Everybody Loves a Good Protest... I Mean List
In honor of Time magazine naming “The Protestor” as Person of the Year, I would like to announce that I am doing this year’s list under protest. Truth be told, I feel left out on all the fun protest action, so I want in. Nobody’s going to make me do a list this year… oh, that’s right. Nobody makes me do this anyway. So, um, 2011…
Ah, 2011… the year when Charlie Sheen gave new meaning to the term “winning”… and “tiger blood”… and “Adonis DNA.” The year when the first phase of Destiny finally opened, and great move by the Destiny folks putting Santa in the new section so that Carousel shoppers had to see the new portion if they wanted to get their kids’ pictures taken with ol’ Kris Kringle. The Jets underachieved, SU football underachieved, we found out that Jerry Sandusky and Bernie Fine underachieved as moral human beings (to put it mildly), and the Mets not only underachieved, but as of this point in the offseason, they seem to be aiming even lower for 2012. Speaking of low expectations, it was also the year of Rebecca Black… and the year that we reached the point where someone can put out a song universally acknowledged as bad, and it can still become a massive “hit”. Maybe we’re all more like hipsters than we thought we were… that had to be it, we were watching the “Friday” video ironically…
Meanwhile, a lot of evil people met their maker… Bin Laden, Gadhafi, Kim Jong Il. And the United States left Iraq… and only President Obama even framed this as anything approaching a success. I won’t even debate the use of the v-word (“victory”) in describing the ultimate result of the Iraq War, but I will say that there are a hell of a lot of people rushing to declare this war a failure and the lives lost as a waste. While I acknowledge that I was against the war when it started, you NEVER tell someone who lost a loved one in something like this that he/she died for a “mistake,” and that seems to be what the peacenik rhetoric tells us. Either that or they were “just following orders,” which of course lends itself to Nazi references. They fought and died for the cause (or the perceived cause) of Iraqi freedom, but no, we’re not going to have a parade to welcome them back, because we might end up getting more protestors than honored veterans. At least tell any veteran you know that you appreciate their sacrifice.
Oh, and because I’m a member of the media and I have to hit my mandated quota… Tebow Tebow Tebow Tebow Tebow. Hell, with “Tebowing” becoming an often-practiced verb, maybe that could have been a grammatically correct sentence, like the one where you use the word “buffalo” a bunch of times.
So what more is there to do than recap some of the highlights and lowlights of the year 2011, in list form…
Dumb PETA Protest of the Year: Usually when PETA pulls their dumbest stunt of the year, it doesn’t generate much attention… but you just don’t go after the biggest icon in video game history and expect it to go under the radar. PETA’s claims that Super Mario promotes killing animals for their fur with his “raccoon suit” ability (that he’s had since “Super Mario 3” 20 years ago) reached new levels of cuckoo-bananas, and opened them up to new levels of public ridicule.
Good 2011 Retro: The Cars’ new album, “Move Like This.” The lead single, “Sad Song” sounded like it could have fit easily on “Heartbeat City”, and the video looked retro-80s cool as well. It was a much-welcomed return for the synth-pop group from Boston. In a year where groups like Destroyer and M83 seemed to recreate New Wave, who better to show us how it’s done than one of the originals?
Bad 2011 Retro: The Beastie Boys new album, “Hot Sauce Committee, Part II.” This probably will sound a lot worse now since they just got voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but the first time I heard “Make Some Noise,” I couldn’t help thinking I had heard this song before. I had… on every album they’ve made since “Ill Communication.” While critics were praising how the Beasties were moving in new directions, my response was, “WHAT new directions?”
Good 2011 Retro TV: Welcome back, “Beavis & Butt-head!” We missed you, and the brilliance of the show now is that when the boys tear apart MTV reality shows, you realize that as dumb as people thought they were in the 1990s, they are WAY smarter than what passes for programming on the former “Music Television” these days.
