[MUSIC] THE SAVAGE ANIMAL "When Good Bands Go TV Fanboy"
08.10.11
BY MIKEY MIGO
Remember when our favorite rock stars and celebrities weren’t as accessible and had a sense of folklore and mystery to them? They were larger than life and were way cooler and better than us, the listener. They lived in mansions, went to big parties, and had crazy stories that TMZ would literally kill babies to have been able to report. Times have changed.
With the paparazzi, Twitter, and tell all books we all have to accept that these folks are people just like us. Yep, they eat, they sleep, and they watch TV. There is nothing worse than someone being quick to say “I don’t even own a TV”. How Un-American and Un-2011 is THAT? It’s indecent and wrong. Apparently, there are some really awesome musicians and artists who’d agree with me. In the past television was a lower form of visual entertainment. Film and cinema was where it was at and TV was mindless and hapless recycled stories. Times have changed.
This week I’m going to take a look a few of the more musical tributes to television shows. Some are flat out independent tributes, some appear on the show, and some just do what they can to show their support and work with folks they watch on a regular basis.
“Mad Humans”
Artist: Kellee Maize
Show: Mad Men
Holy White Girls, Batman! This is awesome. Here we have Kellee Maize, a very sly up and coming lyricist busting out an ode to “Mad Men”. She samples the awesomely ominous Mad Men theme here in a really cool way. She sits there with angry looking Mad Men women types and lets out her rhymes. I just have trouble feeling it. Her lyrics are well thought out, but her delivery is a bit too much to handle. It’s like one of those poems from “Def Poetry Jam” recited over the Mad Men sample. I like the minute twenty mark where they sneak in a good bridge with a better loop of the track in the background. Never the less, this is a great low budget video and I really appreciate what they’re going for here. I just didn’t connect with it.
“The Ballad of Homer and Marge”
Artist: Weird Al
Show: The Simpsons
This episode feels much older than it is, but from 2003 was this little gem. Here Weird Al parodies John Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane” in a short and sweet way. This episode would go on to win an Emmy because of how awesome it was. If you have a television and have a heart of any size then you should already know the long loving story of Marge and Homer Simpson. In this one they separate. Homer moves in with gay guys and Marge gets her man back with the help of Weird Al. How awesome is that!
“It’s the MILF Weed” -WATCH ON YOUTUBE-
Artist: Snoop Dogg
Show: Weeds
Is it a shocker to anyone that Snoop Dogg is a fan of a television show revolving around an attractive female mom selling marijuana? The show is called “Weeds”. Are we surprised in the least bit. This is a situation where the song “about the show” was actually written in to be “part of the show”. Nancy and Conrad show up to sell someone some weed at a recording studio. Out of nowhere, it’s Snoop! He smokes said weed and calls it the “Milf weed” in honor of Mary Louise-Parker’s main character. Then on the fly he goes into the booth and records the song. I remember seeing it and being shocked, but I enjoyed it. In retrospect, it’s a bit cheesy. Snoop’s connection and love didn’t stop there. For those who are long time fans of the show, you’ll remember the season or so when they’d have famous singers do their own renditions of “Little Boxes”. One of my favorite versions was also from Snoop. Dude loves his Weed… s.
“Freaks and Geeks”
Artist: Childish Gambino
Show: Freaks and Geeks
Childish Gambino is the name Donald Glover uses for his hip hop project. Donald Glover is “Troy” from the NBC show “Community”. The dude wrote for “30 Rock” and is a great up and coming stand up act. He’s on fire right now, but he’s going to explode huge soon. His rap project isn’t a “side project”, it’s just something else he does and excels at. The song title is a greatly underrated Judd Apatow television show. This show was a start for Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segal, Sam Levine, Martin Starr, and others. The show didn’t find an audience and was cancelled after one season. Over the years it built up a huge cult following and is now in syndication on a few channels. I read that he wrote this song with “Community” being on the verge of cancellation so that kind of makes perfect sense. This track is very well written and has some great lines. My favorite is “In the back of the bush, like Gavin Rossdale’s drummer”… hilarious.
”Zero Sum” Promo
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Show: Fringe
In this case, it’s an artist altering an already existing song to better suit the production. Two years ago in middle of the shows MLB Playoffs break, they aired a minute long promo spot. This was not a show I watched, but I’m a fan boy for Nine Inch Nails so I was curious. I saw this trailer, got intrigued, and before I knew it I was caught up with everyone and waiting for the next Thursday or Friday to come. I blame two things. The first is an insistent second party that twisted my arm into finally watching and the second was THIS commercial. Maybe it’s because of it being NIN, but it just made the show seem really cool. “Zero Sum” is one of my favorite tracks off of “Year Zero”. In this promo Trent does that monotonic poetic thing he has done in the past as he reads lines from the show. The lines he’s reading are Lenard Limoy’s “William Bell” lines, which is all that much cooler if you follow the show. It’s a great combination. I guess the story goes that they used the song as a sample to show the network the new promo and they liked it a lot. So they exchange emails with Reznor and he’s all about it. He does it for free, alters his own personal work, hides a symbol from the show into the sound waves, and even has an open invitation to act on the show if he chooses. Now Reznor is developing his own series based on the “Year Zero” album for HBO. He knows what’s up.
”Oh Sookie”
Artist: Snoop Dogg
Show: True Blood
Who would have known? Snoop Dogg is a big fan of True Blood too. This time he went a little farther and put out a full on music video honoring one of his shows of choice. The video here is awesome because it gets to play around in the world of Bon Temp. We get tons of old footage, some fun party stuff on set of Merlotte’s, and tons of tie ins to the smallest detail. The lines in it had me laughing out loud the first time I heard it. Things about “We’ll do it in the daytime, Bill won’t know a thing”, Tara eating some real “Eggs”, and the dancers in yellow wigs and Merlotte uniforms, Sam turning “into a bitch”, and like a dozen more. It’s pretty awesome. He gets deep into references that only a long time fan would know. Yeah, it’s posted by HBO and is censored a little. He might have been commissioned to do it as a promotional item for all we know. That doesn’t bother me. Why would it? A song like this could have gone a very cheesy route, but it’s Snoop so he maintains some coolness for it. It just works because it’s a solid tribute from someone who obviously follows and enjoys the show.
What are YOUR favorite TV related songs?
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