30 Days of Music - Day 02 - Your Least Favourite Song

Brand New Heavies - Midnight At the Oasis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmzG8XK1qkQ

MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS

Thinking about this song isn't enjoyable. I almost didn't want to class this as my Least Favourite, because that would mean that I'd have to listen to it.

I had to wait for something in a shop the other day and this came on their stereo; it wasn't even this version.  It slithered its way out into the room and I remembered how badly I wanted to destroy it.

I think - and this is something that most people feel about the music they despise - that this is music for people who don't like music. This is a processed microwavable turkey nugget that delivers no nutrition and has a desultory soggy texture.  It makes you ill, it makes you worse.

Hear that little guitar pitchbend (it's at 0:24 - please don't listen)? What is that? Seriously? What is that there for and what does it accomplish?  It's like someone pointing and winking at you, earnestly, as a greeting. Nobody does that.  This comes back, regularly, all the way through this nightmare; the leering face of an abuser.

We've already discussed my difficulty with lyrics, but jeez...

Isn't there a law against the first line of a song being THE TITLE OF THE FLIPPING SONG?  It's like the singer was handed it on a piece of paper just before she did her vocal take and accidentally started too early.  To be honest, I'm surprised she doesn't sing, "All rights reserved" at the end.

She doesn't do that, but she does sing, "Midnight at the Oasis" AGAIN.

In this -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMO84Twq9Ow - which I believe is the radio edit, she sings it TWICE at the start as well.  Once in faux-Salt n Pepa block-chord form, and once "normally".  I love how they just stuck some stupid harmonised vocals on the start to dodge the mindsucking drudge of the full intro.

In homage to this wantonly futile repetition of the title, I've put "MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS" at the start, at psuedo-random locations in the middle, and at the end of this piece.  Trust me, it's irritating.  Are you sick of it yet?  MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS.

And that vocal entrance...someone sneaking up and going "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRHHH!" in your ear would abrade the brain less.

"Sing your camel to bed"

Pardon? Putting aside the total generalised nonsense of this, surely you sing someone to sleep rather than bed? Oh, oh, wait - there's probably a rhyme coming soon...

"Shadows painting our faces / Traces romance in our heads"

Why "painting"? Painting a face implies deception, harlotry, prostitiution. "Traces": outlines, fragments, copying. I don't think there's a profound examination of the rationalisation of romance going on here, so why is the romance happening in "heads"?  Why is it tracing in our heads: is the tracing psychosomatic?

I need to stop and think about this if I'm going to get anything from a line that complex, but no, we barrel on into...

"Heaven holding a half moon / Shining just for us"

Bleurgh.

"Let's slip off to a sand dune real soon / Kick up a little dust"

Let's not, ok? So we're all romancing and something about camels and then we're kicking up dust? Why the mood swing, OH WAIT BECAUSE THERE'S DUST IN THE FLIPPING DESERT. Except it's SAND, SAND. So we've got dust and camels and later I think we get a sheik. Why don't we chuck in some pyramids and asps and quicksand.  It's a bit like the Egypt level from a Megadrive-era platformer.

MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS

As I read through, my opinion cements: the person who wrote these lyrics doesn't understand words.

Words are used in subtle loops to evoke emotions, they are not there to brutalise an image into someone: "YOU WILL IMAGINE BEING IN A DESERT!"

Let's pause for a second. We're clearly in the "nonsense song" genre, so why is this woman singing it like it's some heart-wrenching ballad?  Nothing riles me more than overtly meaningless lyrics delivered with faux-passion.

"Come out, Cactus is our friend."

Is that what she's saying? "Cactuses: our friend?" Ungrammatical, so probably not. Who is Cactus? What kind of name is Cactus anyway? There's no other mention of Cactus. I hate Cactus.

MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS

And it's not like she can even sing this phrase anyway: it dribbles loathsomely like she's trying to expurgate some awful excess of bad humour - "Co-hum-oww-wha-howt".

AND THEN! AND THEN!   The next part of this section:

"He'll show us the way"

That's what every transcription seems to have, except she seems to sing, "He walked out, away," which makes absolutely no sense.  Is she even singing the actual lyrics?  Of course it's rendered as, "Heeeaah wowclow ha-waaay" so nobody has the faintest chance of ever knowing.

A little later, we get to:

"I'll be your belly dancer /
Prancer, and you can be my sheik"


I don't really feel the need to discuss that; it's what happens directly afterwards that really takes things to another level.  Yes, it's a sax solo; I remember my good friend Oli telling me that he had a lecturer at university who genuinely believed that the saxophone was invented as a joke.  This solo is definitely of the "random-notes-until-I'm-done" variety: it's a slightly wilted lettuce leaf.

The version I'm referring to for this then repeats the first two verses and slinks off into the miserable wasteland of "wailing + sychopated stabs".  Isn't it the job of a producer to tell a band, "Hey, you know this section where literally nothing happens at all?  How about we just cut that out?  I mean, it's not like people have anything better to do with their time than listen to you idiots not actually playing a valid part of this song, but, I don't know, maybe things will just flow better?"

I wish, entirely, that this slippery globule of half-funk could be purged from culture.

MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS