A Shaggy Soiree

Last night, the kids* next door held a soiree.

Except it wasn’t a soiree. It was a party. A soiree would have been much quieter. The kids would have sat in the parlour and performed songs from opera and talked about the time they thought the world was flat.

Nope, this was an actual party. Girls, boys, happiness – that kind of thing. But what surprised me was the music they were playing: Shaggy. Yes seriously, Shaggy, that reggae singer/rapper from the late 90’s who “sung” as though he was trying to hold marbles in his mouth.

Who plays Shaggy anymore? Hasn’t Gotye now set it up that we no longer need to listen to music written before 2011? It’s old news, but I maintain that his “Somebody That I Used To Know” is so catchy and universally appealing that it’s the only song that need ever be played, ever again. You know those late morning TV ads that urge you to discard your Pilates balls, resistance bands and free weights and replace them with one single piece of exercise machinery? It’s the same situation. Throw out all your other CDs. Just pop Gotye on repeat and everyone you’ll ever bring over to your house will enjoy it for hours. You don’t need other music. You just need this one song. ONE SONG TO RULE THEM ALL.

(Gotye, bless him, would shudder in his socks if he knew I’d said that. He *does* have other music, you know).

But alas, I did not hear any Gotye last night. In between the Shaggy marathon, Justin Timberlake made a visit. Or three. At one point I heard his “Senorita” repeated in the space of four songs. Clearly those kids are striving to be music programmers on the Austereo Network.

As much as I love Justin Timberlake (that’s not sarcasm), these “kids” and their “happiness” were so loud, and late at night, that we had to ask them to turn it down. It became quite the heated confrontation! We said, “Could you please turn it down?”. They said, “Sorry! Would you like to join us?”. We said, “No thanks, but we love Justin Timberlake” *thumbs up*. They said, “Okay, well come over next time”. We said, “Kthanksbye”.

They turned it down one decibel.

And now it’s the morning after and I have Shaggy’s “Angel” in my head.

There is only one remedy: Gotye, where are you my precious…?

*They were probably only five years younger than me, but young enough not to remember a world without “Glee”.

Advertisement