Top 19 -- "Weird Al" Yankovic: Polka Party

We've come to the part of the Top 19 where I no longer talked about these albums on Facebook. Even though they're still in the Top 19  I guess you can consider them honorable mentions or runners up to the Top 10 Facebook list.*

* This preamble seems highly unnecessary but so is this list.

I can't be 100% certain of this, but if you grew up in the 1980s; there's a good chance you had a "Weird Al" Yankovic phase. I know that I did. I got Al's biggest album "In 3-D" (the one with "Eat It") back in 1984 and I listened to that tape a lot. In a lot of ways, it was a primer on classic rock due to his "Polka on 45s" medley. He mashed "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix, "LA Woman" by the Doors and "Hey Jude" by the Beatles, among other songs, into one really hyper polka. It was a strange experience to hear one of those songs year later for the first time and think, "I know this song, but where do I know it from?"

So for me, Al is the source for my pop culture deja vu. 

My best friend at the time, had Al's follow-up to "In 3-D", called "Dare to Be Stupid". Even though I didn't own the cassette at the time, we listened to it a lot. And laughed a lot. That was the thing about Weird Al tapes, the musicianship was really good, but the lyrics were also really funny. For a guy that's labelled only as a "parodist", I am certain that Al and his band don't get a lot of credit for how well they play their instruments*, nor for how well Yankovic writes his songs. 

* I've read someone make the claim that Yankovic's band has to be the best touring bands ever due to the different types of music that they have to master. From hip hop to pop to country to metal to grunge to doo wop to punk, they need to be able to play these genres and make sure that they sound great. I don't know, this guy made a really good argument. 

For Christmas of 1986, I really wanted Al's follow up to "DtbS", entitled "Polka Party". I saw  the James Brown/Rocky IV parody video, "Living with a Hernia" all over MTV and needed to hear what other tricks Al had up his sleeve. December 25 came and under the tree was "Polka Party". I'm sure that I busted out the tape player and gave that bad boy a listen as I put together my He-Man and M.A.S.K. toys or while I was reading comics and looking at baseball cards--the 1986 Topps Traded Set, dontchaknow. 

I did a very brief bit of research on this album and found that it was one of Yankovic's worst selling albums ever. The release was met with commercial and critical silence. But I didn't care, I loved this album so much. At the time I owned probably about six tapes, two of them were Weird Al, two were Men at Work, one was a Billy Joel's "Piano Man" (I wanted "An Innocent Man" but I got this instead) and I'm not sure what the other album was. The only two that I ever listened to were from Weird Al. 

The influence that this tape had on me was pretty big. My favorite song was the El Debarge "Who's Johnny" parody, "Here's Johnny", which was about Johnny Carson's sidekick Ed McMahon. In 1986, I was 12-years-old and I doubt that I ever stayed up later than 10:00, but I laughed at that song like I've been watching Carson for 25 years. The only thing that I knew about McMahon was that he and Dick Clark used to host, "Foul Ups, Bleeps and Blunders" and he used to give away big checks once a year for Publisher's Clearing House. Al's song made me want to learn more about McMahon and his full-time job so that vacation, I stayed up to watch the Tonight Show. Since it was during the dead time between Christmas and New Year's, I was shocked to find a rerun. And if I remember right, I don't think that my hero Ed McMahon was even on the show that night. 

I can't tell you how long my Weird Al infatuation lasted. It probably wasn't much longer after that I decided that him and his music was "kids stuff" and that I needed to listen to more adult music like Poison or Mötley Crüe. You know, songs with real meaning in them. 

But a funny thing happened, people kept trying to bury him in the late 80s, but Weird Al Yankovic is still pretty popular. He has his ebbs and flows, but there are a lot of comedians that I respect who cite him as an early influence. And from what I've read, he's one of the nicest people in showbiz. 

My daughter's first music obsession was Weird Al and that was her first concert too. Al was great, he put on an awesome show and my daughter had a blast. It was really cool to be able to pass that down from one generation to the next and I know that it stuck. My daughter doesn't love Weird Al as much as she used to, but she can be as goofy as he can be. We still talk about "Christmas at Ground Zero" (first released on "Polka Party") and not a week goes by without one of us referencing "Just One of Those Days" (another "Polka Party" jam). It's like our own secret language and one that I love speaking. 

I never would have guessed that the first time that I listened to "Polka Party" under the Christmas tree that I'd be sharing a love of Weird Al 34 years later with my daughter. But it happened and that's good. 

