I am quite often amazed how a country such as Germany, with such a rich and extensive history of classical music can today demonstrate such utterly awful taste in modern music. German television is replete with examples of what I surmise to be a drunken monkey lobbing darts at a target covered with the names of popular bands from the past thirty years in order to determine the soundtrack of the latest reality show.
Although I do watch it now and again, on the whole I am not a huge fan of television. And lately I am starting to think it is at least partly due to the aural assault on my aesthetic sensibilities that German television offers. Last night I was watching a program which had the premise of taking ugly people and giving them plastic surgery to make them not ugly any more. Not exactly compelling, but interesting enough to watch and generally vegetate. In this single show I heard:
- Duran Duran
- The Verve
- Tool
- Franz Ferdinand
I threw up in my mouth a little bit. I am pretty sure they even threw in some bits from the soundtrack of Robin Hood and the Lord of the Rings.
Let’s take each of these in turn:
Duran Duran = good
The Verve = not awful
Tool = good
Franz Ferdinand = good
However:
Duran Duran + The Verve + Tool + Franz Ferdinand ≠ good
In fact:
Duran Duran + The Verve + Tool + Franz Ferdinand = WTF?
I do not think this logic is hard to follow. We can extend it to a different sense where:
chocolate = good
green peas = not awful
beer = good
feta cheese = good
However:
chocolate + green peas + beer + feta cheese ≠ good
To quote a man wiser than I whom I knew in college, “I like pizza and I like pussy, but I enjoy them separately.” Said another way, some things simply don’t go well together.
Perhaps you have heard of a performer by the name of Lady Gaga. By all indications she is the hot new act on the pop music scene. And to keep up appearances as being hip and cool, one of the main television channels in Germany, RTL2, has her as an official spokeswoman of sorts. And the theme music that RTL2 now has is a snippet from one of The Lady’s songs:
“Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick
I wanna take a ride on your disco stick”
I do not think it takes much reflection to understand what the metaphor is. Imagine if the NBC chimes and peacock were replaced with someone singing, “I want to ride your cock.”
Don’t get me wrong. I am not a prude by any sense of the term. However, I think there is still place in society for things like good taste. Maybe I am old-fashioned.
I think I’ll go now. There is an excellent documentary on television now about the modern catholic church and its recent controversy. The theme song is “It’s Raining Men.”