The Encroaching Ubiquity of I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baeFAxk6N8I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apWz-E3bDE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Blurcz474w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUeXnJhcCl4

NICE horns in this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txghM2Bs2qo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pBt-ImGn3w

Man I love school choirs/orchestras!

Was rocking this on the minibus at work today. I support the encroaching ubiquity of "I Got a Feeling"

I feel like nobody thinks wayne's any good now but "I don't drink beer, I like champagne/so, 'cheers' to Lil Wayne" made me smile so big

When I was a student in a crappy area of southampton, england, there was a 60 year oldish woman, possibly slightly confused somewhere upstairs, who worked in the local supermarket who used to sing non stop at all the students in a very happy way and became something of a legend to anyone who lived around there when they were at university. She would usually do cliff richard with maybe a dash of take that or whatever else was big popwise at the time. I hear that for the last six months she's expanded to do a confusing medley of I Gotta Feeling and I Kissed A Girl.

Oh how I long for the days when "Time of Your Life" was the ubiquitous one.

love this song so much, top 5 songs in rotation on the radio station at my work

i love it too.

And I like the Wayne version too JD. You are not alone.

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO

L'Chaim!

i love it too.

― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:41 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I like dumb pop songs as much as the next guy, hell I repped for "Girlfriend" in that Dr. Luke thread, but this is one of the single most awful pop songs in the last decade and I die a little each time I'm forced to hear it. Given its approaching ubiquity, I should have no soul left at all by about 2014.

sweet, have fun being a Twilight character

i teared up when the kids orchestra started playing it
for some reason i can't watch kid musical events without crying
it's kind of a problem

sweet, have fun being a Twilight character

Now that was uncalled for, couldn't you have just called me an "asshole" or something a little friendlier?

I seriously don't understand why, but the Black Eyed Peas in general and this song in particular bring out the Alex in NYC in me.

hate this song so much. and "encroaching" is the wrong word. its popularity has peaked already imo, we're on the way down the mountain of ubiquity onto the foothills of annoyingly overexposed.

I hope Kool & The Gang have invested their money well, because ASCAP payments on "Celebration" are probably taking a big dip.

It isn't going anywhere. There was just a story on the radio the other day that for many wedding DJs, this has surpassed "Celebration" as the most requested song.

oh god i hope nothing similar is happening in britain.

I gotta feeling
That this song's gonna be ubiquitous

Unlike "Celebration," "I Gotta Feeling" affords a wedding-reception crowd:

-Vocal parts of men and women
-Vocal parts for those who can sing and those who cannot
-Vocal parts for groomsmen and bridesmaids
-The high "woooo-hooo" part for those who want to sing a little but not a lot
-A 2-for-1 deal. The song could be 2.5 minutes, but then (after they sing "do it again"), it repeats itself

er, vocal parts for men and women

I believe this song may be the eternal flipside to Carmina Burana.

i feel like a fun-ruiner for h8ing this song. shit sounds like a slice of wonder bread and a glass of water 2 me.

last night i was driving home at the end of a really good night, flipped over to the pop station, and this song was playing, and for real, it was AWESOME.

i thought about c&p'ing relevant stats from the song's wikipedia entry about how it's the highest selling digital single ever and the 5th biggest billboard hit of the last decade and went to #1 in 20 countries but really it was hard to sift through it all and isolate just the facts that best convey its utter hugeness.

btw i don't like to do the predict that other people will change their minds in the future thing with music, i think it's obnoxious, but for real, "I Gotta Feeling" didn't place in ILM Top 100 2005-2009: TRACKS but i strongly suspect in 5 or 10 years if you did that poll over it would do pretty well.

