Wild World by that traitor Cat Stevens.

Oh, don’t forget American Pie, anything by the Violent Femmes and How Soon is Now by that pussy Morrisey.

“Cocomo,” Beach Boys

Freeeee-bird!

`

I nominate What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? by R.E.M

“Been Caught Stealing”, Jane’s Addiction
Anything by Smashmouth ever
Fatboy Slim, ‘Rockafeller Skank’

part of Still Thinking You’re Hip is being able to point to a song recorded within the last five years and say “See, I like those guys!”

Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, White Stripes etc.

Hotel California. I mean, come on.

Since I’m one of them, I should know. “Freeeee Bird” for sure. “Bad to the Bone” George Thuroughgood. Anything by the Ramones.

You’re going to piss off a lot of Parrot Heads BTW.

Paint it Black.

“Superman (It’s Not Easy)”, Five for Fighting.
“Here Without You”, 3 Doors Down

That I know these songs exist, much less that I *like* them, is proof of how hideously un-cool they are.

Barry Manilow – Copacabana

Or anything by Barry.

Rod Stewart – Do You Think I’m Sexy

Actually anything by Rod too…

I haven’t been attacked enough here lately, so I’ll nominate: anything by U2.
[dives for cover]

pna colada sng
brown eyed girl
any song really. just get rid of all of them.

annie a can eat me with her mean spirited comment about morrissey.

Gavin sure knows how to make a bad thread worse!

Be nice to me Pinko, I finally got one of your jokes. I feel close to you.

Oh and for more recent…

Limp Bizkit – Break Stuff

Or anything with Fred Durst.

I can’t believe nobody mentioned Coldplay. If you like Coldplay, what you are basically saying is that you don’t like music.

Anything by Dave Matthews Band would also be a great choice. That is music for guys who wear Dockers and have a belt clip for their cell phones. Slap bass, Kenny-G lite saxophone solos, lots of jamming, a drummer with a 1″ deep piccolo snare, a dude sawing away on the violin at all times… What a bunch of wankers. Jack Johnson is the next-generation Dave Matthews, and sucks just as badly.

I second the nomination of U2. “Beautiful Day” was pretty good, but otherwise they have pretty much sucked for a long time. Their last good album was “The Unforgettable Fire.” Still, they are bland and unoffensive and everybody knows who they are, and they have that big arena sound, so they are the perfect band for the terminally unhip.

Super-cheezy songs like “Copacabana” and “Kokomo” don’t really meet the criteria, since people who love these songs harbor no illusions that they might actually be hip.

I would walk 500 miles.

Safety Dance. *shudder*

“Don’t Know Why” – Norah Jones
“Smooth” – Carlos Santana featuring Rob Thomas

anything from the late 1990’s swing dance mini-craze

Black Cars Look Better in the Shade.

Life is a highway.

“The blues” as a genre.

“The blues� as a genre.

Especially when said “blues” involves Jim Belushi or Bruce Willis.

Especially when said “blues� involves Jim Belushi or Bruce Willis.

Or Blues Traveler.

Does this work?

er, no. Try this.

‘Achy Breaky Heart”? Dude. No.

Anything involving James Blunt.

Anything by Dave Matthews Band would also be a great choice. That is music for guys who wear Dockers and have a belt clip for their cell phones.

Which brings to mind the other band for exactly that demographic: Matchbox 20. Any song. Take your pick.

And I’m not firing at Marq because whatever good U2 were in 1985, that was over 20 years ago. Since then we’ve had over 20 years of near-constant airplay. Over 20 years of Bono’s annoying Bono-ness. And not quite 20 years of heterosexual guys getting loaded and maudlin and corraling women in the corner of the bar to talk about their ex-girlfriends, man, they were kind of bitches but you know, they kind of miss them anyway? They had like this bond, see, and that was their SONG, With or Without You, man, like Ross and Rachel? And they can’t believe sometimes that they’re not still together because, because, like, U2’s still together, and–oh shit, hold on a sec, they’ll be right back but they gotta take a piss real quick, but don’t go anywhere though, okay? You promise? Okay. Be right back.

Those guys always wind up going home alone crying. To U2 songs. And that is the quintessential Sad Middle-Aged White Folk Experience right there.

I think this thread wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the nadir of cover band playlists everywhere, “Mustang Sally.”

