85 Comments on “If There is Karaoke In Hell, AND THERE IS, This is What’s Playing”

1. I’ll see your Leif Garrett and raise you one Laibach:

2. Scalzi,

   you are evil and shall suffer a thousand deaths for this.

   I would go on but I have to go wash my eyes out with soap.

3. Pixelfish:

   Nah. At least Laibach had ambition.

4. Yes, there are words, but I will be respectful and not say them.

   But this does explain why he has been banished to “World’s Dumbest…” shows on TRU TV.

5. How can there be a Hell if there is no God? If this can exist, surely God cannot.

6. I can think of a few words. No, wait — that’s just the random noise produced by the gag reflex.

7. So my kitten just came over and muted the computer.

8. Jennie@7: Proof of evolution! Kitten develops self-preservation mechanisms. See if this trait can be passed down to future generations.

9. SCALZI! What the hell! Wouldn’t you say that this is uncalled for?

10. Jennie:

    ZOMG IT’S AN ALIEN SPACE CAT

11. It’s amazing what a person on drugs and alcohol can do just to get money for more drugs and alcohol.

12. Barstool Babe:

    It’s true I would rather he do this than, say, give handjobs to strangers. BUT NOT BY MUCH.

13. AGH! MY EARS! OH THE HUMANITY!

    Seriously. WTF. Someone get Bush on the line, Scalzi has found the weapons of mass destruction.

14. More cowbell.

    Lots more cowbell.

15. There is not enough cowbell in the world, GregLondon.

16. I don’t know what I was doing in the ’80’s to miss this the frst time around, but I’m glad I was doing t.

17. I am getting the distinct impression that you’re a bit of an 80’s baby, big-hair-band loving, ballad singing, spandex wearing, kind of guy, Scalzi.

18. Pam: There was lots to love about the 80s. Just not sure that Leif Garrett and his hair are the best ambassadors for that time.

19. My 12″ singles from Fad Gadget, Blancmange and the Assembly suggest otherwise, GregLondon. Aside from my well-documented love of Journey, that is. But, you know. I’m not stuffy about it. I enjoy all types of cheese.

20. Duh! What else ya got?

21. I don’t know, I don’t think this tops that kazookeylele guy at all. That was a really high bar.

22. Yes, but I like Laibach.

    …. Stop looking at me like that.

    Every time I hear Final Countdown, I think of “How to Kill a Mockingbird”.

    http://borkweb.com/story/how-to-kill-a-mocking-bird

    Which is basically like the internet, except distilled into a single flash animation.

23. Even more glorious, this was the main montage track for Rocky II. I fink I fwew up a widdle.

24. Oopsy, I meant Rocky IV — my bad.

25. This doesn’t seem that much worse than the original.

    *ducks* Hey!

26. Ach, stuck in my head… the original version was earworm enough!

27. For the first minute and 40 seconds, I thought there were literally no words. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

28. Ha! I didn’t click play. I won’t click play. Take that you sick man.

29. I’d like to submit Asia’s “Only Time Will Tell” as a close second. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6GhodMhcik

    It even has the horrible cheezo horn synth patch. Iit lacks “Final Countdown’s” the Wagnerian scale of crap, but it’s got cowbell for DAYS.

30. Oh no! I think I have EVERYONE beat.

    The Final Countdown performed, uh… live by uh, I really have no idea. My eyes have popped out of their sockets and my ears are bleeding.

    OMG – MY EARS, MY EARS!

31. I like the headbanging cello players in this version:

32. I’m quite fond of this version. Because who doesn’t love somber Norwegian rockabilly?

    Then again, my taste is completely suspect in all matters related to Europe and “The Final Countdown” because, well, I fell in love with the song when I was 13 and have never fallen out of love with it.

33. Scalzi: Mmmmm….Fad Gadget. My favs are Back to Nature:

    http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=9816086

    and Saturday Night Special:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7fMcNTB75A&feature=related

    Keffy: I like Laibach too (and I even own the album that has that cover of the Final Countdown) but they have other songs I prefer. :)

34. Gets long, fuzzy pipe cleaners. Links together. Applies bleach. Sticks in one ear until it comes out the other. Scrubs back and forth vigorously. Removes cleaners, wax, earworms, etc. Cleans up. Goes on about business.

    Aaahh…much better.

