The Round Table

It’s difficult to consider a Flashback Friday selection and pass on a track like Back in the Day. After all, flashing back is all about nostalgia, right?

Ahmad did an excellent job in this 1994 single, filling us in on his favorite recollections of years past, describing accurately the scenes, styles, and feelings of the 1980s. Remember the biker shorts fad? Airbrushed shirts and jeans? The K-Swiss boom? Gazelles? British Knights? It’s all there, and, he set the mood with a cool, relaxing groove that reminds of a lazy summer day.

Unfortunately, an original video could not be found. The good news is, this version includes the lyrics (forgive the occasional misspelling).

What are some of your favorite memories from back in the day?

There are a lot of songs and bands from the 1980s that are unforgettable. Whether they are simply amazing, or amazingly bad, people just love the 80s and its music.

It could possibly go down as one of the greatest decades for one-hit wonders. Unfortunately, there is little forgiveness for Haircut 100 and the band’s 1982 hit (?) Love Plus One. Brit-pop (and that doesn’t mean Britney Spears), has had a fairly good reputation over the years for producing hits that typically do well in the States. Maybe this Bad Music Monday pick is totally off base, considering Love Plus One, which was the band’s second single, was actually a Top 40 hit.

True, the video is epic, and the music itself is solid with its use of horns and keys. Unfortunately, the song goes nowhere. Overall, it is an unforgettable track. If it’s the case, we can agree to disagree, but for its place on The Round Table, Love Plus One is unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.

Love it, laugh at it, or just remember and accept it. It’s been 20 years since Bell Biv Devoe shook the music world with this 1990 hit.

Sorry Bret Michaels, it happened. A trio of east coast boys made a hit out of your band’s name. But that’s not why the group was popular. Spawned from New Edition, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe decided they weren’t done making music and wasted little time letting everyone know they had more to offer to the R&B and Hip Hop world.

Poison is still easily the group’s most popular track, though they have stayed together and continued to make music.

Kudos to them for keeping the awful fashion statements of tight-rolled jeans and parachute pants relevant for another handful of years. Their music will likely be accepted at reunion shows. Let’s just hope that’s where the memories end.

First, apologies for the less than stellar video quality. Also, don’t blame The Round Table for the poor audio quality. That part isn’t a mistake. It’s his real voice, and after all, this is Bad Music Monday.

William Hung captivated American Idol audiences with his audition, and then drew everyone in with his post-performance run at stardom. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t because he was the next American Idol. Let’s just say it. He’s horrible.

But the entertainment aspect of the spectacle might never leave, and for that, William Hung will likely always be famous for something he can’t do well: sing.

Bad Music Monday is typically reserved for those who have met commercial success but flopped horribly. William Hung barely made it into the mainstream, but might always be known as the most popular “singer” to never win a talent contest.

A personal rant against a popular, yet cringe-inducing band

This week’s Bad Music Monday pick is likely to draw a bit of criticism, especially given the extreme popularity and love for Maroon 5. Before you read too much further, realize that this selection isn’t necessarily against the particular song, but expressing a personal dislike for the band. Maroon 5 without question has a strong following, but from prior experiences, it is clear I am not the only one that feels this way. So, perhaps this is just angst against a band and singer many consider to be on the list of the most annoying to hit mainstream airwaves within the past decade.

Maybe this song was just overplayed and over hyped, or maybe there are others that share my frustration in wanting to stick a knife in my ear every time a Maroon 5 song is played.

Taking a moment for personal reflection and to show just how much antipathy burns through my veins each time I hear Maroon 5, I once had a waitress in tears of laughter nearly three years ago when this song was blasted over the bar’s speakers.

A group of co-workers and I went to Fox and Hound for dinner and happy hour, and things were going well until our waitress brought the check to our table. Just as she returned with my card, the receipt, and a pen, This Love was blasted over the speakers. The pen dropped, my hands covered my ears, and I refused to sign the receipt until the song was over.

That probably sounds a little extreme, and it was partially as a joke. I have always had respect and appreciation for all music and styles, but few things make me cringe and gag like Maroon 5 and Adam Levine’s voice.

As previously stated, there are likely a lot of Maroon 5 fans that will read and disagree with this selection. If so, enjoy the video that follows. There’s no shame in disagreeing, but what are some of the songs that top your list of annoying and cringe-worthy tracks?