Bad 2011 Retro TV: “Charlie’s Angels.” Nice try, ABC. I pretty much figured from the start that this reboot was only filling the 8pm Thursday time slot until they could get new episodes of “Wipeout” produced.
Dumb Lawsuit of the Year: When you lose an important game because of a blown call, it’s tough. It’s a good reminder that sometimes life is unfair. Unfortunately, in our litigious 21st century society, it’s also a golden opportunity for a lawsuit. Such was the case in New Mexico, where high school football referees accidentally started the clock with three seconds to go after a penalty, denying a team the chance to kick an otherwise-meaningless field goal that would have gotten them into the state playoffs on a point-differential tiebreaker. So the parents sued. The lawsuit was thrown out… perhaps the better protest would be getting rid of a tiebreaker method that forces teams to attempt meaningless last-second field goals.
Zero (Bleep)ing Tolerance Strikes Again: Liverpool high school basketball coach Jerry Wilcox, a Central New York Hall of Famer with well over 400 career wins in 30 years of coaching, got fired in late December or breaking a new Liverpool district policy against profanity. That’s right… in the heat of the moment during a game, Wilcox dropped a four-letter bomb on a referee, got a technical foul (the appropriate punishment), and days later was fired. But that’s what happens with zero-tolerance policies; the most seemingly innocuous things get kids suspended or well-respected coaches fired. As the late George Carlin said, “There are no bad words… bad thoughts, bad intentions… and words…” Of course, if next year the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the FCC throwing the book at people who use “fleeting expletives,” you may see the equivalent of a “zero-tolerance” profanity policy throughout the broadcast media.
Most Overplayed Song of 2011: Sometimes a song starts off as something you think sounds pretty good… not great, but pretty good. Then after you hear it a few times, you decide it’s something you can tolerate but only every so often… at which point, it goes into ultra-heavy rotation and gets used everywhere in pop culture. That is why I created this yearly award, and that is what describes “My Body” by Young the Giant. Nothing Katy Perry, Rihanna, or Lady Gaga did this year had the “dear god why the hell are they playing this again” quality of this particular song.
Most Overplayed Artist of 2011: I had to create this new “honor” specifically for Rihanna… because she never stops putting out new singles. Counting her collaborations, she had a staggering 7 singles getting Pop radio airplay at one point or another this year, and 14 since the fall of 2009. Considering that she just put out her third album in a little over 2 years, it’s not going to stop anytime soon, but based on the sales, nobody really seems to care. She just doesn’t reach the point where people get sick of hearing a new song from her every 2 months. However, I AM sick of her, soooo…
Who We Will Talk About in Music in 2012: Rihanna (duh), The Black Keys, Green Day, M83, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Florence & the Machine, and The Scarlet Ending (yeah, that last one was a little self-indulgent, but they are working on a new album right now).
Who Should Just Go Away in 2012: Almost every year I put Nickelback on this list, and every year they fail to just go away. But they’re on the list again, as well as Lil Wayne, Avenged Sevenfold, and any Alternative radio PD who puts Adele on his/her station.
Best New Album I Bought This Year: As much as I wanted to count Weezer’s deluxe edition of “Pinkerton,” which never left my CD player this summer, I cannot. Therefore, the honors go to the Foo Fighters’ “Wasting Light.” They really have never made a bad album, and this one just seemed to capture this particular time period in my life.
My Prediction Record for the Year: When I said that the Mets, Jets, and SU football underachieved, that was mostly according to what I predicted for them. When I said we would talk about Arcade Fire in 2011, I had no idea they would win for Best Album at the Grammys, although it was an honor well deserved (and had it come out in 2011, “The Suburbs” would have beaten the Foos for best new album I bought this year). I also hit the nail on the head for Grohl & co., Gaga, the reunited Blink-182, and Nicki Minaj. However, Bieber Fever failed to subside.
