Which came first?  The diva or the diet?

It’s pretty weird that Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, and Janet Jackson all happen to be in ads for Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and NutriSystem respectively.  I wonder which one inspired the remainder of the campaigns (Coinkydonk), or did they all happen to happen at the same time (Coinkydink)?

(SIDENOTE: It’s no Coinkydink that Mariah’s is the most annoying commercial of all time.)

BUT WAIT!  These musical divas aren’t the only ones chiming in.

You also have Charles Barkley (for Weight Watchers) and Terry Bradshaw (for NutriSystem):

The only riddle that remains:

When will this athlete do ads for Jenny Craig?

That's called a (calorie) burn, Tom Brady.

Why this seems surprising to me is Dusty Springfield sang Son of a Preacher Man… not 80′s British synthpop.  For comparison (you may know this song if you were born after 1990… I’m sure it’s been featured on American Idol at one time or another):

Having shared that, I decided to drudge up A Handful Of Odd Guest Appearances In Songs, so here they are:

• Aretha Franklin and George Michael’s I Knew You Were Waiting For Me

Arethra Franklin used to be huge instead of just huge, and George Michael was still a respected chap.  This one wasn’t completely out of left-field, but in retrospect, it is odd… ly wonderful, me thinks:

• Eminem and Pink’s Won’t Back Down

Eminem teaming up with Pink is like Eminem teaming up with P!nk… it didn’t seem like something that would happen.  But I’m glad it did:

• Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson’s Say Say Say

I would have rather used The Girl is Mine as my example, but I didn’t look too hard for couldn’t find it.  So teaming up a former Beatle with a former Jackson 5-er isn’t that strange, until you realize it was during these collaborations in which McCartney suggested to Jackson that he should buy all the rights to his music, which in turn lead to Jackson buying many of the rights to The Beatles music:

• The KLF and Tammy Wynette’s Justified and Ancient

I still have no idea what this song is about.  But it’s another Brit pop band/American country artist match-up:

• Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s Little Drummer Boy/ Peace On Earth

This is an odd pairing, but it’s not the strangest:

• Rihanna and Chris Brown’s Bad Girl

This. Is. Wrong.  But still… not the worst:

• Mindless Behavior and Ciara’s My Girl

These kids are in their early teens; Ciara is 26 (I thought she was older).  They still shouldn’t be performing like this together.  This is why so many teachers are having sex with their students, I don’t suspect:

What if DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s You Saw My Blinker (Bitch)…

…was really re-imagined as Ludacris’ Move Bitch?

What if Huey Lewis and The News’ I Want a New Drug…

…was really re-imagined as Nine Inch Nails’ The Perfect Drug?

What if Christopher Cross’ Sailing…

…was really re-imagined as AWOLNATION’s Sail?

What if The Whispers’ Rock Steady…

…was really re-imagined as LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem?

What if Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back…

was really re-imagined as Big Sean and Nicki Minaj’s Ass?

(SIDENOTE: I always love making this song the butt of my joke…)

The HeartMark™ is trademarked?!

Trends.

They’re always stupid.  Pet rocks, sequenced gloves, pogs… and now this.  The inescapable heart hand gesture.  It’s everywhere.

Aeroswift™

But would you believe some lady “claims” to have the trademark on it?

This lady looks like she makes many "claims"...

She even licenses it out allegedly (although it just looks like she just made a list of places she’s seen it used and retroactively authorized it).

(SIDENOTE: Did she donate the gesture to Show Your Hearts?  It could be a tax write-off.)

My hope is that it actually is trademarked, and that she’s making bank on its pervasiveness.

I mean, what she claims is not impossible.  She could figured it out during a round of This is the church and this is the steeple gone bad.  I haven’t seen it in use until recent years, and it seems like a simple gesture to devise.

But was she the one who told Taylor Swift about it?  Because Swift claims she invented it, and her fans claim that Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, et. al. stole it from her.

All that matters is did this woman really trademark what she calls The HeartMark™?  Because I have an idea of my own:

My trademark... Deez Nuts™.

There are more songs that use that in the title than I previously thought of, so I’m here to clear the air on some more songs with obvious ambiguity.

• Hot Chelle Rae’s (what a stupid band name) I Like It Like That

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: As derivative and populist as possible.

• Pete Rodriguez’s I Like It Like That

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: The exact opposite of everything Hot Chelle Rae.

• All 4 One’s I Can Love You Like That

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Boyz II Men

• Lauren Hill’s (Doo-Wop) That Thing

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Vaginas.  Mouths.  Sometimes butts.  Sometimes feet.

• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Don’t Do Me Like That

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: A heartbreaker.

• Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: We always knew what this that meant.

You might have seen a lot of this commercial lately:

Well, in case you’re wondering who that new group is, I’m here to help you.  Hailing from Scotland, they’re The Fratellis, and this song is called Flathead off their album Costello Music.

If the band name sounds familiar (and they don’t), that’s because their name was inspired by this lady and her brood:

"You better not even think about throwing me from a train."

That’s Mama Fratelli from The Goonies.  That’s where they got their name!  Awesome right?!  So I figured I’d let you know about a few other bands that followed the same idea.

He's from "Barbarella"... and your dreams

This one isn’t the same spelling, but Brit rockers Duran Duran were inspired by a guy from Roger Vadim’s Barbarella… a fellow named Dr. Durand Durand.  (Okay, that’s not really him up above, but it’s funnier than this guy.)

A Vulcan priestess by any other name is kind of like a Romulan priestess.

Another British pop group was inspired by American pop culture.  This time it was in the form of a cheesy 60′s sci-fi show… a little something called Star Trek.  The character is T’Pau, and coincidentally, so is the band.  What’s funny is the band sang Heart and Soul with a lot of heart and soul… which are two things the emotionless Vulcans can express.

