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

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.