I enthusiastically second the condemnation of the Dave Matthews Band. Horror upon horror, that is.

The Knack’s “My Sharona” deserves consideration, being the only song endorsing pedophilia to get routine and enthusiastic play at sporting events where children routinely attend. I never got that. Me: “He always gets it up for the touch of the younger kind! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THAT MEANS, YOU MORONS?!”

“YMCA,” ibid, substituting “random gay hookups” for “pedophilia.”

Pretty much anything by Sister Hazel deserves to be here.

And, contrary to ilyka’s opinion, Achtung Baby was pretty good. But yeah, that’s the only good U2 album since Unforgettable Fire.

Any and all songs played on the mock-umentary posted up at The Poorman. Hilarious, but damn, “Sailing” sucks.

So does Dave Matthews Band.

“Roll with the Changes”, REO Speedwagon
“Roll With It”, Steve Winwood
“Rollin'”, Limp Bizkit

Anything by KISS

Oh, I forgot to add: all singers/songwriters/tards decended from other, more famous singers/songwriters/tards. Wallflowers, I’m looking at you.

“If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher (actually any of her crap will do.)

Any song from the Doobie Brothers’ “Takin’ It To the Streets” album.

“Call Me Al” by Paul Simon

“Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice

“Black Betty” by Ram Jam

Journey

Holy shit, jk47, you hit the nail on the head. Coldplay, DMB, mATchBoX TwEntY and Jack Johnson are wonderful examples of mid-brow musical “talent”. Coldplay pisses me off the most.

So for songs? DMB’s Ants Marching or Sattelite, and that first single off of Coldplay’s newer album. Those songs in particular speak to great wankitude. For the others, any song will do, considering they’re all the same…

annieangel is correct in ID’ing the violent femmes if you’re talking about blister in the sun. Other than that (solely for the fact it is hideously overplayed), their first album is a great one.

I’ll Be There For You – The Rembrandts

I always get the spastic willies when I hear this.

Does anyone listening to John Mayer think they are hip for doing so? If so, that must count.

And what sort of pathetic boomers are out there buying Rolling Stones tickets? Boomer journalists puffing the semi-annual Stones tour like it is some kind o major special event need to beejected from the profession. I can’t believe they
show their faces after peddling crap like “Tattoo You”. I don’t even need to mention Jimmy Buffett ‘Parrot Heads”.

Come the revolution…

Hey- I like ‘Margaritaville’!

As much as it pains me to say it, NPR’s desperate attempt to play the song into the ground has turned it into a faux-hip standard:

Everything in Its Right Place– Radiohead

And when did Mo’nique start singing for Counting Crows? Duritz coudn’t be that
big.

(Warning: Opinions in this comment may be a generation or two out of date)
Bands/Artists/Genres:
Any James Taylor, especially ‘Fire & Rain’.
Songs by any group who’re ‘rocking’ in their sixties (e.g. Stones). At least Jerry Garcia had the good taste to die before he got too pathetic.
Any Southside Johhny/Huey Lewis kinda crap
Speedwagon/Genesis/Rush/StyxKansas/Journey
Revival Swing/Big Bands (originals OK)
Later Chicago
Streisand
Any white-boy power rock ballads suh as Steve Perry-type stuff (we used to call it ‘Heavy Mellow’)

Songs (this one’s for the ladies):
I Will (Fucking) Survive – Gloria Gaynor
I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston
The Wind Beneath My Wings – Bette Midler

Anything by ABBA. Listen to the beat. John Phillips Sousa with guitars.

Oasis – Wonderwall
Actually anything by Oasis

Yngvie Malmsteen.

The key here is if you think you’re “kewl” listening to this crap. I happen to like some of the stuff here. (And I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on the blues “as a genre” comment and assume you weren’t referring to blues of the Howlin’ Wolf variety) I have no illusions that I might be cool. I’ve never been cool. I most likely never will be. I’m fine with that.
I know exactly what you mean, though, about the wankers who have hip and cool stuff on their MP3. I have to suggest a token Pink Floyd –The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon. You know they think it represents their “radical youth.”

The key here is if you think you’re “kewl� listening to this crap.

Problem is, that renders every single twenty-something urban hipster doofus on the planet lame. And God knows, we couldn’t have that. Only old white people are lame, right kids?

