Wednesday 24 November 2004

The Great Cheesy Music Debate

Boy we have a lot of email debates....

From: Gabbi
TO: Earth Girl
10:10
You're in a very good mood this morning!!
Send some happiness my way!!! I’m perfectly happy but not all hyper-dyper like you!!!

From: Earth Girl
To: Gabbi
10.19
I was shit until the Venga Boys popped into my head on the walk from the Station. The Venga Boys are great, they can solve all your problems. They are even better than S Club 7 'cos they don’t have any stupid love songs slowing down the good vibes. The Venga boys are pure joy in a CD and we need more trashy euro pop in the charts!!!

Why The Venga boys rule:
1. They have a bus-the Venga bus, and it’s coming with every body jumpin’.
2. The Venga bus goes to New York and San Francisco- it's an inter city disco!
3. They have an uncle called John who is from Jamaica - he keeps on calling every day
4. Uncle john keeps saying 'just buy a ticket and come for a holi-holiday!'
5. "Boom boom boom boom, I want you in my room", I don’t know about you but four times in a night would put a smile on my face ! ! !
6. They're from Holland - people from Holland are cool by default.
7. Just the name 'the Venga boys' sounds happy.
8. They have wicked videos.
9. Doesn’t the Venga bus sound fun!
10.They’re just great.

From: Gabbi
TO: Earth Girl
10.35
Right, I see, now you make a very good argument there and I would be inclined to agree with you - as you especially know and appreciate my love for cheesy pop - however there is one factor that ruins them, as with Steps - these are two very cheesy, would-be credible pop combos, but the one fact remains -THEY ARE ANNOYING!!! Now you see, if they had chosen a different cast for Steps, they would have been one of the greatest -but they didn't and the one they chose was a combination of the 5 most annoying people in the world....

The problem with the Venga Boys however is quite different though -it goes far beyond this........they have that edge of seriousness that ruins a pop band, {BUSTED -fail thanks to this also -in fact they do it on a much larger scale...} and it comes through with the Venga Boys because they TRY and put a trancy/clubby edge to the music....Pop bands should NOT do this, it ruins them and makes them unobtainable by all types of people -those who love cheesy pop for being not quite poppy enough, and those who take everything too seriously and are adverse to cheese, because VBs are too cheesy -you see, everybody loses.....

From: Earth Girl
To: Gabbi
11.11
I see where you are going with this argument.
While I whole-heartedly agree that steps were incredibly annoying and yes, quite probably the most annoying band in the universe, I am unable to concur with your opinion of VB. Firstly the trancy dancy beats are a result of them being from 'the continent' where it is wholly acceptable, making them a euro pop/dance band. And you have to consider that during their hey day the charts were aflame with dance and VB were simply the cheesy edge of the genre.

From: Gabbi
TO: Earth Girl
11.30
Yes, I see where you're going with the whole Euro Pop thing and there is a valid point there, however when it comes to {and I quote} 'that during their hey day the charts were aflame with dance and VB were simply the cheesy edge of the genre. ' -I also see your point, however I disagree, no matter what is filling the charts at any specific time, there is certainly ALWAYS room for real cheesy pop, not the Venga Boys rip-off stuff, I’m sorry but it is S-CLUB7 all the way!!!! The undoubted Kings and Queens of Cheesy Popular Music!!!

5 comments:

  1. "Boom, boom, boom, boom..." Do you know, it took until today for me to realise how filthy those Venga Boys were.

    Come on though, Take That are the Kings of unadulterated cheese.

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  2. Hmmm, now while I agree that Take That were trail blazers in the field of cheesy boy bands I feel that they marginally less cheesy than their successors Boyzone, who piped them to the post with their co-coordinated standing at the crescendo of each cheesy love song. (The coordinated standing was a stroke of cheesy genius!)

    Although, it could be argued that the slow love song type of cheesy music should be in a completely separate category (perhaps labeled cheesy ballad bands) as opposed to cheesy pop which should only contain pop in the purest sense, in which case then yes, Take That would definitely take the biscuit as the cheesiest cheesy boy band of all time! (Dear Lord, now I have a disturbing image of Jason Orange half naked and caressing his chest on a beach in black and white......)

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  3. OK, granted, Boyzone were emminently cheesy, though as you say, more in a "cheesy ballad" way than a full-on cheese way. But they never made me want to dance around like a loon, like Take That did.

    In terms of out-and-out pop cheese madness, you'd have to go with Five, or preferably the Backstreet Boys. However, in all this, we're missing the Queens of Cheese.

    Nothing can surpass the Spice Girls. From singing along to "Who Do You Think You Are?" in A-Level English, to staying up all night drunkenly singing along with their videos at Uni (I always got Posh Spice's lines to sing), no band has consistently offered the same level of cheese enjoyment since Abba.

    It's just they've sullied their reputations a tad witht heir subsequent work, which makes us forget how good they were as a collective.

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  4. Can you believe I forgot all about 5ive! even after I went to ssee then in concert! Five are cheestastic I think they out cheese Take that By a mile due to the chessy liyric factor. Take thats songs were all well written cleverly crafted pieces of pop where as 5ive had some poptasticly stupid lyrics such as 'Aint got no manners I eat with my fingers' and the stupider the lyrics the higher the cheese qutent. Also they are fantastic for dancing round your bedroom drunk at 3 in the morning. While we're at it 5ive also didn't take them selves seriously, unlike the Backstreet boys whos songs like those of Take That were also well written and well crafted. So 5ive Rule the cheesy boy bands

    Now Abba, Abba are cheesy and that can not be denied they have all the necesary qualities such as stupid dance routines, stupid (but very fashonable at the time costumes) & stupid lyrics, they do loose some points for taking them selves seriously but gain some for looking back and laughing. They also get 10 million points for not only writing their own songs but having a cheesy musical created out of thier songs and a tribute album of their songs recorded by contempory cheesy pop stars.
    All this elevates them to a strata so high above normal pop as to be virtualy unatainable. Abba are the pinacle of the cheese mountain to which all other pop stars should aim to reach.

    I just wish the spice girls would have looked to them as an example. They had all the makings of legands fantsticaly crap lyrics, clothes and dance steps. If only they would have bowed out gracefuly like Abba, even 5ive and the venga boys did the decent thing and disapeard when their time was up instead of subjecting us to dire solo efforts, so while there songs are undeniably cheesy I have to relgate them to the ottom of the pile for ruining the memorys with their dire solo efforts.

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  5. Surely Bottom of the Pile is a little harsh though. Admittedly, nothing can prepare you for the sheer-god-damn-awfulness of some of the solo efforts (I don't actually believe there has been a redeemable one among them), but the high-point of "Who Do You Think You Are?" makes up for any crime.

    And do we know that lurking around somewhere there isn't a Benny or Agnetha album equally as dire as anything by Posh Spice? But am in agreement about Abba in general - the high water mark of cheese. A couple fo weekends ago I was at a party of a friends and she had the Abba videos playing silently in the background - absolute genius! Given there's no sound, we couldn't work out exactly which song was which, but there was one with a 10-foot-high snowman sitting behind the band with a big grin on its' face. That snowman ruled - I'm going to try and recreate him this winter.

    While I agree also with your comments about 5ive, they really do lose points for covering "We Will Rock You". I mean, I know the surviving members of Queen would sell their bodily parts if they could make money from it, but that really was beyond the pale.

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