What You Kno' Bout Me?

What You Kno’ Bout Me?

Nobody is going to revoke your serious composer membership card just because you can admit to yourself that you like a Kelly Clarkson song.

Written By

Randy Nordschow

After surviving last night’s two-hour gag-fest to crown the latest American Idol, I can sort of empathize with all you curmudgeonly pop-music-hating composers out there. Sure, it was nice to see that Doug E. Fresh is still alive, but for the most part it was snooze city all the way. Luckily, the tawdry televised spectacle of blandness is not some sort of credo followed by the music business as a whole. There’s a lot of spicy stuff out there, you just have to be willing to hunt for it.

Sometimes a pop song comes along that is so inane and single-minded, it goes beyond the numbing zone and crosses over into pure genius. No Doubt’s “Hey Baby” and M.I.A.’s “Pull Up The People” come to mind. Really though, nothing is more shocking than when, say, Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle” actually ends up rubbing you the right way! But in the end, nobody is going to revoke your serious composer membership card just because you can admit to yourself that you like a Kelly Clarkson song.

My indulgence of the moment is this. Is it just me, or is Lil Mama conjuring up some early minimalism here… Reich’s Clapping Music perhaps? Yeah, the song is about, um, lip gloss—lame—but the stripped down sound and sheer relentlessness behind it all has me hooked. So what’s stuck in your head?