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Best (i.e. worst) 11/9 related songs

Started by Al Tha Funkee Homosapien, September 22, 2008, 03:31:14 PM

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Al Tha Funkee Homosapien

As we all know our Septic friends are a mawkish, self righteous bunch and also whilst producing some of the best Western music around they also happen to produce some of the very worst. To combine these two themes I present these few gems.

Iced Earth - When The Eagle Cries
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o6xrSyhVhc[/youtube]

Fantastically bad speed metal band pay tribute to the horrors of 11/9 by use of terrible acting and flamenco-style guitar work.

Darryl Worley - Have You Forgotten
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_-x9kMPauc[/youtube]

C&W-lite redneck reminds us that all you anti-war folks are turrist lovin' traitors.

Alan Jackson - Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvj6zdWLUuk[/youtube]

The heavy weight champion category which includes the beyond satire couplet
"I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran"


Do you know any others?

mothman

All such discussion can only start and end with Star Trek stunt co-ordinator Dennis Madalone's America We Stand As One. There's even a video, directed (unaccountably) by Rob Bowman. The San Francisco Chronicle reviewed it thus:

QuoteI am, after all, here to enlighten.

I am here to bring joy and laughter and dark madness and slightly surreal mental gyrations of bitter reality, right along with the occasional link to truly shocking and brilliant items of interest, items that make you want to laugh and cry and scream and rend your flesh and douse your head in a giant vat of cheap vodka, all at the same time.

See, there's patriotism, and there's patriotism, and then there's patriotism that's meant be written with a capital P and a long flowing scripty font with little butterflies dotting the i's and a big fat bullet hole where the o should be, and it's all circled a thousand times with a bright red crayon that's been licked to a smooth nub by aging members of, say, REO Speedwagon.

It's the kind of patriotism where everything in its warped purview has been happily whitewashed with this rabid glaze of shuddering mediocrity and flag-waving dorkiness and desperate earnestness, where dead people become white floaty angels and manly firefighters literally walk in the clouds and overweight people give each other slow-motion hugs and children become innocent cherubs of light and the American flag becomes a giant beach towel and bad hair becomes, well, even worse hair.

So then. Meet Dennis Madalone. He is a singer. But not really. He is actually a stunt coordinator, working for the past 14 years on the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Star Trek: Voyager" TV shows and he is apparently so deep into the nefarious Trekkie thing he is even featured on a Star Trek trading card, which, of course, should tell you something right there.

Dennis has, for some reason, written a song. And made a music video to accompany it. This video, it is about America, an America that simply does not exist anywhere but in Dennis' amazingly coiffed head, an America that is all about the aforementioned twice-baked patriotism and a heartrending love of country so syrupy and exaggerated it would make you gag if it weren't so utterly perfect, so beautiful, so breathtaking in its, I don't quite know what to call it. Genius? Simplicity? Harrowing vision of colon-flaming hell? Yes.

The song is called "America We Stand As One." The video is making the rounds on the Internet right now, shooting from in-box to in-box like warped lightning because people are sending each other the link in a desperate mad rush of disbelief and saying oh my God have you seen this thing?

They are saying, stop whatever you are doing right now and click on this link right now as in immediately, please, and be enlightened as to the bizarre meta-saccharine joy that is Dennis Madalone's America. You will never be the same again.

Watch the video yourself, if you dare. Click here, and please be careful of the thump as your jaw drops to the floor.

Stare in wonder at the silhouette shots wherein Dennis mouths the lyrics in exaggerated peroral contortions. Observe the extreme close-ups of Dennis' face as he lip syncs so earnestly to the camera you think he's about to pass a gallstone.

Watch as the aforementioned dead people walk in clouds and ghostly luminescent angels spring up from Dennis's hair and beams of divine light blast Dennis straight in the heart and apparently give him the overwhelming desire to sing sing SING. And preen. And pose. And stroll wistfully.

And there are children, plenty of children, crowds of children, and Dennis even goes so far as to touch a few of them on the head, and when he does sparks immediately fly from their tiny innocent scalps and you are hereby instructed not to think creepy thoughts of pedophilia as you watch this because, well, Dennis is just too earnest for that sort of thing. You can just tell.

There Dennis is, thrusting out his chest as he belts out the "stand as wuah-hun" line, over and over.

There he is again on the beach, arms wide and clutching a U.S. flag doo-rag like a weapon, beckoning the soul of America to burst through his mighty rib cage, encased as it in a gold chain and a big bold all-American sports jersey with "USA" emblazoned across the front in giant block letters normally reserved for the sweatshirts of drunk German tourists visiting Disneyland for the first time.

There he is, holding a giant American flag while standing on a huge rocky outcropping by the ocean as the cool misty wind whips his long bitchin' '80s tresses, and you can verily feel the nationalism surging through his tightly packed loins as the cameraman is standing back there thinking, oh my freaking God whatever happened to my career.

Is this video a hoax? A spoof? Surely, you think, this is a parody, this must be an SNL skit. You are at once frightened and thrilled and vaguely depressed to find out, it is not: It is very, very real -- and stop calling me Shirley.

But then it hits me. As I watch Dennis cling to that giant flag on that rocky precipice of life, I realize, despite myself, despite all my better judgments and leanings and haircut preferences, I want to be Dennis Madalone.

Just for a moment. I want to live the naivete, swim in tepid pools of happy blissful ignorance, regrow my hair past my shoulders and love my country so blindly and unquestioningly that everyone and everything becomes sweet and sticky and warm, like giant mealworms of love. This is, I imagine, how a mental patient must feel.

But I can't help it. I want to be him. I want to know that level of shockingly uninformed bliss, just for a minute. Hey, maybe I've been mistaken all these years. Maybe that really is America! Maybe it really is all about saccharine unity and love and shiny happy children and you, looking like there is nothing more important in life than trying to look like Peter Frampton's brunet body double or the singer for small-time NWOBHM heavy-metal gods Saxon, circa 1981.

But then I come to. Because I know, deep down, that Dennis' heartfelt vision has nothing to do with the real America most of us know.

America, after all, is about guns. And money. And Wal-Mart and fast food and Christmas and expensive coffee drinks and good porn and long walks in nature and power-mad governments and wacky gluttony and scoring cheap DVDs on eBay and rampant obesity and cats and oil and SUVs and cube-farm hell and God and iPods and candy.

Or, more specifically, America is all about the delicious unchecked freedom to use your paltry sums of money to score cheap porn DVDs and expensive coffee drinks and buy an obese SUV and load it up with Wal-Mart Christmas candy so as to escape your cube-farm hell and go on long nature walks with your iPod in order to shoot cats.

See, it is far too easy to mock. It is far too easy to deride and scoff and try to suppress the gag reflex as you sit all the way through Dennis' bizarre and brilliant music video, so unerringly cheesy, so astoundingly saccharine it is, and you are forced to wonder, oh my God, who is buying this, who is enjoying this, who is believing this to be good and decent and singable art and is it the same people who enjoy Celine Dion and boxed wine and Ford Festivas and "Everybody Loves Raymond"? You already know the answer.

And then it hits you. Then you are forced to realize the terrible, heartbreaking truth that perhaps the only thing that might actually unify this fine nation in the way Dennis' uncanny video envisions, the only issue over which America really and truly stands at one, is the overarching notion that Dennis Madalone must be stopped. Or maybe deified. Take your pick.



wherearethespoons

This thread has made my day.

Quote from: Al Tha Funkee Homosapien on September 22, 2008, 03:31:14 PM
Iced Earth - When The Eagle Cries
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o6xrSyhVhc[/youtube]

Even the little baby looks like he understands what's going on. Some great comments on the page;

QuoteI haven't read all of your posts,so I have no idea where you are from, but here is a news flash. If it wasn't for us, you would probably be speaking German. By the way, there were WMDs at one point, but they were moved. The Middle East is a big place, it wouldn't be hard to hide a couple thousand ICBMs.

and

Quotei have never felt so patriotic after listening to the glorious burden, great song that really speaks out

