Mastodawn

Adele's 21 hit number one on the Billboard 200 album chart on March 12, 2011.

#Music, #Adele, #2010s, #2010sMusic

Rihanna featuring Drake's "Work" hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 5, 2016 and spent nine weeks at the top of the chart.

#Music, #Rihanna, #Drake, #2010s, #2010sMusic

AeschTunes Feb 26

Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 26, 2011 and spent six weeks at the top of the chart.

#Music, #LadyGaga, #2010s, #2010sMusic

AeschTunes Feb 20

Zayn's "Pillowtalk" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 20, 2016.

#Music, #Zayn, #2010s, #2010sMusic

AeschTunes Feb 19

Wiz Khalifa's "Black And Yellow" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 19, 2011.

#Music, #WizKhalifa, #2010s, #2010sMusic

The Delete Bin Feb 16

Flight of the Conchords & Friends Play “Feel Inside (and Stuff Like That)”

Listen to this track by Kiwi musical comedy exemplars Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, aka Flight of the Conchords. It’s “Feel Inside (and Stuff Like That)”, a send up of a charity single that was also an actual charity single to raise money for New Zealand’s Cure Kids charity on Red Nose Day in 2012. In addition to the duo themselves, the song involved a galaxy of recording talent including Dave Dobbyn, Boh Runga, Savage, and Moana Maree Maniapoto.

Flight of the Conchords filmed a segment for New Zealand’s TV3 to help promote the cause. To do this, they revisited their 2007-09 characters from their own critically acclaimed HBO television show. The fictionalized series of events has Jemaine and Bret charged with putting together a charity single in aid of sick children. Their band manager Murray (brilliantly played by Rhys Darby) appears in the opening, taking the call from organizers and saying that he hasn’t seen the duo in three years, although they happen to be sitting in his office while he takes the call. What comes next is the heart of the project; a collaboration with a group of schoolchildren to help the duo write the lyrics to the song.

In real life, Clement and McKenzie were on tour together as the Conchords, having discontinued their TV show three years before. While playing shows in the evenings, the two visited schools in Wellington and in Auckland during the day to interview children between the ages of five and six. Their intention was to explain to the children that they were going to write a charity single together, with the children’s reactions and ideas informing the song’s lyrics. The two had no idea what would come out of the process. Luckily, the results are a riot of joyous and surreal chaos that even crack up the two comedians and musicians as they conduct the interviews with the kids.

There are certainly some potent perspectives expressed in those interviews. One girl expounds on her view that “spewing” as the worst possible illness to happen to anyone. Another recounts the time she got sick by drinking “bubble mixture” because she wanted to “turn into a bubble”. Another boy breaks down how the New Zealand economy works (bank -> the Prime Minister -> the Queen -> back to the bank again). Yet another boy talks about what all charity singles include in their lyrics: “feel inside and stuff like that”. All of these elements and more make it into the final song.

Flight of the Conchords on stage in 2010 (Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie) Stockholm, Sweden. image: Kim Metso

“Feel Inside (and Stuff Like That)” is Schrödinger’s charity single. It is a parody and a genuine effort at the very same time. It masterfully sends up the tropes of star-studded charity singles and their accompanying studio-bound videos. The lyrics are unfocused and difficult to parse, underscoring an observation that most charity singles like this really do sound like everyone is singing “feel inside and stuff like that”. We laugh at he incongruity of top shelf musicians performing a song like this. But we don’t question their intentions, either.

That’s what really makes this work; everyone involved leans into both aspects. They don’t mug for the camera. They don’t hold back their musical signatures on the recording. They deliver the goods as far as the song allows, and make light of themselves to a certain degree while they do it. They are in on the joke and committed to the bit. But there is a powerful contrast between parody and gravity at work, too. This tune is both funny and socially significant beyond the humour. As listeners and buyers of singles, the people were on board to the tune of $1.3 million raised for Cure Kids.

Another aspect to this is what’s common in the sometimes chaotic responses Jemaine and Bret receive during the interviews with the school kids. The song’s lyrics springs from the children’s understanding of the world, their creative ideas, and also their admirable willingness to engage with a fairly grim and worldly topic. Bret reported that not all of the children were as open with them, likely due to shyness. But among all the kids were the wild cards that made the whole thing sing.

“We talked to kids while we were on tour and we were kind of juggling a busy tour schedule and we would pop into these schools during the day and some of these kids were just terrified and couldn’t talk and just started crying,” McKenzie told TimeOut. “Every so often you would get a kid who was just a wildcard – perfect. We needed kids who could let their imagination flow.”

~Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords, NZ Herald, September 2012 (read the whole article)

Despite the various reactions, the takeaway from the interviews as seen in the extended segment is that the children took what they were being asked seriously. As nutty as some of their responses are that fed the lyrics, the common denominator was that they all cared about the sick children they are told about. They weren’t making jokes. They really wanted to use their imaginations to come up with solutions to help them, responding in a way that was true for them.

That’s another thing this song captures. It doesn’t make fun of the kids. Instead, it perfectly expresses their pureness of intentions. It’s a true song of innocence; sweet and never mean-spirited. In a strange way, it challenges adult sensibilities, too. It suggests that in a complicated world of difficult challenges, sometimes even our craziest ideas can be a good start to making things better. This is true even if we don’t necessarily understand the nuances to completely solve complex challenges on our own. Sometimes, the first step is having the willingness and the empathy required to help others, and to lean into it as best we can with whatever we’ve got. When we acknowledge the struggles of others, we move closer to a more compassionate world.

Flight of the Conchords is an active musical comedy duo today. You can learn more about them at flightoftheconchords.co.nz.

You can watch the full 14-minute segment associated with “Feel Inside (and Stuff Like That)” right here. This includes the opening skit with Rhys Darby as Murray their fictional manager, and select interviews with the children whose ideas are then included in the studio recording.

To learn more about the ongoing cause to help sick children in New Zealand, check out the Cure Kids site.

Enjoy!

#2010sMusic #charitySingles #comedy #FlightOfTheConchords