Merrill Bainbridge- Mouth

When I was recently looking at a list of bad 90s' one-hit wonders, I thought I had pinpointed the worst and most annoying one. Well looking further back in time, I may have been wrong. This one comes from the year 1996. You'll have to stick with me while I introduce it

Relatively speaking, 1996 was an awesome year for music, one of the best in my memory. Pop and rock radio were dominated by huge, awesome alterna-rock classics from legitimately cool bands such as Spacehog, Local H, No Doubt, and the Butthole Surfers.

Literally speaking, I was a happy camper back then, a senior in elementary school. That year was filled with fond memories of rocking out with my alternative buddies in the elementary school cafeteria to Bush, Silverchair, and even White Zombie (Yes, I was one badass 12 year old). Clarissa was explaining it all to me on TV, Kazaam and Robin Williams were making my dreams come true at the movies, and the NY Yankees were making my dreams come true on the sports field. Life was good.

Then came middle school in the fall. From the get-go, I missed elementary school like a hailstorm. Back in the old school, I hung out with kids who were down with the new alternative rock, and I was cool. In middle school, most of the kids there were ghetto and intimidating, and preferred to listen to Tupac and Quad City DJs over bands that were my bread and butter, like Weezer and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Then came my first middle school dance, and I heard it. The song that would become my #1 annoyance for the remainder of 1996. As funny and cheesy as it sounds to listen to this song now, it still makes my blood boil for the ghost of my 12-year old self when I hear this awful atrocity. This song, or course, is "Mouth" by Merrill Bainbridge.

Within two weeks of that dance, it was the song all the girls would sing along to every day during recess, or during any break in my teacher's speech. It was the song that had "naughty" lyrics supposedly, so all the 12-14 year old girls felt "adult" and cool for singing it. And of course, all the dudes followed along, because it made them imagine what adult sex would be like. And of course, its soft reggae-tinged R&B rhythm made it gentle and unaggressive sounding, absolutely perfect for the urban middle school set.

Here's the chorus:
"Would it be my fault if I could turn you on?
Would I be so bad if I could turn you on?
When I kiss your mouth I wanna taste it
Turn you upside down, don't wanna waste it"

Just to think, that this is something we were listening to at 12 years old. My GOD were the 1990s kinky! On the other hand, this makes me feel dirty in almost a bad way. This is the sappiest of the sappy. Just writing those lyrics down on this journal makes me want to put on the Dead Kennedys or Rage Against The Machine and just fucking thrash for about 10 minutes to make up for listening to this atrocity of sap.

After all this talk, we're forgetting the question- who the FUCK is Merrill Bainbridge. She was, I guess, just some chick. During the mid-90s the music business was booming, and girls were getting signed left and right, making for a zillion Merideth Brooks and Beth Harts, most who have thankfully been forgotten. She was just one of the girls in that girl singer-songwriter boom that nobody remembers.

"Mouth" actually was a moderate-sized smash, peaking at #4 on the pop chart in November of 1996. By that point, I could not walk down the hallway of my school without hearing this song in some shape or form. OK, the Macarena was bad too, but that song at least had a novelty factor which I found amusing. Meanwhile, "Mouth" was the annoying song with the annoying lyrics that I absolutely could not stand.

I have considered in this day and age, using the chorus of the song as a prominent pick-up line at bars. I have gone ahead to use it a couple times, to decidedly negative results. You could probably imagine why. Picture this, you're a girl standing by yourself, looking all pretty. Then, this dude comes up to you, without even introducing himself, and asks you if he can kiss your mouth and "turn you upside down"
What would you think? Sketchy? Rape? Exactly.

With the exception of my cool math teacher chick who showed up for class hungover after going to Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar tour, and forgoing her entire lesson plan to talk with us about how awesome the show was, Middle School Sucked. A song which has had a similar effect on me the following spring of 97'was "Lovefool" by the Cardigans. This was also a one-hit wonder song, but everyone remembers "Lovefool" for how annoying it was.

Meanwhile, "Mouth" by Merrill Bainbridge, is a song that I believe is unique to me in the annoyance it caused me at a particular place in time. And that's why I'm writing about it now. I loved '96, but absolutely hated the kiss your mouth song. And don't let anything in this entry tell you any different. I still fucking hate it now. More than ever.

Peach Union- On My Own

The late 1990s were a relative sanctuary for overproduced and awful dance music sung by girls. Gina G, La Bouche, Sophie B. Hawkins, Aqua, the list goes on and on of shitty dance producers and singers who cashed in with huge, cheesy late 90s dance anthems. And pop radio stations such as my then-favorite, NYC's Z100, ate them up like sugar, the pop confectinary and billion dollar productions that they were.

But the worst of the worst, the overblownest of the overblown, the cheesiest of the cheezy, was "On My Own", by Euro-crap tools Peach Union. It was a song that sounded as if every kick, snare and instrumental flourish cost about a million dollars to produce. After all, back in the late Clinton-era, that kind of money was flying around, unlike today (Obama will change that soon, but that's another story).

When this song was a hit in the US for about three days in October of 97' I was a young teenager. When you're that age, you're pretty much too young to realize that you're listening to absolute shit. You tend at 13 to take what the major-label spoonman gives you and not complain about it. Which is exactly the reason why gigantic ball of crap "High School Musical 3" is getting your money as we speak. When you're that age, you have a hard time discerning the greater forces of reality.

When I was 13, this song "On My Own" was stuck right in the center of Z100's playlist, right in between Third Eye Blind and Sister Hazel. Of course, I thought it sounded great then. But looking back on it now, I was just a stupid tween stuck in his own world. This song sucks balls in hell, right in between mediocre one-second wonders as Fort Minor's "Where'd You Go" and Jimmy Ray's "Are You Jimmy Ray".

OK, let me talking about the song's one saving grace first. After a weird operatic opening and the typical 90s' dance-pop "1-2-3-4" countoff, this weird, hypnotic bass line kicks in. This bass groove has synths, keyboards, and lots of cheese surrounding it. Enough so to make Right Said Fred roll around and cringe in his pop cultural grave. But the riff itself is dark enough to be almost cool. Like I'm pretty sure the Smashing Pumpkins could do a number with it. But not in this universe.

OK, the good part is over. The lead singer of this "Peach Union" sounds like a tenth-rate Madonna rip-off. Even her breathing and posturing in the video were likely to inspire a royal ass-whupping if Madonna ever laid ears on it. Unfortunately, during the 90's Madge existed in a completely different stratosphere than to ever be in the same room as this knock-off.

The song's chorus is manufactured cheese. No wonder this song was left "on its own" in the annals of pop. No one fucking remembers it. That's because the chorus is woefully forgettable, and contradicts itself. The name of the song is "On MY Own" and all the verses suggest that it was intended to be made as a break-up anthem for the ladies. But the chorus includes the line "Through the course of history, I hope you'll still remember me". I wonder what brilliant hired songwriter thought of this gem. Fucking history? You would think that if you're breaking up with a dude, you would want him to forget you and move on, not remember you for all of eternity. JESUS.

The song is best known for two things:
1. having the shortest and quickest time of any song as a figment of America's pop cultural zeitgeist.
2. being on the soundtrack of Gwyneth Paltrow's long-forgotten chick flick "Sliding Doors".

So it's a forgettable song that was featured in a forgettable movie, from what was turning out to be a horrible era in American music. First there was this Euro-dance crap which the song was part of.. Then there were the boy bands and TRL and all those indescribable horrors.. Then Bush got elected President.. Then everything went to hell. At least until now...