Written by Tessa
We’ve all been there. You’re driving along with a buddy, listening to some tunage. Your jam comes on, but for whatever reason, you can’t sing along with it. It’s painful. You suddenly wish that you were alone in your car so you can sing above your range, or make up lyrics. Trust me bro. I’ve got you. Remember that time you were in your car, and your iPod on random played…
Grace Kelly, by Mika.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEPCsQ4608&w=854&h=480]This song is uplifting as all hell, and super catchy. Mika channels Freddie Mercury so hard in this song, that when I used to play it on the iHomes at Best Buy (I worked there), customers and coworkers alike would ask if I was playing Queen. Shit, he even quotes that he “tried a little Freddie.” We know what you’re doing, Mika, and we love it.
It’s easy enough to sing along with for me. I’m an alto. However, when you get to “I could be hurtful…” most people need to drop down an octave to sing along. This ruins the song. This track can handle no edits, and it sucks. I can’t imagine how many times people have gotten too drunk at karaoke and decided that they can handle this, forgetting about the sky-high tones in only a handful of lines of the song. This one, like all of the songs on this list, is best to be sung alone in your car on the way home from work.
Since channeling your inner Freddie can be so much fun, why not try…
Teenage Demon Baby, by Foxy Shazam
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3x6TcwblhE&w=640&h=480]If you haven’t heard anything from Foxy Shazam, it’s time you start. They’re a wonderful group, and symbolize what would have happened if Freddie Mercury wasn’t taken by AIDS and if he went the opposite direction of Mika.
This song has many of the issues as Grace Kelly does, with the addition of some emotional yelling that is near impossible to emulate unless you were in a hair band in the 80’s. They just don’t make front men like this anymore.
I remember driving down to the coffee shop with two friends of mine, once. We were listening to this album. The driver was tapping out the drum beats with perfection on his thigh, I was singing along with the parts that I could (which are few and far between—and I assure you. I’m a karaoke star. You know, as long as I’m singing Pink Floyd and only Pink Floyd), and our passenger… oh, man. Nick, you know we love you, bro, but you’re tone deaf. He sang along with every damned second of the song. So–if you’re not a seasoned musician and you find yourself singing along to the entirety of this track—you’re being a Nick.
Please save this behavior until you’re alone. Windows rolled down, too.
Love,
Everybody.
I Am the Best, by 2NE1
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lSP8Vc3o&w=854&h=480]If you’re about to haze me for a K-Pop entry, save your breath until you’ve listened to the song.
Have you finished?
Excellent.
Now you know where I’m coming from. The sickening beats that accompany this group of talented ladies are catchy as all hell, and you can’t help but bob your head, no matter how much you hate poppy stuff. It’s hard. It drives the song. It’s perfect. Listen to any other track by 2NE1, and you’ll be itching for this one, instead.
I had a great friend of mine who drove down to visit the Halloween before last. We went to the bar, slammed a couple long islands, and decided it was time to visit a friend. We both loaded up into her car, and what started playing? None other than a mix CD of 2NE1 and PSY’s albums (don’t worry—we’ll get to PSY in a bit). This song started up, and I could almost feel the tension in the cab of that hatchback. We were both drunkenly rocking about, humming along; and then later in the song, we turned to each other and enthusiastically recited:
NUGA NEGA NABODA DEO JAL NAGAAA?
NO NO NO NO. NA NA NA NA.
NUGA NEGA NABODA DEO JAL NAGAAA?
NO NO NO NO. NA NA NA NA.
BRRAAAAAHHHH.
Everything else is too hard, and you’re talking to a girl who memorized the lyrics of Gentleman as a bar trick, and couldn’t stand not singing along to Dimmu Borgir so much when she was a teenager, that she devoted hours to learning the Norwegian bits. Korean is hard, and that brings me to…
Passionate Goodbye, by PSY
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDyXwcWM3m0&w=854&h=480]You may not have heard this one. It was never released as a single. This baffles me as a K-Pop enthusiast and 7 year player of Audition. This is a gem. It embodies all of what good K-Pop is. The backing music is catchy, and the rhythm of the lyrics is on point. This is what makes it nearly impossible to sing along with, though.
While Gentleman was easy enough to emulate the lyrics of with my heavily Westernized understanding of language, this track isn’t quite the same. Korean is weird. When you’re speaking it, your vowels and consonants do weird things, and your ability to rap surpasses almost every other language in the world. The rhythms are just too hard to pair up with the lyrics in our Western brains. The most I can do is sing along with PSY’s guest for the song, which, I guess, is something; but, it doesn’t satisfy the needs of my passionate sing-alongs that happen when I’m home alone in the bath or shower. Oh, well.
While we’re still discussing the topic of foreign music (and I promise you this is the last one), why don’t we visit…
Fel Del Av Gården, by MOVITS!
Actually, let’s not discuss it. Swedish is too hard, and watching a Swedish version of Adam Savage prance around in a suit and perform swing music is way too distracting.
Let’s talk about something else. How about…
Informer, by Snow
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StlMdNcvCJo&w=854&h=480]Okay, okay. I know this a little before the times of some of you Pixel-Response readers, but for those of you who love this song—you’ll get it. I’ve clocked some serious hours in to attempting to get this song’s lyrics locked into my brain.
The only person I’ve known to conquer Informer is my sister. I remember this like it was yesterday: we just picked up her kids from school and we were going back to her house. We were listening to XM Radio (before it merged with Sirius), and this track came on. I was the poor old fool left humming and mumbling while my sister KILLED her performance. She knew every syllable and schooled me in how serious the song’s subject matter was. Who would have thought that a man with those glasses could be capable of murder?
A licky boom boom down.
