Really big songs (and other pop culture hits) that you've totally missed out on...

Cafe Society
21

Sophomore year in college, the Summer of '81, I spent in London and completely missed “Ghostbusters”.

When I arrived back in the US of A, I could not escape the song, the catchphrases, parodies on SNL, etc. and had absolutely no clue on what this stupid movie was all about. Now, I COULD tell you all about Duran Duran, Adam Ant and New Romantics!! ! But this info was as meaningless to my friends as this “Ghostbusters” $&*^ was to me. To this day, I still have never seen “Ghostbusters” or any of the sequels.

22

The Weird Al parody is called “Headline News.”
Once there was this kid who
Took a trip to Singapore and brought along his spray-paint
And when he finally came back
He had…
Cane marks all over his bottom…
mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm…

And make that 2.5 Americans who’ve never seen MBFGW. I’ve been to the movies 5 times in the last 4 years, and each time involved either Harry Potter or Hobbits.

I’ve also never heard “Ice Ice Baby” in its entirety. I’m very proud of that.

23

boggle

24

I don’t think I’ve heard the song mentioned in the OP either. I would have gone out of my way to avoid Boys II Men, so that makes sense to me. One that comes up on a semi-regular basis, is that I’ve never seen any of the Rambo movies. You wouldn’t think it would come up much now, but I still run into someone making a reference, and I have to explain I have no idea what they are talking about.

25

For about 3-4 years or so (1990-1993) I strayed from the rock music scene and explored other kinds of music (jazz, classical, new age, etc.) A now ex-girlfriend convinced me that all rock music was bad, so she encouraged me to sell off all my CDs, tapes and records (this was early 1990, remember) and listen to other forms of music. After we broke up in July 1990 I still continued to listen to these kinds of music (and on occasion I still do). This was during the height of the grunge era. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc. had supplanted most of the hair/metal bands that were popular in the 1980s, whose recordings had dominated my collection before the big “sell-off.” It wasn’t until 1993 that I started getting back to the kind of music that I knew in my mind I’d always enjoy listening to. It took me a few months to get up to speed on what I had been missing out on for the past few years.

26

The radio in my car died about four years ago. The last “new” songs I remember hearing a lot were Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” and Stain(e?)d’s “Meandering Depressing Song I Dunno the Title of”. On my 45 minute drive to work, I listen to tapes and CDs on my walkman.
My husband and I watch Dave Chappele and I have no clue who that “hWHAT? YEAHH” guy is. I didnt hear that catchy “Hey Ya” song until someone online had posted it to play over the dance-party bit from Charlie Brown Christmas.
Ive never seen Sopranos or Six Feet Under or Sex and the City. And we DO have cable, I just watch History or Discovery or TLC.
Never felt so good to be .

27

I’ve missed out on a lot of pop culture by being involved with something else at the time it was popular. I was soaking up Top-40 music like a sponge between 1967 and 1975, so I missed progressive rock and the first wave of heavy metal groups. When disco happened, I started collecting and researching '40s, '50s and '60s music. When I came up for air from that, punk was already dead and synth-pop was current. It didn’t appeal to me, and I started filling in the gaps in my record collection. I was an oldies DJ for awhile, but the style has become obsolete. Now you must play music that you can “scratch” during, and I’m totally out of that loop. I lost interest in popular music in the late ‘80s, and have heard nothing of it since. I compose and play my own music, and have recorded other peoples’ music for them, but I’ve grown out of the demographic to which currently popular music is being marketed. It’s not a total loss - I’ve got 12,000 records and CDs to listen to.

Just think, I’ve never heard a note sung by Madonna, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Metallica, Eminem, Marilyn Manson… you name it, I’ve never heard it, and don’t much care to.

To quote John Lennon: “I’ve become my parents. I have my period and I’m sticking with it. I like rock and roll, and not much else.” I don’t see that as a bad thing.

28

That was you two rows in front of me?? Small world!
I haven’t seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, either, but my wife and daughter have and want to see it again, so I guess I’ll be renting it soon.

