The Music Snob » Humor

Political Ambition Inversely Related to Musical Integrity

brian — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:12:18 +0000

A recent study by TheMusicSnob.com’s “Data Analysis and Electioneering Center” has revealed a strong inverse correlation between “musical integrity” and “political ambition”, which you can see from the graph below:

Many in the music community are not terribly surprised, given the historical association between teen pop and political campaigning. Richard Nixon was known for his New Kids on the Block impressions, and Andrew Jackson once auditioned for American Idol.

Working Class Heroes

More recently, Hillary Clinton was seen at an open mic in an Irish bar, singing limericks and identifying with the working class. And word has it that the McCain campaign is filming a new music video for Madonna’s 1986 hit “Papa Don’t Preach”, featuring Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter.

The Threshold of Delusions

One odd result of the statistical analysis is what they are calling the “Threshold of Delusions” (see the graph). This is the point at which a politician becomes convinced that his actions are divinely guided (meaning, God is telling him what to do). This point marks a brief upward blip on the “musical integrity” axis, as it is usually accompanied by a sudden fondness for Gospel music and Gregorian chant, which are pretty cool.

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If you’d like to see the horrors of politics made plain through the humorous wisdom of John Stewart, take a trip to this link:

Oh The Horror

The only thing this really has to do with music is that it reminds us how lucky we are to be obsessed with music, instead of spending our lives lying to people and religiously misleading the public. Enjoy your weekends and sing us a song to keep us warm…

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Appetite for Western Destruction

brian — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:23:34 +0000

Newly uncovered documents have revealed details of an old Soviet propaganda plan, in which Guns N Roses’ 1987 album, Appetite for Destruction, was to be turned into a 12-episode mini-series on the rise and triumph of Communism. During Vladimir Putin’s hair band days in the KGB, he was known to blare “18 and Life” by Skid Row during interrogations. But only now has his interest in GNR as a propaganda vehicle come to light.

Below is a plot outline taken from the “Appetite for Western Destruction” comic books, which were distributed in Soviet kindergartens and mining camps in anticipation of the ill-fated mini-series.

Episode 1 – Welcome to the Jungle

Dressed in leather, Lenin rides a horse into pre-Communist Vladivostock. He is overwhelmed by the sight of girls in short skirts and the smiles of potato vendors.

Episode 2 – It’s So Easy

Lenin tricks the entire czarist government into joining a tribe of donkeys in Siberia. The power vacuum enables his quick ascension to power.

Episode 3 – Nightrain

After Lenin succumbs to illness, Stalin spends Soviet resources to build a train from Moscow to Tahiti. To prevent an exodus of Russian peasants to the tropical islands, the train runs only after the 8pm curfew.

Episode 4 – Out Ta Get Me

Stalin’s paranoia gets the better of him. In addition to using body doubles when hunting in the countryside, he hires an additional 17,354 secret agents.

Episode 5 – Mr. Brownstone

Stalin’s uncle Boris moves to Brooklyn, where he opens a pastry shop. He recruits Soviet sympathizers and holds card games in his basement.

Episode 6 – Paradise City

Residents of Leningrad and Stalingrad compete in a friendly fight for the “Russia’s Most Soviet City” Award. After gaining an early lead, Leningrad loses ground during the three-legged race and comes in 2nd.

Episode 7 – My Michelle

To prevent Russian temptation by Western excesses, the politburo stages a musical about a Ukrainian prostitute name Michelle. The six-hour medley based on Wagner’s Ring Cycle airs weekly on national radio.

Artistic Representation of "Michelle"

Episode 8 – Think About You

Soviet agents are seen removing “The Thinker” statue from Rodin’s garden, having time traveled to 1902 Paris to subvert rationalist ideology.

Episode 9 – Sweet Child O’ Mine

Russian children are shown holding hands and singing “We are the World,” which had not yet been recorded by Western pop stars.

Episode 10 – You’re Crazy

American President Grover Cleveland and some other guy are shown playing tether ball in front of the White House. Democracy is personified by a broken stapler, resting on a desk in a nearby sanitarium.

Episode 11 – Anything Goes

Exemplifying the importance of individual sacrifice for Mother Russia, this animated fable shows Goldilocks and the Three Bears sharing their porridge with Little Red Riding Hood. All five are then executed.

Episode 12 – Rocket Queen

The final episode of “Appetite for Western Destruction” was to celebrate Soviet victory in the space race. A secret colony of Soviet monkeys was established on Jupiter, and where they were to appear in a reality TV show extolling the merits of space Communism and intergalactic bread shortages.