And before anybody says, “but I like all that hipster crap on my iPod!!”, just remember, that’s what every lame-o says, lame-o.

As a midle aged white person, I don’t feel the need to feel cool any more, thank god. I had my music snob day in the sun. I don’t care if the blues is cool, so I can listen to Big Bill Broonzy and not care what anyone thinks.

Golden Earring, ‘Radar Love’. ‘The Best of Queen’ hidden in the glove compartment of the car. Anything by Blur. or Coldplay. The Beautiful South or the bloody ubiquitous Arctic Monkeys. All those fortyish accounts assistants singing along in their compact cars in traffic jams, blargh.

“Firestarter’ by the Prodigy. I like it, I’m white and miiddle-agedish, therefore it’s officially sad.

Also anything ever played by bands who play at Glastonbury.

anything by jason mraz…

I’ll second the Blues thing. You can try to tell me that Son House or, say, Joe Callicot is uncool, but I’m not going to hear you. As for 60s rockers: huh? Nothing wrong with the Stones, or, say, the Artwoods or the Zachery Thaks. Rod Stewart? I hope you’re not talking about The Small Faces. And, Willy, leave Cher out of this: clearly you don’t do much karaoke. A lot of these songs really find themselves when you’re drunk and singing for your friends. Don’t believe me? Try doing ‘Separate Ways’ someday.

Mostly it depends upon context. Let’s imagine we’re not talking about teen-agers here, and that it’s someone claiming to be hip. So:

* VF Blister in the Sun (seconding, and, yes, the whole album. I love it, but I listened to it hundreds of times between 1986-1990, and, you know, there’s a world of other stuff out there)
* Anything by TMBG, especially ‘Your Racist Friend’ if they, themselves, are racist, but, you know, deny it (a la Doughy P. Load)
* Baby Got Back, but no other hiphop, or, in fact, nothing by anyone else who’s not white, unless, of course, it’s members of the E Street Band
* Dead Kennedys, anything off Fresh Fruit or whatever the one with the Statue of Liberty on the front is that I haven’t heard since 1987, but only if they’re working an office job here for, say, Microsoft, Nike, or anywhere on Wall Street or Midtown
* King Missile or The Fall (again: depends upon context, but I know someone whose taste in music atrophied in 1996. WMFU got him that far, but no further)
* ‘What a Wonderful World’
* Joe Cocker doing the Beatles
* Duran Duran, except, of course, Morning After, which for some godawful reason I’ve loved since I was 12. So leave me be.
* ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me (In the Name of Love’ (in fact, if more than a 1/3 of their songs have parentheses in them, they’re in the water)

What I’m missing is the obligatory one hip-hop act on the middle aged sad wankster hipster’s playlist to show they’re still down witz da boyz in da hood, usually something incredibly commercial and non-threatening
(50 cent for example) or something dated and hence non-threatening (like Run D.M.C. or similar)

Revival Swing/Big Bands (originals OK)

You have to be very careful about the originals, though. (I think it has something to do with the recorded collections you’ve got; you’re not allowed to own anything that has the name of a store on it, for example, no matter how many good songs it has at a reasonable price. Or, put another way: Would your local used record store buy it from you?)

Has Arcade Fire reached this point yet? I’m saying yes.

So here’s my definitive list: Starbucks and Banana Republic compilations (no matter how good the actual songs are, which they sometimes are – sorry), Arcade Fire, Dave Matthews, James Blunt, Coldplay, Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, “the blues,” Fatboy Slim, Santana with special guests, trance music and – worst of all – world music collections where the artists’ names are secondary or unmentioned (à la, Putumayo).

Funny story re: “I Only Wanna Be With You” … I was in a bar in New Orleans about 10 years ago, and some drunken frat guy (aren’t they all?) was singing that as karaoke, but he sang the line “You get so mad at me when I go out with my friends” as “You get so mad at me when I go out with your friends.” I thought was probably autobiographical and, therefore, delightful.

What I’m missing is the obligatory one hip-hop act on the middle aged sad wankster hipster’s playlist to show they’re still down witz da boyz in da hood, usually something incredibly commercial and non-threatening

Kanye West? (Isn’t he pretty much the Norah Jones of hip-hop?)

The songs the DJ at a cheezy-ass wedding plays when he decides to up-jump the boogie.

Like “That’s What I Like About You,” by the Romantics.