And Finally: If the Mayans really were right about the world ending next year, then at the very least, it means I won’t have to do another one of these year-end lists ever again. And with the presidential race kicking into high gear next week, I hope it doesn’t get to the point where we actually hope the cataclysm comes early…
Ah, 2011… the year when Charlie Sheen gave new meaning to the term “winning”… and “tiger blood”… and “Adonis DNA.” The year when the first phase of Destiny finally opened, and great move by the Destiny folks putting Santa in the new section so that Carousel shoppers had to see the new portion if they wanted to get their kids’ pictures taken with ol’ Kris Kringle. The Jets underachieved, SU football underachieved, we found out that Jerry Sandusky and Bernie Fine underachieved as moral human beings (to put it mildly), and the Mets not only underachieved, but as of this point in the offseason, they seem to be aiming even lower for 2012. Speaking of low expectations, it was also the year of Rebecca Black… and the year that we reached the point where someone can put out a song universally acknowledged as bad, and it can still become a massive “hit”. Maybe we’re all more like hipsters than we thought we were… that had to be it, we were watching the “Friday” video ironically…
Meanwhile, a lot of evil people met their maker… Bin Laden, Gadhafi, Kim Jong Il. And the United States left Iraq… and only President Obama even framed this as anything approaching a success. I won’t even debate the use of the v-word (“victory”) in describing the ultimate result of the Iraq War, but I will say that there are a hell of a lot of people rushing to declare this war a failure and the lives lost as a waste. While I acknowledge that I was against the war when it started, you NEVER tell someone who lost a loved one in something like this that he/she died for a “mistake,” and that seems to be what the peacenik rhetoric tells us. Either that or they were “just following orders,” which of course lends itself to Nazi references. They fought and died for the cause (or the perceived cause) of Iraqi freedom, but no, we’re not going to have a parade to welcome them back, because we might end up getting more protestors than honored veterans. At least tell any veteran you know that you appreciate their sacrifice.
Oh, and because I’m a member of the media and I have to hit my mandated quota… Tebow Tebow Tebow Tebow Tebow. Hell, with “Tebowing” becoming an often-practiced verb, maybe that could have been a grammatically correct sentence, like the one where you use the word “buffalo” a bunch of times.
So what more is there to do than recap some of the highlights and lowlights of the year 2011, in list form…
Dumb PETA Protest of the Year: Usually when PETA pulls their dumbest stunt of the year, it doesn’t generate much attention… but you just don’t go after the biggest icon in video game history and expect it to go under the radar. PETA’s claims that Super Mario promotes killing animals for their fur with his “raccoon suit” ability (that he’s had since “Super Mario 3” 20 years ago) reached new levels of cuckoo-bananas, and opened them up to new levels of public ridicule.
Good 2011 Retro: The Cars’ new album, “Move Like This.” The lead single, “Sad Song” sounded like it could have fit easily on “Heartbeat City”, and the video looked retro-80s cool as well. It was a much-welcomed return for the synth-pop group from Boston. In a year where groups like Destroyer and M83 seemed to recreate New Wave, who better to show us how it’s done than one of the originals?
Bad 2011 Retro: The Beastie Boys new album, “Hot Sauce Committee, Part II.” This probably will sound a lot worse now since they just got voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but the first time I heard “Make Some Noise,” I couldn’t help thinking I had heard this song before. I had… on every album they’ve made since “Ill Communication.” While critics were praising how the Beasties were moving in new directions, my response was, “WHAT new directions?”
Good 2011 Retro TV: Welcome back, “Beavis & Butt-head!” We missed you, and the brilliance of the show now is that when the boys tear apart MTV reality shows, you realize that as dumb as people thought they were in the 1990s, they are WAY smarter than what passes for programming on the former “Music Television” these days.
Bad 2011 Retro TV: “Charlie’s Angels.” Nice try, ABC. I pretty much figured from the start that this reboot was only filling the 8pm Thursday time slot until they could get new episodes of “Wipeout” produced.
