Hip-hop marmalade spic and span

[koganbot]

Just posted this on Dave's tumblr, my disagreeing with his designating LFO's "Summer Girls" a novelty song and with his contention that LFO are trying to be really stupid:

The song doesn't feel like a novelty to me, but rather just what it seems to be, a summertime song that's steeped in a haze of free-associative nostalgia. And none of the lyrics come across as stupid or strange in that context, since their premise is that a particular time and place, and friendships with particular people, will call forth particular associations. So New Kids had a bunch of hits (yeah, OK, a summer ten years earlier, more or less), Chinese food makes him sick (a reference to a particular incident, you can see it happening among him and his friends), Shakespeare and Paul Revere (not as clear a picture, maybe Will S. is assigned summer reading; LFO are from Massachusetts where Paul Revere's ride is part of official local history, the Boston Marathon run each year on the ride's anniversary), the mixture of references we understand and those we don't making perfect sense given this premise. Rather skillful, I think, more effectively dreamy than it would be without the idiosyncrasies. But not a novelty, given that summer songs are something you get every summer.

Comments

[koganbot]

(But I don't necessarily see the song referencing a particular summer to the exclusion of others; rather, just calling forth times and feelings, perhaps a number of summers.)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

to me it's a novelty because they were one hit wonders (something i don't think dave gives enough weight to, but i would say is pretty key) and because the lyrics are really really odd, not dumb, but just referenceing a whole world of things i didn't know about (there was 0 abercrombie & fitch in the UK at that point).

also "i like kevin bacon, but i hate footloose".

and it's the music, not the lyrics that made it a hit i'd contend, it's a gorgeous chorus, regardless of what's being sung over the top of it.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Lies! They were two-hit wonders; the other one was 'girl on tv' which is in the same vein. I have both on my iPhone since I am obviously extremely cool.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I'm still not entirely sure what I'd define as a 'novelty' song, because I can always find a counter example in each definition/category that I would not class as 'novelty':

- Charity songs? [half the Children In Need singles seem to be charitable as an afterthought - cf Spice Girls comeback single]
- One-hit wonders? [any number of anonymous chart-topping bosh DJs that are never heard of again eg Tomcraft]
- Stuff for kids? [would hardly call the Disney juggernaut novelty given its ongoing & total success]
- Songs sung by people who were famous for doing something else before they took up singing? [This is more like it, the only counter-eg I can think of is Lily Allen who wasn't really *that* famous as a celeb sprog before her pop career started - well outweighed by awful comedians/Jamster ringtones/Bob the bluddy Builder]
- Doing something *novel*? [HAHAHAHAHA no-one these days wastes a good new idea on a novelty tune]

Probably a combination of two or more categories above is needed. I think I'll go back to Dave's original list and see just how many of them I'd let through my novelty filter...

[koganbot]

Yes, "novelty" is something we have a feel for but can't necessarily define. Family resemblance: not every novelty has the features of *all* novelties. Rolf Harris had only one hit in the U.S. but a lot in Britain, right? But I had the impression that everything he did was a novelty. Ray Stevens, who did "Ahab the Arab" and "The Streak" only hit with novelties early on but then he became a somewhat serious country singer. Shel Silverstein would write novelty songs - Dr. Hook had a couple of hits with his material - but also wrote serious tracks, "One's On The Way" for Loretta Lynn and "The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan" for Marianne Faithfull.

He isn't just one of the guys

[koganbot]

Would Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" (by Silverstein) be a novelty, or is it something else? (Cash obviously not a one-hit wonder.)

What about "Where's The Dress?"? (I'd say definitely.) Not as sure about Phil Vassar's "Bobbi With An i," which doesn't sound like a novelty (and will probably make my country top 30 this year).