The first time I ever heard the song was following some link to this video, so right off the bat it seemed like a classic freshman-orientation anthem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zcOFN_VBVo

Unlike "Celebration," "I Gotta Feeling" affords a wedding-reception crowd:

-Vocal parts of men and women
-Vocal parts for those who can sing and those who cannot
-Vocal parts for groomsmen and bridesmaids
-The high "woooo-hooo" part for those who want to sing a little but not a lot
-A 2-for-1 deal. The song could be 2.5 minutes, but then (after they sing "do it again"), it repeats itself

Totally! Also, the whole "tonight's gonna be a good night" theme affords winking reference to wedding-night hanky-panky.

also: go out and smash it
like omg

i wd like this song more with a female vocal. funny it has so many supporters around here! also funny that this thread is being started now. i didn't realize it was still going strong, but i guess it is!

also funny that this thread is being started now. i didn't realize it was still going strong, but i guess it is!

yeah, love the song to death, but wasn't it "on the way down the mountain of ubiquity onto the foothills of annoyingly overexposed" like, nine months ago?

I was just saying if I ever have kids there will be like a 100% chance that I will hear this song at their wedding in 25 or 30 years

i think a year out is when you really get to be able to tell whether a song is ever going away or if it's kind of going to be perennially ubiquitous. but yeah, this thread could've started anytime.

strengths of "I Gotta Feeling" imo:

-hooks
-catchy, danceable
-fun for the whole family

weaknesses of "I Gotta Feeling" imo:

-hooks are unengaging and derivative
-maximal pop form for its minimal content
-fun for the whole family
-every single member of the black eyed peas annoys the shit out of me regardless of whether I like the song they are performing on are not

*or not

More like it's going from overexposed in a number-one-hit way to permeating itself into the very fiber of our society.

Official video is surprisingly racy (Fergie in thong, girl/girl makeout, etc.).

I mean, there are things I think that could be improved - - for example, the whole "monday, tuesday, wednesday" section is kind of a waste of space, and arguably works against the idea that tonight is the special, magic night that one has a feeling about. I kinda wish he just made a strong case for Thursday and Thursday alone. But these are quibbles, the thing was massive for a reason and I'll save my hate for "Boom Boom Pow," which was just moronic.

yeah running down the days of the week in a pop song is usually serious filler.

4 me, it just feels rly fucking tepid 4 a dance song. i dunno, i'm having trouble coming up with criticisms that don't rely on tired standard issue pop song h8rade. im not rly engaged by the song at any point, and i dont feel like it ever goes anywhere. like wheres the dynamism? if it werent for its creeping ubiquity i feel like i would have 4gotten about this song a while ago.

i like that it's not very dynamic -- you just have this nice pretty melody with a kinda cool unique texture looping over and over with a bunch of different vocal hooks alternating over it and the drums never hit that hard or feel like an important piece of the whole. makes it feel kind of singular and unusual as a dance party staple.

this song was made so little kids and old people can dance together
it's gonna be kind of stupid and bouncy

this song is awesome hatersto the left

at most, i can come up with "it's nice"

but that's just for me, personally, and i think it has a lot to do with the vocal. i totally see why some dude likes it. it's a feel-good, nostalgic anthem for friendship, and it functions well in that regard.

the fact that they decided not just to write the most bar mitzvah friendly song ever but to add "MAZEL TOV" immediately bumps this from classic to all-time-classic

understand that different folks like different stuff, but it's hard to get my head around the idea that people can't see what's so immediately & durably appealing abt this song. first time i heard it was on the car radio in maine while visiting my folks. on first listen, the best pop song i'd heard in at least a year, what i always hope the radio will sound like (though it hardly ever does). seemed obvious to me that it would be HUGE. maybe not huge forever and bolted to the national DNA, but still...

the fact that they decided not just to write the most bar mitzvah friendly song ever but to add "MAZEL TOV" immediately bumps this from classic to all-time-classic

plus yeah that

something like 93% of my appreciation for this song comes from the 'mazel tov'

I should add that I haven't yet encountered this in a dance club context, only as the video or as something playing in a car, say, on the way home from work, which really is a great format for it. The repeating loop has this anticipatory quality to it, like the tension is always building up not so much for this song, but for the NEXT song which is when your night actually begins. Alternately, I guess, the whole song is the night in miniature, with the journey to the club, the exciting explosive party, and then the chilled-out "wooooooooooo-hoo" section where it feels like they just stepped out to get some fresh air and it's cold outside tonight and everything is feeling pretty great and it's good to be alive, etc.