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War on Terror Responsible for Low CD Sales

brian — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:25:06 +0000

As we all know, CD sales have continued to drop over the past several years. The thugs of the recording industry (RIAA) consistently blame illegal downloading and filesharing, but today a new study brings to light a startling correlation:

After much statistical analysis, it is now clear that the drop in CD sales can be attributed to the Bush administration’s “War on Terror”, the public relations campaign that it began in September of 2001.

The study’s most disturbing findings were:

9% of Americans are now too scared to hang out at the mall.
14% of all music consumers enlisted in the military, and now they can’t afford to buy CDs.
2% of American music consumers had the last name Bin Laden and were flown out of the USA by the Bush administration just after 9/11.
By 2001, every single American owned Dark Side of the Moon and Thriller.
30,000 Americans saw the video of Attorney General John Ashcroft singing and no longer listen to music.
All 5,000,000 copies of the Backstreet Boys’ last album were sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Guns ‘N Roses hasn’t released an album in 15 years.
Dick Cheney has been too busy crushing souls to keep up with his CD of the Month Club.

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Graph of the Week

brian — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:22:43 +0000

And finally, I think we all need to take a break from the dollars and cents once in a while and focus on what really matters, which is HAVING FUN. The following may or may not be part of a soon-to-be regular feature of TheMusicSnob.com.

Graph of the Week

Recent experiments in laboratory conditions indicate that humans are capable of simultaneous interest and uninterest. From the graph we see that, at a zero interest level, the human also experiences zero uninterest, rendering the specimen essentially catatonic. As the interest level increases, so does the potential for greater uninterest.

The Britney Spears Effect

This helps explain the Britney Spears phenomenon: How millions of people can view photos of her without underwear on the internet (a novel viral marketing technique), but fail to be converted to actual Britany music listeners. In fact, statistics show that as interest in Britney increased, interest in her music simultaneously decreased. Marketing theorists are now referring to this as the “Viral Marketing Syndrome”.

Join the Fun

If you would like the scienticians at TheMusicSnob.com to represent graphically a real or fictional relationship between real or fictional entities, please contact us at snob@themusicsnob.com.

A Quiet Week… It’s been a quiet week here at The Music Snob,...

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MySpace is a Trailer Park and I’m Never Visiting Again…

brian — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:00:23 +0000

Using MySpace makes me feel dirty. Like I just visited a trailer park and ate potato chips and watched TV commercials with strangers while fleas crawled on the carpets. Recently I logged in and it was like a condemned slum in hell: the site had been converted into a sidebar to a giant “Guitar Hero” advertising campaign, marked by vivid oranges and fiery reds…Even the flames of the inferno were simulated by the lovely animated Guitar Hero graphics. Just to remind me that each click is truly part of the descent downward…

I’ve stuck it out several years, fluctuating between logging in daily to try and add new “friends” that I will never engage with in a meaningful way, or totally block the site from my consciousness for months at a time. While your hideous layout, icons and EVERYTHING else are terrible enough, the lethargy of your ad-choked servers has turned even the most benign process into a tedious bore.

The only upside I could see in all these years, aside from meeting a few very damaged women for strange liaisons, was that MySpace had become the epicenter of online music marketing. I marveled at the bands with millions of fans, billions of listens, etc. Especially given how time consuming it is just to add a friend. Boy they must have a lot of money, to hire little monkey boys to click through accounts all day long. Alas, the day came when I learned of the inside track – “the MySpace bot.” Little software programs designed to automate marketing functions, leaving the braindead activity of participating in MySpace to the computer while I searched for signs of life elsewhere. That sure got my hopes up. It at least made things bearable. I mean, my software proxy has basically conducted all my MySpace personal interactions for the last several months. At least. And that’s probably the only reason why I haven’t just canceled my account.

Oh, and I forgot one REALLY important point – The good bots are separate programs, and don’t even require you to have a browser open. Which means, YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO LOG IN TO MYSPACE. You never have to see a horrifying full page graphic for the latest piece of cultural garbage, or get the shivers from an eyeful of crass icons implying endless permutations of meaningless functionality.

The point being, that I was tolerating this relationship. I hadn’t gotten the courage to quit you completely. But you’ve made it impossible to continue. I tried to run my bot tonight, add me some friends, send some messages out to the atmosphere, do some “mass marketing,” etc. But the bot wouldn’t send any messages. So I was forced to log into your internet vomitorium, where when attempting to “Compose” a message (You make it sound so profound), I was informed that users with over 2000 friends “cannot use this function” or some other nonsense.

So, you’re telling me, that at MYspace, aka the “place for friends,” that because I have a lot of friends, I lose my privilege of communicating with them? ! Well that is just dumb. But you’ve made this very easy for me. So I just wanted you to know that this is goodbye.

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Update: For an awesome article on MySpace, read How To Defeat and Kill The Devil MySpace

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