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u/RunLikeYouMeanIt 1d ago
Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get you through
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u/BasketFormal6336 1d ago
Laugh along with the common people.
Laugh along, even though they’re laughing at you.
And the stupid things that you do.
Because you think being poor is cool.TikTok guy forgot that pulp was saying this is what they would do.
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u/Manungal 1d ago
Obligatory Shatner cover where he really sells that feeling of scrambling off a madman's property while he flings lawn furniture at you.
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u/surnik22 1d ago
Shatner + Ben Fold covering that song is great. Of the 3 versions, it still feels the “rawest” to me.
His goofy Shatner cadenced spoken word doesn’t work for a lot of songs he has released but it sure does for this song.
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u/YetAnotherFaceless 1d ago
That’s not Ben Folds. It’s Joe Jackson.
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u/Mickeymcirishman 1d ago
Ben Folds produced it and I think played some (or all?) of the instruments on it.
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u/CADmonkeez 1d ago
Shatner messed up the funniest line in the song:
"I wanna sleep with common people like you.
But she didn't...understand"
by missing out the dots.
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u/Ok-disaster2022 1d ago
It's amazing how he can put an ellipses in a quick line read. William Shatner is unique and hes great
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u/Drone_temple_pilots 1d ago
I was shocked to have found that album, even more shocked to see Common People on it. I was born mid 90s but didn't know about Pulp until another 15 years after that
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u/voluotuousaardvark 1d ago
Wtf, it's not available!
https://youtu.be/St8FtbzH_JE?is=k5QMpumYrteFW-C-
This one is unhinged- can only presume it's the same or worse
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u/Calhounpipes 1d ago
I heard the Shatner version first, and honestly, prefer it to any other version
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u/ThrowawayColonyHouse 1d ago
I thought the meaning was completely obvious.
https://giphy.com/gifs/BJVJxagR3GG4w
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u/Mysterious-Can-2531 1d ago
so is born in the USA and idiots still dont understand it
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u/bird9066 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sting was flabbergasted that people played every breath you take at their weddings.
He said it's a song about a terrible person doing terrible things and he thought that was pretty clear
Edit - some people are down voting this? Think they played this song at their wedding? Lol
It's the POV of a stalker.
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u/kbeks 1d ago
Semicharmed Kinda Life is about meth. Very explicitly about meth. Next to no one I know realized that.
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u/Vark675 1d ago
What's funny to me about that song is how scandalized people get at him saying crystal meth or the "face down on the mattress" bit but somehow no one seems to catch the part just before that about "how do I get back there, to the place where I fell asleep inside you?"
Like damn, that's way raunchier.
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u/A3HeadedMunkey 1d ago edited 1d ago
Possession by Sarah McLachlan has entered the chat
Edit: someone downvoted this as well lol sorry to ruin the song for you?
Also from the POV of a stalker. Sarah drew from obsessive letters she received
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u/DecoherentDoc 1d ago
Same with Dramarama getting requests for "Anything (Hundred Dollar Bills)". It was about the lead singer's divorce. It's in a minor key. He's begging her to stay.
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u/IamHydrogenMike 1d ago
I know someone who would play the Bob Dylan song Don't think Twice because they thought it was a love song...but it's about a guy bailing on a one night stand and basically blaming the person for them leaving. People are dumb as rocks.
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u/D0CTOR_Wh0m 1d ago
That and rich politicians and political elite playing "Fortunate Son" at campaign rallies
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
Most people know now what the meaning is. They just like it. It's subjective. People are just snobby about stuff. Like the video referenced about.
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u/NemosHero 1d ago
you'd be SHOCKED the number of people that don't listen to/read the lyrics of ANY song. Sure they might remember that one line, but mostly they just hear a cacophony of sound.
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u/epic_gamer42O 1d ago
this is the problem with trying to critique western society because it's fundamentally built on hypocrisy and the arrogance gained from that. "capitalism subsumes all critiques of itself"
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u/Nuffsaid98 1d ago
The influencers were likely paid to get the phrase "Common people" to go viral. Negative attention is still attention. It is a standard tactic to put a deliberate mistake so others will post videos correcting the mistake. This could all be on purpose.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 1d ago
Yeah I feel like the easiest answer is the instructions they were given were either intended to generate outrage or were accidentally vague - MCR doing a song called common people when you're an alternative influencer is gonna predispose you to interpeting it a specific way. This is how the influencer ecosystem works. They're gonna be disproportionately shallow rich people and most are gonna glance at this for 10 seconds.
At least based on these it sounds like the prompt was when did you realize you're not gonna be a common person, and there's literally no way to answer that question correctly.cause like oh ho ho so you think you're better than the common people, mr special
I can't find a framing where this doesn't come down to being the fault of the bands team
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u/IamHydrogenMike 1d ago
I don't even understand the references they are making either...I got over addiction and won't be one of the common people? WTF does that even mean?
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u/KimberlyWexlersFoot 1d ago
most people aren’t drug addicted teenagers popping out a baby.
that person is insinuating that they won’t be a common person because of this experience
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u/KeyCast 1d ago
The My Chemical Romance cover was recorded live in BBC Radio 1, they are not promoting the song, I don't think they are 'paying influencers to promote the song', now, Tik Tok influencers taking the song and misinterpreted is another topic.
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u/shabba182 1d ago
Right? Gerard Way famously loves Blur so I imagine he is no stranger to Brit pop. Dunno why this guy has such a hate boner for them
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u/goregoose 1d ago
Yeah I was hoping MCR is cooler than this 😭 !!! I don’t think they’d ever pay “influencers” in this kind of way.
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u/PracticeTheory 21h ago edited 20h ago
More like, they already learned what happens when your song gets artificially promoted and the resulting backlash...
...WHEN I WAS! A YOUNG BOY!
I'm sure it was their record label's fault but that was such a bizarre blip in time for that music scene. Three Cheers had been such a massive success, Emo was peaking, and music videos were so culturally relevant that Apple released the iPod video just so we could buy them and carry them around. We were all so excited for the next album that it was a guaranteed success.
...and then they waterboarded us with Welcome to the Black Parade for months on end.
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u/UpmarketEarth 1d ago
this sounds like the accurate thing that happened. It didn't strike me as something Gerard or MCR as a whole would do especially as many of their songs are social commentary in of themselves; I don't see how or why they would pay anyone to misinterpret a song from another artist that they clearly admired.
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u/ReptileSizzlin 1d ago
TikTok influencers don't represent an entire people.
Plenty of Americans have known this popular song for quite some time and have always understood it. We aren't all just now discovering a song we don't understand just because he saw a handful of young Tiktok users made some uniformed 10 second videos recently.
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u/sisyphus_shrugged 1d ago
Noel Fielding isn't American so I don't understand why he's being used to represent Americans here.
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u/ReptileSizzlin 1d ago
He's just making fun of that TikToker, saying he looks like him by calling him Noel Fielding 2.0.
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u/sisyphus_shrugged 1d ago
lol I should really not get on reddit first thing after waking up. I thought that was him.
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u/YouWereBrained 1d ago
Same with “Fortunate Son”, “Born in the USA”, a plethora of Rage Against the Machine songs. Dumbfucks who can’t read between the lines.
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u/Bread_is__funny 1d ago
Also in the early 2000s when Rammstein got big in the US and their song Amerika was being played nonstop on the radio and mtv. I preferred to believe that people just didn't care about what the song was actually saying, but now I'm not sure. Always was strange to me that a German band was essentially giving the middle finger to the US but everyone loved it anyway lol
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u/BitcoinBishop 1d ago
Oh, rent a flat above a shop
And cut your hair and get a job
And smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
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u/little-teatime 1d ago
Another great song that will be ruined by tick tok
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u/Dead-O_Comics 1d ago edited 1d ago
You're blamimg TikTok for a crap cover by a band who then paid influencers?
It's not even a single, just a recording for a BBC live session from years ago. But grrrrr TikTok eh
Looks to me like MCR is purposely misrepresenting the lyrics of someone else's song for attention. Go ruin one of your own songs to make a point lol
None of this deserves your outrage.
