I consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of trash, camp and schlock. But like anything else worth enjoying, the realm of camp has been invaded by the rumbling hordes of mass culture. The result? Between "The Surreal Life" and a Def Lepard comeback tour, it takes a Ph.D. in cultural studies to sort out what’s deliciously trashy and what’s just plain shit.
But last week I found something that got all my guilty pleasure sensors tingling. I’m talking about Hit Me Baby One More Time.
The show digs up a handful of washed up bands to compete against each other each week. In the first half-hour, they each play their one hit song. In the last half-hour, each group returns to perform a cover version of some of the worst Top 40 garbage you can imagine.
Now, I realize this sounds like nothing more than a variation on the American Idol theme. I understand that concern. I don’t think it’s possible to revel in the type of trashiness that is American Idol. With it’s corporate sheen, raging popularity and unironic self-importance, watching American Idol is like eating a Big Mac at a Wal-Mart food court. Trust me – Hit Me Baby One More Time is an entirely different animal.
The real beauty of the show is how it tiptoes the line between loving tribute and the macabre freak show it really is. It’s a long tradition of the game/reality show that ordinary people play for money, celebrities play for charity. To avoid insulting their one-time celebrity, the winnings are donated to charity – but it looked to me like Flock of Seagulls could use a few bucks themselves. And isn’t that what makes a show like this great? There’s something transcendent about watching a group of fat, bald 40-somethings slog through the same chords they’ve played 10,000 times before. I’m not kidding – I actually caught myself looking around the stage for a gong.
In the Seagulls brief video diary, their lead singer/keyboardist (don’t see that one anymore) said his new wife "just thinks it’s cool to be married to someone in a band." She had that stringy haired, queen of the trailer court look that one finds well down the groupie food chain. It was enough to scare any 16-year-old with a new guitar off rock n’ roll for good.
Even more enjoyable are the brief interviews with the show’s host, whose British accent even sounds like a ruse. The best moment from week one was when he asked Tiffany her advice for up-and-coming young singers. How could this show be watched with anything but a sense of ironic detachment?
And in yet another horrifying/hilarious comment on our attention span, the bands don’t even perform all of their three-minute hit singles. How’s that for a tribute to the hit makers of yore? "Yeah, uh, Loverboy, we can’t let you play all of the one song you do well so we have time for you to play half of some turd by Faith Hill."
I’m sure some will read this and think it’s not a very classy way to spend an evening. It’s not. Let me reiterate – I like trash. If I was advocating classy entertainment, I would have started this with "I was re-reading Finnegan’s Wake last week..." But if a group of "musicians" want to put on spandex pants and ride the wave of one Top 40 hit, I think being trotted back into the limelight for my amusement is a small price to pay.
And God bless Hit Me Baby One More Time for giving us that amusement.
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