Sorry, Everything in its Right Place cannot be co-opted by NPR. Kid A is a bigger album than that. Any piece of it cannot be turned into “Tunes for Sad Middle Aged White Folks Who Still Think They’re Hip”

Has Arcade Fire reached this point yet? I’m saying yes.

Huh. Funny that. Since I’m in my mid 30s, I’m allowed to have a slightly atrophied taste. 2002 is pretty much my cut off (i.e., the New York Postpunk revival DFA thing). Since then, I’ve looked backwards 60s-70s funk and 20s-30s blues and ragtime, with a healthy dose of 50s R&B, and deepened my knowledge of late 70s/early 80s new wave and postpunk (from the Blackouts, who are just great, to Essential Logic and the Delta 5). But I signed up with lastfm a month ago or so, and, you know, the kids aren’t not alright–I used to be one, you know–and I thought I’d poke around their musical tastes a bit. Oliver Tremor Control I can live without, but I listened to the Arcade Fire for the first time yesterday. Not bad, I thought. Maybe I’ll get into them in a way I never did with Radiohead.

But I guess I can’t now. Crud, who cares. I’m 36 and married. I’m not looking to lay some hot young thing anymore.

“Life Goes On” by John Cougar Mellencamp. Possibly the single most depressing song ever written. I cannot think of a more soul-crushing chorus than “Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”

Other sad, middle aged songs that come to mind
“In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel – If only because “Say Anything” should probably be on a list of favorite movies of sad middle-aged guys who still think they’re hip.

Either “Higher Love” or “Back in the High Life Again” by Steve Winwood

“The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range

“Boys of Summer ” or “End of the Innocence” by Don Henley

Apparently I stopped paying attention to music sad middle-aged guys might listen to in 1989 (which would sort of make sense, since that’s around the time when, as a kid, I stopped listening to my sad, middle-aged parents’ music and started developing my own taste).

Seeger – “Old Time Rock and Roll”

You’re allowed to like Arcade Fire, Karl; just don’t, like, make a big thing about it or nothin’. (You know what song you’d probably love, if you don’t already, is “Television Screen,” by The Radiators From Space. That popped up randomly the other day, and I’ve been listening to it constantly ever since. I have no idea where it came from or how I heard of it, but it’s great.)

Oh yeah, Bob Seger’s another good choice. And I don’t know how this slipped my mind, but basically any song from the catalog of Sting’s solo stuff.

So, to sum up the general feeling of the thread, nothing is cool if more than one person likes it.

What I’m missing is the obligatory one hip-hop act on the middle aged sad wankster hipster’s playlist to show they’re still down witz da boyz in da hood, usually something incredibly commercial and non-threatening

To me, that says Ludacris. I know several Gentlemen of a Certain Age who love to blast “What’s Your Fantasy” as proof that they’re still “with it” and are cool enough not to mind the naughty language. Alternately, “Back That Azz Up” is always pounding from the God-I-wish-I-were-twenty-again quasi-middle-age wannabe-nightclub near my apartment.

Anything by Train (wreck).

And don’t be dissin’ Dark Side of the Moon. There will be a throwdown…

REO Speedwagon – I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore

REO Speedwagon – I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore

I was thinking the same thing.

Now then, what about those things where if you like them, you must be a dork and you’re very aware of it. For example I like this and I already know that I’m a terminally unhip dork.

I vote Dragonforce.

So, to sum up the general feeling of the thread, nothing is cool if more than one person likes it.

So it would seem.

Personally, I think anyone who points to what’s on his or her iPod as evidence of how kewl and hip they are, is sad and pathetic. Kewlness and hipness should be apparent long before you resort to talking about your playlists. If it’s not there, it’s just not there.

And there’s no shame in being uncool or unhip. Just accept it and get on with your life. I have.

“Werewolves of London,” by Warren Zevon, and anything by Moby.

does anybody realize that 90% of the bands you’ve listed and the ones who comes out with the songs, are usually older than we think. most of them are in their 30’s at least. and if they’re not, they’re pop boy bands or they sing hip-hop. very, very few are actually young and sing rock and roll.

Nobody really likes “Achy Breaky Heart”, unless they are affecting a camp sensibility, or their brains are half-rotted from paint thinner abuse. While we’re on the subject, no one wears a mullet anymore, except for the same reasons (camp sensibility or utter lumpenprole state of degradation).

