Dandelion Day

Tomorrow (Saturday) is Dandelion Day, also known as D-Day on campus.  Every year, on the last Saturday before classes end, there is a campus-wide celebration to blow off some steam and (ideally) to enjoy the nice spring weather.  By “blow off some steam”, I do mean “get incredibly drunk all day long”.  And by “enjoy the nice spring weather” I mean “get drunk enough so that you don’t notice it’s raining outside”, because it always rains on D-Day.  In my 5 years at that school, it has never NOT rained on D-Day.  I’ve already detailed some of my exploits (see number 8 of 10) during past D-Days.

My First D. Day. "Collapsing in the hall" time obviously comes later in the day.

The Campus Activities Board (CAB) also sponsors a musical act.  However, in recent years their funding has been cut due to the number of kids that drink to excess and require either a visit from MERT or a trip to the hospital.  (Freshmen…what can you do?)  So this year we have The Super Mash Brothers.

I kid you not, this is what they’ve gotten for D-Day this year:

Yes, what you are watching is three douchey-looking white guys playing on their computers.  And people go and watch them.  I have no idea how much they are being paid, but it is TOO MUCH.  At least in previous years they have gotten bands like Eve 6, that at least write their own music and, oh I don’t know, actually perform.  First, I don’t understand this whole “mash-up” phenomenon.  “Let’s take two bad songs and combine them to make one ultra-form bad song!”  I think it goes along with this whole iPod generation: people can’t stand to sit and listen to an entire song without skipping it after 30 seconds.  So now, with mash-ups, people can get two, three, or even more songs crammed into one, all while only having to sit through the length of one song.  But if they stood back for a second and thought “Hey, maybe there’s a reason why I can’t sit through any of these songs in their entirety!”, maybe they would realize that it’s because all of their music is just filler from garbage albums put out in the last 10 or so years with the intent of making money off of one (not very good) hit.

Second, why would anybody want to watch this?  This is not a performance; Daniel and I sit next to each other on the couch and play with our computers all of the time.  Is it now okay for me to charge other people to watch us do that?  Better yet, how about anytime anybody walks through a dorm or Gleason and hears someone playing music off of their computer, the person walking by must now pay the person who is playing the music?  Because that is essentially what is happening at these “shows” by these mash-up “artists”.

Do you listen to mash-ups?  Can you explain to me the appeal of these songs?