Areala Asks: Hell's Music Selection (20160310)

[Areala]

Oh dear me, beloved forum denizen. You have died and wound up in Hell (probably for egregious copyright violation, and if you don't think that will get you sent to hell, just ask yourself where all the lawyers wind up after they bite the big one). Satan, trying to work on his reputation of being more South Park and less The Exorcist, has decided your punishment will be to listen to only one band for the rest of eternity. Being that he's making his image kinder and gentler though, he's letting you pick from the following list instead of just heartlessly condemning you to something random off Radio Disney:

A: Eternal 'Creed'.
B: Perpetual 'Nickelback'
C: Unending 'Chumbawamba'

D: Relentless 'Gin Blossoms'

E: Continual 'Hootie & The Blowfish'

F: Ceaseless 'Vanilla Ice'

G: Unremitting 'Lady Gaga'

H: Incessant 'Slipknot'

I: Interminable 'Limp Bizkit'

J: Constant 'Adele'

K: Uninterrupted 'Los Del Rio'

Ten Eleven choices, one pick. Which band/musician composes your own personal soundtrack in Hell for the next infinity years, and why? Do not worry--your wonderful Warrior Nun works for the forces of Good, and will not share this information with the bad guys!

You've got one week (straight up until March 17th) to decide, after which responses will close and I'll come up with some other awful question for my loving devoted to answer.

Bonus Points: If you actually love one (or more) of these bands, feel free to confess here and receive absolution (and probably some additional forum credits out of pure pity). Then pick somebody else: this is Hell, after all.

Super Extra Bonus Points: One of these acts is shamelessly adored by Areala; can you guess which one? You have a one-in-ten shot of getting it right, and no penalty for getting it wrong, so what have you got to lose? Anybody who guesses correctly will receive a plethora of extra forum credits, though the correct answer (and credit dispersal) will not be revealed until after the topic has closed. Get your guesses in now for a chance to win (and sorry, only one guess per person)!

*huggles*
Areala

[marktrade]

I guess I really am in hell.

Chumbawumba. I would spend my eternity in hell believing that I can get up again after being knocked down there.

[twiztor]

from the above choices, i think Slipknot would be the worst. Now, don't get me wrong. i've seen them live. i have numerous friends that were into them in their heyday. i'm from the same state as them. But i can't stand their music. having to hear it 24/7 would drive me insane, mainly because i wouldn't be able to stop figuring out the words to the songs, but that is a task that requires a Herculean effort. too much noise, not enough enunciation.

like i said, i saw them live and they put on a hell of a show and i had a blast. but that environment is wholly different from Hell.

i actually dislike the band Creed the most on the list, but i feel like if i had to listen to it on repeat for eternity, i'd be oddly ok with it after a week or so. Nickelback also falls in this category.

also, i feel like Limp Bizkit gets an undeserved amount of hate. I don't love them, but they're not terrible. fucking everybody had the cd with "Nookie" on it back in 2000 ("Significant Other" is the album title). it just seems that public consensus has turned on the band 100%, when really it's because Fred Durst is a douche and has nothing to do with the band itself. i actually quite like their first cd ("3 Dollar Bill Y'all") because it has such raw energy and emotion.

[miketheratguy]

Adele? How the hell did she wind up in the choices? : /

I absolutely love one song by Chumbawamba, I enjoy maybe one song each from Hootie and Creed, and while Vanilla Ice is a good choice he samples Under Pressure which is one of my favorite songs of all time so I can't say that I hate him completely. I'm pretty apathetic to most of the rest of the choices. Hmm... Yeah, I'm going with Limp Bizkit. I haven't been able to stand a single thing of theirs that I've heard. "My Way", "Nookie", "Rollin". Ugh. And Fred Durst is a dopey squealing douche.

EDIT: I only just saw that twiztor thinks he's a douche too. Then again, doesn't everybody?

[kitsunebi]

Man, Hell sure has a 90s music fetish. Which is good because I've pretty much lost track of whatever is currently popular. I wouldn't even know who Adele is if I didn't use facebook.

I've gotta pick Creed. There's something ineffable about them beyond just the music that irks me. And how ironic to have a Christian band playing nonstop in Hell.

I've gotta admit that I like some of the Gin Blossoms' songs. Hey Jealousy reminds me of high school.