Top 19 -- N.W.A.: Straight Outta Compton

On Facebook I was asked to list my top ten all-time albums that most influenced me. Since I can't list anything without a huge explanation, this is it. Not only that but I'm writing about my Top 19 instead of my Top 10. 

Here's what I wrote on Facebook today, "Here's another quick story: when I first heard this album, I was about 15-years-old. When you're 15-years-old, there is a weird dichotomy in your brain. You want to be part of a group, but at the same time, you want to be unique. You want to tell the entire world to go fuck itself but at the same time you're deathly afraid of doing so. You done with being a kid but you can't begin to handle adult responsibilities. Therefore you begin to find ways of trying to express yourself, your frustrations, your confusion, find someone or something that has similar problems; otherwise you might explode. For me, it was this cassette tape put out by five guys who were figuratively and literally the opposite of me and my entire surroundings. They expressed the frustrations and confusion that I was experiencing every day. Maybe what they were rapping about wasn't exactly relatable--I didn't have a problem with the police or women weren't rying to convince me that they were carrying my baby--but the emotions that they conveyed did."

I've written about NWA a lot. Probably more than any other band that I've listened to, which is weird because they only really had one album that I liked. The other two, "100 Miles and Runnin' " and "Efil4Zaggin" had their moments, but once Ice Cube left, the band sort of fell apart into a self-parody of what they once were. 

So I think what prompts me to continuously write about a band--actually an album--that I really loved when I was 15-years-old is how it made me feel at that age. Like I wrote up top, there's a lot of pushing and pulling in a teenager's head. You need to make sure that you get that frustration out before it boils over. Just be listening to "Straight Outta Compton" allowed me to relieve some of that pressure. It was loud, it was aggressive, it was in-your-face, it didn't give a fuck. All of those things are the opposite of me. When I rapped along with NWA, I wasn't Byron Magrane anymore. I was someone completely different. 

And I think that's why this album was such a hit with a lot of kids that I knew. Sure, the words and what they say are shocking the first 100 times you listen to them. After awhile though, if you're still listening, the message is even more reticent. Like everyone wants to be in a gang--I'm not talking about the crips or the bloods--I'm talking about being in a group of people with like minded thoughts. Not only that but you want your gang on the outside. There's no fun in being the favorite, the underdog, the downtrodden, the group that's going to rise up and show those bourgeois pigs who's boss was where you wanted to be. You want to be the group of people who sees through the bullshit and speaks truth to power. 

That was NWA. This group was popular, but they couldn't get on MTV or the radio. They sold millions of albums, yet you never saw them on any late night shows. They were the World's Most Dangerous Band and when you're 15 or 16-years-old, that's how you feel. No one really recognizes you. You're doing stuff, some of it great, but no one cares. In fact the only responses you get are negative. "Clean your room!" "Do your homework!" "Dump that beer in the fire!" "Run 15 laps!" 

You're powerless and it sucks. You know who else was powerless? Ice Cube, MC Ren, Dr. Dre, Eazy E and Yella Boy. You know who fought back? That's right, NWA. If they can do it, why couldn't we? At least that was the theory. 

One day we were all talking. The annual lip-sync was approaching and they were looking for acts. Wouldn't it be awesome if a bunch of us did "Fuck the Police"? Could you imagine the principal and the vice principal and everyone else totally freaking out? They'd talk about us for years! We'd be the (very white) NWA of Amesbury, MA. The more we talked about it, the more a plan formed. "I have a White Sox, Raiders and LA Kings hat!" "I have these awesome Locs!" "I know the dude who does the PA for the lip sync, we can tell them that we're going to do 'Express Yourself' and at the last minute substitute 'Fuck the Police'!" 

We must have talked about this plan for hours, getting us more and more excited. The lip-sync day came and went, and myself and my friends sat in the audience. We never put the plan into action. In fact, I don't think we ever talked about it again. 

We weren't NWA. We weren't anywhere even close. We were just four scared white boys who talked shit and never backed it up. NWA may as well have been Spider-Man or Bat Man; we'd never be like them. That's okay. Not everyone can be iconoclasts. That's what makes them special. The rest of us just have to bask in their glory and dream. 

