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Hey baby, hey baby, hey I'm the kind of girl that hangs with the guys Misfit, I sit I'm just sipping on chamomile All the boys say I'm the one they feed upon No matter what they say I'm still the same All the boys say Check it out, it's Bounty Killer and No Doubt
Jump on the stage 'cause we goin' crazy Jump on the stage 'cause we goin' crazy When you rock your hips you know that it amazes me I'm just sipping on chamomile All the boys say "Hey baby, hey baby, hey" "Hey baby, hey baby, hey" |
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Many years have passed since there was a lot of popular music that I liked. The last era when I really felt like I was into the music was the early 80's. Back then I liked the Go-Go's, Pat Benatar, and especially Joan Jett. I thought that Joan Jett's "I Love Rock and Roll" was an instant classic. It was a time when MTV was new -- and showed almost nothing but music videos, which were very sharp and sexy. Then I seemed to lose touch.
I liked bits of music over the years. One thing that got my attention was "I Touch Myself" by the diVinyls. It might have been the first CD I bought, in 1990, when they were still packaging CD's in tall cardboard covers so that they would stand up as high as old vinyl record albums in the record store racks. There were objections that this wasted carboard, so not long after that CD's began to be sold in the simple plastic container for the disk. I liked many of the cuts on the album, but I never noticed any more diVinyl music after that. The album doesn't seem to give the name of the members of the band, so I never learned who was in it. I kept the cover art from the cardboard slip. It shows a woman, perhaps the lead singer, wearing nothing but a see-through net dress, touching herself on a breast and, well, out of sight between her legs. Pretty hot.
An odd song here and there caught my attention in the next decade. When Gwen Stefani and No Doubt made a big spash with "Hey Baby," that must have been 2001, I noticed her, liked what I heard of the song, but then never did get around to hearing all of it.
Seeing Gwen in celebrity news kept me aware of her. Then I saw her in January (2005) playing Jean Harlow in The Aviator. I finally thought that, at long last, I should see what all the fuss was about, so I ordered a DVD with all the No Doubt music videos (No Doubt, The Videos 1992-2003). I never even had learned the name of the song I had heard years before.
It was, of course, "Hey Baby" (words running at right). I wasn't even sure how much of it I had liked orginally. Now, after a brief search, finding it on the DVD, I discover that, not only is it good, it is really a classic, an icon, like "I Love Rock and Roll" twenty years earlier. Puting the music here would bring down the FBI, so I have just given the words. The lyrics in black are from a visiting singer, Bounty Killer, who also appears in the video. Much of the video was inspired by a trip to Jamaica. Bounty Killer's lines are not given with the original album lyrics.
Two other songs on the DVD struck me as outstanding, "Ex-Girlfriend" and "Bathwater." All of these have a driving beat. Some of the slower songs are also good, but the fast ones I like the best (as with Joan Jett, etc.). "Hey Baby" was originally on the Rock Steady album of 2001. "Ex-Girlfriend" and "Bathwater" were both on the Return of Saturn album of 2000. In all the album art of the latter (as at left), and in the video of "Ex-Girlfriend," Gwen is sporting pink hair. I kind of like it. In the "Bathwater" video, she has short blond hair -- doing a bit of a Madonna. But Gwen looks better than Madonna, I think, and has a dynamite pout.
In the "Hey Baby" video she has gone more Veronica Lake, the long blond hair that now has seemed mostly her look since then. Not voluptous, with more a fashion model's body, Gwen is undoubtedly lovely. She manages to look, and act, significantly different in the different videos. A very striking effect. Seems like I heard of her getting married. Hope her life will always go well.
The No Doubt drummer, Adrian Young, seems to be a character. He is rarely seen fully dressed and appear naked both on the cover of Return of Saturn and in the video for "Hey Baby." I can sympathize. I like a bit of nudity myself.