Also: I have never seen any of The Matrix movies, nor do I have any desire to.

29

I haven’t seen MBFGW either. I also haven’t seen Titanic, any of the Matrix movies, or much else. I go to the movies for Harry Potter or Stephen King and that’s about it. (Saw Robin Hood w/Costner and Alan Rickman for the first time last night. Rickman was good.)
I never heard “Hey Ya” until I heard so many people talk about it, I searched it out. Color me unimpressed.
I listen to audio books in the car, and I don’t watch much TV, so I miss out on most new music and trends. I actually keep up with the most important news events by reading the SDMB!

30

I spent several summers working at Concordia Language Villages, and the programs there are full immersion programs for the kids, and pretty much for the counselors, too, since we rarely got off the camp site in northern Minnesota.

So I come back from camp one August, and I’m in the car and some song comes on, that I hadn’t heard. It sucked, don’t remeber what it was. But then my friend said, “at least it’s not as bad as the macarena…” I said “the what-arena?”

I was blessed by missing that phenomenon almost completely.

When I came back to the states from Norway, in summer 1990, all my friends kept saying “Stop! Hammertime.” I didn’t get the joke for the longest time.

31

Somehow, despite being a Meatloaf and general rock ‘n’ roll fan and a sophomore in high school in 1979, I completely missed Paradise by the Dashboard Light. I didn’t have the album Bat out of Hell, but plenty of my friends did, and it seems I know all the OTHER songs. Why didn’t I heard Paradise? Was I always in the bathroom when it came on?

Similarly, in 1988 I listened to the radio almost exclusively, yet somehow failed to miss Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns and Roses. (Not a bad thing, actually.) But I can’t see how I listened to so much radio and never seemed to hear that damn song.

32

Neither do I. Evidently, this is another MPCR** that I missed out on. 'Splain please?
**Missed Pop Culture Reference

33

I was pretty much oblivious during the 80’s. Most of it wasn’t my fault though as I was only born in '80.
I have never seen Valley Girl, any Rambo movies, Risky Business, Top Gun and most other “great” movies of the '80. I finally saw Flashdance and The Dark Crystal after I hit my 20’s.
As for other things I’ve missed:
The shuttle exploding (did it explode or crash?)
The whole Berlin Wall thing. I still have no clue what the problem in Berlin was, other than the fact that there was a wall.
The first Gulf War
Lennon dying (at least I have an excuse for this. I was only 10 months old)
That president before Bush.
The only thing I know about Oliver North was the fact that my mom had a crush on him.
Pretty much every other notable event between 1980 and 1992.

I did see Labrynth when I was very young so I’m not a total lost cause.

If it wasn’t a book, I didn’t care.

34

My sister Katina used to live withing walking distance of the original Krispy Kreme, and regularly went there for breakfast. She had no idea it was popular (or even existed, outside of this one) until she heard one of my geek friends refer to it as “Mecca” when we were visiting.

35

It’s a lyric from M.C. Hammer’s first and biggest hit, U Can’t Touch This. The chorus consists of the song’s title rapped once each two bars over the groove from Super Freak. The fourth time, instead of saying, yet again, that I can’t touch this, he switches it up and says, "STOP–

and get this, this is SO FREAKING ORIGINAL, the music STOPS…

–Hammer time!" and then we get another thirty-two bars of the hook from Super Freak with M.C. Hammer rapping over it. It was unforgettable, but immediately became cliché and was never cool again. M.C. Hammer released one (two?) more albums and then faded rapidly into the obscurity from whence he came, like a primordial slug giving up on evolution.

36

So, which one of you was throwing the popcorn at Labrynth? It must have been you or AmyG, cause it sure as heck wasn’t me!

Tell me it wasn’t AmyG’s grandmother, please.

37

EXCUSE ME?

What pop culture did I miss out on? This whole “80s music sucks” thing that seems so popular these days. :rolleyes:

38

I can attest that it was a big hit in 1979. I was a senior in high school, and our class song during Spirit Week used that tune to sing “We are the seniors at S - V - H - S…”

The one I feel fortunate to have halfway missed is the song Ice, Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. I don’t think I had ever heard the words (I can’t bring myself to say “lyrics” to that) to it when Vanilla Ice was being an ass about it on “The Surreal World.”

I did recognize the bass line to it, though. I had heard it over and over again (at ridiculous volumes and at ridiculous times at night) when I was in grad school and lived upstairs from a 3 bedroom apartment of undergraduate guys who liked to get drunk and crank it up.

39

My 57 year old dad is much, much, much cooler than me when it comes to popular music. My mom told me a while ago that his new favorite band is the White Stripes, whom I have only heard once, when they were guest artists on SNL.

Usually I’m pretty up to date on general reference, though. But I did my junior year of college (1998-1999) in the Middle East and completely missed the first Matrix movie. And I mean, I completely missed it. It was on HBO when I came back to the US, and my mom was all, “Oh, the Matrix, have you seen that?” I had never even heard of it. I guess it a giant hit in the US. Now I quite like the first movie and have the DVD, but I totally missed whatever hype there was.

40

Ok, congodwarf, having been born in Nov 1979, I find myself in the role of the older, wiser generation instructing the young leaders of tomorrow.

I have never seen Valley Girl, any Rambo movies, Risky Business, Top Gun and most other “great” movies of the '80. I finally saw Flashdance and The Dark Crystal after I hit my 20’s.

Aside from Dark Crystal, which is not horrible, but not as good as Labyrinth, these movies all suck. Don’t bother.

The shuttle exploding (did it explode or crash?)

It done blowed up real good. Ronald Reagan (q.v.) pushed NASA to launch the Challenger shuttle in very cold temperatures (yes, even though it was in Florida) because Christa McAuliffe was going to be the first Teacher in Space (insert reverb effect here). I can’t believe you haven’t heard of this, as it happened in early '86, and I thought that every schoolkid was watching on television. I mean, Teacher in Space-ace-ace-ace-ace…

*The whole Berlin Wall thing. I still have no clue what the problem in Berlin was, other than the fact that there was a wall. *

Ok, I can understand not remembering the whole Berlin Wall thing, as I don’t actually remember it happening. Talking about it in Social Studies (Hi Ms. Bollinger!) the next week, yes, but not the occurance itself. As for the whole problem in Berlin, after World War II (tagline: Just when you thought it was safe to invade France…) the Allies divided Berlin into four sections, one each to the Americans, British, French and Russians. The first three of these sections came to be basically the same, as I understand, but the last ended up as East Berlin. The reason there was a problem is that West Berlin was essentially an island in the middle of East Germany, which was affiliated with the Soviet Union (the bad guys from the Cold War). So they built a wall around West Berlin, if I recall correctly to starve them out. Anyway, shortly thereafter we have the Berlin Airlift, where the West drops tons of food and supplies into the city, and the Russkies eventually give up, but the wall stays. This makes it very difficult to sneak into the West and get away from Communism, what with the barbed wire and machine guns.

The first Gulf War and Lennon I assume you’ve read up on

That president before Bush.

You mean Ronald Reagan. Mr. I Think I Don’t Remember himself. This one is tied to Mr. Ollie North, by the way, so you might want to pay attention. See, back in the '80s the U.S. had this sweet deal going to support the Contras (like the video game) who were fighting the dirty commies in Nicaragua. See, Congress didn’t want to fund them, so passed laws making it illegal to send money. If you’re going to break some laws, you might as well break a lot, right? Right.

So Reagan and his boys hit upon this great idea: “We’ll sell missiles to the Iranians, nevermind that I just called them a ‘terrorist state,’ at a fantastic markup. Then we can take the money, which nobody (especially not Congress) knows we have, and give it to the poor freedom fighters in Nicaragua.”

Genius!

Oliver North was one of the guys doing coverup for this mess.
So, there you go. Glad to be able to help. :slight_smile:

Tenebras