Inspired by a recent radio interview on 101 ESPN with St. Louis Post Dispatch sports writer Bernie Miklasz, TRT is once again looking to Young MC for a dose of Flashback Friday.

In the interview, Young MC talks about moving past the success of his hit song, Bust A Move, but doesn’t fall short of showing that he is grateful for the track that padded his pockets.

He also discusses with Miklasz about moving to New York from England when he was 3 years old, and how this week’s Flashback Friday pick, Principal’s Office, was a stretch from his everyday life growing up. Yes, a rapper actually admitted to being a good kid and not a gangbanger.

But it doesn’t really matter that the story told in Principal’s Office is false. All that matters is the groove that this song takes, and the evident styles that leave little question as to when this video was originally recorded. There’s even the token “breakdown” section, though brief, shared with the appropriate warning “recess.”

Unfortunately, recess is usually one time of the day kids tend to get into a bit of trouble. No worries. The only trouble you might get into listening to this track is attempting to mimic the video’s dance moves. Passing the baton to Sound Savvy and Bark + Bite, what do you guys have on tap for Flashback Friday?

This is almost too easy. Maybe Bad Music Monday should just be renamed in Ke$ha’s honor. The sad thing is that she continues to get attention from radio stations and other venues. With any luck, this will just be a summer fling and she will be off the radar by this fall. Unfortunately, too many of her songs are being allowed to torture innocent ears.

The base for Your Love Is My Drug isn’t horrible, but the style is pretty rough. And did she really just highlight the break of the song with, “So I’ve gotta question, do you want to have a slumber party in my basement?” This girl makes Fred Durst sound like a genius — twice as trashy with only a quarter of the talent.

Listen at your own risk. TRT does not claim responsibility for the rapid drop in IQ listeners might experience after sitting through a Ke$ha track.

*It should be noted that My First Kiss was considered for this week’s BMM selection, but it was too unbearable to listen to this morning. Also, this is the second time Ke$ha has been featured on TRT’s Bad Music Monday. Her first appearance was three week’s ago on June 7 for Blah Blah Blah.

A number of songs could be dubbed the sound of the early 90s, especially when it comes to hip hop. Just as the 80s are now known for rock, the 90s will likely always be known for iconic tracks and performances by hip hop artists.

But it’s hard to even think about the early and middle years of the decade without mentioning Nate Dogg, and of course, Warren G.

Upon its release, Regulate quickly became the ‘it’ song that everyone had to sing. Just like Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby, you just weren’t cool unless you knew the words.

Regulators stands apart from others that realized similar success, in that the tone is serious and tempo is slow. But its success never lacked, and even while we’re tweaking into a whole new era of music, the song is still one of the most-listened-to tracks of the infamous decade. Remarkably, the video doesn’t suffer in favor of the music, either.

And regardless of your age or preferences, Regulate will no doubt always serve as a fresh reminder of what you were doing in the early and mid 90s.

When this song hit airwaves in 1989, everyone was singing it. The problem is, everyone was singing it to make fun of it.

Lucky for Fine Young Cannibals, they also released Good Thing to serve as redemption for the embarrassment of She Drives Me Crazy. Otherwise, this relative one-hit wonder might have gone down in music history as being known only for singer Roland Gift’s falsetto and incomprehensible vocals.

There are likely still fans of Fine Young Cannibals lingering that will argue the greatness of She Drives Me Crazy. And the band obviously had fans in the late 80s that helped make its stay in music relevancy longer than it probably should have been. But that doesn’t excuse the happenstance of Fine Young Cannibals’ drawing success from one of the 80’s biggest one-hit blunders.

Why aren’t these kids in school? And why are their clothes backwards?

It really doesn’t matter. Chris “Mack Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mack” Smith captivated the music scene in the early 90s, and made wearing your clothes the wrong way the in thing to do.

In 1992, they did it all with one simple word: Jump. It worked for House of Pain and Van Halen, so why not a couple of teens from Atlanta?

It worked, though they fizzled out rather quickly despite enjoying the success of a Billboard Top 100 No. 1 hit. The rumor is, Jermaine Dupri discovered these guys at a mall simply because they looked like a rap group. Dupri turned them into an overnight success, and had the world wanting to jump.