And then you have fucking Fergie saying "DRANK!!!!" which is a real problem IMO, although yeah it gives people something to shout at wedding receptions.

i def love the "mazel tov"

but dubbing this the best pop song in at least a year is beyond infathomable to me.

at least this song is better than "boom boom pow"

*unfathomable :)

i had that first and then second-guessed myself!!

The days of the week aren't filler when folks are dancing to it. If anything, that's the part where the lyrics become a double-time beat, kind of the climax to the song.

Another thing that works about the song: the minute-and-a-half into that gives everyone time to set down their drinks or birthday cake and make their way out to the dance floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGECbTuTId0

but dubbing this the best pop song in at least a year is beyond iunfathomable to me.

well, if popularity's any yardstick, i'm not alone in that...

I got a feeling vs. all my friends

not gonna make that poll cause I make too many polls lately but

that EJO version reminds me of Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

and yeah I scrolled down this thread to find where the new comments began, before scrolling all the way up to find that the whole thing was new. It does pain me that this song won't go away.

"Hung Up" has the same structure and dynamics (long into, double-feature structure, slight mellowing out to catch your breath in the middle before driving through to the end), but it's all about longing, dancing through pain. You don't want that at a kid's birthday party.

well, if popularity's any yardstick, i'm not alone in that...

― a CRASBO is a "criminally related" ASBO (contenderizer), Thursday, July 29, 2010 10:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no, you're definitely not. i find myself disagreeing with the general population on a lot of #1 singles.

The days of the week aren't filler when folks are dancing to it. If anything, that's the part where the lyrics become a double-time beat, kind of the climax to the song.

Yeah, I agree insofar as I love them rhythmically but just wish they were doing more in terms of lyrical content. Sort of an "Ob-La-Di" moment, you just go "how much better would this song be if those were actual (and good) lyrics?"

It would be hard to come up with something as rhythmic and repetitive, and so satisfying for a crowd on the dancefloor, as ___DAY ___DAY ___DAY ___DAY

I mean, I was at a friend's (lol) 40th birthday party a few months ago. He married 10 years ago, is a fundraiser for non-profits, lives in a tony but urban neighborhood, and his neighbors made up most of the 30 or so guests. When this song came on, everyone rushed the dance floor. When it was about two and a half minutes in, everyone was kind of winding down, as if the song was going to end, and then the song went back to its original momentum with those days of the week adding a big extra oomph, so that we were all happy and spent when the song finally did end.

i know this is a very me thing to say, but i really do find it incredibly odd that this song rivaled MC's "We Belong Together" in terms of weeks at #1. very odd.

I think the real beauty is how the beat drops out on some Black Sheep "engine engine number nine..." shit but actually drops out for A WHOLE VERSE so when it comes back it's like wowowowow

ugh i love this song. there was one shot in the video with some girl who looked like she was drunk and stumbling in her heels (although i'm probably imagining it) that always made me feel like the song was secretly a little tragic.

^^^ yeah

makes an appearance at 1:16 of "lightweight jamming": THAT'S LIGHTWEIGHT JAMMIN'

some ppl really despise this song. i remember rev & lex raining hate down on it in the 2009 trax poll.

it's the kind of song that tends to pale in comparison with other super-hits because of its simple-mindedness, but it's also the kind of song that people love because of its simple-mindedness, so it's no surprise that it is divisive.

I don't despise this song. It's like a 4/10, prob won't change the station if it comes on the radio joint. I get why it's popular, I just don't get why people here are falling all over it.

The comparison with "Celebration" is apt. And I love both songs, and hope and plan to hear both at my son's bar mitzvah someday!

Note: I'm coming to this from the "I never hear any chart pop" position. But heard this (at a bar mitzvah, natch) and had the same reaction as contenderizer -- wow, WHAT IS THIS THING?

also, cosign w/ iatee re the brilliant deployment of "Mazel Tov."

Guys it is NOT a brilliant deployment of "Mazel Tov", it was a cold and calculated move to make sure it gets played at bar mitzvahs!

this song panders so much to the wedding/bar mitzvah crowd, and people eat it up. pretty banal song.

