' magnum opus "One Week", and OMC's "How Bizarre." That last one there. What a treat.

In general, though, most of the songs were relatively recent, and a couple were actually solid. One of my favorite songs of 2009, "Daniel" by Bat For Lashes, for whatever fucking reason, infiltrated the monotony of Kohl's radio and truly and quite literally was a bright spot, considering the job and other songs. My Morning Jacket's "Thank You Too" was there too, but to be honest, it's not their best song by any means, and upon first hearing it, I did a double-take, thinking it was just another shitty AM radio classic. "Walking on a Dream", by Empire of the Sun, a random song I don't mind, is also there, and totally out of place, as well.

It's been shot, castrated and ripped apart for a few years now, but Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" is too classic to say it sucks, and clearly one of the best songs in Kohl's rotation. A brain dead DJ could think of "Crazy", but "Daniel"? Baffling, I really wish I knew the qualifications for songs played there.

A trifecta of Coldplay songs made its way to the Kohl's radio waves: "Yellow", "Viva La (fucking) Vida" and surprisingly "Life in Technicolor II". Like Gnarls, Coldplay is an obvious safe bet. "Life in Technicolor II" was certainly a pleasant surprise and choice among the Coldplay songs. The good news: Weezer is on there, too. The disappointing news: It's "Island in the Sun". I have absolutely nothing wrong with it. But, Jesus, could you imagine "We Are All On Drugs"? Although, considering the no-balls version of "Fly" eluded to earlier, it would probably be the awful music video edit.

In order to pass time (ahem), I utilized one of my favorite discoveries of the year: Verizon's Song ID app. It's a totally free application and it is free to use, and it tells you the title, artist and album of a song playing at any given moment. Impressively, it picked up the songs from the Bose speakers overhead, so I could put a name to the songs I loathed so much.

In reality, I discovered three songs worth illegally downloading from the cyclical song list, and two of them are borderline "well, they're not awful" choices (Ben Lee and Jem). The third is pretty legit and another head-scratcher, Iggy Pop's "The Passenger", from all the way back in 1977, much more elderly than anything else being spun.

Then, there was Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry", essentially negating any positives that could have been ascertained.

To wrap this bullshit up, for every halfway decent song, there were about four bad-to-awful ones, and even the decent songs that you'd look forward to among the sea of horseshit would start to deteriorate in quality because you'd hear them every fucking day.

I do not anticipate ever returning to Kohl's as an employee, unless it is to specifically hijack their satellite radio. So concludes my mind-numbingly excruciating analysis on the most bogglingly random topic about which a music blog could babble. Sorry to waste your time. We return you to your regularly-scheduled hiatus, already in progress.

/Breaking the fourth wall in every post like it's my job

Rating: