May 162011
Driving home from my son’s soccer game yesterday we tried to get our minds off a most-frustrating loss and near “global red card,” as the ref put it, by turning on our Classic Rock station. The following 3-song sequence played in the following order, which I explained to my son might have represented absolute rock ‘n roll mediocrity and the two points on either side of that state:
- Steve Miller Band, “Jet Airliner”
- Bad Company, “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love”
- John Cougar Mellencamp, “Jack and Diane”
I felt that one of these songs represented the absolute point of rock ‘n roll mediocrity, while the other two just toed the line on either side of the mediocrity. Where would you place these songs along the narrow spectrum of mediocrity?
I’m guessing that you would rank then best to worst in this order:
“Jack and Diane”
“Jet Airliner”
“Can’t Get Enough of Your Love”
Without regard to their artistic merits or level of mediocrity, my preference would be:
“Jet Airliner”
“Jack and Diane”
“Can’t Get Enough of Your Love”
Absolute point: “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love”
Just above: “Jack and Diane”
Just below: “Jet Airliner”
Least mediocre to most medicore:
1. Jet Airliner, which gets bonus points for using the word “shit” in a song Miller must have known would be a single. Then again, what’s he complaining about? It’s not like he’s taking a Greyhound bus or a train. Dude can afford to take a jet airliner. Cry me a river. And really, “big ol’ jet airliner don’t carry me too far away”? The whole point of flying is to go far away. Also, “here” is where he’s got to stay, but the big old jet airliner is taking him to his home. Why is here where he’s got to stay? That’s never really resolved. Textual analysis reveals serious flaws in the premise.
2. Jack and Diane, which contains one of the most cringe worthy opening lines I can think of “Little ditty, ’bout Jack and Diane”. Ditty? Ditty?!? Is there any other ostensibly rock and roll song which uses the lame-ass word ditty? I also hate the Phil Collins style drums which lead into the “Gonna let it rock” section. Finally, the idea of “suckin’ on chili dogs outside the Tastee Freeze” disturbs me to no end. I’ve never seen anyone suck on a chili dog and, having eaten many a chili dog in my life, this seems both impossible and a choking hazard if tried. And if she’s sitting on his lap and his hand is between her knees how’s he eating (or sucking on) a chili dog? More to the point, why would he be eating a chili dog instead of making out? Extra onions on her chili dog? The imagery in this song is a wreck.
3. Can’t Get Enough of Your Love. “Well I take whatever I want/And baby I want you” is the least convincing tough guy opening by a singer who would get maced and kneed in the groin by any woman he said this to, unless the woman was incapacitated with laughter. As I listen to it again, it’s really one of the worst Motown imitations I’ve ever heard masquerading as a pedestrian boogie.
To conclude: I hate music/It’s got too many notes.
This is why I stay away from classic rock radio, even though Classic Rock is my favorite music “style” in general (of course it’s not a style really). Add Boston and you have the perfect (crap) storm.
I have a place in my heart for Jack and Diane, even though the imagery is a mess, the electronic “claps” are annoying as is the use of “diddy” twice. This may have been the first album I spend my allowance on (the ones prior were gifts or borrowed from my friends older brothers)
My dad always liked “Hold on to 16 as long as you can” but this may be since he was 37 with two kids when the song came out (he also really liked Night Moves and Summer of 69 and bought a convertable)
Ps – I’m sure “suckin’ on a chilidog” is about oral sex, not Tastee-Freeze food consumption
So nostalgia (dads and mine) give JCM (or at that time just JC) the needed extra point.
Jack and Diane (+1)
Jet Airliner (0)
Can’t Get Enough of your love (-1) (just ’cause Free kicks Bad Company’s ass)
From bland to worse…
Steve Miller Band, “Jet Airliner” – It’s hard to believe but Miller put out some really great albums until around 1970, but then he cashed in on mediocrity especially starting with 1973’s The Joker. From then on, popularity overtook inspiration for Miller. This is one of his more acceptable latter-day songs, but did he ever credit Clapton for borrowing the “Crossroads” guitar lick? Also who told Miller that a spacey-synth opening would be cool for the song? Leave that to the art-rockers, Steve. They know what to do with it.
Bad Company, “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” – It’s competent mild boogie. No more. No less. It could have been written by a machine. It probably was. Bad Company was simply a cash-in band. Mott the Hoople, King Crimson, and Free didn’t bring enough groupies and limousines for these guys, so they created perhaps the most un-super “supergroup” ever.
John Cougar Mellencamp, “Jack and Diane” – This one is actively annoying. Dumb riffs, gratuitous bass pops and hand claps, rough vocals, and, as others have said, lame attempts at “gettin’ real, man” lyrical imagery.
Yeah, I thought about the oral sex angle as well, but chili dog and oral sex shouldn’t meet. Also, he wants Diane to go off into the trees with him, presumably to have oral sex. The handclaps are truly awful. I couldn’t figure out if they were electronic, or just treated with some godawful electronics.
Some excellent insight here, for sure. I’d rank them thusly:
+1 — “Jet Airliner” I can nerd out on the twangy guitar tone, which I think really works. Plus, there’s that “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” bit near the end to wait for. Vocal harmonies please my ears. Keeping in mind that, say, a lesser song from AC/DC would qualify as a +10 on the Rock Grading Curve, this one certainly merits a “plus one.”
0 — “Can’t Get Enough” Because this song pretty much epitomizes rock mediocrity, I have a hard time describing anything about it with any enthusiasm. I will say that Mick Ralphs is one of the all-time worst “lead guitarists” in the history of rock music.
-1 — “Jack and Diane” Others have catalogued this song’s multitude of chili-dog-suckin’, ditty-ing, synth-clappin’, bass poppin’ sins far better than I ever could. One of my problems with it is that I have a hard time not seeing Johnny Cougar shuffle-dancin’ his way down a dusty road, greasy pompadour wagglin’ and tight jeans stretchin’ all the way. Or am I confusing this song with a dozen other JC songs of the day? I swear, if it weren’t for JC’s hilarious turn in front of the camera for SCTV’s “The Nutty Professor,” John Cougar would be worth less than a piece of a fart to me.
On an unrelated note, I’ve discovered I have a near-psychic ability to predict what songs will be playing next on my local classic rock FM station. I was amazing my wife yesterday with my mad in-car skillz — I got Bad Company and Foreigner in a four-song suite. Can’t believe I missed “Blinded By the Light” or that .38 Special song. There’s got to be a way to parlay this talent into BIG BUCKS.
I’m quite ok with Jet Airliner. It’s on the plus side of mediocre absolute zero. I have always detested Jack and Diane, it is way below mediocre. It comes close to representing everything I hated about JC(M) and, ultimately, can never forgive him for. Bad Company’s Can’t Get Enough of Your Love–heck, Bad Company in general, but there is not better representation of what they were all about than that song–truly does epitomize a certain kind of rock and roll mediocrity in its purest form. That at times I feel a gentle pull of nostalgia when hearing a song like that or Rock and Roll Fantasy scares me.
Oh, I think there will be – and a way to contribute to a good cause other than the fullness of your own pockets. Stay tuned for a VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
Even though I don’t feel the need to hear the majority of his classic rock hits anymore, I still enjoy Steve Miller. This probably has as much to do with him seeming like a cool guy (he always tends to give a groovy interview) and being laid back throughout his career.
The other two…meh. I never cared for Bad Co. I was thinking the other day how when I was first doing my exploration of classic rock as a teen and bought their lauded debut how absolutely underwhelmed I was by that album. They’ve never done one song I enjoyed, so they’re at the bottom of this pile for me.
“Jack and Diane” has to be my least fave classic ’80s Mellencamp tune for me. I didn’t like it when it was new. I remember my brother having the self-titled John Cougar album (the one featuring a closeup of his mug on the cover) and not thinking much of it when he played it, and then being surprised when the dude hit paydirt with “Jack and Diane.” I always preferred “The Authority Song,” even though it’s annoying in its own way. When that tune was new and I heard it the fist few times, I thought he was saying “I fight Dorothy and Dorothy always wins” and wondered why it was called “The Authority Song.” This also furthered my notion that Cougar was the poor man’s Springsteen…but then again, I’m not a fan of The Boss, either.
An odd quirk about Jet Airliner: that sharp intake of air in the beginning of the first few lines. It sounds like they made it more prominent on purpose. What’s up with that?
I don’t mind some Bad Company songs but I can’t seem to remember which ones right now.
I’ve read somewhere that the single version of “Jet Airliner” actually had those air intakes were muted a bit more, though I’d have to check that against the album cut. Also, it’s worth noting that the single version also contains the phrase “funky kicks goin’ down in the city,” instead of “funky shit.” Thought I’d just throw that in there since bostonhistorian mentioned it.
Every year on vacation, I go and see the best band that happens to be playing the Cape Cod Melody Tent while I’m up there. The Melody Tent is a 2,000 seat circus tent with a stage in the round, so the furthest row back is only 20 rows from the stage.
I saw Steve Miller a few years ago. It was exactly as perfunctory as you would expect. It was a competent, professional, not wholly unenjoyable presentation of some relatively catchy songs that everybody knows by heart. Steve wore jeans and a golf shirt and so did most of the crowd. I enjoyed the show much more than last year’s option, George Thoroughgood.
This year I’m missing Elvis Costello by about a week but tickets are outrageously expensive for that show so I would not have gone anyway.
I’m pretty sure, a few years back, I made the case here that Bad Company was the least essential (not, necessarily, the worst) rock band of all time; that one had to assume that Rodgers and Kirke felt compelled to disband Free because the other guys didn’t understand their “We should keep making songs like this, but slightly shittier!” philosophy.
So I’ll stand by the idea that “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” is potentially the most mediocre song in the classic rock field.
As for the other two, I guess I’ll default “Jet Airliner” as being slightly more mediocre, since there’s really nothing going on there. The lyrics are a mess, like most Steve Miller affairs, but in a boring way. It’s maybe the least entertaining travelin’ band song the genre has to offer.
“Jack and Diane” was at least part of Mellencamp’s attempt to flesh out the John Cougar Character, by way of putting on Springsteen drag. The “I forgot to take the handclaps off!” part of it makes it Mellencamp’s “Take the bass off When Doves Cry!” moment, and it the bridge – which I just now read was apparently Mick Ronson’s idea (!) and means I really do need to do a Mellencamp RTH post that I keep putting off – pulls it across the line to being slightly above the Bad Co. Line, for the purposes of this discussion.
A few of you are in agreement with my take on that trio of songs. Congrats to bostonhistorian for getting into my mind first and for his brilliant analysis, which touched on some of the stuff my son and I discussed.
+1: “Jet Airliner”
0: “Jack and Diane”
-1: “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love”
Miller’s inability to deliver emotional or lyrical substance is only matched by his ability to craft the cleanest, lightest, least-plodding boogies in the history of music. I bet more “nice girls” sat on their boyfriends’ shoulders and lifted their tank tops (or lowered their tube tops, as may have been the case) to Miller’s airy boogies than did nice girls to the music of any other artist. How sweet! (This was not part of the discussion with my son, by the way.) Miller knows he’s having innocent fun with his product and provides factory tours, much like the Hershey’s plant in Pennsylvania.
My boy immediately cracked up at the lyrics of “Jack and Diane.” He got the failed Boss ambitions and agreed that the song at least kept some sense of fun and humility.
Finally, he agreed that Bad Company deserved the minus for acting like tough guys but not delivering. “They sound like the type of band who would just stand on stage with their heads down,” he said, “just playing this song, not moving or doing anything interesting.”
In related news, my younger son, meanwhile, has been blurting out “heart attack-ack-ack-ack!” out of the blue the last 2 weeks, since hearing “Moving Out” for the first time. He’d heard and disliked some other Billy Joel songs prior to this, and he had to agree with our recent discussion here that no artist is better capable of quickly crapping over his own half-decent song.
Wow, there’s only one song I’d have listened to on that list. Jack and Diane makes me barf, because I love chili dogs and don’t suck on them, and don’t consider chili dogs as appropriate metaphors for any kind of sex, ever. That song is fingernails on a blackboard through and through.
