Ten Songs I Wouldn't Put on Your Wedding Playlist (Because I Love You Too Much)

Good rule of thumb... If Governor Scott Walker is doing it, you should not

1. The Cha-Cha Slide: Because you’re not in high school anymore!

2. Pour Some Shoogah On Me: This is one of those “in the moment” dumb songs where, under the right circumstances (read: if you’re really drunk, and surrounded by friends and family), it MIGHT work for you.  (Every REO Speedwagon song is like this, too.)  But I wouldn’t wanna take the risk.

3. Blurred Lines: Too rapey.  “Got to Give it Up” would do just as well.

4. Billie Jean: It’s one of the great grooves, but it’s overplayed.  And Michael’s got plenty of killer wedding songs that aren’t about psychosexual paranoia (see: “Off the Wall”!).

5. Uptown Funk: Stop!  Wait a minute.  I liked this song the first fifty times I heard it.  And then I heard it seven thousand more times.

6. Get Low (“from the windows, to the walls”): This one makes the millennial crowd move, but the hook is “Ah skeet skeet skeet.”  Come on!

7. I Gotta Feeling: Not the soulful Beatles classic, but the Black Eyed Peas “Mazel Tov” song.  You deserve better than plastic corporate party product, goddammit!

8. Shape of You: You know, that song you hear all the time by that charmless frat douche Ed Sheeran?  I’d go for the real J.T. before a weak, inexplicably popular imitation.

9. The Cupid Shuffle: To the left, to the right, to the right, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the front, to the butt, to the left, to the left, to the left STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO

10.  Sandstorm: Actually.  Wait.  I would play “Sandstorm” at your wedding.

What is the Greatest American Song? (Round Three)

Round two is in the books!

The survey for round three is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PWGR26K

And the updated bracket can be found here: http://challonge.com/y9acqemz

It was an exciting round, with three match-ups decided by just a vote!

What did WE LEARN from it?

1. America is still enamored with the 60s.  And why not?  Aretha Franklin, the Beach Boys, Crosby Stills & Nash, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and Sly & the Family Stone (America loves an ampersand) all defeated foes from different decades, some older, some newer.  This blogger would never argue that those acts didn't make incredible, timeless music (some had better success rates than others, of course).  But it's worth noticing that...

2. America is committed to diversity!  Again we see acts from all across the musical and social spectrum advancing.  It seems that ours is a country large enough for hard hip-hop like N.W.A. AND the smooth soul of Al Green; for both the Talking Heads weirdo new-wave and traditional staples like "Crazy."  Well done, America.  Well done!

3. America has not lost its taste for revolution.  Many of the songs which advanced are true pioneers; they came along, and the world was forever changed.  No one had ever heard a pop symphony as sophisticated as "Good Vibrations" before the Beach Boys put it to tape, nor a folk rocker as figuratively rich and free as "Like a Rolling Stone" before Bob Dylan sneered its six-plus minutes in 1966.  "Blitzkrieg Bop" is arguably America's first punk song, and its round three competition "Give Up the Funk" codified what it is to be, well, funk.  The origins of gangsta rap, countrypolitan, soft rock, and arena rock will also be represented in Round Three.

4. America really, really likes "Purple Rain" (only twelve votes were cast against it in the first two rounds) and "Respect" (just fourteen votes for its competitors).  Have these songs benefited from weak competition?  Or will they cruise into Round Four despite stronger opponents?  Only time will tell as we continue searching for... THE GREATEST AMERICAN SONG!