And why didn't I get the memo?
[SUMMARY: This is me, this is the rest of the universe...]
Saturday night I went to a dance club for the first time in two years.‡
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
See, Tani, Jaxon and I went to Studio 54 in Vegas and *they* didn't play full songs. They'd run the first verse and a chorus and then stop and go onto the next fractional song. Many was the time the full import of an opening hook would sink in, we'd jump over to the dance floor and the music would already have moved on without us.§
I kept shrieking, "Hey! I *liked* that song! Where did the song go?"¶
I figured it was a Vegas thing, some sort of latter-day Studio 54 conceit.
Turns out it's a worldwide epidemic.
[SUMMARY: Doctor, doctor, give me the news.]
I can't believe my sweet little Denver would stoop to such short-attention-grabbing, MTV-sound-bite, focus-of-a-gnat, video game blip, instant gratification, short-term-benefitting way of doing business.
[SUMMARY: This time, it's personal.]
What's more, they're now doing mashups.%
You probably know all about mashups.
You've probably been spinning mashups at your parties for four or five years. You probably do mashups during your lunch hour for fun. They probably have Disney Mashup Makers in Happy Meals now.
But I didn't know.
[SUMMARY: I'm a pig-licker, not a song-masher.]
In case you don't know, a mashup is when the DJ takes, say, the hook from one song, the recognisable beat from another, then plays the singing and basic melody from yet another over that.
Some of it is brilliant. Some of it sucks. Most of it made me sit there, slack-jawed,# unravelling the songs in my own private game of "Name That Tune."
[SUMMARY: As challenging as a crossword puzzle, but you don't need a pencil.]
My poor little date†† just wanted to dance.
I love to dance. I'm all about shaking my ass.‡‡ But I don't love to dance because I love to dance so much as I love to dance because the mad beat drives me to dance.
The music is where it's at for me.
So when poor little date told me about this club where they play a lot of 70s, 80s, 90s and after midnight some current hip-hop, I thought, "Cool!"
I never thought they'd play 70's, 80's and 90s all in one song for about a minute and a half, then go onto something I didn't recognise.§§ Like Studio 54, by the time I realised it was a song I liked and wanted to dance, we'd get on the floor and they'd start on something I didn't know and didn't want to dance to.
Oh, I powered on for poor little date's sake, dancing to a lot of bullshit train wreck kinda stuff "as long as we're here," but I fear dance clubs are ruined for me.
[SUMMARY: For I am old and feeble and wield the power of the knowledge of cassette tapes.]
And don't even get me started on 22-year-olds getting all jiggy with Cutting Crew.
Mixed with Tone Loc.
And Paula Abdul.
And Aerosmith.
Hey, I knit something this weekend...¶¶
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): U.S. Dept. of They
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Almost exactly. I know this because it was Mother's Day weekend 2006.
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Generally something truly irritating like, "My Baby Takes the Morning Train." Never something even better like Prince.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I'm sure both Tani and Jax were very pleased to be touring Vegas with the un-hip and the loud-of-mouth.
%FOOTNOTE (percented): The music kind. Not the software kind. At least as far as I know.
#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I'm *such* a good date.
††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Nobody you know.
‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): To quote a famous cousin I once knew.
§§FOOTNOTE (you spin me right round): Mixed with three other songs I didn't recognise.
¶¶FOOTNOTE (sticks and balls heheheh): Stick with what you know, no pun intended. Oh, look! Still a knitblog!
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