35. I am the smartest man in this whole thread. I have not clicked on a single link or youtube video.

36. Smart… or YELLOW?

37. What the hell instrument is that carrying the tune? It sounds exactly like – oh, crap, I can’t remember what it’s called, zymophone or something, but there was a YouTube of some guy in England playing Christmas carols or something on this miniature keyboard whatsit that sounded like a cross between a kazoo and a harpsicord. IIRC, posting that YouTube was another Scalzi special.

    Anyway, between the kazoo-harpsicord and the thin, just-barely-hitting-that-note vocals, I’d swear this was Leif doing karaoke. I don’t care if he put it on a record and sold it, it’s still karaoke.

    Scalzi, where do you *find* this stuff?

38. I used to respect you. I had nice things to say about your work.

    But this. You miserable son of a bitch, you’ve forced me to accept the fact that I like Styx. You are driving me towards Journey, and then…

    then…

    Boston.

    I hope you can live with yourself — but in the near future you will have to live with me. And I will make you pay for the way you’ve stripped my cool guy (Ali Farka Toure/Fats Waller/Carl Perkins/Wendy Carlos/Jean Pierre Michelle Jarre, Ramones, Nuggets, etc.l) credits away from me and forced me to accept the fact that I’m a product of seventies/eighties stadium rock.

    You will pay.

    Of course, I might wind up playing those kinds of songs. In which case, thanks loads.

    Prog Rock lives!

39. sir ~
    be advised that i have informed the alien kitten overlords that you must be the first enslaved so that you do not purposefully, and with malice aforethought, inflict such damage upon us, your humble (and, okay, not so humble in some cases) servants again.

    be prepared, sir. be prepared.

    now if you’ll excuse me, i am off to the store to purchase the supplies suggested by WendyB_09@34.

40. Sounds pretty good! Whats’ wrong with it?

41. the horror… somewhere the gods of music are very angry…

    I don’t see how I can sleep after listening to that…

    rabid

42. Synthesized kazoo.

    Right.

    I don’t remember hearing this in its, um, day, and since I retain the memory of something called “Nee Nee Na Na Na Na Nu Nu” from the Jurassic Era of rock, I can only conclude that if I did hear it, the brain immediately erased the memory. Which means that by tomorrow, the taste this … thing … left in my brain should be gone.

    It made Night Ranger sound almost like Verdi.

43. amstrad@31: Impressive. I &heart; excellent cello.

44. Needless to say, I take it you are not enjoying the album.

    And there is this lovely 80s classic:

45. CaseyL@37 “…What the hell instrument is that carrying the tune? …, I can’t remember what it’s called, zymophone or something,…”

    Are you referring to the ever-classy stylophone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylophone

    Now if Scalzi can just find a stylophone with cowbell performance of Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now….

46. Actually I think the all-cowbell “Upstairs At Eric’s” tribute album is crying to be made. And I do mean crying.

47. My iPhone crashed about 30 seconds in. That’s all for the better, I think.

48. Ah, a song wasn’t worth anything in the 80s if Weird Al didn’t do a parody of it….

    You can tell which songs were real hits:

49. The only part I liked was the part where I clicked it off. It sounded like a KISS cover band performing at a high school prom.

50. I had to quit as soon as the “singer” came on – it’s 1:30 in the morning here, and the basset howling was going to wake everybody up, even with the speakers set on low.

51. Man you people are a bunch of whiners. It’s not that awful. I should know, I actually attended a Europe concert and heard this live back around 88-89.

52. Dear Mr. Scalzi,

    You go too far. TOO FAR!

    Signed,
    Someone who actually owned a Leif Garrett LP in the late ’70s

53. Y’know….I kind of like it…I know, I’m sick, but I also like Meco’s version of the Star Wars theme back in the day.

    Don’t hate me because I’m weird…

54. That lead melody sound is called a ‘supersaw’. You can twiddle most synths to produce one, but you shouldn’t, because enraged techno geeks will beat you to death with their shoelaces.

    (It’s several detuned saw waves stacked at octaves, and is symptomatic of the electronic music equivalent of the spandex power ballad.)

55. I don’t get what’s so bad about it either, but then again – I liked The Final Countdown in the 80’s and I haven’t gotten around to stop liking it.

    Actually, that was the first album I got and which I liked, myself.

56. For the first time I’m not unhappy that the link is blocked by my workplace.
    I only needed to see the words “The Final Countdown” and “Leif Garrett” in the same sentence to know it was somewhere I really didn’t want to go.

57. I’m gonna fall into the “also likes Laibach” camp. Across the Universe is amazing.
    And yeah, I owned a Leif Garrett record in the late 70’s. And Andy Gibb, too.
    Shut up.