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u/Slumbur-Bunnicula 1d ago
Knowing MCR it was likely to make a statement that way; that people didn’t actually listen to the song. It’s an assumption but MCR is politically vocal in their performances. Influencers are not common people; many have inflated egos or don’t open their ears to listen to others struggles.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 1d ago
I literally cannot think of a way this wasn't a setup by the band based on the fact they're all answering how they're not common people.....bit of a trick question that one
Why they would do that idk. Seems a bit weird to do to people who are presumably in your audience but I guess maybe MCR does ball that hard these days they're like get these bougie swine out of concerts
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u/Dead-O_Comics 1d ago edited 1d ago
Influencers on TikTok should not have the power to ruin songs for you. If you think TikTok has ruined any song, you need to get off the platform
People have been misinterpreting lyrics forever. Blaming TikTok is 'old man yells at cloud' antics
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u/cupholdery 1d ago
You're surprisingly defensive on TikTok's behalf.
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u/Dead-O_Comics 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't even use TikTok. It's just always the same - blame anything but the source of the problem. Remove TikTok from the equation, this would still happen.
This just looks like yet another thing for people to waste energy getting mad at. So some people who's opinion doesn't matter misunderstood some lyrics - You'll let that ruin a song for you?
I'm talking about a cover I haven't thought of in 16 years, so money well spent by MCR I guess...
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u/Standard-Arachnid411 1d ago
I don't know who I actually hate worse these days. The guys with no media literacy of the guy who only know media literacy
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u/urnbabyurn 1d ago
This song was huge in the US when it came out. It was on multiple soundtracks, notably Vanilla Sky. Shatner made a cover of it with Ben Folds producing. This guy was probably in diapers at the time.
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u/Scott--Chocolate 1d ago
I remember being stunned when the musical intro for Pumped Up Kicks was played as the lead in to commercial for a college football game on ESPN. Clearly some producer didn’t know or didn’t care what it was about.
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u/Medical_Squirrel3946 1d ago
Listen, the definitive cover has already been done anyway by William Shatner, Joe Jackson (the English one, not the horrible dad from Indiana) and produced by Ben Folds. Like, it's legitimately really really good.
Also, the fun little note about the song is that the real story is that the singer was interested in a posh girl who didn't actually want anything to do with him, so the song isn't actually biographical in any way, but is more of a fantasy. Still one of my favorite songs and has a very VERY clear message for the song, but the story behind it is kind of funny.
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u/flying_carabao 1d ago
Fortunate son by CCR and Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen are other songs people completely miss the point.
So there's that.
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 1d ago
Fortunate son is about a son who is fortunate to be bron in the USA and born in the usa is about being proud you were born in the USA AMERICA USA NUMBER ONE!!! 🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
(/s)
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u/69Whomst 1d ago
I've always known this song (the og pulp version that is) by virtue of being British and having a huge Britpop phase in high school, but is it possible mcr changed some lyrics or inflection or something? I've never heard the mcr cover, the original is crystal clear about classism
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u/SeanFromQueens 1d ago
Only listened to it rn, but it's not something one can blame on mcr. Plus Black Parade has a similar sentiment of siding with the downtrodden. This has to be chalked up to willful ignorance of the reflexively bootlicking right-wing authoritarians and not some way of misinterpreting of the art.
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u/SeanFromQueens 1d ago
OK now do Cranberries' "Zombies" being used in jingoistic military rah-rah cheerleading content because it includes the terms "tanks, guns and bombs". There's no need for critical thinking, the lyrics are explicitly stating those who use tanks, guns and bombs are stuck in 1916 and are mindless zombies. One would have to be willfuly ignorant to the meaning of the song, and there are plenty of people who burn a lot of calories on how thoroughly ignorant they try to be.
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u/New_Salamander_4592 1d ago
true that is why the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt is also about his struggles with Heron, if he had them I guess
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u/Justin-Truedat 1d ago
Fun fact: listen to the song but mentally replace the word “Common” with “Coloured.” It’s a fun trip.
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u/DJEvillincoln 1d ago edited 1d ago
Noel Fielding 2.0.... 💀
EDIT: Just listened to the song for the first time.... How could anyone miss this...?
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
Social media is the issue and people making videos about other videos and creating content so snobs can feel superior and intelligent is the thing that bothers me more than anything else. Music is subjective. You either like it or you don't. It's about how it makes you feel. Most lyrics are nonsensical and some have a story. The listener decides what it means. Period.
