59 Comments on “Another Travel Day”

1. A couple of things….I was in Radio in the early 80’s and I feel extremely FORTUNATE to have never ever actually heard of this band. Never saw it on MTV, nor heard it on the air here in Seattle. And it is horribly bad, just the first few seconds were enough. Now to drown it out of my mind with some ELO……

2. Congratulations, Scalzi. I have a big essay to write tonight and I think you just completely destroyed my brain for the rest of the day. I hope you’re satisfied with destroying the gpa of a hapless college student!

   Seriously though, what the crap IS that? I count myself lucky that I slept through what was left of the eighties by the time I rolled onto the scene.

3. I could only listen to 5-10 seconds of it before I closed the tab.

   Thank you SO MUCH, Scalzi.

   Feh.

4. This is a joke, right? The staff of “Best Week Ever” went on an absinthe binge, raided a Buffalo Exchange and videotaped the results, right?

   Hold me.

5. When you wrote “single worst song to come out of the 80s” I thought it was going to be “We Built This City”. It was worse. Oh so far worse. I am retreating into the arms of a Springsteen bootleg, there will be redemption there.

6. I heard this song once as a wee lass, watching MTV’s “London Calling” way way waaaaaaaaaaaay too late one night. It’s been bouncing around my head ever since.

   I was convinced I was hallucinating. Um, wow.

7. I really enjoyed living in the 80s — all because I somehow missed this song/video. It may be the greatest song ever, but I’ll never know because I don’t think I got even 15 seconds into it before I clicked on PAUSE and then moved on my way.

   In a list of the Top 800,000 Songs Of Rock and Roll, something has to be #800,000…

   Dr. Phil

8. I vaguely remember this piece of shit from back in the day, but I don’t remember the video. What the hell is she wearing — a fishnet bodysuit?

9. Man, that was annoying.

10. Once I got past the bit at the beginning I quite liked it.
    It’s certainly nowhere near the worst I’ve heard.

    The clothes are terrible, but it was the early 80s… they have an excuse.

11. I hate you. I hate you in a spectacular, fiery, burning way. I had suppressed that song for years and now it’s back.

    My wife heard a second of it and said, “I remember it but I don’t remeber how it goes.”

    “And you never will,” says I, “Because to hear it again you will have it burned into your brain for ten whole years.”

12. Someone’s not going to be getting a Christmas card from me this year.

13. Sadist.

14. Good thing I only had the left earbud in, since now I’m only half deaf. Thanks for the lovely “music.”

15. I hate to disagree with all you fine people, but I have always loved that song. I still have the original cassette! If you hate that song you should never listen to John Wayne is Big Leggy.

16. I always thought “John Wayne Is Big Leggy” was the real low point of this band’s career.

17. i’m glad to say that i don’t remember this song.

18. I loved it! I’m going to go watch it again!

    It’s not quite 99 Red Balloons, but it is Shiny!

19. I try to make every blog post as if I could be hit by a bus before I get a chance to make another one.

    Not everyone does that.

20. All kidding aside, who doesn’t like upbeat dance songs about the apocolypse?

21. I thank God for two things: first, that I never heard this song in the 80s, and second, that I was watching this on AOL over a LAN connection and it was all skippy and jumpy. As a result, I realized that it was going to be scary godawful bad before any of it was actually able to lodge itself in my brain.

    Your evil plot was thwarted this time!

22. Thanks, I needed a laugh!

    Now I’m going to send it to all my friends as torture. Muahahaha!

23. The outfits were worse than the music.

24. I actually remember this video from back in the day, primarily because my hormone-addled brain thought Kate Garner was indescribably hot. Don’t think I even noticed the music!

    (Huh. Turns out from Wikipedia that she went on to have a career photography, including one of Sinead’s album covers.)

25. I see your Haysi Fantayzee and raise with a Toto Coelo – I eat cannibals
    
    For the win

26. Ooh, yeah. Winner.

27. Oh sure, it’s bad in that eighties, crazy hair, mismatched clothes, bad over-done pop part of new wave, kajagoogoo, men without hats, my god did I really listen to that, way.

    But I defy you to find anyone from that time period who can avoid singing along when the “shiny, shiny” chorus comes along.

    80s kitsch pop at its kitschiest, indeed.

    – yeff

28. You hate us, don’t you?

    Fortunately for me, I spent most of the 80’s living overseas, or at sea, and never had to live through this kind of crap. Listening to this is like have somebody take a cheese grater to my brain.

    Please, make it stop.

29. Nick Hols:

    “I Eat Cannibals” is like Mozart compared to this song.

30. Woah, Scalzi… Man, woah is all i can say after reading the book, The last colony, I was speachless! it was an amazingly writen book with a great many little “episodes” in it! i loved it. Thank you for informing me that the library isnt only good to rent FREE movies from =).

    Now i should have posted this about two days ago, though i have been away. Have you ever heard of a game called, “Eve-online”? because i think you would really enjoy it. i know i do. (which is why i was away)

    Zoe’s tale looks pretty cool. I dont know book dates but when does that come out? Thank you.

31. Scalzi:

    ““I Eat Cannibals” is like Mozart compared to this song.”

    How can you say that? At least “Shiny Shiny” has a message buried in there, while “I Eat Cannibals” is just cloying, repetetive tripe.

    (Gawd, am I actually _defending_ that freaking song?!)

32. Steve:

    Just because a song has a message doesn’t mean the message can spectacularly fail to be delivered. “I Eat Cannibals” is utter crap, but it’s utter crap that makes no pretensions of being anything else.

    Hab0k: Zoe’s Tale hits next August.

33. OK, yes, that’s spectacularly bad.

    “Freight Train” by Nitro is even worse. I’d link you to the amazingly godawful music video (the guitar solo is a must-see – some of the fastest playing on record, and absolutely nothing like a tune in there anywhere, and the gimmick – well, you just have to see it) but the copyright owners seem to have removed it from YouTube for some unfathomable reason.

34. Thanks man, sounds awsome, This year is a good year for books coming out. So as to the question befor, do you know what Eve-online is?

35. Man… I Love the early White Stripes…

36. “I Eat Cannibals” is utter crap, but it’s utter crap that makes no pretensions of being anything else.

    Hmm. You have a point there.

37. Weirdly, on the lj feed this shows up as a random guy’s film of his foofy Persian cat.

38. Mozart! I could have lowered myself and pointed you towards some Sigue Sigue Sputnik but I wanted to keep this from getting ugly. Poor Mozart with only half a skull and no grave to spin in!

39. Who cares about the music? The woman is STUNNING!. Thanks for the video.

40. What I noticed was the shout-out to Shanana.

    “Shiny, shiny, Sha-na-na-na!

    Sweet.

    (I too feel fortunate that I don’t remember this song either. The blessing of NOT having cable until the 1990s.)

41. I think I need to Clorox my ears. I’m with Carol Elaine on this one. Feh.

42. After listening to that song I feel like a Lovecraftian protagonist…

43. All you people who skipped out after 15 seconds, you’re missing out. It REALLY gets bad around the 1 minute mark.

44. I’ve never heard this song until now, but I thought the people in the video were kinda cool–they’re members of the X-Men, right?

45. I liked it. It was better than your usual music post :)

    shiny shiny shiny. No Chance. No Chance.

    Someone needs to make a metal version.

46. Nick, man, I loved Sigue Sigue Sputnik! Listened to it until I wore the tape out.

47. I remember this from the TV of my childhood (including a LIVE performance at the Countdown Music Awards that went even longer). I have to say that I was too young the first time around to be particularly hormone-addled, and so was rather startled on re-watching it to see how much time Kate spends wiggling about in the fishnets and underwear.

48. Crap, I listened to this once yesterday and it is STILL stuck in my head. On a continuous, mind-numbing loop…… arrrgggg…..

49. EEEEESH. Where did you excavate this from? I swear I’d forgotten it successfully til you resurrected it from an unholy grave.

50. I remember this song fondly, mainly because of Kate Garner and because I did not listen to the lyrics.

    It is a classic example of what videos made it on to weekday afternoon video shows that were trying to emulate MTV’s success.

    A lot of marginal bands got air play in those days.

    Kate Garner wow!

51. Oy. I’d never heard that. And thanks to the “stop” button, I didn’t hear the rest of it.

    I thought that the guy was channelling Boy George, at least sartorially. Am I alone on this?

52. He and Boy George went to school together and remained friends.

53. So, who’s the Michael Imperioli look-alike playing chess against the crow about halfway through?

54. Nope. Not ‘the worst song of the early ’80s’, not even close.

    a) I’ve heard worse;
    and
    b) Kate Garner, man.

55. I hate to say that this song is wrapped in bulletproof nostalgia for me. Ahh…those were the days.

56. Horribly incomprehensible, but disgustingly catchy.

    I find myself humming this in the odd moments in the day, invariably tailed by disbelieving stares and pitying chuckles.

57. you know you love this song.
    i heard it blasting from your dorm room and saw elfin shadows mimicking the moves on the drapes.

    i remember this song well, but luckily, can never be traced back to putting it on a mixed tape. instead, i favored an equally infectious- but far superior- tune called “kiss me with your mouth” by stephen tin tin duffy.

58. Janny:

    “you know you love this song.
    i heard it blasting from your dorm room and saw elfin shadows mimicking the moves on the drapes.”

    Oh, God. There goes my credibility.

59. And little did Scalzi know but as he was cruising up & down the golden state he was really really close to the lady singing this merry ditty. At least it would seem so according to this – http://www.deadoralive.net/haysifantayzee/kate.html