More from the aughts on Nov. 8:
Kelly Clarkson, "Breakaway", one of these songs was from '05 but I think this one was from '04. I'll give Kelly credit for making a pretty good career out of her modest talent. I don't give her credit for being the one person that I mention to people that are "American Idol" fans that it sucks, essentially, and they come back with "Oh, Kelly Clarkson, she's great!" She has hung around, and I do give her credit for that. I'm guessing that even those "American Idol" fans can mention more than two or three of the people who actually won the thing. Some years the success anybody had was by the second banana or somebody lower than the actual winner. My biggest argument with "American Idol" is that I've heard so much good music knocked down by terrible arrangements and bad renditions of that music. I don't really watch the show, but I do hear it at times coming from other rooms when people in my house are watching it. I just can't handle having mangled Beatles and such. We live in a "reality" TV world. I noticed tonight that there's another season of "The Bachelor." And even "Survivor" has survived somehow.
Eminem, "Just Lose It", '04. I understand it took him or whoever wrote the lyrics (check this) minutes to do that. 4,700.
Terror Squad featuring Fat Joe and Remy, "Lean Back," '04. I think it's number 7 on the playlist. 4,750. It does have a bit of a beat that mixes it up.
Maroon 5, "She Will Be Loved," 4,200.
Now some of my listening from Nov. 9.
Rihanna, "S.O.S." I'm not sure of the year. 4,000.
Britney Spears, "Toxic", 2004. 3,800. I remember going to the Whitney Young Classic in '04 or '05. Both historically black colleges' bands played "Toxic", and I remember saying that it was an appropriate song to be playing at The Meadowlands. Who knows what's buried under there?
Bon Jovi, "Who Says You Can't Go Home", '05. It has a little country sound in there. 4,500.
Jennifer Lopez, "Waiting for Tonight", 2000. Pretty standard dance music. 4,625.
Simple Plan, "Perfect", I think '03. 4,650.
Vanessa Carlton, "A Thousand Miles". 2002, I believe. I also believe she's the one who looks like Michelle Branch. 4,500.
Jamie Foxx/T-Pain, "Blame It". I kind of got interested in the line at the end, "blame it on the a-ahc-a-ach-alcohol." 4,750.
Linkin Park, "Breaking the Habit". Nothing really to recommend this over a few thousand other songs. 4,800.
Janet Jackson, "Someone to Call My Lover", 2001. 4,700.
Those must have been songs I listened to on my way home from the American Airlines Center after midnight, because I also have songs from Nov. 9 that were from the '90s on Sirius XM Channel 9.
This was another Downtown Julie Brown Back in the Day Replay. Number 28 on the list from this week in '93 is K7 with "Come Baby Come". May be a little suggestive. Early in the song, they rhyme innuendo with crescendo. I didn't record my score, so I'll have to listen to this again.
Number 27 is DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, "Boom! Shake the Room". I remember that in the '90s I used to work at basketball games at the University of Rochester, this was very popular at least for the "Tick ... Tick ... Tick ... Tick Boom!" lyric, I think when the team was on a roll. Also, Fresh Prince came into my life last year when I played fantasy basketball for the first time in an ESPN.com league. It was allegedly Los Angeles-based, so I figured I needed an LA name for my team. I was thinking of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and I named my team Fresh Prints, which also refers to the fact that I've done a lot of work in print journalism. And I won the league after having a terrible start. I'm having a terrible start this year, so maybe I'll do better. 4,100 for Jazzy Jeff.
Number 26: Gin Blossoms, "Hey Jealousy", I guess '93. 4,150. These last two are pretty good, and I realize they could move up when I find I have more songs below 4,000 than above.
Shy, "Baby I'm Yours". This is a song that has no idea what it is. Is it a sappy ballad, is it smooth mellow soul out of its time, is it danceable as some kind of scaled-down hip hop? 4,900, and that might be generous. There's also spoken-word in here, adding to the confusion.
Rod Stewart, "Reason to Believe". 3,900.
I was talking to Margaret (M-Tex) about rap music and trying to understand it. She said to her it's a story, and really it's deep-down roots are in recitative opera. That's something we can explore. Again on Margaret, there is a fairly prevalent string part in "Reason to Believe". I'm guessing that she probably played that when she was in concert with Rod as part of his orchestra, I think in the early aughts when he played in Lubbock.
Blind Melon, "No Rain". 4,300. Julie Brown mentioned something about this with a video with a bee girl in it.
Tupac/Digital Underground, I think it's "I Get Around". I just realized that it ended. I got kind of tired of listening to it. It's not Tupac's best, and I don't think it's Digital Underground's worst either. Cough, cough ... Humpty Dance. On the Tupac fred, I'll give it 4,350.
Mariah Carey, "Hero", listed as 1994. 4,200, maybe a little higher.
Inner Circle, I forget the name of the song. It goes, "la la la la la la la long, long time." 4,400
Aerosmith, "Cryin'". 300, maybe higher. You may recall that in an earlier post I rated it at 250, and said possibly higher. Part of my premise in this project is that our perception and our opinion of music is affected by our mood at a particular time, which in turn is influenced by the music we hear. So I'm guessing that in the final analysis, "Cryin'" will be between 200 and 300.
Aaliyah, "(You Are Love)", 1994. Just a kind of love song. 4,500, giving the late Aaliyah the benefit of the doubt.
Third Eye Blind, "Semi-Charmed Life", 1997. 1,500.
Madonna, "Ray of Light," 1998. As I listened, I kept dropping this down, got to 4,500.
Montell Jordan, "This Is How We Do It", 1998. I think I had this one the other night and gave it 4,000 or 4,100, which sounds about right.
Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit". I think I had this one the other night too, and it was around 1,500 to 1,800.
Bone Thuggz and Harmony, not sure what song, from '96. And I didn't record my score.
Roxette, "Fading Like a Flower", 1991. 4,450.
Smash Mouth, "Walking on the Sun", I forget which year, maybe mid-'90s. 4,025.
Paula Abdul, "Opposites Attract", 1990. Seemed as if she was trying to bridge the gap between dance music and hip hop a little bit. 4,400.
Tracy Chapman, "Give Me One Reason", I'm pretty sure '96. 4,250. It was kind of bluesy, and that was pretty much like swimming upstream at that time. It was interesting for its time.
Will Smith, "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It", 1998. This is one of those things that was really big at the time and when you look back at it, you wonder whether that came in from some alternative universe. Will Smith rapping. This is a phrase that became popular, but any time a white parent said "get jiggy wit it," their children were mortified for weeks if not months afterward, that the parent ever uttered those words. I think Jada Pinkett-Smith has done a good job playing a bad girl on "Gotham," so at least she can be cast against type. After all that, I didn't give Will a rating.
Sugar Ray, "Falls Apart", 1999. This was a group that had some ascendency in the late '90s, so its longevity is a little more than a shooting star. And that reminds me of my fantasy hockey team this year, the Shooting Stars. The irony there is that the worst thing the Shooting Stars do is shooting.
Color Me Badd, "I Want to Sex You Up", I believe 1991. I never said that to any woman, but I think that if I did I'd get the same reaction as if I said, "I want to get jiggy wit it." 4,450 for "I Want to Sex You Up." Not you.
Next is recording #70 from Nov. 11.
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