WRIGHTEOUS

And This Is Crazy…

So yesterday I was working on this really poppy song and I thought I should listen to some pop songs for reference. One of those songs was Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen and instead of listening to it once I listened to it four thousand times (and counting). I’m listening to it right now. And because I have no filter/girlfriend and the cat was elsewhere, I wrote about it on Twitter. And because we live in this glorious age of Web 2.0 interactivity, people got to reply to my tweet. And guess what! Some people are not into Call Me Maybe!

Here’s what I think when you tweet tweets about Call Me Maybe being a Bad Song: Is your life boring? Is your life shitty? I mean, far be it from me to pass judgement on other people’s taste, which I generally hold in extravagantly high regard, but seriously? I can’t imagine someone listening to Call Me Maybe and not feeling giddy and euphoric and awesome unless their life is boring and shitty. Because that’s what good music does! It wraps you in this crazy awesome cocoon of giddy euphoria and makes you think that everyone who isn’t listening to that exact same song in that exact same moment must suck. Yo cool kids, it’s the same feeling you get when you listen to latest Bon Iver joint or whatever.

Here’s another thing. In the summer, my Fancy Acclaimed Pop Rock Outfit Tokyo Police Club did a bunch of cover songs. The last one we did was Party In The U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus. A lot of people (a lot!) on the internet talked about how “finally” they could like the song, or how Tokyo Police Club made it “okay” for them to like it. Newsflash, hot shots! We didn’t change anything about that song! We played the exact same parts, except we had a guy sing it, did a stupid jam at the end, and (I suspect more pertinently) we haven’t made as much money in the last six years as Miley Cyrus has in the last six minutes. 

Don’t do that thing! You’re going to waste so much time and energy not liking things that are awesome, and then you’re going to feel like a huge doofus later! I mean, if you honestly don’t like Call Me Maybe or Party In The U.S.A. or California Gurls or whatever, more power to you and your black coal heart. But you probably do like those songs! They’re really good! And you should like them, because you probably listen to pop music and these songs are really really good pop music.

Here: do you like delicious food? Sometimes people that like delicious food go to fancy restaurants and pay a lot of money to eat food cooked by people who are well regarded by everyone as chefs, and they all agree that the food is totally great. This is pretty much the same thing! Or: do you like the Harry Potter books? A lot of people do, which is because they rule! 

Basically what I’m saying here is that the idea that something must be bad when a lot of people like it is crazy. Call Me Maybe is like the best Harry Potter book (Prisoner of Azkaban, natch) marinaded and cooked sous vide style by one of the guys from Iron Chef - it’s really popular because it’s really good.

So please please please stop writing music off because it’s on the radio or because the person singing it didn’t write it or for whatever other reason you can think of. Don’t be that guy! Writing things off sucks and liking things is awesome and man, I’m going to listen to Call Me Maybe a hundred more times and love the shit out of it and that’s such a good thing. Because ultimately you have to wake up every day and decide how you’re going to engage the world, and when it’s all over you’re going to be so much happier if you just get down with Call Me Maybe and Miley Cyrus’ version of Party In The U.S.A. and whatever else and you go out into the world every day and get super excited and positive about everything.

There’s this thing in improvisational comedy where you’re never supposed to say No to anything because it blows the whole scene. You always say Yes. Now I’m no improv comedian but dammit, I can go around and say yes to things every day because I’m an adult human with a neato thinking brain and I have the power to do that! What a fantastic thing! What a gift! Don’t waste that by going around and not liking stuff. Screw that! That’s boring and old and pointless. Be that guy who likes everything! Be that guy who’s always jazzed about stuff. I love that guy! Be that guy, and see what happens.

Call Me Maybe!!!