New South Park episode tonight on Comedy Central - Guitar Queer-O - live thread!

South Park Studios ^ | November 7, 2007

[KevinDavis]

To be honest, if I was married to Courtney Love, I would kill myself..

[Eric Blair 2084]

That community service/hockey epi was much worse.

I remember that everyone here hated that episode. I liked it. It was a spoof of every corny sports movie ever made. You know, where the underdog always wins...Rocky, Mighty Ducks etc. It was a funny splash of reality and cold water to the face watching the Red Wings splatter them all over the ice.

[Drew68]

You mean like right now???

Sadly, I'm missing this one! I'm currently FReeping from somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean on board the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN69).

[PennsylvaniaMom]

I really, really liked this one because my kids have GH (we are getting the them the one for the Wii for Christmas). Sooooo true to life here...PaDad plays 'real' guitar, has an old school amp and everything (can't master GH though)...kids (my 13 y/o in particular) play masterfully (w/tongues out just like Stan and Kyle...but not Tad). Hubby used to get complaints about his 'music' in the car...but since GH those riffs are ok.

The Wii GH mimics the actions that the player takes...so I am looking forward to seeing how the GH behind the head (think Slash) goes to the screen.

One last thing...Fresca? Is it making a come back?

[Mr. Blonde]

In the 70s it was much easier for bands to become that huge and iconic. For one, if the radio is playing it that is all you hear. Everything else is a by chance affair.

It isn't the same today. Don't like what is on the radio? Put the iPod on. Want to hear similar music to what you like? There are any number of places to find it. Get on myspace and you will have bands begging to be your friend, some of them might even be good.

Compared to then there are just so many ways to take in media it is hard to get a bunch of people all on the same page.

And the music market is much different. Look how many different types of music are out there now. Even in Rock music there are so many variations on a theme that sound so much different it is hard for one to rise above the fray. People are stuck either liking rock or not liking it, they can find one small type of it they like.

As for Nirvana, sadly they are already overplayed. Radio stations really ran them into the ground in a hurry. Especially the majority of the Nevermind cd. If you can listen to it with fresh ears, it would really seem very good. Especially for the time it came out. In 1991, we had just put up with a decade of hair bands and bands trying to be bigger and more bombastic singing about Girls Girls Girls. Then you get 3 guys from Seattle with a very punk sound and it is pretty refreshing.

I, personally, think that Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were better bands from the era, but Nirvana was the one that was pushed by MTV when they still played videos. And at the time, if you were experiencing a little teen angst, this is going to speak to you. And let's face it, a lot of kids experience that rage and here was someone else seemingly feeling it too. And he sounded intense about it. Interesting trivia, the kids going wild actually happened by accident as they were tired of being seated the entire afternoon watching them replay the song.

[Nate505]

I always thought Alice In Chains was the best band from the grunge era, even though AIC was more metal to me than ‘grunge’, which is sort of hard to define.

They were one of the few bands who could harmonize very well.

[Nate505]

Fresca? God I hope not...

[Eric Blair 2084]

Thanks for the explanation. I guess that since I don’t play any instrument besides the skin flute, I will never really get it.

[Mr. Blonde]

I never really got into Alice in Chains that much. I find it interesting that the Big 4 of grunge all had radically different sounds at least musically. Lyrically they were all pretty dark. If they had not come from the same area at the same time I doubt many people would really associate them that much.

[Nate505]

Yup. It was definitely the fact they came from the Seattle area that put them together.

I like all four bands, even though I’m not a huge fan of Pearl Jam anymore (although I gotta give them credit for being the only one around now). But their first three albums were great, and 10 is one of my favorite albums of all time.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Fresca is horrid. And it always left a weird aftertaste...I thought there might be some ‘significance’ to Kyle’s beverage choice. I guess it could have been worse...he could have ordered a Tab...

[Moonmad27]

Funniest line - when the new kid quit and half-sang “I quit...I quit...I quit...” EXACTLY like the guy who quit the band in That Thing You Do!

[Starter]

Ack. They got Tom Shane’s voice completely wrong. Heck, I can do a better Shane than they did. Nice to see Jake and Ron though.

[MarkL]

Surrender—Cheap Trick

Primus and Buckethead!!!! Woo Hoo!!! Guitar Hero and the Ramones? Still, I've always love the sentiments of that song...

"Twenty, Twenty, Twenty Four hours ago... I want to be sedated!"

Mark

[MarkL]

Fresca is horrid. And it always left a weird aftertaste...I thought there might be some ‘significance’ to Kyle’s beverage choice. I guess it could have been worse...he could have ordered a Tab...

It's a Jewish thing... I like Fresca...

Mark

[E Rocc]

Actually, Mother Love Bone would have been the best band of the era had Andrew Wood not ODed.. I've often suspected "grunge" was the music industry's reaction to the fact that "headbangers" were largely pro-Reagan.

Good points about the options available today. The fact is modern communications (hundreds of TV stations, the 'net, etc.) has fragmented and diversified the culture. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially since it represents liberty and capitalism in action.

One thing it does do is makes "cultural conservatism" a losing proposition from the start, politically speaking.

-Eric

[SoothingDave]

And since AIC actually had huge heroin issues, I would have thought one of their songs would make its way into this episode.

[VA_Gentleman]

you said... “GH will be used to make the next generation of fake, talentless popular music. “

Would that be any worse than the drivel from Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, etc. that has been mass marketed down our throats the past 10 years?

[CharlesWayneCT]

I liked Weird Al’s verson of that song much better.

Smells Like Nirvana.

“What is this song all about,
Can’t figure any lyric out....”

[CharlesWayneCT]

I am guessing adults with kids who play these video games might find it funnier. The whole “heroin hero” stuff was hilarious.

This was a little bit of a repeat of the theme from the World of Warcraft show. But since I don’t own that, and I do have the latest Guitar Hero, I found it funny.

When the mother says that if the kids spent as much time working on a real instrument as they did on the game, they might amount to something, that’s something I’ve said to my own kids.