'ate this song

"wedding/bar mitzvah crowd" equals, um, the kind of human being who loves pop music? You seem to think the fact my grandma can dance to this song is a strike against it instead of the glorious miracle that it is.

If this were easy to do wouldn't Kool and the Gang have been knocked off before now?

"wedding/bar mitzvah crowd" does not equal an insult, but it definitely does not simply equal "the kind of human being who loves pop music" eitha

glorious miracle is a bit much. it's catchy enough, but i get bored with it after about 20 seconds.

i didn't realize your grandma loves pop music so much

I don't get it, who doesn't dance at weddings? I am not trying to be difficult, it's that I truly don't understand what group of people you mean "the wedding/barmitvah crowd" to exclude!

lolllllllllll "glorious miracle" i didn't even see that

i'm sorry but that's good

ohh come on eephus everybody knows that there are certain songs that are better-suited for a wedding/bar mitzvah

it's not just like any pop song

The wedding/bar mitzvah crowd was not meant as an insult! This song was designed to have the broadest possible appeal, from 6 year olds to 80 year olds. Music that has to appeal to such a mass audience is usually really simple. Sure it's fun to hear at said event, but I don't want to hear it anywhere else.

correction - "wedding/bar mitzvah crowd" not an insult to those people (which is pretty much everyone), more an insult to the song

this song was made so little kids and old people can dance together
it's gonna be kind of stupid and bouncy

― ghee hee hee (La Lechera), Thursday, July 29, 2010 4:17 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

lol i'm trying to imagine RIDE at a bar mitzvah

this song's ubiquity is STILL ENCROACHING???

haha where have you been?

Avoiding being encroached.

i think i've been to maybe two weddings as an adult and never been to a bar mitzvah

the "mazel tov" line never sticks out or seems like an important part of the song, don't know why people talk about it so much.

also this song is WAY less calculated to always be played at certain events than the other biggest new wedding staple of the past couple years, "Single Ladies"

the mazel tov line isn't important to the song, it was stuck in there to make it a bar mitvah staple. that's what makes it calculated.

i agree that "single ladies" has become a new wedding staple, but i feel like it was unintentional, whereas "i gotta feeling" was written from the start for this purpose. "single ladies" doesn't have that multi-generational appeal that's gonna get granny on the dance floor.

as cynical and calculated as the whole BEP enterprise is, I really have a hard time believing the line wasn't thrown in there as just a funny thing to say, as opposed to will.i.am stroking his chin and saying "y'know, our music is already played at almost every kind of celebration in America, but we really need something to break into that elusive Jewish rite of passage market."

After which he directed his hologram to visit Mars and check out what song the annual fhlurg-zaxchler ceremony would fall for.

I was at a wedding last weekend and IGAF trumped 'Single Ladies' easily. Nowhere near the nights' big winner which was Tony Christie's 'Is this the way to Amarillo' which had about 80% of the room up and dancing.

when i got married a couple years ago the only relatively recent pop hits i played during the dances were "Step In The Name of Love" and "Rock Your Body." the last wedding I went to a few weeks ago, though, "Single Ladies" and Gaga were big. can't remember if "I Gotta Feeling" was played but it probably was.

lol some dude

total celebration domination

Saying this song is for the "wedding/bar mitzvah crowd" is like saying "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is for the baseball crowd or "Taps" is for the funeral crowd, or Carmina Burana is for the window-into-the-underworld crowd. They're songs for occasions, not folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnzCyIQ5Qy0

you guys realize that maybe 20% of all pop hits are about partying and celebrating and can be generically applied to just about any kind of upbeat gathering?

yeah but how many of them say L'CHAIM

i don't think it's intentionally "we gotta break into this jewish market" but rather it seems like they wanted to capture as wide an appeal as possible for "generic celebration song". they're the BEPs after all. two of them just bop around and don't even sing.

"Why is this good night different from all other good nights?"

I haven't heard this but I know it's absolute fucking terrible shit that you should all be ashamed to like even if you can't help liking it sincerely

I like IGAF when it came out but I didn't really love it until it made the spine to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNzrwh2Z2hQ

btw that was a post very much in character and I am sorry if it caused offence

you guys realize that maybe 20% of all pop hits are about partying and celebrating and can be generically applied to just about any kind of upbeat gathering?

― The chickbad from the ludicrous 'ludacris' song (some dude), Friday, July 30, 2010 2:31 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but not all songs about partying and celebrating can be applied to any upbeat gathering.

Saying this song is for the "wedding/bar mitzvah crowd" is like saying "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is for the baseball crowd or "Taps" is for the funeral crowd, or Carmina Burana is for the window-into-the-underworld crowd. They're songs for occasions, not folks.

― gato busca pleitos (Eazy), Friday, July 30, 2010 2:22 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

same difference.

bottom line is there are certain upbeat, celebratory songs that fit these occasions more than others. and again, this isn't a negative thing necessarily. i think the "mazel tov" was included for humor, but i also think it must've registered how convenient it would be to have it as a party shout-out.

same difference -- meaning, i think that the comment in question meant to say that this song was intended for crowds at weddings, not for people who attend weddings in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpSTIKbrBOw

I honestly don't think I have ever seen anything dorkier than this video.

i hate this song so much, and i'll never get why the "mazel tov" line is meant to be funny. it's so WEAK, it's not even that catchy - i don't think i could remember how it went until like the 50th time or whatever, the beat is negligible, the chorus is boring, as some dude says it's subject matter common to maybe 20% of pop, most of which does it massively better...i think rev put it well on one of the EOY lists, it's a good-times party song for people who don't really party very often.

i don't get why wedding disco songs are lionised so much.

Because weddings are lionized?

I heard this song in a club in Kampala that was otherwise playing afropop, dancehall and US hip-hop and R&B and it was pretty packed with both locals and tourists. Then the DJ played this song and suddenly there were only white people left on the dancefloor.

weddings are fun, but "your uncle will want to dance to it" is not a positive quality in a song imo

Depends on the uncle. (Most of mine look like they prefer to chill.)

nah imo there is something beautiful about songs that can unite people. some of them suck, of course, but some of them don't.

weddings are fun, but "your uncle will want to dance to it" is not a positive quality in a song imo

Still butthurt about 'How Many Licks' clearing the dancefloor?

this song's ubiquity is STILL ENCROACHING???

encroaching in the Smash Mouth "All Star" sense

l'chaim >>> mazel tov, clearly

and yeah some dude otm, even though I'm not a big fan of this song (it's ok), if it can get my cheeseball uncle to dance drunkenly and stupidly, I call that a plus.

hehe yea i agree, but i also think a lot of the songs that would do that would not be found on my iPod

There are songs that have wedding disco classic status thrust upon them (I think Rehab might be the most recent but there are dozens of them) and there are those that are clearly contrived for the purpose (Single Ladies, I Gotta Feeling), both of which sort of feel like they're trying way too hard.

CRAZY by gnarls barkley :( :( :|

hey ya

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g192/rrawn/frownieface.jpg

those 2 in partic, barf

Both were played at the wedding I was at last month so there you go. By a wedding band no less.

weddings are fun, but "your uncle will want to dance to it" is not a positive quality in a song imo

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, July 30, 2010 10:16 AM (50 minutes ago)

OTM. This is music for people who don't care about music. It serves its purpose, but let's not champion a song for appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Aren't those both just songs that were such absolute ginormous hits that it makes sense to play them at motley gatherings like weddings, b/c you need songs that you can assume at least 3/4 of the inattentive, non-musico audience knows, likes, and will be happy to hear? I mean a wedding is not an indie club where you have to dig deep and play a song that peaked at #20 ten years ago to get people delighted and surprised - - - you can play "Crazy" and even shy Cousin Wanda, who owns five CDs and hasn't thought about that song in years, will have the time of her life. How is this a bad thing?

it's not for cousin wanda. but for me and plenty of other people it's sickening.

and it's not "either obscure hit from 10 yrs ago or HEY YA"

plenty of stuff in between!

Oh yeah, sure, I mean, I'm sick of "Hey Ya" too, but I'm also sick of "Celebration" and "September" and what have you but it's hard to say those are sucky and bad for that reason. Weddings have gotta be tough to DJ, is all I'm saying.

'september' i always like somehow

it's true, it is hard to say that such songs are bad for that reason alone -- it's just that Crazy and Hey Ya are PARTICULARLY shite. like my blood boils.

Last wedding I was at had kinda weird music. Lots of anonymous worldbeat, then like four Paul Simon songs in a row, then "Bust a Move" and "Ice Ice Baby."

#
jenandlaw
1 hour ago

I'm so sad for the people who live their lives this way, think it is fun, and don't realize the emptiness. That isn't sarcasm... it's genuine grief and compassion.

sounds like someone fucking around with an ipod xp

#
marcosMCify
4 hours ago

granda som

#
GODWATCHESYOU1
20 minutes ago

@jenandlaw Most won't make it.

Matthew 7:13-14

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Amen

#
easye1973
1 day ago

@thecherrypopper11 she is hot for a tranny and that voice in that song yikes total Y chromosome there and "bra" nice one. ANd just like you I am a homo sapien, could you use a less PC term next time?

#
cowlovers1000
1 day ago

@wafflesandtoast1 no its black light paint if u put that stuff in glow sticks on ur hands it would eventually eat through ur skin

this song is alright. otm on the 'celebration' factor. never want to listen to it but its fine if i'm dancing with my nan.

weddings are fun, but "your uncle will want to dance to it" is not a positive quality in a song imo

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, July 30, 2010 10:16 AM (50 minutes ago)

OTM. This is music for people who don't care about music. It serves its purpose, but let's not champion a song for appealing to the lowest common denominator.

― 'ello govna, Friday, July 30, 2010 11:15 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

music is for EVERYONE to enjoy as much or as little as they wish, not just fucking obsessives like us, we don't own sound goddammit

there are so many populist songs that go down well at wedding discos and that everyone knows, that are also a fuckton better than "i gotta feeling". just play "crazy in love" and "billie jean".

good picks for a wedding

xp yea truth be told i wd be hard-pressed to say this or any song is for ppl who don't care about music

altho that is an interesting question. cuz i definitely kno ppl who like, don't care about music. but i don't know what they listen to, when they do listen to music.

HMMMM

you can't dance stupid to "billie jean"
this song is for stupid dancing, like silly dancing

i don't LIKE it, i'm not all "man, this is a great track" but for bouncing around stupidly with an all-ages crowd, most of whom i will never see again? ok, fine.

i hate stupid dancing: Ironic Dancing Must Be Destroyed

that's ok if you hate it, but grandma and aunt wanda love it

COUSIN wanda

:D

i have this new dance floor strategy i'm trying out: if i don't like the song, or if i don't feel like moving my body, i don't. HAHAHA!

xp yea truth be told i wd be hard-pressed to say this or any song is for ppl who don't care about music

altho that is an interesting question. cuz i definitely kno ppl who like, don't care about music. but i don't know what they listen to, when they do listen to music.

― janice (surm), Friday, July 30, 2010 11:42 AM (5 minutes ago)

off the top of my head, another example would be "who let the dogs out". no one bought the baha men album, no one listens to that on their ipod. it's meant for ubiquity. it's made so that people who don't pay attention to music can still feel like they're in the know when they hear it at a ball game, or on tv.

I think the days of the week are in there for the 3-to-7-year-olds on the dance floor. It works like one little, two little, three little Indians.

Invocations to stupid dancing can be classic in the right hands. The last minute or so of this for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYgntQFE0io

Another thing that will likely give this song a long life is the low expectations in the lyrics. It's not saying this wedding day is going to be the best day of our lives or this Bat Mitzvah is going to blow our minds.

(Actually I meant about 2mins 45 into that)

dancing isn't something that belongs just to the professionals either! if someone feels like dancing badly or stupidly to a song they like they're allowed, you fucking fascists!

i also love this song! tho i also take exception with the encroaching bit of the thread title. this thing has been pretty ubiquitous for awhile

But it's gonna reach some Camptown Races level shit.

A side note, Wanda is normally Aunt Wanda in discussions like this but I thought maybe Aunt Wanda doesn't yet really know about "Crazy" so, better play it safe.

btw I just danced to this song at a fam party bcz my aunt, frustrated with the "Celebration" and "Play That Funky Music" etc being played by DJ because "I don't want to feel old", requested "some young people music like Lady Gaga." This came on, and it was good enough for her. And good enough for me.

DJ is now playing "Juicy," so bye!

My mother (who is in her mid-50s) informed me the other day that she likes this song. Sort of made me feel like I have failed as a son.

haaah

you can't dance stupid to "billie jean"

you can mimic MJ!

any way you can dance to the Black Eyed Peas, you can dance that way a million times better to Michael Jackson. just sayin. this is basic music science.

i hate when white people do fake "rap" dances. makes me want to punch them.

off the top of my head, another example would be "who let the dogs out". no one bought the baha men album, no one listens to that on their ipod. it's meant for ubiquity. it's made so that people who don't pay attention to music can still feel like they're in the know when they hear it at a ball game, or on tv.

― 'ello govna, Friday, July 30, 2010 11:52 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No one bought the Baja Men album, but Black Eyed Peas went double platinum with this album, which would have been like 8 times platinum in the Baja Men's day

I bought that baha men album lol

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/thingummy99/Picture3-1.png

I like this bit.

you can't dance stupid to "billie jean"

my best friend texted me from the wedding she was at last night, saying she participated in a dance off to Billie Jean. she won.

Report for the ground, July 2010. I went to my boss's boss's boss's 68th birthday last night. In addition to "September" and "Play That Funky Music" and "I've Had The Time of My Life" and "Oh What A Night," the top-shelf wedding-type band only played one song newer than "Like A Prayer": "Party in the U.S.A."

baha men didn't have a dozen or so previous hits

Haha, I was having dinner the other night with my mom and her boyfriend -- both in their sixties -- and he was giving her shit for not having heard of "Who Let the Dogs Out." He was like, "It was everywhere!"

yeah, him otm

i hate when white people do fake "rap" dances. makes me want to punch them.

what's the difference between a 'fake rap dance' and a 'real rap dance'? can white people do real rap dances? what kind of dances are white people allowed to do to rap music?

i don't know if this is what Whiney meant by "fake rap dancing", but i'm not a fan of joke dancing. back in school, most of the guys i knew were too self-conscious to just dance, so they had to make it into a big joke. i'd rather see really bad dancing then a bunch of guys acting like clowns and taking up space.

what's the difference between a 'fake rap dance' and a 'real rap dance'? can white people do real rap dances? what kind of dances are white people allowed to do to rap music?

― iatee, Sunday, August 1, 2010 1:14 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

uh yeah he means jokey ironic "lol ... dancing" dancing

BTW the mention of "Oh What A Night" and the recollection of how I felt about this when it was huge helps me understand how the BEP-haters here feel about "I Gotta Feeling." I cannot deny the former is extremely catchy but I HATE it -- and I think my reasons for hating it parallel in some sense people's reasons for hating "I Gotta Feeling" -- I see the reference to 1963 as a cynical grasp at the sympathy of old people (see also: "Old Time Rock and Roll," "Summer of '69") in the same way you guys see "Mazel Tov" as a cynical grasp at the sympathy of bar mitzvah MCs.

I have no good theory to explain why I reject "Oh What a Night" and accept "I Gotta Feeling." Will think about it and tell you guys if I come up with anything.

uh yeah he means jokey ironic "lol ... dancing" dancing

like how long does this sort of dancing go on? do people carry on their ironic dancing three, four, five songs in a row? actual question, it's hard for me to imagine an "ironic" dance lasting longer than a minute or two unless it was like a genuinely ironic piece by Alvin Ailey or something

like if you are at places where people are just "ironic" dancing all night long are you maybe dancing @ Actors Theatre or something?

I better be careful not to smile or laugh or somewhat jokingly attempt a move I can't quite pull off next I'm dancing, someone from this thread might be there and murder me or something

a3rosmith otm

in my life I honestly don't think I've seen anyone 'ironically dance' for more than 20 seconds and never on a dance floor. if there's a 40 yo white dude on a dancefloor and a rap song comes on, I don't think it's 'ironic' if he does something sorta goofy. I mean, is this person supposed to turn into an authentic hip hop dancer? are they supposed to resort to their white person traditions and just square dance or something? it's hard to imagine a way that they'd be able to be racially insensitive using dance moves.

