Novelty Music

I've never really had any real consistency to the music I like. It's been largely mainstream, but otherwise has spanned genres from Heavy Metal to Celtic Folk Rock (or wherever Great Big Sea fits in), punk, dance, electronica and so forth. However, a friend of mine once pointed out that there was one theme: I like novelty music.

What does this mean? Well, I'm a big Weird Al Yankovic fan, for starters, and-more recently-Richard Cheese. But beyond that, I have a strange and (even to me) inexplicable draw to covers of songs. I have dozens of tracks on my iPod that are techno remixes of something that was never designed to be an electronic song (Beethoven's 5th, The theme song to Titanic, Phantom of the Opera, etc.) and a variety of punk covers (including Mrs. Robinson, Hotel California, Barbie Girl, Baby Got Back and so forth). One of my top-rated songs is a bluegrass/country/folk-rock cover of Snoop Dogg's Gin And Juice (really).

I'm not really sure why I like these so much-I'll often prefer the covers to the original tracks. I think that it's because I find it fascinating to see how someone can take a work of art and reinterpret it to something wholly different, yet referential to that original. Plus, if there's a song that I don't really like (e.g. Gin And Juice), I may well like the genre into which it's been interpreted. I just think it's a cool way to do things.

Anyway, needless to say, I am all but addicted to this. And I feel the need to share its wonderment.