Dumb Lawsuit of the Year: When you lose an important game because of a blown call, it’s tough. It’s a good reminder that sometimes life is unfair. Unfortunately, in our litigious 21st century society, it’s also a golden opportunity for a lawsuit. Such was the case in New Mexico, where high school football referees accidentally started the clock with three seconds to go after a penalty, denying a team the chance to kick an otherwise-meaningless field goal that would have gotten them into the state playoffs on a point-differential tiebreaker. So the parents sued. The lawsuit was thrown out… perhaps the better protest would be getting rid of a tiebreaker method that forces teams to attempt meaningless last-second field goals.
Zero (Bleep)ing Tolerance Strikes Again: Liverpool high school basketball coach Jerry Wilcox, a Central New York Hall of Famer with well over 400 career wins in 30 years of coaching, got fired in late December or breaking a new Liverpool district policy against profanity. That’s right… in the heat of the moment during a game, Wilcox dropped a four-letter bomb on a referee, got a technical foul (the appropriate punishment), and days later was fired. But that’s what happens with zero-tolerance policies; the most seemingly innocuous things get kids suspended or well-respected coaches fired. As the late George Carlin said, “There are no bad words… bad thoughts, bad intentions… and words…” Of course, if next year the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the FCC throwing the book at people who use “fleeting expletives,” you may see the equivalent of a “zero-tolerance” profanity policy throughout the broadcast media.
Most Overplayed Song of 2011: Sometimes a song starts off as something you think sounds pretty good… not great, but pretty good. Then after you hear it a few times, you decide it’s something you can tolerate but only every so often… at which point, it goes into ultra-heavy rotation and gets used everywhere in pop culture. That is why I created this yearly award, and that is what describes “My Body” by Young the Giant. Nothing Katy Perry, Rihanna, or Lady Gaga did this year had the “dear god why the hell are they playing this again” quality of this particular song.
Most Overplayed Artist of 2011: I had to create this new “honor” specifically for Rihanna… because she never stops putting out new singles. Counting her collaborations, she had a staggering 7 singles getting Pop radio airplay at one point or another this year, and 14 since the fall of 2009. Considering that she just put out her third album in a little over 2 years, it’s not going to stop anytime soon, but based on the sales, nobody really seems to care. She just doesn’t reach the point where people get sick of hearing a new song from her every 2 months. However, I AM sick of her, soooo…
Who We Will Talk About in Music in 2012: Rihanna (duh), The Black Keys, Green Day, M83, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Florence & the Machine, and The Scarlet Ending (yeah, that last one was a little self-indulgent, but they are working on a new album right now).
Who Should Just Go Away in 2012: Almost every year I put Nickelback on this list, and every year they fail to just go away. But they’re on the list again, as well as Lil Wayne, Avenged Sevenfold, and any Alternative radio PD who puts Adele on his/her station.
Best New Album I Bought This Year: As much as I wanted to count Weezer’s deluxe edition of “Pinkerton,” which never left my CD player this summer, I cannot. Therefore, the honors go to the Foo Fighters’ “Wasting Light.” They really have never made a bad album, and this one just seemed to capture this particular time period in my life.
My Prediction Record for the Year: When I said that the Mets, Jets, and SU football underachieved, that was mostly according to what I predicted for them. When I said we would talk about Arcade Fire in 2011, I had no idea they would win for Best Album at the Grammys, although it was an honor well deserved (and had it come out in 2011, “The Suburbs” would have beaten the Foos for best new album I bought this year). I also hit the nail on the head for Grohl & co., Gaga, the reunited Blink-182, and Nicki Minaj. However, Bieber Fever failed to subside.
And Finally: If the Mayans really were right about the world ending next year, then at the very least, it means I won’t have to do another one of these year-end lists ever again. And with the presidential race kicking into high gear next week, I hope it doesn’t get to the point where we actually hope the cataclysm comes early…
Labels: 2011
posted by Dave | 6:34 PM
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