What a nut (or in this case, a golden chocolate egg).

90′s rockers Veruca Salt took the name Veruca Salt simply because they wanted it.

John Hughes saw this real water tower and based the entire film around it. True story.

The California ska band eschewed the typical ska puns common for band names and opted for Save Ferris, which is of course from Home Alone.  Except for a few missteps (Curly Sue, Dutch, Career Opportunities), John Hughes was a fairly clever writer, I’d say.  He’ll always be missed, like Kevin McCallister by his family.  I never understood why the water tower didn’t say Save Kevin.

Not to be confused with Goldmember

California and England seem to be all about naming their bands after characters.  Closing up this list is Goldfinger, named after the James Bond baddie from the same named film.  It’s weird, but most of these happened to be named after bad characters or bad situations.  Why hasn’t anybody named themselves after a good guy?  Someone like Luke Sky(y)walker, for instance?

He so corny.

Essentially, this particular debate began in regard to the Bloodhound Gang.  I mentioned that I’d be extremely content in life if I could happen to be a one-hit wonder like them.

The song I was referencing:

My friend slammed back that they had two hits because of this song:

If you go by YouTube views, The Bad Touch beats Fire Water Burn hands down (28.5+ million vs. 2.5+ million).  But I also know the song Why’s Everybody Always Pickin’ On Me? (which has 1+ million views), and that still doesn’t mean it achieved the same level of apparent one-hit wonderness…

It’s not like I haven’t wished for my own solo hit in regard to a particular single before.  I would be ecstatic to have a song stand the test of time like Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl (true story) when I know he’s had other songs (Don’t Talk to Strangers and I’ve Done Everything for You), and I always considered him a one-hit wonder.

So is that the key to my interpretation of one-hit wonder?  It’s the song that the artist is primarily known for that will stand the test of time.

Now I know that there are novelty acts that are “pure” one-hit wonders.  But as for most artists, it’s not like a record company wants their product to produce only one hit… they’ll always try to release more songs off the same album, or at least one of the following album.

It looked like Sara Bareillis‘ Love Song would have been her only offering to the world until her second album had hits, so…

In conclusion to this Drunken Recollection rambling, what makes a one-hit wonder a one-hit wonder?  Take it away, Wikipedia:

In the U.S., a “pure” one-hit wonder is an artist that manages only one song on the Billboard Hot 100, regardless of the song’s peak position. However, most American music industry insiders consider a song in the top forty positions of the Billboard Hot 100 to be a hit. Thus, any performer who recorded only one song that reached the Top 40 is, technically, a one-hit wonder, regardless whether another song peaks in the “bottom 60.” However, the term is more generally applied to musicians best known for only one song.

Or as I said sort of:

It’s the biggest hit that artist is known for that will stand the test of time.

What is "that"?

I have a bit of a pet peeve to share…

Ambiguity has its place in music.  It has its place in many places (how’s that for ambiguous).

Songs like (sorry for these weird examples) Michelle Branch’s Everywhere and Matchbox Twenty’s 3AM seem like they could be about relationships with significant others, when in reality hers is about her grandmother and Rob Thomas’ song is about his mom.

But then you’ve got obvious ambiguity.  And by that, I mean songs that use that.  Here are some songs that go out of their way to make it clear that they don’t want to be clear.

• Hall and Oates’ I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do) 

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Clothes shopping together.

• Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) 

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Change his name, or stop eating so much of his name.

• Dean Martin’s Ain’t That a Kick in the Head 

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Syphilis.

• The Ting Tings’ That’s Not My Name 

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Anything but Katie White… that’s her name.

• Elton John’s I Don’t Want To Go On With You Like That 

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Some type of feather or shoe?

• Genesis’ That’s All 

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: All that.

• Lit’s My Own Worst Enemy (for the line, “I didn’t mean to call you that.”)

MY GUESS OF WHAT THAT IS: Slut.

It ended with a stupid dance scene.

I don’t know where the idea for this cop out ending began, but the last time I noticed it was during the end of Despicable Me (I watched this one on a long flight to Prague no excuses).  This was the first dance scene that really bothered me because it seemed to be an answer to the question posted above – how should we end this movie?

(SIDENOTE: This is how…)

When the live action version of Alice in Wonderland came out, there was a lot of brouhaha over this ending (amongst other things).  For the record, I’ve not yet never seen this movie:

So did this start the trend?  Let’s see if there were any others before these (I will not count dancing during the credits):

• Shrek 
• Robots
• Shrek 2
• Megamind
• Rio

But hey!  Those are all Dreamworks films!  That’s like picking on them for their Dreamworks faces!

Okay, well to be fair, here are some live-action, non-musical, non-credit dance number endings:

• Beetlejuice
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin
• Hitch

Even though this walk down memory lane hasn’t really produced an answer, I have a theory.  Beetlejuice is the oldest one on here, and the scene fits in with the rest of the movie’s universe, so I could probably discount it for the film I truly lay the blame on… There’s Something About Mary and the infectious (in every sense of the word), Build Me Up Buttercup:

(SIDENOTE: I’ve always found this Farrelly Brothers’ flick to be overrated.  Also, I had never heard The Foundations ode to Legos-shaped flowers (build… buttercup… ha!) before, and people picked on me for that.  Plus, I worked at Circuit Shitty at the time of DIVX, and it was claimed at the time that TSAM was partly to blame for its demise.  Apparently, 20th Century Fox released it on DIVX earlier than DVD, and DVD owners were pissed you had to have a “special format” to watch the movie a week or two earlier, and wrote angry letters to Fox.  Not that I was on the DIVX gravy train or anything, but there’s something to TSAM’s ruining everything!)

*end rant*

(help from here)