Indie Paws Mixtape: Volume 6
August 30th, 2009 by Flint
Wow! A long time since the last one. We’ve had plans, we’ve had development hells and finally we’ve actually got something. So once again, the IP crew is bringing you a bunch of ragtag tunes compiled under a vague theme, ready to easily introduce you to new artists or waste your bandwidth with boring tripe.
Today we’re going to offer something very… different. Our writers have compiled together a list of songs so bad that they are good. Songs that they love to listen to but daren’t do so loudly because they wouldn’t dare to be caught listening to them. Yes, it’s time for Indie Paws’ Guilty Pleasures Mixtape!
This is what we’ve got:
- Lipps Inc – Funky Town ♥
- Ace of Base – The Sign ♥
- Sonic Arcade – Sonic & Tails ♥
- Marnie Stern – Put All Your Eggs in One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!!! ♥
- Bloodhoung Gang – Mope ♥
- Hellogoodbye – Call n’ Return ♥
- Simon Bookish – Handsome Girls ♥
- Digital Underground – The Humpty Dance ♥
- Alvin & the Chipmunks – The Time Warp ♥
- Chow Nasty – Ungawa ♥
- Hanson – Where’s the Love ♥
- The Real Heat – Hearts Not Innit ♥
- Max Tundra – A Truce ♥
- Mephiskapheles – The Bumble Bee Tuna Song ♥
- Global Kryner – Funky Town ♥
Key:
Mag’s tracks = ♥
Flint’s tracks = ♥
Ipequey’s Tracks = ♥
Trey’s Tracks = ♥
And after the cut, read individual descriptions of each song by our writers and see why on earth do they listen to this sort of cack.
Lipps Inc – Funky Town (Ipequey)
Let’s face it. This is one of those songs that everyone should come out of the closet and admit liking. Sure, it’s disco but not all disco is bad…I mean even Trey included some cover version of this song, purely coincidental, I assure you all!
Ace of Base – The Sign (Ipequey)
I guess the reason I am so ashamed to admit liking the song was because everyone and their grandma liked this song. For me, this song reminds me of the first time I heard the song, in Japan actually. I was on a bus with some US and Japanese people and one of the US people got the bus driver to play the song and hilarity ensued when the Japanese kids started singing the song in Engrish.
Sonic Arcade – Sonic & Tails (Flint)
The unholy marriage between cheesy hyperactive 90’s dance, Germans and cashing in on a big franchise of its time. You’ve been warned. And there was an album full of this stuff.
Marnie Stern – Put All Your Eggs in One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!!! (Mag)
Marnie Stern’s spazzy guitar-tapping coupled with Zach Hill’s blister-inducing drumming with vocals that closely resemble a group of nine year-old girls singing songs on a playground. I try explaining her to friends, but they just don’t get it!
Bloodhoung Gang – Mope (Flint)
Metallica, Pac-man, Falco and Frankie Goes to Hollywood (and The Simpsons) all sampled in one single song. Listening to Bloodhound Gang always makes you feel like you’re losing some of your braincells but they have some mad genius sometimes.
Hellogoodbye – Call n’ Return (Trey)
Recorded mere moments after the birth of all of the individual band members, this song exhibits no shame for repeating a phrase a few times to fill in the rhythm. What it lacks in depth, it makes up for in sheer brute-force bounciness. An excellent soundtrack for driving quite rapidly over winding mountain roads.
Simon Bookish – Handsome Girls (Mag)
A song from Simon Bookish’s earlier releases. Despite both his early albums being these bizarre spoken-word stories that range from job interviews to demonstrating to George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld how ducks stand on one leg to avoid getting shit on both feet, I love them both. At least now he has a very coherent album to his name, so I can just tell people to listen to that and judge him. It’s just not very easy to justify a grown man singing about ‘fantastic piss experiments’, ‘handsome girls’ and ‘dwarf documentaries’.
Digital Underground – The Humpty Dance (Ipequey)
This song is just utterly stupid, but that’s its charm. It gets even better when you picture how gawdy Humpty Hump dressed. Jumpy hump is an interesting fellow. Classically trained pianist turned Hip Hop musician, working with talent such as 2Pac and others in this “Family Band”.
Alvin & The Chipmunks – The Time Warp (Flint)
No, this isn’t some self-made audio speed-up edit. Yes, the people behind the official Alvin & the Chipmunks albums once made their mascot perform The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (featuring The Chipettes as well!). There are only a few things in life greater than hearing beloved children’s characters sing about “voyeristic intentions” on top of cheapily synthetic midi-heavy metal double kick drum action.
Chow Nasty – Ungawa (Trey)
Why it is that this is not the single most annoying song in the history of existence is beyond me. Every element of it is awful: the cheerleaders in their acoustically-challenged gymnasium; the generic nu-metal guitar driving the monobrow of anonymous noise riffs; the lead singer caught mid-gargle; completely incomprehensible lyrics. All coalesce into such a mishmash of irritants that there is no explanation for the bobbing head and failure to delete the track, or skip it when it comes up, or indeed to not seek it out for repeat plays. Almost certainly encodes some form of mind control.
Hanson – Where’s the Love (Ipequey)
Is it any wonder why I might be ashamed of a song by siblings turned band “Hanson”? After their oh-so-terrible 90s song “Mmmm Bop”, I only found myself unwilling to listen to anything they would ever produce. After having a friend convince me to download this track, I was surprised to find that this song was quite catchy, perhaps even good. So now, I twist your arm and ask you kind readers to give this track a chance.
The Real Heat – Hearts Not Innit (Flint)
When Indie Paws was just starting and we published our contact addresses for the first time, one of the few who emailed us back then was this girl group called The Real Heat. The video for Hearts Not Innit left us completely speechless and became an instant legend. Over a year from that and the damn song’s still playing in the head of everyone who heard it, I hold a mp3 of it on my hard drive and have been known to give it plays. It really is quite damn good despite continuing to be a bit… out there. In a good way. I think.
Max Tundra – A Truce (Mag)
I don’t fully understand the lyrics in this song, but they seem be a conversation between two people playing a board game, and arguing over it. The music however, is typical Max Tundra craziness. It’s like a thousand arcade machines all playing music at once. <3
Mephiskapheles – The Bumble Bee Tuna Song (Trey)
The classic commercial jingle achieves further immortality through the magic of a ska cover, which perfectly caps Mephiskapheles’ otherwise somewhat heavily satanic album. It always surprises me to see that this track is just over five minutes; I could swear it goes on for WEEKS. At least it does so in my head. Enjoy!
Global Kryner – Funky Town (Trey)
Perhaps the most meta of guilty pleasures. While I love Lipps Inc’s original, it is slightly embarrassing in and of itself. Not a brilliant song, yet an enduring and infectious one, which never fails to inspire enjoyment and horribly shrill singing along. Global Kryner has taken the guiltily pleasure one step further by providing the world with a sorely needed oompah cover. Thanks for that!
Tags: ace of base, alvin & the chipmunks, bloodhound gang, chow nasty, Digital Underground, global kryner, hanson, hellogoodbye, lipps inc, Marnie Stern, Max Tundra, mephiskapheles, Simon Bookish, sonic arcade, the real heat, what is this tripe