I should say that I'm sensitive about this because more than once after being seen dancing a little I'll hear "underrated aerosmith seemed to be making fun of the entrance music by dancing funny to it" and I'll be like "hey fuck you that is how I dance you fuckin assholes"

i'm with some dude. jokey/ironic dancing is a lot of fun. anybody who's ever attempted to dance like bryan ferry in the "same old scene" video, or like a dude from the detroit new dance show, or like a dude in a jam and lewis video, knows what i mean

I better be careful not to smile or laugh or somewhat jokingly attempt a move I can't quite pull off next I'm dancing, someone from this thread might be there and murder me or something

― The chickbad from the ludicrous 'ludacris' song (some dude), Sunday, August 1, 2010 6:47 PM (9 minutes ago)

There's a difference between trying something and laughing because you feel goofy, and being an ironic ass just to get attention. Like I said this was mostly in college, I don't notice it much anymore when I go out. Mostly because I avoid frat boy hangouts.

This song is so nothing...

Oh how I long for the days when "Time of Your Life" was the ubiquitous one.

― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 29 July 2010 18:37 (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

prescient

heh

"i gotta feeling" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "the time" and i hate "i gotta feeling"

"Time of Your Life" is a disaster

ditto "Here's to the Night"

the word "encroaching" being in this thread title still cracks me up

"boom boom pow" is also still a hundred times better than this song

duh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3PRmu0tr6k&feature=youtu.be

My pet peeve is indie-ish songwriters messing up a cover by making fun of it, coming from the angle that what they're covering is a shitty piece of craftsmanship when it's actually as carefully put together as anything in their own catalog.

actually I think that's great because it usually exposes the indie-ish songwriters for the talent-lite hacks most of them are

Like they need any help with that.

ha fair point

Never having had any desire to check out Jeff Tweedy, this will ensure that turns into a lifelong trend.

so this didn't end up becoming that ubiquitous, did it? haven't heard it on the radio in ages, and i listen a lot.

it felt p ubiquitous to me the year it came out, but that was largely because at the time i had cokehead downstairs neighbors who would come home at 3 in the morning and blast it; their stereo was apparently set up against a wall directly under my bedroom, and the sound would travel up through the floor, through my mattress, and into my pillow. it was actually louder if i was lying down.

I don't think I've heard this song in a couple years.

Maybe like once since the super bowl disaster

ubiquitous pop songs always drop off the radar in the subsequent year or two. in this case i'm very glad of that. doubtless it'll eventually return as a staple though, sigh

yeah this turned out not to really have staying power. especially compared to, like, "Single Ladies," which came out about 6 months earlier.

i feel like it's remained really influential on pop music, though. there's still at least a few "I Gotta Feeling" soundalike major label singles every year, and I feel like it kicked off the whole wave of 'wistful party song' type hits like "We Can't Stop."

Sorry, what's wistful about I Gotta Feeling?

Autotuning on ''..and then we'll do it agaiaaian,'' and the little doodle-WOOdle-oodle-oo sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0S2PtFP2Jo

The comparison with "Celebration" is apt. And I love both songs, and hope and plan to hear both at my son's bar mitzvah someday!

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, July 29, 2010 7:53 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Update: did in fact play this at my son's bar mitzvah

Lol, what a lovely thread revive

Congratulations!

I genuinely miss the days of ubiquitous Black Eyed Peas. Just learned that they went back to their roots two years ago and made a political rap album, accompanied by a sci-fi Marvel comic about the crack epidemic?

Ritmo (Bad Boys for life)" by The Black Eyed Peas with J Balvin is #1 on Billboard's Hot Latin chart. Eh, not that impressive. Not good.

Holy crap, my kids and I were cracking up playing this in the car just last week. One didn't believe me that a singer actually says "l'chaim!" My theory is they wrote this *specifically* for bar and bat mitzvahs, after spending time in Hollywood and hearing about all the big paychecks peers had been getting for private performances.