Things THEY Don't Want You To Know: The Best Song From The One/Two Hit Wonder "The Kings" First Single.

Friday, September 12, 2008

The Best Song From The One/Two Hit Wonder "The Kings" First Single.

Like everyone, I mostly use the Internet to find philosophical discussions of existentialism, ruminations on the unreliable narrator, or at the least, ponderous articles on the meaning of life and the laws of thermodynamics. That's why The Best of Everything features those kinds of things so often: give the people what they want, that's my motto.

But today, I'm going to do something a little different. I'm going to expose you Internet viewers to a couple of things that, as it turns out, the Internet can be used for: Music, and bikinis.

The music is today's Showdown, as I will determine for you which is The Best Song From The One/Two Hit Wonder "The Kings" First Single. Way, way back when -- even before the Olden Days (2002) -- music did not come in the form of electrons; it came in the form of plastic discs that we called "records," bought in "record stores." The "records" had a limited area in which to store the music; the music was encoded onto the record in "grooves." While I'm not exactly sure how it worked, I'm pretty sure it involved a tiny collection of sprites living in the "record player," and when you put the record on to play, the sprites would run onto the record and stand in the "grooves" and magically recreate the sound of the band. This is how we got the word "groovy:" the better the music, the more grooves were needed and the more sprites recreated it.

Ah, science!

I have to give you that boring scientific discussion of how records worked because way way back then, I had a record player and a record by a group called "The Kings." "The Kings" were a band that nobody had ever heard of, and I mean nobody -- even the members of the band itself had not heard of the band. They were "indie" times a million.

The Kings released a record called "This Beat Goes On/Switchin To Glide," but because of the limitations of the recording industry, the song, which apparently was intended to be just one song (with two titles?) was broken into two parts... two similar sounding parts, but two parts, nonetheless.

I also noted, in my usual exhaustive research, that some websites have it listed as "Switchin' To Glide/This Beat Goes On." How can we, as a world, ever hope to live in peace and harmony when we can't even agree on which song by The Kings came first? We need to get it together, people, and since I am the arbiter of these things, I declare that it's "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide," because in This Beat Goes On, they say "This time I'm switchin' to glide," so it makes it seem more natural that the song would then switch to glide.

Ah, science!

So here's the song(s):

To then determine which is The Best:

This Beat Goes On: Pros: Tells a story, sort of, and I like that. Has that cool groovy synthesizer. Near rhyme of "Wanna" and "Toronto" shows poetic versatility. Cons: Mentions a friend named "Zero." That's just way too 80s-teen-movie for me. "Zero" would obviously be the guy in the jean-jacket with the sleeves cut off, and mismatched shoes with leather pants, listening to his "Walkman" during class while sleeping across three desks pushed together. Too many repetitions of name of song at the end indicates creative dead-end.

Switchin' To Glide: Pros: Drops the "g" on "Switchin'" to indicate that this is not some sort of upper-crust, formal, tea-drinking, suit wearing Glide-switching. Great guitar riff. Focuses on the weekend -- the exact time of the week when you'd want to glide. Cons: Mentions "directing energy," which makes me think of science class. Nobody's gliding in science class. "Everybody gets the no no?" What? Is someone telling them they can't switch to glide? But then they do it, so they're fightin' the power, right?

Winner: "Switchin' to Glide." Because they're right: Nothing matters but the weekend. Enjoy yours!