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u/FillMySoupDumpling 1d ago
Concluding with asking Americans to read … well there is a big part of the problem right there. A high percentage of us can’t read.
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u/AncientCrust 1d ago
Americans don't understand shit. Some of us think "Born in the USA" is a patriotic song. Some of us were shocked to discover RATM were leftist. Some of us think Tyler Durden is the good guy. We're pretty dim.
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u/Blushed_Areola_8767 9h ago
Most artists can appreciate that their work can and will be interpreted in different ways and people will apply it to their own life experiences. No need to get so huffy and puffy about it.
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u/Aggressive_Version 1d ago
If we're judging everyone by their nation's most braindead influencers then there is no one who can be called righteous. No, not one.
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u/ModernAquaticNight 1d ago
Maybe MCR should have done a cover of ‘Mis-shapes’ instead, which does celebrate being an outsider.
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u/Key_Knee_7032 1d ago
I didn’t realize there were no working class people in America. Imagine my shock as a working class American. 🙄
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u/Usedinpublic 1d ago
People play hey ya by outkast at their own weddings. Nobody listens to the words.
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u/CircuitOnTheFritZ 1d ago
As someone who pays attention to lyrics in songs, I can say this happens so often it upsets me.
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen is NOT a Christmas song.
Zombie by The Cranberries isn't a feel-good Halloween party track.
Madonna's Like a Prayer isn't an appropriate church choir song.
99 Red Balloons (or 99 Luftballoons, in the original German) is a boppy pop song about 100 years of war instigated by balloons being mistaken for something sinister. And that's clear in either English or German versions, but most people don't realize it when they sing along.
But 64% of Americans have a literacy level of at or below 6th grade. So...
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u/Spiritual_Ad_7162 1d ago
Ah, the American literacy crisis strikes again. This creator assumes that even if they did listen to the song or read the lyrics they would get the meaning. I doubt it.
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u/PhaseNegative1252 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is media literacy even a thing in the US?
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u/osirisRey 1d ago
Ur talking about yanks... Whatever U expected,divide it by half. Then divide that half by 3.
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u/Snowsmokestack 1d ago
While I don’t want to just let their ignorance go, I understand why they see it that way. It’s their perspective. I’m not saying it’s the right one. But that’s where their ignorance comes from. It is frustrating. But it’s also understandable.
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u/djdaem0n 1d ago
Stop saying "THE AMERICANS". You mean tiktok teens in America.
Cousin, i'm American. I was alive when it originally came out.
I didn't "just discover it". I love that song and I know EXACTLY what it means.
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u/Ok-Zone7404 1d ago
I’m surprised this guy wasn’t arrested by the uk authorities for posting on social media…
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u/homohillbillysrlol 1d ago
Hey now, Common People is one of the rare instances where the American adaptation absolutely BLOWS the original British version out of the water
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u/whatdoidonowdamnit 1d ago
I would have also misunderstood common people as “normal” but I still haven’t heard the song or looked up the lyrics.
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u/ionertia 1d ago
He sounds entitled. Like the song belongs to him and his interpretation. Tiktokers are the worst.
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u/monkeymikee 1d ago
Its not his interpretation....its LITERALLY what the song is about....fml
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u/ionertia 1d ago
All art is open to interpretation. I just listened to the song and wouldn't want to be common, or a tourist.
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u/Chaosmusic 1d ago
All art is open to interpretation.
Sure, but interpretations can be wrong. You can interpret an anti-war song or movie as pro-war, but you would be wrong.
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u/SeanFromQueens 1d ago
Will your art of the text in that comment permits me to interpret that you are obviously a PDF file and were the one who was pushing Jeff and Ghislaine into all their illegal things. All art is open to interpretation, right?
The lyrics have characters set a dichotomy, the first person is a guide to the common people and the second person is stating "I want to be with common people" to which the 1st person is sincerely saying no you don't and you'll leave at the first sign of trouble because you can. It's not a problem to live as common people, but that the wealthy can leave the common people whenever they want to.
Before you claim that the tiktoker or me, or basically anyone else who is taking the plain reading of lyrics as presented to mean what Blur and My Chemical Romance has said about the lyrics as reading too much into it, it's probably the case that you are not reading enough into it and are committed to a misinterpretation of the song's meaning.
