American Idol Snark Station

That's right, Party People, American Idol's eleventy-millionth season started last night. LAST NIGHT. Can you believe it? Boxer and I couldn't; we flung a series of texts back and forth about 2pm PST that featured so many WTFs? and Where does time flys? and Please Make it Stops that I was beginning to feel like one of those geriatric dudes that sit around at coffee shops, hitching at their pants and lamenting about days gone by. I don't want to be one of those people. But that's life. After forty, it seems, ti-i-i-ime is no longer on your side. Time is rubber stamping "Use By Date: Expired" on the forehead of your former Metallica tee shirt-wearing, fifth of Jack-clutching happy-ass self and shoving a Snuggie over your head and cup of decaf green tea in your mitt.

Anyway. I'm speaking about time passing here, not necessarily about the former merits (Simon Cowell) of a show that is going decidedly stale on the shelf. And there is only so much snark I can muster for Steven Tyler's Tourette's-fueled monologues, J-Lo's ass, and Randy's Cliff Huxtable sweaters before I just want to go clutch all my Dead Kennedys records to my chest and curl up on the sofa thinking about the good old days when music mixed the bourgeoisie and the rebel.

So, there won't be any snark today. I don't think I can tolerate the audition portion of this show no more, no more. I'll leave it until perhaps Hollyweird week but maybe even until the final 20 or whatever that number is.

In the meantime, let's do something fun and have another music round up. This one is inspired by a comment Troll left on my Flock of Seagulls post about a category he has on his MP3 player (or whatever it is Troll uses to play music because we know it ain't the iPod like NORMAL PEOPLE. Ah-hem.) called "Weird Songs."

Which got ME thinking about weird songs. Not necessarily novelty songs, but instead songs that are quirky and bizarre, which, in spite of their possible dissonance and incomprehensibility, make a compelling kind of sense to your ear. Songs that you may even be embarrassed to like, until of course, someone else tells you that they love them too! and then you don't feel like such an idiot, but, rather, kind of hip and tuned into it all.

Here, I'll throw down a few:

1. Mexican Radio, Wall of Voodoo: "No comprende, it's a riddle."
2. Bird Song, Lene Lovich: "Still I watch the sky, still I wonder why."
3. The Magnificent Seven, the Clash: "A.M. the FM, the P.M. too, churning out that boogaloo."
4. Settle Down, Kimbra: "We'll call her Nebraska, Nebraska Jones."
5. Oh Superman, Laurie Anderson: "Cause when love is gone, there is always justice."
6. Eat to the Beat, Blondie: "Oh, you got a sweet tooth and I remember, standing on the corner with a piece of pizza."
7. Never Say Never, Romeo Void: "I might like you better if we slept together."
8. Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield version (it's her restrained, blue-eyed-soul rendition of this song that makes it so bizarre): "Being good isn't always easy."
9. Peaches & Cream, Beck: "Give those pious soldiers another lollipop."
10. It's No Game, David Bowie: "Silhouettes and shadows watch the revolution." Bowie's apology for the Thin White Duke, accompanied by Robert Fripp and a bunch of incomprehensible screaming in Japanese. Perhaps the greatest song ever written.

Now it's your turn . . .