Real data point: Mickey Kaus seems to like Steve Earle. And Steve Earle is pretty fuckin good. That doesn’t make Kaus any less lame, but it does mean that middle-aged hipster-wannabe probably listens to fairly decent music. What with the internets and satellite radio, you don’t have to be in the know to have good taste in music.

Another factor is that the natural inclination of bloggers who share Kaus’s red-state romanticism would be to like country music. But today’s country is totally gentrified and totally unlistenable. So the fallback is classic country and alt-country/Americana.

Full disclosure: I myself am middle-aged and love classic country and Americana, though every time someone like Kaus identifies himself with the music, I reach for Slayer and Stereolab.

The only thing sadder than being a middle aged wankster is being a wanna-be hipster talking about how pathetic middle aged wanksters are.

I’m surprised anything from Madonna post-1990 hasn’t made someone’s list yet. Or ‘Tubthumping’ by Chumbawumba.

And I have to defend Kanye West – he’s the ONLY rap artist I’m aware of who gives cowriting credits (and therefore, even more dough) to the writers of the songs he samples.

Travis G: thanks for the rec. Since they’re not on emusic, I may have to get the track, er, some other way, but I’ll find it. Believe you me.

Oh, and Lennie Kravitz. And Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Barenaked Ladies? Omigod, I’m only 21 and I’m already middle aged (and male)!

Sheryl Crow.

Nickelback.

Uncle Cracker.

Maroon 5.

And I must throw in as well for the Dave Matthews Band. Very talented, boring, bland.

I have to defend my White Stripes, though. They bring both the rock _and_ the roll. Their cover of Son House’s “Death Letter” still makes the hairs on my arms stand up.

I have to defend my White Stripes, though. They bring both the rock _and_ the roll. Their cover of Son House’s “Death Letter� still makes the hairs on my arms stand up.

Agreed.

*AHEM* As a (not) Sad Middle Aged White Guy who, by the way, has NEVER been “hip” at any chronological point, you guys are getting it about a third right. First, forget pretty much ANYTHING that was recorded in the eighties. The last thing I liked in the ’80s was Missing Persons. You’re right with Seeger, Skynnyrd, Boston, CSNY, stuff like that. I also liked a TON of stuff from the ’90s, the Greenday/Rancid/Pumpkins/Live/Candlebox/Pearl Jam/Nirvana stuff. I’ve never been able to enjoy the hippety hop. As for the rest, there’s a little Barenakedladies, FiveforFighting, U2, Hootie and Buffet type stuff scattered around my iPod, but I’m not sure where any of this puts me on the “hip scale”.

In fact, I’m gonna take the position that when you reach the point where you’re overweight and have grey hair, being hip is no longer an option available to you…

mikey

To any and all of you who mentioned “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus: I will find you. I will hunt you down and make you suffer… While I was running a printing press one summer here in Savannah that song was big. And I mean BIG… The other press operators had some crappy radio station on that played that piece of shit at least 3 times an hour. I almost committed suicide….

I will find you. You WILL suffer….

There. I feel better now.

So, it looks like almost anything qualifies as sad middle aged white guy music.

As a sad middle aged white guy, anything I listen to is by definition sad, middle aged white guy music. so that Yo La Tengo show I went to the other night? Sucks! Sonic Youth? Sad! elvis Costello? Lame! (note: sarcasm contained in previous)

But I will throw down with anybody who disses Warren Zevon again in this thread.

And the Violent Femmes. Okay, everybody listened to the first album; doesn’t make it any worse, and judging by the shows, there are whole new generations of kids getting into it. Sad middle aged white guys go to Steely Dan concerts, not the Femmes.

I’m so glad we black folk never have to go through stuff like this. Obviously, everything we do is cool!

“One Week” – Barenaked Ladies
“Da Funk” – Daft Punk
anything by Billy Joel
“What is Hip?” – Tower of Power
The Rolling Stones are not hip (exceptions can be made for older songs)
Aerosmith – die die die
Jay-Z?
That’s all I can think of.

Born to be Wild.

How about whatever you ‘really into’ right now.

You fucking dorks.

“Word Up!” by Cameo. Even though I love that song for purely sentimental SNL reasons.

