Hello all and welcome to the first ever Thirsty Thursday blog - a blog where I introduce some exciting and fresh, creative content that you may not have heard about before! The purpose of this blog is to talk about authentic creations that will give you your fill of awesome for the week! Since it is the very first week I am tackling Thirsty Thursday I decided to choose something that is kinda the reason I came up with Thirsty Thursday in the first place. This week's drink is a song called Sell Out by Reel Big Fish!
This song is featured in a skateboarding video-game called Disney's Extreme Skate. I have the game for GameCube and so I frequently listened to the track while playing as a teenager. Once you listen to a song as many times as I listened to this one, you either become to numb to it or you pay close attention to it. I was the type of the person who paid close attention.
At first glance the song seems like a typical pop/punk tune that doesn't mean much outside of it's context. The music video almost presents it as a joke...which it is in it's own right. However the lyrics go a lot deeper than what is led to believe.
Music today has become pointless tunes which, for some reason, the American public buy into. Why Ke$ha and Justin Bieber make big bucks is a concept I won't ever truly understand. This song, although released in 1990, is extremely relatable to how and why music is made today. Sell Out is featured on the band's record titled Turn the Radio Off. Right away you know the band is trying to make a statement - what is on the radio isn't worth listening to.
Sell Out tells the story of a fast food employee who can make it big time working with a record company and while he may gain money and fame, he will be selling out on something much more. The lyrics go along with the album title that critique's the radio.
"Radio plays what they want you to hear. They tell me it's cool but I just don't believe it"
"Cause the man said 'that's the way it is', and the man said "it don't get better than this" no no no"The lyrics, while speaking mostly about the radio, also present another theory to the listener - that it is important to make our own decisions and not let other people think for us. Our culture is notorious for this. Everyone thinks they all are individuals yet they are just another culture clone. As if dressing like a hipster, reading on a kindle, listening to Lady Gaga, and watching Grey's Anatomy makes someone different than the other millions of people who do the exact same thing. It is easy to watch TV and accept what is playing during the assigned time slots but why not question what is on the television? Why not challenge the award's shows for once again honoring Taylor Swift for her ability to write dozens of songs about the same exact thing over and over again? Why not not watch the new ABC show that is said to be a hit? Why not not listen to what the radio wants you to hear?
Sell Out by Reel Big Fish is a lyrically enriching song while also appealing to the ears (loving the trumpet part!). The song has a pop sound and while the sound is similar to many artists on the radio, what makes it different is that the lyrics actually have a message to send to their listeners.
And now I quote the Most Interesting Man in the World..."Stay thirsty my friends." See you guys next Thursday!
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