Tuesday, August 4, 2009

203 Seconds of Hell: Waking Up In Vegas

At the moment I am working an hour and a half from where I reside, a situation that occasionally has me listening to the radio stations whenever VPR goes to a pledge drive or something like that. Sometimes this is a bad idea. For example, when the song being played is the latest from Desmond Child (Writer of both 'Livin' La Vida Loca' and the reprehensible 'Who Let the Dogs Out?'. He deserves some kind of anti-lifetime achievement award), Waking Up In Vegas, as sung by Katy Perry through a computer autotune program. This song is all over the pop airwaves right now, presumably due to some combination of money and/or sexual favors given to radio producers by Perry, Child or Perry's record label. Possibly all of the above. Because good God is this song terrible.

It kicks off with the sound of a carefully-processed bit of feedback, to let you know that we are now going to RAWK! Then the guitars promptly begin to chime rather than squall, just to let you know that things aren't going to actually challenge any of your sensibilities, and either a person does an excellent job of imitating a drum machine or Katy Perry's backing music is the beginning of the long-feared Robot Apocalypse. May they kill her first. Speaking of Perry, this is the time that what the autotune has left of her voice enters the mix, sitting at a much higher level than her vocal cords merit. I am going to reprint the line that closes the first verse exactly as it appears in the song (Without label permission. I didn't ask):

We need a taxi 'cause you're
Hung over and I'm broke.

One of these is not related to needing a taxi. Can you spot it? Anyway, these and other similarly aggressively sub-moronic lyrics get belted out (For example, right after this she talks about losing her fake ID. She is 24 years old), some of them accompanied by this terrible warbling thing the computer does to Perry's voice, all of which makes the veins in my forehead stand out a bit (This song makes me need oatmeal, I think). Then we get the chorus:

Shut up and put your money where your mouth is
That's what you get for waking up in Vegas
Get up and shake the glitter off your clothes now
That's what you get for waking up in Vegas

Barring people (Possibly short, magical ones) breaking into your room while you sleep and dousing your garments with sequins (A possibility in Vegas, I suppose), these lines make absolutely no sense whatsoever. If Perry really is chastising people for failing to heed her warnings of mischievous sparkling elves, I will retract all the statements contained in this post. Because that would be awesome. Anyway, the song continues to go from here, with Perry caterwauling nonsense and androids playing completely featureless background music. The end result is, to my knowledge, the first song ever written to specifically cash in on a successful marketing campaign (Or at least the first since Paul McCartney and Wings recorded 'Ring Around the Collar'). The sole purpose of this song is to ride the coattails of the 'What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas' campaign, milking a bit of cash out of the army of gullible morons that is the general public in the process. Money that will presumably be used to arm the robots. It is a complete failure in every possible sense of the word, and everyone involved in its creation and production should be ashamed of him/herself. Tragically, I suspect their bank accounts are increased because of it, and for them, that means that they have succeeded.

Note(s) - If you wish to assault both your eyes and ears simultaneously, the music video can be found here. It is, amazingly, almost as bad as the song. And while doing a bit of research for this post (A very minimal amount of it), I found Allmusic's review of Katy Perry's album. It is wonderful, and can be found here. They seem to share my opinion, but are even angrier about Katy's continued existence. I love them.

2 comments:

kathy g said...

Okay, I've been there and heard that and I'm still in shock... Blech! And the worst of it is it's somehow insidious and tries to lodge itself in my brain despite my conscious mind's rejection of it as one of the top ten most evil songs ever recorded. :(

UncleRick said...

After watching Waking Up In Vegas I decided to follow that bilge water up with Lady Gaga's LoveGame video. I think this is another entrant in "your mom"s list of the top ten most evil songs ever recorded (especially when you throw in the ridiculous video) I will now immerse myself in a Neil Diamond musical marathon to heal my scarred psyche.