Can’t Get Enough of Your Love is awful on completely different levels, and I think I’d have to make the the most mediocre of the three. I think I’d turn it off, but I might not even notice it’s playing when the commercials stop. I wonder if people had to be told by an emcee or something that Bad Co, shows were over and it was time to go home?
Jet Airliner is okay. Steve is quite mediocre, but when I’m in the right mood, I really like him. He’s always got a good band, production is top notch and he’s an excellent player. I wouldn’t call Jet Airliner great, and I probably turn it off more than I listen to it these days, but on a nice, sunny day I can turn it up a little.
I sort of like the instrumental hook in Jack and Diane. The lyrics are embarrassingly lame, but the combination of the big riff, the electronic handclaps, and the teeny acoustic guitar pluck is very memorable. Something’s happening in this song, even if you don’t like it.
Jet Airliner is lightweight, but it knows it. It’s a polished non-entity, a throwaway perfectly designed to go in one ear and out the other while filling the space between commercials on the radio. The ends match the means perfectly. It’s not easy to sound this effortless.
Bad Company aren’t smart enough to make anything but dull, mediocre music, but they’re not stupid enough to make perfectly stoopid music, like say the early Ramones or the Dictators. Can’t Get Enough of Your Love is a zero, dead center mediocrity.
Best analysis of Bad Company I’ve ever read: “Rodgers and Kirke felt compelled to disband Free because the other guys didn’t understand their “We should keep making songs like this, but slightly shittier!” philosophy.”
Because it comes up so often, here and elsewhere, I do think it may be worth noting that neither Jack nor Diane were doing anything especially untoward with their Tasty Freeze chili dogs.
I just assume that the kid working at Tasty Freeze was hero-worshipping Jack – who was gonna be a football star, and thus potentially the most popular guy in town – and overloaded the dogs with more chili than usual, hoping to impress Jack by making sure he and Diane got more than was standard Tasty Freeze policy. Because of this, Diane and Jack had to suck some of the excess chili from the top of their dogs so it wouldn’t drip all over Diane’s Bobbie Brooks jeans.
Years later, the kid would become manager of the Tasty Freeze, and he would run into Jack at the local bar and taunt Jack about how he never did turn into that football star, about how Jack blew out his knee and got stuck there in the heartland, how he grew fat and old and pathetic and how Jack would kill to have a steady job like managing the local Tasty Freeze, even if it meant wearing that stupid paper hat.
And then Jack, who couldn’t take it anymore now that the thrill of living had long gone from his life…Well, Jack snapped and stabbed the Tasty Freeze manager to death with a broken bottle. Pressured by high-powered lawyers from the Tasty Freeze corporation, the judge gave Jack a death sentence for his crimes.
Diane did not attend his execution, nor did she ever visit Jack on Death Row.
I’m in line with the majority here: “Can’t get enough of your love” is the “winner”. If rock is in part about getting lost in the song then this one fails with gusto. It’s like elevator music loudly trying hard to be heard.
Well said!
My eight year old has been singing the Pogues’ version of “The Leaving of Liverpool” and Cub’s version of the Stones’ “She’s A Rainbow” for several weeks now. If she starts in on Billy Joel, I will disown her.
As you should! My boy’s blurting out just that part so we can laugh at how bad it is. His aim is to help us not forget the horrors of the past.
She and some friends wrote a Justin Bieber anti-biography because some of their classmates were talking about him so much. I think she’s on the right path….
Nice, maybe we can start up a chain of rock-snob music camps for kids.
http://girlsrockboston.org/Home.html
+1. Jack & Diane — I will just say this — in the 1980s, Bobbie Brooks was a real popular clothing line for girls I knew — so if he was putting ideas into their heads, I was all for it.
0. Jet Airliner — we used argue which was better Wings’ Jet or this number. I always liked “Jet” better.
-1. Can’t Get Enough of Your Love — I hated this because they were still playing it in heavy rotation on KQ92 15 years after it was released. I never, ever need to hear it again.
Wow! I gotta listen to the whole song some time. It must really pick up towards the end.
Um…Pandora programer?
“I fight Dorothy and Dorothy always wins”” THAT is one of the best misheard lyrics I’ve ever heard.