El Unicornio, mang

Toby Keith's "Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YAaXD-2mJM


Now this nation that I love
Has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flyin' in
From somewhere in the back
Soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world
Like the 4th of July

Hey Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin' her fist
And the eagle will fly
Man, it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringin' her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue

Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way


And rednecks across America just lapped it up


sirhenry

I'm not sure it's a good thing that this thread wasn't around in time for the 9/11 CaB radio show. I would have had to play all these, but can't listen to any of them long enough to reach the chorus.
Except Fuck Yeah which is brilliant - it's just a shame that most of its fans don't know why.

boxofslice

#8
Quote from: depressed beyond tablets on September 22, 2008, 04:14:11 PM
Strangely, a best and worst nomination:

What's great about that is the way he answers the rhetorical question with "Business".

And in response to that Alan Jackson song South Park paid tribute in their Ladder to Heaven episode:

[youtube=425,350]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jlRm2-QgHYg&feature=related[/youtube]

chand

Quote from: depressed beyond tablets on September 22, 2008, 04:14:11 PM
Strangely, a best and worst nomination:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Vaz9jW054

Yeah, that one is...insane.

"Sometimes people make a war/Don't know what it's for..."
"Business!"

Nik Drou

Not sure this strictly counts, but it's still...just....one of the worst things I've ever heard.

In the wake of 9/11, this all-star cover 'tribute' version of Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On?' hit the screens, with a suitably themed video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPYqR1cj2Vg

However, shortly after, a completely different video was attached to it.  One that was more professional looking and revealed the song was actually about the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyTy9ns894M

For one second, forget how mind-numbingly misjudged it is purely in terms of being a cover of what was a rather intimate and personal song (has this been in the bad covers thread? Boy, it really should be) and instead focus on the sheer cynicism of the 9/11 connection.  I believe it was always intended as an AIDS-awareness record, but then the towers fell and whoever's responsible for ideas like this thought "Shit, no-ones going to care about a bunch of Africans now!  While we're getting the proper video sorted, let's splice in some footage of rubble and firemen and pretend it's about that."

Sort of makes what Elton John did with 'Candle in the Wind' pale in comparison.

actwithoutwords

MC Dicko- Spare a Thought

14 year old "rapper" from Chester's heartfelt tribute to the victims of 11/9 from his myspace a couple of years ago. Speculation was that it was a pisstake, but the stumbling and swallowing sound genuine to me. His other work is also heavily recommended, mainly involving threatening to pop caps in other 14 year old asses and waxing lyrical about how all girls are sluts. I managed to grab 4 of the tunes before the myspace disappeared.

Two planes caused devastation/ Points of view stirred the nation.
Two men made such an impact/ heart is what they seemed to lack.

JesusAndYourBush

I like this one.

Stacy 203 - Fuck Bin Laden

It was the first 9/11-related song to appear on p2p networks just a day or two after 9/11.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteIf it wasn't for us, you would probably be speaking German.

Funny how the standard US retort to nasty Europeans is "you'd be speaking German if it wasn't for us" Almost as if that would have been our primary concern staring in the face of Nazi triumph.

"Oh damn, we'll have to learn German to speak to each other now."




sirhenry

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on September 23, 2008, 11:57:50 AM
Funny how the standard US retort to nasty Europeans is "you'd be speaking German if it wasn't for us"
The standard UK retort to that is "And you'd be speaking Dutch if it weren't for us".

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I'd always found it incredibly easy to wind up the more xenophobic Americans by referring to them as a client state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

With America's unblemished record on race relations, you think they'd have been well into Hitler. They were for a time, weren't they? A bit...

sirhenry

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on September 23, 2008, 05:19:39 PM
With America's unblemished record on race relations, you think they'd have been well into Hitler. They were for a time, weren't they? A bit...
They mostly wanted to avoid being brought into another European war, seeing as so many of the immigrants had gone there to escape such things over the years.

The British aristocracy however were another story altogether, which is why, before the war started, Hitler thought Britain would join him.

El Unicornio, mang

One of those vids linked to this old classic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

"Who is Fidel Castro?"
"Uh...a singer?"

Of course you'd get the same stupid answers from the general public in any country but it's still funny