By Leica Carpo, Publisher
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

FAMILIARITY breeds contempt and with music, this is most painfully true. Here’s a short list of my all-time pet peeve “overplayed” songs in random order of disgust:

1) “Just Got Lucky” (JoBoxers) — Which I sort of liked until it became the noontime anthem of “Eat Bulaga!” (a guaranteed song killer)

2) “Macarena” (Los Del Rio) — I had a classmate named Macarena in grade school who seemed nice enough with a few odd traits. This song just reminded me of her “weird” side. The funny dance steps which were aped by everyone from 2 to 80 did not make the song any cooler.

3) “Funky Cold Medina” (Tone Loc) — I actually remember people attempting to dance “their version of the wild thing” in a few clubs in San Francisco and to this day, the memory still makes me ill.

4) “Ice Ice Baby” (Vanilla Ice) — Like Vanilla, this one became just “plain ol’ irritating” because it’s so cocky.

5) “Can’t Touch This” (MC Hammer) — Arghhh!! It’s Hammer time and no matter how “bad” the lyrics are, you just can’t help but sing it… It’s disturbing because it sticks in your head no matter how much you try to shake it loose.

6) “The Ketchup Song (Asereje)” (Las Ketchup) — How can three mildly attractive girls sing a song that hurtles to global fame then crashes and is now the equivalent of baduy? Deejays actually shudder when this song is requested at weddings.

7) “Why” (Annie Lennox) — This was a decent song until my mom made a 90-minute tape of it and played it every day for months every time we got in the car. Now I hear it and feel car sick.

Any song by Rick Astley — the surefire dance floor filler — overplayed to death and all blending into each other that I can’t recall any of them. It’s a feared collective.

I’m stopping now before I start to recall all my horrible experimentations in karaoke — but that’s another story which could possibly be even nastier than this one.

For another look at music and the good folk who make them, check out the May 18 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.