You know what? Let's do a marathon. Yeah, I've been more interested in the 1980s this year, so I figure I may as well do a bit of an 80's marathon, which should consist of four Abominations and two Aces. The 80s as I have stated previously, is both the best and worst decade for music, the best because of all the awesome music that we got from this decade, to numerous to name but for a small list, "Master of Puppets", "Learning to Fly", "Tom Sawyer", "Take on Me" and "Welcome to the Jungle", amazing classics that every fan of music at least know. It is also the decade that gave us the four chord pop song, the decade that gave us Synth Pop and the decade that gave us plenty of stinkers from "I Want to Know What Love Is", "Nothing's Gonna Change my Love for You" and "We Built This City". Since I already covered those songs, I think I'm going to branch out a bit, and start with a terrible song, from an artist who should know better, this is Dee Dee King, or as he is better known as Dee Dee Ramone.
Yes, Dee Dee Ramone had a hip-hop career, and no, we are just getting started with how bizarre the 1980s were for music. My next abomination is going to be a dance song that is sung like a news report, the funny thing is you think I'm kidding! However, staying focused, this is only one of the weird pieces of crap from the 1980s, you know, the decade that gave us "Physical" and "Agadoo" and yes I am going to get to those songs eventually. However, I want to start with this one because, the Ramones were one of the most important bands in the world, and one of the members, decided to start a rap career. It's just bizarre and I won't get over that fact, you can say that punk rock is overrated, but we can all agree that this song is shite.
The opening drum beats are simple, I hate it when drums are used this way. When used correctly drums can add a new layer of mood to the song, think "Lazarus" or "The Sound of Silence" (either version). The other opening instrument, which I'm going to assume is some kind of guitar, doesn't work for me. It may be the sound, but it just doesn't work. Also, there those effects like from the opening of "Tom Sawyer" which is an actual good song and one of my favourite songs ever. This kind of sound worked their because they only used it once.
I'll give the instrumentals credit though, they sound a hell of a lot better than Dee Dee does. His voice is raspy and nasally, like if Marilyn Manson and Bob Dylan were singing coaches to the same person. The vocals also nearly drown out the instrumentals, but on other times Dee Dee's rapping style moves to fast it's like he is mumbling his lyrics. For comparison, Macklemore and Busta Rhymes both rap fast, but they're style is smooth and flowing. Dee Dee Ramone sounds like he is forcing every word out of his mouth, and the lines are delivered about as smooth as a nail bed.
The lyrics are also utter shite, and not just the part where he goes "fu-fu-fu-fu-funky!". No, Dee Dee sang worse lyrics than that, arguably though that may just be the best line in the whole song though because, Dee Dee King is a bit of an egocentric. He loves to tell people he was the bassist in a punk rock band, and his name is Dee Dee Ramone. Yeah, I know he calls himself Dee Dee King, but even he just says he is Dee Dee Ramone. Does he want to be called his stage name, or by his original stage name, wow this just got confusing.
The instrumentals somehow deteriorated. This is a large problem with doing these kind of text reviews because, I can't describe with 100 percent accuracy how bad the song actually sounds, so if you want to hear the guitar work around this portion, that is the reason why the song and video are posted up at the top. So, if you want me to describe the instrumentals, you know that trick that some guitarists do, where they play a not but it sounds kind of blocked or something, that's what is happening. I could end this review here, but we aren't even two minutes in, and this is a four minute song.
There is this odd part of the song (Saying a lot I know), where it almost sounds like somebody else is singing. Which begs the question, if he can lower his voice like that, than why does he sing with all that rasp? The song does practically end with him doing the same thing, with the same lyrics over and over again.
This song was awful. If Dee Dee Ramone wanted a rap career, fine more power to him, but he did so in such a horrible way that he never released another single afterwards. Everybody knew this song was terrible, and it was still released. Dee Dee's poor vocal work, painful flow, the awful instrumentals and the bad and repetitious lyrics, Dee Dee King definitely made one of the worst songs of all time.
Look, the 80s were an amazing time for music, but this is the kind of garbage you would get if you tried to make fun of the 80s by mixing together two genres that should not go together, punk rock is a very messy, rough and uncut genre, hip-hop is a stylized and smooth genre that requires rhythm and flow, the two can be mixed as we have seen with Rage Against the Machine, but the band knew what they were doing and how to properly mix the two genres, and they aren't even punk rock.
I'm done, next time will be an Ace on one of the most iconic songs of the 1980s.
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