Song of the Day: Suicidal Tendencies, "Pop Songs"

How did I never hear this song until this weekend? 



On this week's Sound Opinions, Jim DeRogatis played this song to make a point that I disagree with (that the Grateful Dead suck) and to direct you to Nick Paumgarten's piece about Deadheads in The New Yorker. But with my Deadheadedness intact, I still get a huge kick out of "Pop Songs," a Suicidal Tendencies track from 2000.

"Pop Songs" takes swipes at the Dead, Britney Spears, Puff Daddy (rhymes with "and his friend the dead fatty") and more, but most of all the increasingly terrible bubblegum punk bands that have been on the airwaves in Dookie's wake. The lyrics are a scream ("If I hear another love ballad/I think I'm going to have to toss my salad,") and the music is even funnier, a formulaic, smoothed-out mall-punk jam that deserves the dance moves that Mike Muir gives it in the song's video. Satire a thin line, and it's hard to walk it without falling over (just ask the Offspring,) but "Pop Songs" is nasty and hilarious enough to keep itself from, as Kurt Cobain once put it, "choking on the ashes of her enemy." Not only that, it's one of ST's best moments.

Song of the Day: Suicidal Tendencies, "I Wasn't Meant to Feel This/Asleep at the Wheel"

Suicidal Tendencies are best known for a song about being institutionalized, but this is the song that makes the case that they actually needed it.



ST started as a punk rock band, but by 1992's The Art of Rebellion they were writing two-part, seven-minute psychedelic-metal songs for a major label. By description, "Asleep at the Wheel" should be an embarrassment, but instead it's a genuinely chilling track, with studio effects that recall "I Am the Walrus," and an "ay-ay-ay" rejoinder that will stay in your head for hours. Mike Muir turns out to be a surprisingly good singer, and Robert Trujillo's bass at the forefront suggests the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the start of a bad trip. The Vandals' Josh Freese provides crash cymbal magic here on his way to being one of the America's most in-demand session drummers. Be careful where you sleep tonight.