“Cherry Pie” by Warrant would also be a good one. I can just see the balding guy in the convertible Miata pulling up to the stoplight and giving some hot chick the look.

Or how about “We Built This City”

Or “I Wanna Sex You Up”

God, I could go on all day…

everything by Hootie, including the stupid, creepy BK commercial.

How could this topic have gone so long without one mention of the Spin Doctors…?

Good question. I nominate “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” over “Two Princes.”

Ahem…

“Love Shack”

I say no more.

Chris Isaak doing Roy Orbison.
Keep On Loving You-REO Speedwagon
Band on the Run by You Know Who
Bungle in the Jungle by Jethro Tull
Centerfield by Fogarty and Co.
Tiny Dancer by Elton John

This thread is sounding more and more like the setlist at the 80’s night I go to sometimes, though I usually try to get the hipness up a notch by requesting stuff like “Make a Circuit With Me” or PWEI’s cover of “Love F 1-11.”

In a somewhat related note, a few years ago, right after “Hello Nasty” came out, a co-worker of mine was spending some time with his niece, and saw said CD in her collection.

“Oh, you like the Beastie Boys?” he asked.

“Kinda,” she replied, “but they’re *old.*”

Maybe it’s time to become the Beastie Men, my friends.

While we’re on the subject, no one wears a mullet anymore, except for the same reasons (camp sensibility or utter lumpenprole state of degradation).

Billy Ray Cyrus doesn’t have the mullet anymore. I caught the video to his new hit whilst I was visiting a friend, and he’s got one of those long-in-the-front-shorter-in-the-back reverse dealies. And it’s frosted. So, yeah, the mullet was actually a better choice for him.

And as one of the apparently few people under the age of 40 who actually listened to predominately country music on the radio before it achieved it’s current Wal-Mart mainstream success or before every suburban hipster doofus white kid living off Daddy’s money and spending their paycheck on PBR decided they really actually did like old Merle Haggard and Loretta Lynn, I remember when “Achy Breaky” hit the charts (the song actually kicked around Nashville for like 20 years; it was originally a novelty for Sheb Wooley, aka Ben Colder). First time I heard it, I thought, “Man, that’s shitty…it’ll be huge.”

I hate “Werewolves of London”!

But how about anything and everything from Creed? God I can’t stand them!

hahaha! This is why I stopped listening to mainsream music. The industry takes one style and crams it down everyone’s throat. Give me a band that sounds like they could everyone’s ass in the room. Give me a band that sounds like it is about to destroy its instruments and I’ll give you band that isn’t playing a cookie cutter style, they are playing because they love what they are doing and they will make NO compromises.
This is why I like heavy metal – there aren’t many mainstream bands here so they all play their asses off because they love what they are doing…

“Cause Sargent D is coming, and you’re on his list!”

Steve Miller should be the patron saint for Sad Middle Aged White Folks Who Still Think They’re Hip

SgtD-

Hating a song doesn’t make it a Sad Old White Guy Song (SOWGS)

I think Creed just qualifies as inherently lame. Because it’s YOUNG guys who listen to them and think it makes them hip.

as usual, mikey hits one right to the sweet spot. with my own share of grey hair and weight issues, you will pry my preferred music (be it lame or semi-hip) from my iPod, whether it be Sonic Youth, Violent Femmes, Zevon, of Counting Crows, when you send the Jack-Booted Dream Police of The National Fascist Craptastic Music-Industrial State to my door and forcibly remove them.

I’m sure that’s in the Military Commissions Act Somewhere.

Kanye West? (Isn’t he pretty much the Norah Jones of hip-hop?)

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

OK, Not songs but acts for middle aged “please oh please let me still be hip” white guys such as myself. Disclosure: I own LP’s – as in actual by god vinyl records – by the first four on my list.
ICE-T
Nirvana – Anything after Bleach
Soundgarden
DK
The Pixies
SMASHING PUMPKINS – Billy Corrigan is LAME
Bob (still dead) Marley
Johnny Cash
Oh and annieangel – I wish you had a penis so you could piss up a rope. Morrissey is my favorite depressed asexual vegan homo.

Dude.

You’re not trying to say that Johnny Cash is lame, are you?

Because we may to have words if that’s the case.

You guys are all retarded. Rock and roll is all pooped out and flushed down the series of tubes that is the internets. Hysterical Woman is the most perceptive one here. The great homogenizer has rendered us identical. We are all sad, middle-aged, maggot-white morons.

