Monday, April 15, 2019

If It Isn't Scottish, It's Crap!

It's official -- Korean boy "band" BTS, who were the "musical" guest on Saturday Night Live last weekend, are the single worst act that's been on the show in the last two or three years, which is really saying something



Seriously, this was just plain insulting, unless we're supposed to believe that SNL's target demographic is now undiscriminating fifteen-year-old girls.

13 comments:

steve simels said...

BTS = SHT. With apologies to J.D. Considine, author of the greatest album review of all time.

:-)

edward said...

Calm down, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and they will be gone.
They are far too innocuous to exert another pixels worth of energy commenting on.

Shriner said...

I will be the dissenting opinion here. It's not my cup of tea, but for the (extremely) little I know about K-Pop, I found it fairly energetic. I thought the other song was more melodic. It's This Year's Model of boy band, but in Korean!

My niece is super into the K-Pop scene and has been for years. I don't get it, but she's all over it. The boys have a clean-cut presentation and have a cookie-cutter androgyny that may be the appeal.

The last Boy Band I actually enjoyed the music of was the Bay City Rollers (though I will admit "I Want It That Way" is a classic song), so it's clearly not my demo.

steve simels said...

Puhleeze. The Backstreet Bots were actually terrific singers and made at least one genuinely gorgeous record that still, justifiably, gets played. This crap is just crap which makes NKOTB sound like Mahlers 9th.

steve simels said...

Shriner — obviously, we agree on I Want It That Way.

Anonymous said...

oh no the worst was that Twenty One Pilots shit.

pete said...

I suppose on its own terms it's "better" than other groups like this, but its own terms are the corporatist takeover of our culture. So f*** them.

But it's worth remembering that Peter, Paul, & Mary were a "manufactured group," put together by management to embody the prevailing demographic. So were the beloved Monkees. Even Marty Balin said he hired people for Jefferson Airplane based on their looks, although the Airplane were anything but predictable or corporate.

Unknown said...

Not 15-year-olds, 8-year-olds.

steve simels said...

I have no problem with manufactured pop. I have a problem with completely crap manufactured pop.

Anonymous said...

Hey you kids, get off my fucking lawn! I really mean it this time, get off the fucking lawn.

Captain Al

Logan Waters said...

The decline of SNL's musical guests is analogous to the decline of its humor.

From Elvis Costello and Talking Heads to BTS.

From Akroyd and Belushi to whoever-the-unfunny-fuck constitutes the cast nowadays.

We are Devo, indeed.

John Werner said...

Like many of my gen (I'm 59) I remember the cutting edge cool stuff. I don't watch anymore and after watching 50-seconds of this dross I know I'm not a dinosaur. So bad I laughed and cried. The cry part is that the entire show is now on this incomprehensible level of subterranian quality.

Alzo said...

BTS have created some rather amazing videos. Correction: their producers have created some rather amazing videos. I guess we can blame Bob Rafelson for having started the idea that you could create a hit act from a casting call. Or maybe that guy who formulated the Village People. As long as the audience swallows derivative, calculated cliches, we will keep rewarding the choreography and light show. And as revealed by Spinal Tap, the puppet show is now the headliner.