Re: He isn't just one of the guys

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Dunno about J. Cash - if he had teamed up with T-Pain for the remix I'd reconsider (see Dave's journal where I have expanded on the above)

Re: He isn't just one of the guys

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

But saying that I can think of a couple of country tracks I'd label 'novelty' - Kendal Carson's 'I Like Trucks', for example. My lack of country knowledge may render this inaccurate however: I'm basing this judgement on the fact that:

- it's a v silly song
- I don't know any of her other songs (so assumed 'one-hit wonder')
- audience participation (might as well have a dance routine)
- actual novelty value = I don't know any other songs about trucks apart from 'I Like Trucking' which is a comedy sketch in itself...

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i can confirm that everything rolf did was a novelty, yes... ;)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Left a few more comments on this one at the Tumblr, but to paraphrase here:

(1) I fundamentally agree with how Frank characterizes the song, and my use of "stupid" is too harsh. "Arbitrary and strange" is more accurate. But

(2) That still qualifies it as a novelty for me, as not every novelty has to shove its literal novelty in yer face ("Girlfriend" shoves everything in your face but still essentially sounds like a Dr. Luke derivative, and "Tap That" is both better AND more novel!). I can't imagine any other song that "reads" anything like "Summer Girls," except

(3) Then I remembered someone mentioning that "steal your honey like I stole your bike" is a quote from the Beastie Boys song "New Style," and looking at those lyrics, the similarities in lyrical approach slapped me in the face. LFO were looking for the union between the Beastie and Backstreet Boys, and damned if they didn't find something interesting. "Paul Revere" could well be a Beasties nod as well. I'm going to do a line by line look and try to reconstruct the free-associative jam session Rich Cronin ("said my name was Rich!") may have gone through to write the song in the first place, since as far as I know no one has ever actually looked to see how these lyrics might fit together before.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

And even if "stupid" is definitely the wrong word for it (my issue with that word is that can confer actual stupidity on the writer, which isn't my intention here) I think it's hard to argue that "Summer Girls" isn't very silly!

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Thing is, I'm guessing that the Beasties and Backstreets were essentially from the same places, generally speaking -- suburban, seeming to be "imposters" or imitators in what they were doing (hence "boyband" sticks to BSBs, NSync, etc. hearkening back to NKOTB, even though BSBs sounded very little like NKOTB and much more like, say, Boyz II Men -- Boyz right in the name yet they weren't a "boyband"). I can imagine a Rich Cronin taking great solace in the Beasties, especially when thrown into the Lou Pearlman universe of boyband construction -- aside from being popular among the demographic pretty generally they also offer someone like Cronin a way out of the biz world's baggage -- respect on his own terms. Which sounds like what he kind of wanted (out of the biz world's baggage) in the few interviews I've read of him (he did a big one with Howard Stern recently).

Re: He isn't just one of the guys

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

It seems like country has had what mainstream pop seems to have now much longer -- an appreciation for novelty that has no real barrier for entry on the charts. Toby Keith's entire career has been based on what you might (but probably shouldn't) argue are a series of novelties. But again the context kind of makes the bar for novelty entry higher, so you really need some extra kick or hook.

[koganbot]

Not that this is particularly relevant, but I don't think that either the Beasties or the Backstreet Boys are particularly suburban (though it depends on how you define suburban). The Beastie Boys are from New York City. The Backstreet Boys were assembled in Orlando, where a couple of them were from, but they're from all over (Nick Carter is from a small city in western New York; another is from Lexington, Kentucky; another originally from West Palm Beach).

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I guess what I really mean in all honesty is "goofy white boys doing black music."

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

And perhaps a better word than suburban would be "safe." You don't need to literally be of suburbia to nonetheless shelter your audience from the assumed dangers of "pure" strains of whatever is you're deviating from.

[koganbot]

Beastie Boys didn't seem safe to me, any more than Eminem did. They're punks. (Not that they seemed "dangerous," but they were hardly milder than labelmates Run-DMC and LL Cool J.)

LFO

[(Anonymous)]

Summer Girls was just a fun song and turned out to be a big part of the summer for a lot of people. It's humorous how it bothered some people so.

Brad - LFO

twitter.com/thereallfo