Have a nice day.
—
St!ff

Damn. I’m a sad, middle-aged white guy from Idaho. I haven’t even heard half the music you all are bitching about.

Ironicname-what Strange Forces said, and double it for Bob Marley. mikey, while I’ll agree that the music played on the radio or MTV (remember when they played music videos?) in the ’80s was lame almost without exception, there was also the Replacements, the Minutemen, X, and a host of other really great bands out there. Good music is always around, sometimes you just have to look harder for it.

Gus-

Right. Good music is performed in the clubs and bars and streetcorners by musicians who want to make the noise, not the money.

The recordings are just shallow reminders of the live performance. You want Real? go see a local band tonight.

Morrisey seems to be winning as the suckiest poser ever, judging by the responses from at least two posers. 🙂

Even I could kick his ass.

And when did Mo’nique start singing for Counting Crows? Duritz coudn’t be that big.

Careful, Jeff, because you know that Mo’nique could kick your ass, and she will. Also, she probably sings better than the Counting Crows play.

We need to follow this Feast’o’Crap with a playlist of songs to kill yourself by. Starting with “Dust in the Wind”, by Kansas, of course.

Followed by Dreamweaver.

I’m totally on board with your new list, Anne Laurie. I’ll see your Kansas and raise you one “Accidentally Like a Martyr” by Warren Zevon.

Three words: Bachman Turner Overdrive.

I think a lot of people missed the point. Does anyone really think they’re hip listening to REO?
Oh, and how about Hey Ya! by OutKast?

Strange Forces,
No Johnny Cash is not lame – nor is Bob Marley. I love ’em both – but then I am a middle aged white guy trying to be hip.
Johnny is a favorite of middle aged white guys trying to be hip – especialy after that lovely bio-flick with Joachim and whatever her name is.
I also knew those Johnny an’ Bob mentions would get a rise. I was just being an ass for the sake of being an ass – a weakness of mine for which I will someday pay. 😉
But Billy Corrigan is LAME.
Jeezuz annieangel, of course you could kick Morissey’s ass – but then who couldn’t. Judging from your posts you are a cuhrazee god-smacked rethuglican het woman. He’d freak and have a siezure when you invaded his personal space to do him harm – but then who wouldn’t.

These comments are lame. People are just naming bad songs. I expected better.

Take on me – A-HA
Anything by Oasis
Saturday Night – Bay City Rollers
Anything by Motley Crue or Metallica

“through being cool” -devo

As another Sad Middle-aged White Guy Who Still Think He’s Hip and who listens to Yo La Tengo, Belle and Sebastian (even after Isobel Campbell left), Calexico, Iron and Wine, Youngblood Brass Band and Lambchop I must apologize to all the members of these bands for condemning them to a life of performing SMWGWSTHH music.

BTW, nobody seems to have mentioned The Clash or The Jam. Given that the most significant part of their careers happened in the late seventies (over thirty years ago) when I saw them perform live, they must now by default be regarded as SMWGWSTHH music as virtually all of their fans at that time are now SMWGWSTHHs.

Brad, you should not have done this. You, above all, should know of The Universal Law of Unintended Consequences.

Goo goo dolls

Sixpence none the Richer

Rush

Our Lady Peace

INXS

Crash Test Dummies

Indigo Girls

Wonderstuff

Stone Roses

Shall I continue??

I’m to sexy for my car
too sexy for my car
too sexy by far

Or Blues Traveler.

Thank you

I don’t think a lot of you understand the point of this post. You can’t just name bands that you don’t like. That’s called whining. First, you can’t name anything that’s still played on college/alternative radio stations, because then young people listen to it, so it’s not uncool enough. It has to be something that ONLY middle aged white guys like, and that everybody else goes, “OMFG, hand me a screwdriver so that I can smash both of my eardrums.” And nobody thinks ABBA or Barry Manilow is cool, so you can’t name guys like that either.

My nomination is: Bob Seger – Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Bang a gong.

Hey some of those songs have kitsch value. Don’t underestimate that.

I nominate jazz. Jazz afficianados are insufferably smug about their “coolness”.

Basically any song i like is hip, and any song you like that i don’t is faux hip and so i can laugh at you.

