The Magical Hanukkahtime Section Variety Hour is an eight-day cruise through every section at BC Magazine except the one where the author has any knowledge whatsoever. On the third evening: BC Music!
Earlier this year, I was on a date with a girl and she had never heard of a rickroll before. I remember trying to explain the concept behind it, then I explained why it was funny. Needless to say, there was no second date. (Had I had a second chance to eloquently and succinctly describe it, the art of rickrolling was like the existence of Larry "Bud" Melman, but not as strange or as ugly.)
It's been fun to see the interaction between an Internet inside joke and a real-life fleshy human being who actually sang that song back in the day, not realizing then that his relevance today somehow superseded his relevance back when he was, well, actually relevant. And it was refreshing to see Rick Astley embrace the cyberspace's reaction to his 1987 tune "Never Gonna Give You Up," because it's easy for a performer to get cranky and crotchety seeing their art transformed by someone else's creative control. (Heck, I would.) Natalie Imbruglia also showed a good sense of humor when she sang on stage alongside comedian David Armand during his interpretative dance of "Torn."
It's a little more exciting when, for example, comedian Frank Caliendo does a great impression of NFL commentator John Madden and the Hall of Fame coach isn't a fan of the parody at all. To name another example, choreographer Frank Gatson Jr. wasn't at all amused when Saturday Night Live parodies Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)", despite the fact that, y'know, Beyoncé herself was halfway okay with it — but only once she saw Justin Timberlake in a leotard.
We're all trying to advance good morals on everyone, and a sense of humor is one of them. Maybe it's time for an exception, since as we all know, famous people don't have to be nice. When the artist's down with the esoteric interpretation, it's immediately sends a good feeling through the veins, but then the parody suddenly loses its bite. When they rail against it, the interpretation becomes exponentially more awesome.
Case in point: the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade was rickrolled by none other than Rick Astley himself. The first impression was, "sweet." The next impression was … "well, shit, there goes my idea for a blog post about finding exclusive video of Osama bin Laden dancing the Cha Cha Slide." There's really no other precipice this 4chan-inspired prank can reach, unless Barack Obama has a different Rick in mind to be at his inauguration. Anything else anyone does on the Internet that results in a rickroll just won't hold a candle to the actual singer pulling the feat on Thanksgiving. Game over, man. Also, because of that Macy's Parade incident, grandparents everywhere are having rickrolls explained to them by their hip young descendants. That can't be fun.
It's probably better to have musicians be stuck-up about their craft. After all, they're different than us, so they shouldn't be indifferent like us. They have beautiful voices and play guitars plugged into subwoofers, not Xboxes. They are surrounded by men in studios with professional mixing boards, not roommates who just downloaded a hacked copy of GarageBand. Also, they also don't talk about Internet memes on first dates. Perhaps this, along with pretentiousness, is one of the keys to becoming successful like them.
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