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm or I Just Want to be Popular Again

Sorry for the really hack-y title, but the other day I was thinking about C+C Music Factory—I apologize for letting you know about that too—and I was wondering where they all scattered. If you're not aware of “The Factory”, they were a group that had a bit of success in the early 1990s with dance hits like the aforementioned title of this Blog entry (the first part), “Make You Sweat” and there was another song whose title I can't remember, but the video was set in a factory where everyone danced and sweated.

Actually wondering is a bit of an exaggeration. I had a few brief thoughts about them and how at one point in my life this faceless band was as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola and then one day they were gone. And I never really gave them much thought after that. It got me thinking about the fickleness of popularity and how you can be at the top of your game, like C+C Music Factory and the next day you could be erased from the memories of the American public.

C+C Music Factory were about as big as any producer-driven, dance band could get. I'm pretty sure that their album was in the top ten (it peaked at number two, according to Wikipedia) and they had a bunch of singles that made it to the Top 10. Then the group got into a little bit of a problem when it turned out that the female lead singer (the model known as Zelma Davis) was lip-syncing the group's hooks. Turns out the real singer was someone by the name of Martha Wash who once sang Homer Simpson's favorite song (“It's Raining Men”) as a part of the duo the Weather Girls.

C+C (which stood for the first letters in producer's last names David Cole and Robert Cilvilles) decided that Wash didn't fit the right image of the Factory, so they hired this model to do the lip-syncing and everyone was pretty happy. Until Wash got pissed when she realized that the reason why she wasn't asked to be out front is because she was, well, uh, fat and Davis was not. In the wake of the Milli-Vanilli scandal, this was a big deal so they went to great lengths to let everyone know that while Wash sang the hooks, Davis visualized the vocals. This was even explained in the lower left-hand corner of the video when “Make You Sweat” aired on MTV.

The point of this entry was to lionize C+C Music Factory, it was to talk a bit about popularity. When C+C were at their apex, front man Freedom Williams* was on a lot of different shows sometimes by himself and sometimes with the group. He was on the Arsenio Hall Show, all over MTV, different awards shows and popped up on network TV shows. When on MTV, a lot of times he wasn't even on to discuss his music or dancing, it was to talk about other things.

* Not sure why he chose Freedom as his stage name, there was nothing overly patriotic or pro-American about the man. I don't think that he was from Philadelphia either. About the only thing that he seemed to want freedom from were his shirts, the guy was always walking around half naked. He was like a rapping Incredible Hulk.

MTV had a long-running “news” show called “Sex in the 90s” where they would interview kids, experts and celebrities about sex. Most of the times, the kids would say something generic (“All kids have sex in my school”) that would shock local parents. The experts were the reason why this was a “news program” and they would rattle off statistics or say something about AIDS and using a condom. These words, juxtaposed with what the youth of America said, would also shock parents even more.

But the celebrity part was usually the comedic element. Most celebrities would try to say something amusing (“There's nothing better than a bit of bump and grind, if you know what I mean!”) although there were a few “sage” celebrities that would try to give advice to the kids (“Always wear a condom!”) that was usually pretty obvious, but they tried to impart this wisdom with great gravity. A guy like Steven Tyler was the latter type of celebrity, while Freedom Williams was the former.

And that's what popularity gets you: people hanging on your every word. It allows you to go on television and talk about things that you don't have more knowledge about than the average person, but seem like an authority. Aside from knowing that he (presumably) enjoys sex, what does Freedom Williams know about the subject that most people didn't know when this show first aired? Probably nothing, but since he was semi-famous, somewhat popular and I assume had some free time in his schedule, MTV shoehorned him into their shooting schedule. And whatever he said (whether it made sense or not) made the final cut and was broadcast world-wide scores and scores of times.*

* I'm not even sure if Freedom Williams was on “Sex in the 90s”, I assume that he was but that isn't the point. The point is someone LIKE Freedom Williams (maybe one of the dudes from Trixter or Toni!Tony! Tone!) held people's attention because of their views on sex(or any other subject, really) when they didn't have any credentials other than their name. They're just regular people who know the same things that most Americans know. They just happen to dance better or play the drums more proficiently.

I think that's the most intoxicating thing about popularity. People genuinely care about what you have to say, even if you have nothing new to add to the conversation. While the money and the excesses are nice, the majority of people simply want a voice. They want to be heard and they want their opinion to matter. Even the most introspective, shy and withdrawn person wants to be validated. To be recognized above the din. And being popular gives you that voice and you can say whatever you want and be taken seriously.