Damn. No hate for dissing U2. And it’s not even that I dislike them, just that occasionally Bono’s whining and the band’s Xianity kinda bug me.
And I second Cher’s “Turn Back Time.” I had very nearly put that piece of crap out of my mind, where it had been seared into my frontal lobes by spending December of ’99 and part of January of ’00 in the DuPont Circle area of D.C., where that song was being played over and over and over and over in every gay or mixed establishment. And most everything there is either gay or mixed. It got to the point where veins in my forehead would magically appear upon hearing it. I had just about expunged it from my mind, and… Huzzah. It’s back. And I have nothing but admiration for Cher–she’s been doing great things for the V.A. hospital-bound. It’s just that I really, really hate that song. I think I must find a completely inappropriate (genre-wise) cover of it to exorcise it again. Perhaps as Industrial or foreign-language rap. Gah.

“Play That Funky Music White Boy”, duh…

“First, you can’t name anything that’s still played on college/alternative radio stations, because then young people listen to it, so it’s not uncool enough. It has to be something that ONLY middle aged white guys like, and that everybody else goes, “OMFG, hand me a screwdriver so that I can smash both of my eardrums.”

No, no, no.

It has to be music that could very well be played on college radio, but is in fact also in heavy rotation on MTV/VH1 — trying to be hip but failing miserably. Matchbox 5 is the perfect example.

The other possibility is surviving ‘boomer dinosaurs like Bob Dylan, which is music by definition only enjoyed by sad white middle aged guys yet inexplainably still loved by the critics.

My friend’s wife doesnt listen to the radio and therefore is not introduced to new music often, yet she thinks she’s hip because she listens to a lot of ten year-old techno, specifically Orbital. Oh and she really likes Blue Man Group.

Anything by:

Madonna
Neil Diamond
Shania Twain
Red Hot (Not) Chili Peppers
Celine Dion
Cher
The Doors
A Foot in Cold Water
Dan Hill
Abba
Boston

Songs:

Stairway to Heaven
In A Gadda Da Vida – no wait, that’s cool I plan to have it played at my funeral….
Born to Be Wild
McArthur Park
River Deep, Mountain High

Oh, you’ve got to make me bring it out, don’t you?

Okay.

Dance With Me -Orleans

<feeling around for hot poker to relieve misery>

What About Me by Moving Pictures

If I Could by 1927

To any and all of you who mentioned “Achy Breaky Heart� by Billy Ray Cyrus: I will find you. I will hunt you down and make you suffer…

Ahem. Before the mullet-that-shall-not-be-named…

“We had joy, we had fun / we had seasons in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time…”

I think Hell will have “Achy Breaky Heart”, “Seasons in the Sun” and, oh, “MacArthur Park” on continual rotation.

jk47 has the right idea here. Brad’s inclusion of “Achy Breaky” was a mistake and mislead many commentators. “Achy Breaky” now falls into the “Kokomo” family. Also, nothing recorded before 1980 when the Boomers started to become musically middle aged (something that occurs around age 30) should make the list.

My addition is Kid Rock, who has done more with less talent than anyone I can think of. More specifically, I would nominate that duet that he did with Sheryl Crow, who independently also might belong on the list. Pearl Jam’s “Alive” as sanitized grunge should be included. For rap, perhaps Puffy’s “I’ll Be Missing You” and Tupac’s “I Ain”t Mad at Cha” belong. Less popular, but Paul Westerberg’s solo career music belongs too.

all of “grunge” as a genre.

all of “rap” as a genre.

all of “rock and roll”. those listening to classic rock will have their ankles broken…

all of “world music”.

all of “jazz” – anyone caught listening to smooth jazz will be the first up against the wall…

all of “classical”.

all of “space music”.

anyone who ever thought it would be a great idea to smoke pot and listen to the greatful dead…

everyone who has every thought listening to woody guthrie made them a better citizen…

trance and rave

everything basically that was not distributed by Sputnik Industries!!!

Any band on that fucking “Buzz Ballads” CD I keep seeing ads for. Seriously, goddamn.

And Bad Behavior, of “Bad Behavior has blocked 6664 access attempts in the last 7 days” sucks, as probably 18 of those happened to me just this morning trying to post plain ol’ comments.

a cranny mint: “through being cool� -devo

You’re officially on notice for slander most foul and hateful.