58. I hear this song multiple times a week because I am in my college pep band, and we play the song. It is slightly less awful when played by 10 tubas, 20 trumpets, 15 trombones, 3 electric basses, lots and lots of percussion, and assorted other band like instruments. However, since we play at about 135 Db, it is no less painful, just less awful.

59. I dunno. As bad as this was, it doesn’t quite fit my idea of hell. I think perhaps … eternal honey-pokey.

60. Someone’s created a fan mashup of clips from “Armageddon” and the original version of the song, for a serious triumph of mediocrity:

61. even worse:

    Leonard Nimoy sings “Proud Mary”

    WARNING: remove small children, elderly, or those with weakned immune systems from the area:

    http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=8437

62. There will be karaoke in hell, John Scalzi, to be sure. But there are angels in heaven singing to the tune of a celestial synthesizer, and in your heart you know it wouldn’t be heaven without them.

63. I don’t even know what means.

64. If you arrived at the Pearly Gates and they weren’t playing The Final Countdown for you, wouldn’t you be a little disappointed?

    (Besides, what is a church hymnal but low-tech karaoke, really?)

65. Sorry, folks. I claim Set, Game and Match with this.

66. WHERE do you GET this stuff??
    And peeps, you’re hilarious but you’re encouraging him!

    In self-defense, I must point out a bluegrass version of Baba O’Reily that’s almost better
    than The Who (yeah, the bookstore regular musician said it was Crazy Talk):

    http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=4948770&style=music

    I almost didn’t recognise it on FolkAlley when it played — it was the ‘I know that continuo!’ that finally tripped my memory.

    Yaknow, I upgraded iTunes and now I can’t find FolkAlley — or indeed any Folk station at all. Hmn, coincidence?…..maybe I just need to go back to playing the 80s station for the weekend.

67. Deron –

    Stylophone – yes; that’s it – thanks!

68. Stop. Hurting. Me.

69. It could be worse. It could have been sung by William Hung.

70. Lauretta,

    Possibly you were listening to Hayseed Dixie. They’ve done tribute albums to AC/DC, KISS. Maybe they’ve also done some Who covers.

    BTW, they don’t qualify as “bad” music. Not only are they good musicians, they’re funny as hell. The first time I heard their cover of “Love Gun” I laughed so hard I thought I was gonna have a stroke. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the emotional and philosophical depths of KISS’ lyrics.

71. I’ve heard Hayseed Dixie do ACDC -I didn’t realise they’d ‘covered’ other bands. Well, hell, now I know what to research tonight.

    Just.Say.No.to.William.Hung…

72. There are no words.

    Of course there are words, John. They are on the screen right in front of you. And you can have the mic once Clay Aiken is done singing Stairway to Heaven.

73. JimBob@57,

    I not only had the Andy Gibb album, I went to the concert. In my defense, I was young and foolish. (as opposed to my current old and foolish state)

74. y’all think your’re smart – my computer deosn;t even have workign speakers!

    HA!

75. With all the obsessions about bad movies, bad music and the 80’s on this blog, I cannot not give you this gem:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYQ4faiN9So

    (There are two more parts of the short movie. It’s in Swedish, but subtitled in English.)

76. It’s worse. It could even involve seven-year-olds and Windows 7.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3bsXaWzgkg
    And a cheesier version of that “song”.

77. Dudes you are dissing a true classic and you will all burn in Heavy Metal Hell forever and ever!

78. *snort*

79. I have a stylophone, and I know where you can get one.

    By the way, I heard a cover of “Don’t Stop Believing” the other day that blew any other performance of it I’ve ever heard out of the water, including the original.

    Still not a great song in my folky/classical opinion, but beautifully performed. It was from the TV show Glee, which I think I’d better start watching.

80. I imagine this is the song a person hears on their death bed, right before the Grim Reaper walks into the room surrounded by cheap fireworks and skeleton cheerleaders and sucks out your soul out using a Turkey Baster.

    Or something closely resembling that.

81. Really ? Is this really any worse than the original ? The synth sounds extremely lame, but other than that …

    (gotta check out that Laibach version though)

82. 9-11. Never Forget.

    Man, I had this album. Fond highschool memories of it blasting from the speakers of my Honda Civic beater paid for with wages from the usual shitty summer jobs.

    Thanks for destroying those. Good job!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_(album)

83. Just for you:

    Well? Are you?

84. It appears not to have loaded the image. Let’s try just a plain URL, then:

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/theweaselking/main4/3911576753_20ab7a6a1e_o.jpg

85. Oh, man. I remember that game.