Friday, January 06, 2006

What's Wang This Week

Maybe it's just because of all the holiday specials, but MuchMusic fucking sucks these days. Has it always been this bad? I remember that when I was younger, I could come home after school/class and there'd be a good, steady stream of music videos. There'd be the occasional show, like Spotlight, but those mostly centred around playing videos. I used to turn on MuchMusic and expect to see a few bands I hated, a few bands I liked, a few hot chicks, some Nickelback, you know.

Now I turn it on and it feels like about 60% of the time, I get "Video On Trial", which is the absolute worst. Instead of videos, we get this insipid tripe consisting mostly of stupid talking heads. Not interviews with musicians, no: totally marginal comedians, recognizable primarily from milk commercials and pre-movie advertisements in theatres; professional wrestlers; and Toronto-area media critics, all pretending that they're on "Remember the 80's?", only with music videos instead of the 80's. Who are these fucking jokers? Everything they say is completely played out and a waste of broadcast bandwidth. It doesn't stop there -- no, then there's the shows with the VJs themselves taking potshots at celebrities. And they keep showing the same stuff over and over and over. Where are the videos? I think the only time I've actually seen good, proper music videos just for the sake of music videos was between 2 and 3AM. Even Spotlight has become a 15-minute segment where they play one, maybe two videos.

This is terrible. This is what people say MTV has become, and it's sad that MuchMusic -- which had made a reputation as a music television station that still plays music television -- has sunk to that. In happier news, Burger King offers both a baked potato and a side salad as side dishes in their combos now.

In other news, I was at Future Shop a couple weeks ago and noticed that they had a bin full of double-pack DVDs (two for $25! What a savings). Most of them were dross, but there were some movies I wouldn't mind owning. The bundles mostly had some logic behind them. For example: the Steve Martin family comedy "Cheaper By The Dozen", bundled with the original version; "Star Wars I" and "Star Wars II"; "Man on Fire" and "Die Hard". Some of the bundles' logic was a bit tenuous, with a "Dr. Dolittle"/"Garfield: The Movie" doubleheader, and "Fat Albert" and some other movie starring only black people (I don't remember what it was, but I know it wasn't "Barbershop" or "Barbershop II"). The one that stumped me, though, was the bundling of "Elektra" and "Dude, Where's My Car?" What's the thread there?

Current Music: Rod Stewart - Handbags and Gladrags

8 comments:

aShelteredTown said...

Move me old of the scrap heap, you jerk! Love you!

aShelteredTown said...

...Fuck. Let me try again.
Move me out of the scrap heap, you jerk! Love you!

Dun-Dun said...

If you think video on trial is bad, you should watch "Much 911" sometime.

Anonymous said...

If it isn't on my iRiver, I probably don't listen to it.

Actually, I never really understood the appeal behind music television. I can enjoy music just fine without watching the artist lip-synch the lyrics.

Plus, I find that music adds a mood to whatever I'm doing; I try to match the music to the task. It's difficult to do this if you're watching a video that requires your attention.

I prefer my music in the background, not in video form.

Nice to see Shelby's still alive. Hey Shelby, are you still an avid fan of stevekwan.com? PS: I'm single now. And you're hot. What a great combination. Look me up.

Edward said...

I said it before and I'll say it again, "The IT list" is by far the worst show on much (The VJs basically tell our impressionable youth who and what to like)

aShelteredTown said...

Stevie K, you wouldn't even let me talk to you, let alone date you.

And Much Music fucking blows. They have constant VJ searches and none of the VJs are ever there for more than a week. Then there are VJs that NO ONE picked that are there (that tall black chick, and the black guy)... where the fuck did they come from?

Is Much 911 the show where they make a viewer's dream come true? I saw one where this chick surprised her boyfriend, but the guy totally didn't want to see her, and it ended in a whole lot of heart break. "Be careful what you wish for." So fuckin' clever. You all blow.

Anonymous said...

I like to receive music through my EARS.

Dickolas Wang said...

See, if they took "Stars on Trial", "Much 911", and "The IT List" off the air and replaced them all with Much Mega Hits, would anyone cry?