[mariobro]

Tough choice, I'm gonna go with Vanilla Ice, because I have to admit to owning his debut album "To The Extreme", and actually knowing the whole lyrics to Ice Ice Baby... Now the healing can begin...

But seriously, that song was a humongous hit back then, it was everywhere during that summer, and it's incredibly catchy. The lyrics are quite clever for a 1990 rap song, and it even has a sort of gangsta rap bassline. Vanilla raps about " packin'a nine" and "dope fiends full of eight balls" who are "acting ill". This was before gangsta rap had any mainstream exposure, MC Hammer and the Fresh Prince were the rap chart toppers, with dance rap with silly lyrics. Vanilla was a better rapper than most people give him credit for.

My guess is: Nickelback... The Hootie of the new millennium.

[HowardBware]

Nickleback would be my hell because one can only listen to the soundtrack of a beer commercial for so long.

I would guess that you like Adele because unlike the rest she is actually talented and likable.

[kitsunebi]

I would guess that you like Adele because unlike the rest she is actually talented and likable.

Sure, that's the safe answer, but not the fun one. It's not particularly interesting to like the only one on the list that seems to be universally liked by everyone at the moment. Hidden secrets of shame are the better kind. Here's hoping she's got a "Hootie 4ever" tattoo or followed Nickleback on tour for 6 months or something.

[HowardBware]

Sure, that's the safe answer, but not the fun one. It's not particularly interesting to like the only one on the list that seems to be universally liked by everyone at the moment. Hidden secrets of shame are the better kind. Here's hoping she's got a "Hootie 4ever" tattoo or followed Nickleback on tour for 6 months or something.

Nickleback Tramp Stamp

[mariobro]

To this day, I still marvel at the backlash Hootie got in the mid 90s. They went almost instantly from superstar chart-topper to hated outcasts, I've never seen that happen so fast, not even with annoying one hit wonders. By 1997, no one admitted to having bought their albums. There's not even enough demand for a nostalgia tour. It's so weird.

[Areala]

Man, Hell sure has a 90s music fetish.

I did that simply because my assumption is most people into the retro scene are roughly my age, and would find common ground among some of the least-beloved bands of the 90's. While options like "Unstoppable Herman's Hermits" or "Repetitive Florence Foster Jenkins" (look her up on YouTube...seriously...the woman sold out Carnegie Hall with that voice) might be funny, I didn't want most readers to have to Google more than one name due to unfamiliarity.

I'm kinda wishing I took the poll up to 11 with "Uninterrupted Los Del Rio" because, let's face it, if Hell does have a soundtrack it's probably the gawd damn Macarena. You know what? Edited, bitches. Come at me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiBYM6g8Tck

So far the votes seem fairly certain that I'm either ink-wed to Nickelback or secretly in love with Adele. Interesting... Anyone else want to edit and hazard a guess?

*huggles*

Areala

[miketheratguy]

To this day, I still marvel at the backlash Hootie got in the mid 90s. They went almost instantly from superstar chart-topper to hated outcasts, I've never seen that happen so fast, not even with annoying one hit wonders. By 1997, no one admitted to having bought their albums. There's not even enough demand for a nostalgia tour. It's so weird.

Oversaturation. That "Only Wanna Be With You" song was just completely omnipresent in the mid 90s. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing it and eventually people responded with an equal level of resistance.

See also: Me and superhero movies.

I'm kinda wishing I took the poll up to 11 with "Uninterrupted Los Del Rio" because, let's face it, if Hell does have a soundtrack it's probably the gawd damn Macarena. You know what? Edited, bitches. Come at me!

I actually like the original Spanish version of Macarena because (A) I heard it first and ( B ) the most annoying, obnoxious element of the Americanized super hit - the babbling, vacant-headed valley girl who talks through the whole thing - is completely absent from it. Though the basic structure and chorus of the song is the same, the tone of the song is different.

If you want to go back even further there's an even more basic rumba version that removes much of the instrumentation and sounds more or less like two guys singing in a Mexican club. The closer the song comes to getting what most of the world got in 1996, the worse it becomes.

Coincidentally, Macarena topped the U.S. music charts for a record 14 straight weeks. That is until Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" - which is a phenomenal song - surpassed it.