Because their opinions matter when they're famous, most celebrities whose 15 minutes are up will do just about anything that they can to get back into the American consciousness. Even if it means completely degrading themselves by appearing on a celebrity reality show that are nothing more than glorified, televised car crashes. Aside from Ozzy Osborne, I can't think of one celebrity who has gone on a reality show and come out of the experience with more credibility or popularity than when they went in. And the reason why Osborne was able to make this transformation is because he (or, more accurately, his wife Sharon) created the template.

For many celebrities, they looked at Ozzy Osborne and thought that he was playing a role on his show. What they didn't realize is that the stage version, the public version of Ozzy Osborne was more of a character than the private Ozzy. The other celebrities saw what the show did for Ozzy's Q-ratings and attempted to do the same thing*. As a result each reality show became more and more scripted than a typical sitcom. This meant that each celebrity tried to play themselves as if it was a role which leads to the multiple personalities of the pubic celebrity, the “private” reality celebrity and the true private celebrity. And most viewers can see right through the charade of the first two personalities and are usually never privy to the third.

* Once it reached the level of its mondo-popularity, “The Osbornes” fell into the same trap too. What was so interesting about the first season of the show is that aside from Ozzy no one else in the family was famous nor did they seem to want any sort of fame. But once more and more accolades started rolling in, the family began to realize that the cameras were around and they began to put on their act. Eventually, the show was canceled and the family (minus Ozzy) has been chasing the dragon ever since. And yes, I know how wrong it is to use a heroin reference in regards to a family where most have spent a significant amount of time in rehab.

The strange thing about wanting to get back to being popular is that those who have fallen from the mountain, don't use the tools that got them back to the top. When an actor or a musician achieves popularity it's normally because they do something completely different or put a new spin on an old idea. When they fall from grace they start grasping at straws and try to jump on the latest trend, which is usually fading away.

Perhaps I'm giving celebrities way too much credit, maybe most of these celebrities only had one really good idea or just enough talent to matter for a brief period in time—there are literally millions of Americans who don't even get that far. And that's probably the crux of the issue, sustaining popularity, the never-ending process of trying to stay fresh and relevant never ends. And once it does, the real problem isn't spending their days in relative obscurity, it's that washed-up celebrities have been to the mountain top and they will continue to try and get there.

And after they've been spit out of Hollywood and there isn't anyone around to take their calls, most of these celebrities returned from where they came. Every few months a car dealership will give them a call asking for them to sit at a card table and sign autographs or VH1 will send an email letting them know that they're doing a retrospective on the 80s and they need them to reminisce. And these people are happy—damn near overjoyed—to do so. Why? Because even if they are sitting at a card table in a brand new McDonalds in Backwater, North Dakota someone less famous than them is going to stand in front of them rapt in awe as the celebrity tells a story. They'll get a taste of that wonderful popularity back on their lips and though ultimately it will be fleeting, it will taste oh so good.

And no matter what you choose to call yourself, that's not freedom.

37. The Monkees

Though it was only on for two seasons (which is really surprising to me as I thought it ran longer than that), “The Monkees” was an important show that had long-lasting ramifications on the television industry. Though that's not the reason why I like the show. Truthfully, I have no idea whether just preteens made up the audience or whether hippies thought it was a lame attempt of Hollywood scrubbing up the late 60s love movement for middle America (though both are probably true), but it is an enjoyable show. The show's plots aren't anything special and in most cases don't make a lot of sense, but you don't watch “The Monkees” for the plot. You watch for two reasons: the music and for the band members.

This entry isn't going to be a debate about the validity of the Monkees' music. Like many pop acts, there is some good stuff and some bad stuff, but the Monkees basically were a carbon copy of the Beatles from their Help! days. They were poppy, had a slight edge to some of their songs, but mostly sang about love and trivial subjects. The group had a lot of aid from professional song writers like Neil Diamond and Carole King, which made those subjects take on a more interesting tone. And the group also took advantage of session musicians until their musical chops were built up. However, a strict judgement on whether the music is “good”or “bad” misses the point of the show.

The point was to have a weekly show that would take suburbia into the wacky (albeit safe) lifestyle of the day's youth. Aside from a few things that never show (drug use, conjugal visits with scores of groupies, legendary battles with their producer Don Kirshner) I don't think that Mickey Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork or Davy Jones were playing characters that were too far off from themselves. The show was also among the first to use a lot of the slang that 60s youth was using. Most important about this is that the language didn't sound stilted or scripted. It also portrayed the youth of that time as caring and centered—having a good head on their shoulders—despite media reports that the baby boomer generation wasn't living up to their parents' generation and were shiftless and lazy.

