"Call Me" vs. "Call Me Maybe"

I could've included a whole laundry list of songs with "Call" and "Me" in their titles, but I really just wanted to make people choose between two and Blondie's seems like the most ubiquitiously famous of the "Call Me"'s.

I have never made the musical connection between "Children Of The Grave" and "Call Me" before this moment. LOL, thanks ILM!

you are a terrible person for making this poll fyi, JF

That's not what I meant

Just a dumb joke...

No love for Ringo's song, eh?

Call Me Irresponsible

how does it feel to be 31?

i'm 26....

Already predicting how dessicated your thirties will be?

it's no "I Want it That Way", can I just say

also lol @ saying that not enjoying having "Call me Maybe" drilled into your head every time you go anywhere or do anything = dessication

I had to listen to them soundcheck "Call me maybe" for five hours last Saturday and I'm feeling pretty dead inside as a result

The only song from exposure to which for five hours I wouldn't feel pretty dead inside is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc5Sm4iRtxs

HOORAY!

sanity restored

btw I would totally vote for the Tay Zonday version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sruQJ12PsI

i only regret that i cannot cast 10 votes for blondie

I would like to vote for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEsPhTbJhuo&feature=related

Call Me Maybe is a truly great pop song for 16 year olds, I dunno what you 30-somes are getting out of it

― frogbs, Wednesday, June 20, 2012 2:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so otm

Does it stop being truly great when you hit 17, 18 or maybe 22?

I thought Achy Breaky Heart was truly great when I was 4

carly rae jepsen is 26 and i feel that's sort of important, it has this sort of "idealised golden age of teenpop" feel to it, and the kind of tension (borne often from the knowledge of adulthood) between the idealised high school teenage crush that you know is idealised and never happened quite like that vs the realness of capturing those heart-in-mouth private feelings that happened all too well

one of my favourite things about "call me maybe" is how it pretends to be really forward - lusting over his SKIN, "and this is CRAZY" - but it's all an internal monologue and when it comes down to it she's pretty coy. the title line could've easily been "call me baby" which makes a lot more actual grammatical sense, certainly it's less clunky, and you have to think the writers thought of it, but "call me baby" kind of assumes she's got what she wants already and knows it, whereas "call me maybe" draws back at the last minute - in both song and video there's this underlying assumption that he's probably not going to reciprocate (but the feelings and the possibilities are joyous anyway)

tweet's "call me" is better than either, so secretive and sensual and alluring and i love songs about being the Other Woman (although actually he's the Other Man)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT9TVuoLN9k

to the west side
up and down my spine

carly rae jepsen is 26 and i feel that's sort of important, it has this sort of "idealised golden age of teenpop" feel to it, and the kind of tension (borne often from the knowledge of adulthood) between the idealised high school teenage crush that you know is idealised and never happened quite like that vs the realness of capturing those heart-in-mouth private feelings that happened all too well

Love this, lex.

As much as I love Blondie, "Call Me" has always felt too cold & clinical; a marker of how remote they briefly became at the apex of their imperial phase.

I love cold, clinical and remote Blondie! I'm always a little disappointed by "Atomic" (which I guess is their most remote track, and is brilliant despite my disappointment) because it's never quite as icy as I remember it. But "Call Me" is not even in my top 5 Blondie songs - not remote enough for me.

I still probably like it better than CMM but this needs more thought.

"Call me" was the first Blondie single I didn't buy. Probably because it wasn't on a nice 12" single.

Does it stop being truly great when you hit 17, 18 or maybe 22?

It's similar to a pitcher velocity aging curve, but moved 10 years up. So it's in peak form when you're 15, holds steady until 18, then declines every year until you hit about 30, when it's value over a replacement song (say, "All Out of Love" by Air Supply) becomes about zero

I have never made the musical connection between "Children Of The Grave" and "Call Me" before this moment. LOL, thanks ILM!

gotta give xhuxk total credit for that link, even if he got it from somewhere else back in the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ktP8hmqHs

wish this were slooower

ahh here we go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teHgkrMVpz0

oh and one of these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSxquE6VDiQ

That Fallon/Roots clip made me like Call Me Maybe a lot more but I think it's more to do with Questo playing a kazoo than Carly May Jetson or w/e her name is

Still Blondie

Carly May Jetson

dn of the future!

I do appreciate lex's interpretation up above but I think she's looking into it way too much, as far as I can tell this woman's being marketed to the 14-year old Bieber crowd

the song has pretty broad appeal across age groups, demographically it's more like "Toxic" than a Bieber single

i am a teenpop person but "call me maybe" doesn't really do it for me; it gets stuck in my head sometimes and i think i like it and then i play it and get bored. lex otm about the "maybe" part, though, that is my favorite thing about it.

same here. it's just an OK song imo, not bad but not great.

I disagree respectfully even, frog; I think Lex is a great writere who's made a career out of loving this stuff (and getting others to love it too) and I think he has nailed how the song's appeal works rather masterfully

I was going to say, Call Me Maybe clearly appeals to a generation of people who have felt alienated by the majority of post-Gaga, post-Guetta chart pop.

I disagree respectfully even, frog; I think Lex is a great writere who's made a career out of loving this stuff (and getting others to love it too) and I think he has nailed how the song's appeal works rather masterfully

are you 30?

idk those chord changes still sound pretty ravey to me, in a way.

xp

xp haha what? p sure there is a big overlap bw ppl who like jepsen and gaga/guetta

(Wow I totally fucked up those first four words! Xxp)

for another month and a half, Alfred. But I'm voting for Blondie, mind you

I was unfamiliar with Tweet's "Call Me" before this thread, but damn. That song makes me feel all icky. Cheating is bad behavior and desparate and aggressive cheating is even worse. So imo Tweet's song isn't better than either of these, and is in fact something I'll probably never listen to again if I can help it.

how about that beat though

dope beat.

I disagree respectfully even, frog; I think Lex is a great writere who's made a career out of loving this stuff (and getting others to love it too) and I think he has nailed how the song's appeal works rather masterfully

Well you can see whatever you want to see in the tune. I mean, 26 is old for this kind of music (she's older than me!), and I don't feel like it's being marketed that way. Would you know how old she was if you didn't look it up? What would you have guessed if you hadn't? Also "Call Me Baby" wouldn't really work, but yes that part is interesting. I mean theres plenty to like about the tune but I would be careful ascribing it that kind of meaning

haha what? p sure there is a big overlap bw ppl who like jepsen and gaga/guetta

Of course, but there's also going to be a chunk of that fanbase who don't, because Call Me Maybe is considerably more 00s or even late 90s teenpop than it is 10s teenpop.

why do you care so much about the proper age at which you listen to shit?

youthful appeal a liability, says They Might Be Giants fan

in the eighties frogbs would have been stanning for Steve Winwood albums