[Areala]

The Bayside Boys mix of Macarena was all over the radio here in Indiana to the point that it was at least 2001 before I learned they completely altered the structure of the song and added in the English translation/trans-literation of the lyrics, and probably not until about 2003 that I heard the version in Mike's video.

Back in 1997, one of the local radio stations gave four "lucky" (you'll understand the reason for the scare quotes in a second) people a chance to win a brand new '97 Plymouth Breeze. The catch? All four of them (three guys and one girl) had to stay in the car, which was right out in public, sitting in the parking lot of a local mall, with the radio on and "The Macarena" on continuous loop replay. They were given a short break every 3 hours or so to use the bathroom. Food and drinks were delivered courtesy of the mall food court. Anybody who left the car for any reason other than an authorized trip to the bathroom was disqualified, and the last person remaining won the car. Nobody could shower, brush teeth, or do anything else hygene-wise unless you could get it done during your bathroom break. The name of the contest was "Live in it to win it." They were not kidding.

The woman got disqualified on the first day for being a few seconds late back from a bathroom break. The bathrooms they had to use were the public restrooms at the mall, and they were NOT close, so if you had to go, you had to RUN. The other three guys though spent damn near two weeks in that thing (remember, you cannot shower, you cannot brush your teeth, change your clothes, or do anything else even slightly hygenic unless you can get it done during one of your short breaks), and by the end of the second day, the guys were all using those breaks to stretch their legs and such, not run to the restrooms every three hours.

Now...I don't care how expensive a fully-loaded '97 Plymouth Breeze was (~$16,000 according to the Internet), there's not a spray, air freshener, or cleaner made that could extinguish the combined stench of three twenty-something, unwashed males sitting, eating, drinking, and sleeping in it for that length of time. At least nobody died as a result.

I can still do that dance though. Damn muscle memory...

*huggles*
Areala

[miketheratguy]

Sit in a car with stinky people listening to music to win a car? Hell, I've done that for nothing.

That's an awesome story though. It's really kind of amazing to me how much the Macarena took off. The reason why I heard the Spanish version first (and, oddly, probably before the majority of other people in this country now that I think about it) is because it was featured in the background of murder revenge film "Eye For An Eye" which I saw in the theater at the very beginning of 1996.

I liked it, I found it catchy but then kind of forgot about it until it got huge near the end of the year. I was confused why there were a bunch of obnoxious lyrics laid over it though. What's funny to me is that the movie contained another song by a foreign singer, this one featured much more prominently. THAT was a song that I searched and searched and searched for over the course of damn near a decade before the internet (Yahoo Radio's "Launchcast" in particular) finally ended the long journey. While Macarena had raved over the world and won all kinds of people billions of dollars, this quirky, haunting little indie tune failed to similarly conquer the world.

I went nuts when I finally found it in 2004-2005 and it's been in my music rotation ever since. Some people may find this tune to be hell, but to me it sounds like VICTORY!

[twiztor]

So far the votes seem fairly certain that I'm either ink-wed to Nickelback or secretly in love with Adele. Interesting... Anyone else want to edit and hazard a guess?

my guess of your music-love would be Gaga. She's quirky with her outfits and ideas, but actually has a very good mind for the business and a great musical ear. her style is not my taste, but i hold nothing against her.

without knowing you outside of this message board, i would speculate that you either listen to her or to heavy metal music. maybe both.

[Areala]

Alright, and that's all for this edition of "Areala Asks". Your beloved Warrior Nun thanks you as always for your participation, and those who confessed their musical sins should expect their rewards of forum credits soon.

Sadly nobody guessed my secret shame band, which is in fact Chumbawamba. "Tubthumper" is, in my opinion, one of the greatest albums of the decade, and easily makes my top 10 list of personal favorite records.

Although I don't mind NIckelback (I don't own any of their albums, but I won't automatically flip the station if they pop up on the radio), I personally don't care for much of Lady Gaga's music, although I admire her stage persona, and I'm rather 'meh' on Adele. She has an incredible voice, but nothing I've heard her sing ever really caught me up in the moment.

My personal soundtrack in Hell would be Slipknot, since they're the only band on the list without a single song I care for. As annoying as Fred Durst might be, I still know all the words to 'Nookie', and for that, I don't think there's any repentance to be had from anyone.

*huggles*
Areala