While this probably went over the heads of older viewers—if it reached them at all—this is probably the main reason why the show resonated with a lot of young people. Here was a show with young people getting by without a care in the world. The only time that a problem did enter their world was brought in by a person outside of their “universe”, normally someone from their previous generation who didn't, or couldn't, understand the world today. The Monkees normally took care of this problem through nonviolent, and often slapstick, means which resulted not in vanquishing the foes, but turning enemies into friends.

Was that the way of the world? No. But it was a television show that never made any bones that it was more cartoon than documentary.

Despite the cartoon nature of the show, there were some serious aftershocks of “The Monkees”. For one thing, it was one of the first instances to prove the power of music on television. Yes, Ricky Nelson became a heart throb to millions of girls in the early 60s after singing a few songs on his parents' show “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”, but the Monkees were a juggernaut that provided their audiences with new songs week after week after week. And you pair those new songs with movie shorts, interspliced with the television show (often these shorts had zero to do with the program's main plot) and kids seemed to love the song much more.

Thus, the music video was born.

And it wasn't just the music industry that was revolutionized. While “Dobbie Gillis” was the first to break down the so-called “fourth wall”—where an actor talks to the audience—the Monkees also did this and further shattered the illusion of television when the cast members would stop the action to converse with camera men and stage hands while the show was being filmed. This nonlinear form of television was also extended to drawn out dream and fantasy sequences and inserts and jump cuts. All of these innovations have had a profound impact on the television and movies that we watch even today.

No matter what the ramifications that the shows had on later television programs or any social impact that it may or may not have had, the bottom line is that “The Monkees” were a fun program. Any time you tuned in, you knew what you were going to get and that's ok. Because a show does not deviate from it's norm, that doesn't make it a bad show. This is precisely what killed the band though.

Fed up with their bubble gum image, once the show was cancelled in 1968, they along with a young actor/writer named Jack Nicholson came up with a movie called “Head”. Written over a weekend where a lot of acid was ingested, the movie's first scene opened with the band jumping off a bridge and killing themselves. It only got weirder from there. The group's core base of fans (mostly young teens) were confused as to the radical 180 degree turn the band took and rejected them.

And the group of fans that the band did want—the more serious, older hipster crowd—thought that they were a fake band that was put together by Hollywood suits. They literally were a band without an audience and with their show running (and doing well) in constant reruns, the Monkees were constantly reminded of the past and how things once were. The Monkees would break up, try solo endeavors and reunite over the next 30 years, but they always remained in America's pop culture consciousness.

For me, and other members of my generation, the Monkees were a summer TV show first and foremost, I had no idea that the group had any chart success at all. Every June, Channel 56 knew that kids were being let out for summer break and would schedule the show to run in the afternoon. And I'd be in front of the tube watching as jokes about 60s culture went flying over my head. I watched an episode recently and the group was in ghost town being held hostage by gangsters. Mickey used an old phone and was hoping to get Marshall Dillon (the erstwhile sheriff from “Gunsmoke” to help out). He got a grizzly prospector who said that there is a Dylan in town (Bob Dylan) who could write a protest song for you, but couldn't help much more than that. Interesting (and funny) juxtaposition of Bob Dylan and Marshall Dillon, but one that an eight-year-old would never get.

That's what I get when I tune into “The Monkees” now, I get to remember what it was like when I was younger and had zero responsibilities and I'm able to appreciate some witty writing. That's not a bad two-for-one combination.

50. Superock

I would bet that a majority of people who are reading this probably had never heard of this show before and that's not surprising. Usually when I write one of these entries I do a bit of Internet research on Wikipedia or Google, but I haven't been able to find anything about this show, so there will be no title card graphic today.

During the early to mid 1990s, MTV was in its genesis of getting more and more segmented both musically and how they programmed their channel. The sad state of affairs that MTV is in today (no music, crappy reality show after crappy reality show) is the direct result of the people that complain about the sad state of affairs that MTV is in. When MTV first hit the airwaves, it was literally like radio on television, pretty much wall-to-wall videos with some band interviews and some general information from one of the five VJs about the artists.

