Triple Threat: OMC, House of Pain, Deep Blue Something

OMC - How Bizarre

SCORE: 98

House of Pain - Jump Around

SCORE: 102

Deep Something Blue - Breakfast at Tiffany's

SCORE: 70




_________________________________________________________________

The 90's were a great time for music, and one hit wonders. The New Zealand sensation OMC, otherwise known as Otara Millionaires Club, released their hit "How Bizarre" in 1996. The song made them worldwide superstars, at least for a little while.

The song is full of fun and real situations that could happen to anyone just driving around a day in the summer. There is a ton of imagery in the first stanza "Brother Pele....Chevy '69'"; and the humor of the cop pulling them over just to look at the car is very comical.

Ambiguity can be seen in the second stanza with the line "Destination unknown,"; this showing that they are just hanging out, having a good time, and don't know where they wanna go that day. The allusion to the animals, "Elephants and acrobats, lions snakes monkey", give a slight allusion that they might be going to a circus. The continues with the allusions to the "ring master", "the elephants" and "the clowns".

Later in that same stanza, it talks about how there were police and reporters and choppers in the sky at the circus. This imagery causes us to believe that something went wrong. This idea is reinforced when say " 'We're outta here,' ". The song leaves on a cliffhanger saying "Wanna know the rest? Hey, buy the rights..."

The ambiguity at the end must have been enough for the fans of OMC to help catapult them onto charts for a short 16 week stint.

_________________________________________________________________

Another song that helped us all move a bit more in the 90's is the dance hit "Jump Around" by House of Pain. The Irish styled hip-hop group was together from 1992-1996. They went on to make more CDs and each member also went solo, but nothing was able to match the success of their 90's hit.

It starts as a rap battle in the first stanza, each person in the song calling each other out. They talk about beating each other up and such, and then it starts to show its real literary value. He first says "I got more rhymes than there's cops that are dunking/Donuts shop". This is a great metaphor, but also a great play on words. If you put the last word of the first line and the first word of the second line together; you get the breakfast tycoon "Dunking Donuts".

The second stanza also adds more literary devices. He starts by saying "I'll serve your ass like John MacEnroe". A great simile and also a perfect allusion to the anger that Mr. MacEnroe was known for showing on the court. He also brings in the Good Book in for some more allusion action; "I got more rhymes than the Bible's got psalms/and just like the Prodigal Son I've returned". He is making references, almost saying that he is the greatest person of all time! After that he later makes reference to pig's as cops and then Terminator's ("Arnold Schwarzenegger").

Even though many parts of this song are crude and rude, The House of Pain was able to throw in many literary devices and score high on our song rating system.

________________________________________________________________

The 90's single "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was inspired by the classic Audrey Hepburn movie, which was as big a hit as this song was. Deep Something Blue released this song in 1996 and was able to stick around in our ears for a while, since this song is still a regular on most radio stations.

The main motif in the song is the idea of an imminent breakup of a boyfriend and girlfriend. The boyfriend struggles to find the one thing that they have in common. The only thing he can come up with is the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's". The song reflects the movie itself, almost making it an entire allusion to the plot of the movie. In the movie, the main character, Holly, is passing codes for the mob and is an eccentric socialite that fends off boys and so on. However, the song was actually inspired by a completely different movie, Roman Holiday, as stated by the writer. As shown by the score, the song lacks a lot of important literary devices and is actually a very sub par song.