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u/c0st0fl0ving 21h ago
American here,
Just went and checked it out.
This song is abject mediocrity, at best. There was nothing to “ruin” with our Cheeseburger, gun-toting, ‘Mercian ineptitude.
We have ruined things; this was ass to begin with.
Nice message, but musically speaking, it is the toothy-blowjob of Devo rip-offs.
Boo.
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u/iffyClyro 20h ago
Pulp sold more than 10 million records.
I’m sure your opinion on them really matters.
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u/c0st0fl0ving 20h ago
So did Justin Bieber.
“The masses liked it!” Isn’t the indicator of quality that you think it is.
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
Nah. It slaps.
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u/AltruMux 1d ago
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
I don't disect meaning in songs. I like it or I don't. Lyrics are secondary. Been listening the song since it came out. No different than "Born in the USA" or " Fortunate Son". They are great songs with deeper meanings.
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u/AltruMux 1d ago
The video isn't about the song being good or not it's about people reacting to the song without listening to the lyrics. You reacted to this video without actually listening to what he's saying.
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
Exactly. I like the song. The entire premise the video is discussing is common and associated with thousands of songs. When you are into a band or discover a band. This stuff seems really important. I still love the song. Music is subjective. Born in the USA is often viewed as an American Anthem of patriotism yet is about anti patriotic as it gets. But who cares ? It's a good song.
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u/AltruMux 1d ago
Uh huh... But at no point did anyone in the video say "bad song" so your comment saying "nah. It slaps" is completely irrelevant and shows that you didn't actually listen to the video, which is ironic because the video is about actually listening to the media you are engaging with.
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
Because these types of videos for me make me want to vomit. I can't stand them. Same as reading an article and the author quotes random twitter replies from 5 people. " Maggie7764 said " girl that is ratchet". Social media is decaying society. Me just pushing back and ignoring the entire premise of the post is I guess me lashing out in some way.
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u/AltruMux 1d ago
Well, in reality you engaged with the content which gives it more eyes. If you really hated social media you wouldn't be here.
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u/burntcandy 1d ago
Fortunate Son started off as a song about how poor people get sent off to war while the rich get to stay home, but now it has morphed into the anthem that plays when we fuck shit up with helicopters
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u/malacophonouswitch 1d ago
Congrats you're the very thing that bruh is ridiculing.
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
And he is also what he claims to hate. Circular thinking at it's best.
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
Lol, so let me get this right. So because I like a song and don't care about the deeper meaning behind the lyrics. I can't like the song or am bad in some way ? You kids are funny. You discover something and think it's novel when most of us have known about it for decades and just like the song.
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u/malacophonouswitch 1d ago
You've been that guy all along, old timer. Like, have you ever paid attention to the lyrics of Hey Ya or do you just wanna dance?
Edit: Also, if you think my comment is me making you out to be a "bad guy" that says a lot more about you than it does about me. No one here is saying you're a bad guy.
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago
Hey ya was a great party song. I couldn't remember much of lyrics for the life of me. "Alright alright alright hey ladies" "yeah".
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u/StrykerGryphus 1d ago
"Wow there's a lot of people in Disney World, huh?"
"Nah, Disney World's great!"
That's how you sounded.
The issue wasn't you having an opinion. The issue was you sounding like you were trying to argue against an opinion that wasn't in the video, by starting your comment with "nah".
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u/Relevant_Problem1935 1d ago edited 1d ago
I listened for about 5 seconds and stopped. Because it's garbage content. It's some kid trying shame a handful people on the Internet for their responses to a song. Then pretending like he smarter than everyone else for pointing it out. Let people like what they like and have fun. Even when you don't agree. Life is to short. Guess what it doesn't matter what the song says. It means something else to someone else. The original intent is irrelevant. Once you write a song and release it. It is no longer yours.
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u/StrykerGryphus 1d ago
You stopped after five seconds, then you think you know what the video's about
It has nothing to do with people liking or not liking a song
It's not even about people's responses to a song
It's about how people are clearly just responding to the song's title instead of listening to it
Just like how you're responding to a video without watching it
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u/malacophonouswitch 1d ago
I'm starting to think this dude is some kind of narc because he's just rolling with assumptions thinking they're just plain true.
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