First the channel became a phenomena with the youth of America with some thinking that it was a passing fad. Once MTV proved it had staying power, the advertising and marketing executives descended on the channel and came up with an idea on how to make money off MTV's youthful audience. It's basic targeted advertising, their rational was that it was difficult to market a product where the audience was an unknown. Put it this way if you run a block of videos that has Pat Benatar, Michael Jackson, Journey and W.A.S.P. in it, who knows who's watching. It could be a heavy metal fan, a pop fan, etc. However, if you bundle these genres up you have a good idea of what your audience is going to be.

That is how shows like “Club MTV”, “Yo! MTV Raps” and “Headbangers Ball” came to exist. Many of the same commercials ran during these shows, but others were specifically targeted toward the demographic of each program and that was determined by the normal guidelines: race, gender, income bracket. Not surprisingly, these shows were hits. Instead of waiting two hours with the slight hope of watching the latest Public Enemy or Slaughter video, you could just tune into one of the shows and check them out.

Also around this time, (the late 80s) MTV started experimenting with non-music shows. The first that I can remember was “Remote Control”, which was a brilliant game show that combined humor with useless trivia. I loved it and it turned out that it was one of the biggest hits on MTV. As most successful business are wont to do, MTV built on their success and produced other shows that became just as successful like “The Real World”, “Beavis and Butthead”, “The State”, “Singled Out”. Unlike today, these shows were sprinkled through their lineup and while some were aired ad nauseam during marathons, the music was still the backbone of the channel. This all changed in the late 90s when MTV turned their back on music and became a youth-culture channel, but that is another story for another day.

During this time where MTV is going through its growing pains, a new type of music is coming to the scene: alternative. By about 1993, alternative had grown to become the most popular type of rock (causing some to ask what was the alternative to alternative music) and MTV quickly jumped on and exploited this trend too, by having two late-night shows centered around alternative rock. One was the daily “Alternative Nation” which starred the annoying alterna-chick Kennedy. The show pretty much played the staples of the day, the more mainstream alternative stuff: Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Live, Soundgarden, etc. On Sunday nights, MTV allowed the real alt stuff to come out with “120 Minutes”. This was two hours of the videos that were a little off-centered or from England that “serious” music fans really liked.

This brings us to the subject of today's blog, “Superock”. Unlike “Alternative Nation” and “120 Minutes” and MTV's entire programming philosophy, “Superock” was much different. To me, SR was a throwback to the days of early FM radio, where you could literally hear anything. Not that I was around to hear the early days of FM, but I've read stories of Boston's WBCN playing a rock song, followed by a classical piece, followed by a blues album in the span of 20 minutes. SR wasn't that extreme, but it was the one place where diversity was worshipped.

Most of the videos were of the alternative type; but there was a bunch of rap, older stuff and hard rock mixed in. It was the prototype for the iPod shuffle setting. One minute you'd see Eric B and Rakim and then you'd see Biohazard followed by Alice In Chains and then a cut from the Beastie Boy's “Paul's Boutique”.

Another aspect that made this show unique was that there were no VJs yammering at you or trying to impress you with their obnoxious antics. By this time in MTV's history, VJs began to think that they were the talent and that the videos interrupted what they had to say—you can probably blame this phenomena on Pauly Shore. In any event, this and “Unplugged” were probably the last shows on MTV where the music was actually the focus.

Aside from the “randomness” of the play list, seeing videos from two or three years prior was a novelty. There weren't music sharing sites or iTunes where you could download a song that popped into your head. If you didn't have the tape or CD, you were out of luck. Not so with “Superock”, one of the videos that I remember them playing was Urban Dance Squad's “A Deeper Shade of Soul”, which has always been a favorite of mine.

The main downfall of the program was that the show was on at a really crappy time: Saturdays at midnight so there wasn't an audience for it. Anyone who'd be into a show like this was probably at a bar or at a party or simply not in front of their televisions. And after 12 weeks, it died a quick death—the death knell was that it was preempted for an MTV special of Madonna's release of her shit album “Bedtime Stories”. After that, SR never returned. Chalk that up as another crime Madonna has perpetrated on the American pop culture landscape.

Inevitably, “Superock” was a half decade ahead of its time. If the show was shelved for five more years (it was first broadcast in the winter of 1994) I am confident that it would've been a hit. The late 1990s were the hay days of the rap-rock cross over and with the seemingly randomness of the playlists—rock spliced with rap—it probably would've been something.