Oliver Sacks on iPods

'Brainworms, Sticky Music, and Catchy Tunes' in Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks (2007):

Half of us are plugged into iPods, immersed in daylong concerns of our own choosing, virtually oblivious to the environment--and for those who are not plugged in, there is nonstop music, unavoidable and often of deafening intensity, in restaurants, bars, shops, and gyms. This barrage of music puts a certain strain on our exquisitely sensitive auditory systems, which cannot be overloaded without dire consequences. One such consequence is the ever-increasing prevalence of serious hearing loss, even among young people, and particularly among musicians. Another is the omnipresence of annoyingly catchy tunes, the brainworms that arrive unbidden and leave only in their own time--catchy tunes that may, in fact, be nothing more than advertisements for toothpaste but are, neurologically, completely irresistible.

Bad Rhymes

Rhyme Crime: The 20 Worst Rhymes in Pop Music: When Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder managed to rhyme 'public' and 'subject' in 'Tears of a Clown', it was sheer genius. Getting that perfect coupling of words and phrases is what makes for a brilliant song. Then there are musicians who just write down words because they rhyme, or because they think they rhyme, and hope that we won't notice that the lyrics don't make any sense. Some examples:

Giant steps are what you take, Walking on the moon, I hope my legs don't break, Walking on the moon. Sting phones it in again. Are limb injuries a big concern for astronauts? Really? Wouldn't an injury be less likely in the diminished gravity? 'It’s one giant leap for man, it’s one, ouch, my ankle!' On the Peking ferry I was feeling merry, Sailing on my way back here, I fell in love with a slit-eyed lady, By the light of an eastern moon, Shangai Lil never used the pill. You have to love this [Rod Stewart] verse from what is actually a great song. It has it all--cultural insensitivity, geographic fallacies, clichés and of course really bad rhymes. Shanghai Lil sounds like a Sino-Germanic hooker from a 1930's movie. The only thing a river knows, Is runnin' to the sea, And every spring when a flower grows, It happens naturally. Where is our Gravol? [Michael] Bolton makes Lionel Ritchie read like John Keats. I'm like a bowl of gumbo, You ain't hotter than this, I'm what they play in the clubo. All right, making fun of Mariah Carey is like making fun of the kid with the helmet on the short bus, but c'mon, this line deserves some recognition. But then again, Carey is like gumbo--lumpy, thick, and of indeterminate ethnicity. (Ed Note: Thanks to user CentralTheme for pointing out that the offending gumbo/clubo rhyme is rapped by Mystikal, not sung by Mariah. For more Mystikal related hilarity, checkour Cliffs Notes on Mystikal's 'Pussy Crook'.)

[poll] Taxing Music: BBC Radio 6 Music's quest to find the worst music lyrics:

#6: Toto's 'Africa' The wild dogs cry out in the night, As they grow restless longing for some solitary company, I know that I must do what's right, Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti. #1: Des'ree's 'Life' I don't want to see a ghost, It's the sight that I fear most, I'd rather have a piece of toast, Watch the evening news.

Poetry Doctor: How to Tell Good Rhymes from Bad Rhymes (2007) by David B Axlerod: If a poem is obsessed with rhyming, if the rhyme is clearly there in the way of saying what the poet means, it can be said to be a bad rhyme. This, of course, assumes that the purpose of the poem is to say something to the reader and that the message comes before the rhyme.

Guide to Bad Rhymes (2006) from the Worldwide Center for the Study of Lief: A list of the most annoying, cliché words pairs that should be avoided as much as possible. They represent the most widely used rhymes that can ruin songs by their predictability.

Heretical Rhyme Generator: This assault on the aesthetic brought to you by Steric Hindrance Inc.