From the heart and from the gut:
In the plus/likeable column: Jet Airliner. Steve Miller was cute. Steve Miller plays in a nice relaxing manner and it’s a good tune. So the lyrics are dumb; most Miller lyrics are dumb. This song makes me happy when I drive. Album cover shows a shot of an orgasmic Miller hunched over his guitar, so someone is enjoying himself, chili dog or no chili dog.
Average: Feel Like Making Love. Yes, it sounds phoned it. However, the title, along with “Feel Like Making Love” (even dumber) does have a Barry White-esque sound, so there is a modicum of cool there. And album cover shows a cool live shot of the band.
Barfing chili dogs: Jack and Diane. I can’t stand this song for many, many reasons (lyrics, Patriotism, seeing JC live and experiencing him having a hissy fit when people threw crap at him on stage, the unexcusable name change). But what cements it’s minus status is the emo sensitive rocker cover photo on the album cover.
Every picture tells a story, don’t it?
Wizard of Oz fan, or someone who isn’t a friend of Dorothy.
As far as I can see, no one has mentioned the fact that “Jet Airliner” isn’t a Steve Miller original; the original (far superior) version was by the late Paul Pena, and here it is:
http://youtu.be/Cjr5U7g6aiA
I think in Pena hands “Jet Airliner” is a really good song. Here’s some more background on Pena, for the unfamiliar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pena
GENGHIS BLUES (1999), for those who haven’t seen it, is an excellent documentary and well worth seeking out.
I couldn’t care less about mediocre….I’ll take good to great or completely awful to mind-bendingly bad, but this stuff is too boring to even think about.
Not to be pedantic, ladymiss, but you have substituted one mediocre Bad Company tune (Feel Like Making Love) for another (Can’t Get Enough of Your Love). The Barry White analogy, though, is apt: the former expresses a Barryish sentiment while the latter virtuallly shares a title with one of his biggest hits. Yet the gulf between Bad Company and Barry White is vast. Funny, sort of.
Paul Pena’s version SMOKES Millers. I did see Steve Miller a while back and he did his version like this rather than his famous version.
Better, but way too much of da blooz for me to really enjoy it. It does, however, make Miller’s version seem colorless, no pun intended.
Touche. All those love making songs a la Barry White were getting me confused.
+1, above the line for Jet Airliner. It’s at least a little bit different.
-1, below the line for Can’t Get Enough of Your Love. This is almost prototypical of the disposable stuff that I think we played when I was first playing guitar in a garage band with the big kids a grade older who were like 14.
0 for Jack and Diane. It never bothered me much, and is pretty catchy. I don’t know why I never noticed the egregiously bad lyrics before. This is why I demote it back to the 0 level. The two lines during that midsection are horrible! I think they go like this:
“Let it rock, let it roll / let the bible belt come and save my soul”
Is this a crass appeal to a “heartland” audience? ‘Cause you ain’t reaching me, Johnny Cougar.
“Hold on to 16 as a long as you can / changes come around real soon make us women and men”
Oh, my. Please, no snickering.
JCM used this line again in “When Jesus Left Birmingham”
“Let it rock, let it roll / let the bible belt come and save my soul”
http://youtu.be/rYjvxpJf5eU
It’s the backstory of Uncle Rico from “Napoleon Dynamite.”
Jet Airliner is the best of the bunch. Credit to Steve for covering a Paul Pena song. He was a talented guy who didn’t have it so easy. Steve’s version is OK. I like the cleanliness of the strat sound.
Bad Co. is the most mediocre, if that’s possible. Good points already made about how dumb and uninteresting it is. As easy to play as Louie Louie without any of the fun.
CougerCamp is not mediocre, it’s evil. Bob Roberts type evil. That crappy “small p” patriotic sentimental nonsense (along with Little Pink Houses) celebrating life in the fruited plains is somehow responsible for the popularity of Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin. I know it. Still working on how I’ll prove it, but I know it.
Bravo!
That IS actually the one thing I’ve always liked in Miller’s records – that clean Strat rhythm guitar sound that he tended to favor on many of his hits. And he does deserve credit for covering Pena’s tune, as the record wasn’t released back then due to some record company mishegoss. It took about 20 years for him to finally get it released.