SJ.com old school: BYH & Bubs riff on MTV Classic

Joan Jett, "Bad Reputation" Her big fuck you to all the record labels who turned down "I Love Rock & Roll," Good for her. She still rocks. Also reminds me of the best show ever, Freaks & Geeks.

 

Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation". Now we're talking.

Plenty of shade-throwing at the DASTARDLY RECORD COMPANIES WHO DIDN'T SIGN THE BLACKHEARTS.

This video cost $10 ... in 1982 money.

 

Joan Jett is 59 next month. Goddamn. But then again this song is like 35 years old.

 

AC/DC "You Shook Me All Night Long." Hey this is great, two artists who have appeared on stage with Billy Joel at concerts I've seen in the last few years. See, Bubs, I told you they know what they're doing!

 

John Cougar Mellencamp's "Smalltown". It's TrumpTV!

 

Another artist who has performed with Billy Joel! Eat it Bubs!

I can't really hate on this song. Overplayed, but I'm from a small town so I think it's sweet. Plus it was in that great period where Mellencamp was trying to be a really serious arteest but still rocked a little. Let us not speak of "The Lonesome Jubilee."

 

I have literally been to every damn place in this video. Every worker you see in this video had his job moved to Mexico since then.

I'll bet John Cougar's girlfriend was impressed when he brought her to fucking Seymour, Indiana.

And he's a fraud anyway. He doesn't live there. He lives in Bloomington, which is about as smalltown Indiana as my left nutsack is.

 

When I was in college, I swear to God, I lived above the cast of John Cougar's "Hurts So Good" video. I saw alcoholism on a scale few can imagine.

 

See ya! Hope I never see Seymour again as long as I live!

Remember when MTV gave away Mellencamp's Pink House? That was a weird promotion.

 

Commercial for the MTV VMAs. Obvious comment about how the fuck can they still have a VMAs if they don't have MVs.

 

Believe there was a whole chapter in one of the MTV books about all the drug doing that went on during that contest giveaway.

 

Living in Indiana as long as I did, I have finally detoxed from Mellencamp.

In the 90s? You heard it so much it felt like a re-education camp. There's a reason the Bottle Rockets name-checked him in "Indianapolis". That's the most dead-on lyric in that song.

That said, I took a 15-year sabbatical or so, but then re-listened a few months ago. Some of it holds up, some of it doesn't, but I can listen to "Cherry Bomb" these days without wanting to hurt myself.

"Rooty Toot Toot" is a forgotten pretty good song by him. Filler, but good filler.

Of course, he's no Henry Lee Summer though.