Welcome to the archived messages from In The 00s. This archive stretches back to 1998 in some instances, and contains a nearly complete record of all the messages posted to inthe00s.com. You will also find an archive of the messages from inthe70s.com, inthe80s.com, inthe90s.com and amiright.com before they were combined to form the inthe00s.com messageboard.
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Subject: it's worse than i thought
i was looking through the voting results from this week and i noticed that the original songs that had been parodied tended to be pretty old. So i checked through the list and to the best of my knowledge offhand of when songs were released only 4 songs in the top 50 were released after 1980 (my i guess why they call it the blues and centerfold parodies, spaff's every toy you break, and mike pacholek's longest time parody) and i'm pretty sure none of those were released after 1983. In the whole top 100 list, there were about 4 songs released after 1990, and only one of them was from this decade... and that's an amiright tribute song.
I can see why other people think its a problem when parodies are almost exclusively to new songs, but this skewing toward old songs is just as bad if not worse.
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
Here's my thought, Ethan. All but a fraction of 1% of all existing songs were written prior to AD 2000. So it's no surprise that the majority of song parodies are going to be of songs written before AD 2000.
Despite your preference for recent releases over "old" songs, people write what they know, and most of the songs that most people know have been around for a long time. The years 2000-2003 are just four years out of many, and statistically are better represented on this site than many other individual years. (Do the words "Avril Lavigne" ring a bell?)
I thought it was cool, by the way, that Merry and Jeff Reuben (and possibly others) made it a point to vote and comment on your Hey Ya! parody even though they didn't know the song beforehand.
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
you cant force diversity......if people dont know/like the newer songs, then their not gonna know/like it anyway you put it...you can try busing in a younger crowd from other sites, but I doubt it will help....
anyway, stop worring about the charts......some peoples best parodies have nevere gotten anywhere near the charts.....
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
i probably should have mentioned that i do realize that there are a lot more traditional songs than usual because it's december... it isn't a problem that some people only write and read parodies of older songs... the problem is that it seems most of the people who keep up with new music and write parodies of new songs have disappeared. And i know that charts don't mean that much - if i made a list of my favorite 50 songs that i wrote probably less than 5 of them would have made the overall weekly top 10 and i've have 17 of those so far (mostly in 2002 even though i think i had a much better year of parodies in 2003)
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
Hmmm... I´m gonna post a link here to the old short novel "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson. It´s a short story dealing with the possibility that the human race will one day (sooner than we think) run out of non-copyrighted music(al combinations).
Be warned though, it might change the way you think of music and art (and math) forever. I read it 20 years ago. Still think of it as one of the 5 most influencual (to me) pieces of texts I have ever read:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
This thread made me do an inventory on our songs... and aside from the one song mike wrote as sort of an original that slipped by we have 49. the results... for two kids born in '83 and '84 respectively are strikingly even.
traditionals: 2
70s: 10
80s: 14
90s: 11
aughts: 14
although these results may be a little skewed seeing as all but a few of the recent ones are country songs. Although they don't garner much support vote-wise, we're writing new ones. A few of the songs we parodied, "99.9% sure" and "three wooden crosses" were increasing in spins when they were written, and I still believe "Walk a little straighter" which was parodied AUGUST 12th is still in the country top 10. So I don't know if it's people aren't attempting them, it's just that there is a larger demographic for songs like American Pie and Bohemian Rhapsody... and because of that, in a large part, I believe the true artists on the site are judged by how they perform on their parodies of these two songs. When Mike and I did American Pie recently we made sure it wasn't bad, because we definitely didn't want to ruin any sort of reputaion we may have built in 18 months.
Another statistic... Mike and I have 4 songs in the top 100 overall. 2 are from the 2000s and 2 are from the 80s. And the highest is from the 2000s, so feel free to look at that as an exception to a rule that isn't necessarily true. In fact... the top 10 songs on the site overall are all over the board.
So while I'm sure all of this has some super intelligent meaning that would help to understand this trend... I have no idea what it is. I guess I'm just trying to stir the pot, partly because ethan is mostly on top of reading and commenting on parodies.
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
There's one additional factor: the vast majority of 00s new releases have been complete unadulterated crap - you need some kind of lyric to work with in order to create a parody which can retain interest for more than just the title; speaking as someone who has parodied damn near every genre out, I reckon I can pull out a parody of pretty much any song around... but when we had the parody competition, and a round which had to be a parody from the current top 40, I found lyrics for and listened through 37 of the top 40 songs - and they were dire with only one or two exceptions.
Having said that, if you want to write a parody to a new song then why not? I've done a couple recently, myself; I've also gone off the idea of trying to get chart hits all the time, the competition's too good ;-) (hence the recent Iron Maiden/Dee Snyder/Judas Priest songs.. some great songs, good parodies (even if I do say so myself ;-)) and sod all votes)
Phil
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
I think it's more a matter of numbers. Unless the site was specifically targetted to the under 20 crowd, most new stuff is not going to be recognized by everyone. The longer a song is on the radio, the more likely someone is to have heard it. Even Weird Al tends to stick with stuff that was popular about a year after his record comes out. I'm sure some of that lag is due to the time it takes to record/produce, etc but it's also hard to tell if today's number one song, is going to still be in the top ten next week. Some tunes peak quick, and disappear even quicker. If you parody today's top ten song, whose to say in a month anyone outside of the fanbase of that performer, will even remember it well?
it's been a long time since I ran a site survey, but the last time I did, most of the visitors to the sites, were 70% female, and between the ages of 18-30. Surprising that so many were women (considering it's mostly men that write parodies), but it also goes to show you why hard core rap and metal parodies are probably going to do worse than mainstream pop that's been around the block awhile.
You have to know your audience, and write to it.
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
Quoting:
There's one additional factor: the vast majority of 00s new releases have been complete unadulterated crap
End Quote
While I'll agree with that sentiment, it's just opinion. I know a lot of people who view the 80s with the same sentiment, or the 70s, etc. People tend to prefer the music they grew up listening to. I actually stopped liking most new music by the time I was a freshman in high school. But it was the late 80s, and heavy metal hair bands were all the rage, so who can really blame me? I'll take Gary Numan over Poison any day.
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
Quoting:
While I'll agree with that sentiment, it's just opinion.
End Quote
I've often argued that the majority of most music in any genre is bad (including jazz, classical, rock, C&W - all of them)... but the good stuff lasts, and the filter of time tends to remove the trash and leave the better songs around (well, it ain't perfect, but on average). I just didn't realize how big that majority is in today's music.
Quoting:
I'll take Gary Numan over Poison any day.
End Quote
I like Poison - they make me laugh :-) Besides, if I'm playing "Your mama don't dance" to them already, it means my children can be rebellious and listen to Mozart ;-) My 5-year-old has really taken to Twisted Sister, and over the weekend was going round the house singing "We're not gonna take it"... though he must have asked three or four times whether Dee Snyder was a girl or a boy :-)
Phil
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
Quoting:
though he must have asked three or four times whether Dee Snyder was a girl or a boy :-)
Phil
End Quote
dont show him Christina Agulara in the Moulan Rouge video, it'll confuse him even more
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
Quoting:
But it was the late 80s, and heavy metal hair bands were all the rage, so who can really blame me? I'll take Gary Numan over Poison any day.
End Quote
now wait a minute, I like Cars as much as the next guy, but.....yeah, ok, I cant blame you lol
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
Quoting:
I like Poison - they make me laugh :-) Besides, if I'm playing "Your mama don't dance" to them already, it means my children can be rebellious and listen to Mozart ;-) My 5-year-old has really taken to Twisted Sister, and over the weekend was going round the house singing "We're not gonna take it"... though he must have asked three or four times whether Dee Snyder was a girl or a boy :-)
End Quote
Show her a picture of what he looks like now.. should end all confusion quickly. Kids won't listen to louder music to rebel, they'll listen to hip hop which is just plain annoying to anyone who likes something more than a bass beat.
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
about the average age of people visiting the site... i have a feeling it's shifted upwards considerably as the age of people writing has increased
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
People tend to write parodies of stuff they acutally like or listen to as well. I'm 33, and I don't listen to popular music as much as I used to--if ever. That's why you can see that my submissions are copyrighted from over th past 20 years! When I scan the 2000s-era parodies, I don't even see any songs that I can recognize, and since my time online is somewhat limited, I rarely take a look at them. I am thinking of forcing myself to write a Dave Matthews parody, just because I think the man needs to lighten up. ;D
Subject: Re: it's worse than i thought
I've been here for a few years and I think the trend has definitely changed. I was worried because I like to parody the 80s, and any new songs are usually country songs (unless I go out of my way to hear Britney Spears or something). Back in the day, I think there were many more current parodies as opposed to the Beatles, and other older ones which are becoming more common now. I'm still stuck in the 80s and Country, so instead of everyone else doing the late 90s/2000s, they're doing the late 60s/early 70s ;D