The 00's Novelty Problem

No pants, no inclusion.

There weren't a whole lot of tectonic shifts in the aesthetic movement of pop in the 00's (there were plenty of shifts, they just didn't feel tectonic from where I was standing), but there were structural shifts in how it was consumed, processed, paid for. And there was also a shift in how novelty got to flaunt its stuff on the charts, I think, perhaps collateral damage of the Ceiling Falling in the latter half of the decade. With fewer enormous record-smashing (in any meaningful way) successes, it became harder to tell exactly how to distinguish between what might feel like novelties and what undeniably WERE novelties.

It's interesting to compare from one side of the decade to the other. In 2000, Dynamite Hack were acoustic schlubbers doing (ambiguously condescending) gangsta rap, "Boyz in the Hood," and it was (to my 14-year-old-ish brain) kind of a big deal. It came naturally from the kinds of parody songs they did a lot on the radio at that time, like Bill Clinton singing something about blowjobs over "Sex and Candy." By the end of the decade, there seem to be acts whose raison d'etre seem to be doing ambiguously condescending gangsta shtick, from cover versions to Brokencyde. And I would really hesitate to call any of it novelty, precisely because there's so much fucking context for it.

In 2000 we had "Because I Got High," an utterly retarded minimalist near-rap singalong, and by 2004 we had, e.g., "Laffy Taffy" on top of the charts, and now we have "Turn My Swag On," an even less self-aware totally retarded near-rap singalong (with better production and more style) and there's no question that the latter isn't novelty. The former gets a tick in my book, only because it still sounds to me like the weirdest number 1 of the decade.

In 2000 we had a kiddie niche, and its nichedom in part reflected how novelty it may have been -- Britney Spears could email her heart without it being novelty, but Aaron Carter couldn't get away with beating Shaq without the label. And there's a seemingly crystal-clear difference between Britney's emails and Brittney's (Cleary, later "Nikki" of "Summertime Guys" semi-fame) I.M.'s in "I.M. Me" from 2001.

But how about the modified Kelly C. Dr. Luke-isms of Avril's "Girlfriend" or Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" or "Hot and Cold"? Or P!nk's "So What"? All practically waterboarding you with F-U-N, a not-uncommon feature of plenty of novelty songs, and none of them feel "novelty," or novel. Lady Gaga's disco sticks have to compete with Pussycat Dolls and R. Kellyisms and lord knows what else; I'd say tentatively that the 2000 "Thong Song" actually suffers a similar dilemma, but its novelty inclusion feels a lot safer than "LoveGame" or "Birthday Sex" or "Ignition."

A definition of novelty might be appropriate here. Roughly I'd say that novelty songs create their own context, either by aesthetically standing resolutely outside of their time (think Napoleon XIV or "Transfusion" or "Fish Heads") or by shamelessly reveling in its time's shallowest fads and tropes (direct parodies fall in this category, as do Disco Ducks).

And neither definition seems right. Are the Three Little Fishies in the Itty Bitty Poo "shamefully reveling in their time" or "standing resolutely outside of it?" Er, both. Neither. Whatever, it's funny, right? But that doesn't necessarily make it novelty, either.

So novelty, instead, is much like other genre work, ruling through exceptions and mutations and accidents what fits into the category in an ad hoc way; conventions change over time (when Christina Aguilera does 40's novelty, it becomes dead-in-the-water pastiche; when indie does knowing disco somehow blunts any sense of surprise). For the most part you can't play by the same rules twice, but even that's not strictly true. See: Brown, Julie or Six, Electric.

There's a specific strand of Novelty Music, that, like other capitalized versions of common phenomena, has its preservation benefits and rut-heavy pitfalls. The Dr. Demento strand of an archeology and historicization of novelty music as a Proper Thing offers both a safe haven for undeniable novelties (Weird Als and Fish Heads and Head Cheeses and Little Bitty Poos) but also to some extent puts a damper on the novel effect of it. What happens to "outsider" music when we listen to it as "insiders"? Or pretend that Star Trek jokes have a shelf life? It's a mixed bag, on the whole a good thing (in part because Demento always had a soft spot for self-made, no-budget songs, the equivalent of a MySpace trawler of the 80's in many ways) but not really a tenable definition for 00's novelty. The stuff that fits most cleanly into Demento's novelty world -- Weird Al, Jesus H. Christ -- also feel like safe choices.

In part this is because much of the best novelty of the decade was absolutely fucking filthy. When hoar-pop and strip club rap is a normative style, you have to do something really nasty, really weird, or really disturbing to stand out. "Wait (The Whisper Song)" makes it, even though it couldn't help but usher in a legit snap subgenre, Eamon's "Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back)" makes it because no one took up his call to curse out an ex via smoove R&B stylings (on the other hand, Jeremih is a testament to how nasty you could come ON to a girl in smoove R&B stylings without it seeming particularly abnormal). Tila Tequila's presence, paired with the over-the-top mock outrage of "I Love U," qualifies her for inclusion, though neither the song nor the personality alone would necessarily qualify her. Heidi Montag is just as 15-minutes (and just as despised) but her music simply isn't "novelty" by any stretch of the imagination.

I've decided to put together a 50-to-100-track compilation of novelty songs, and I find it harder to sort as I get further along in the decade. "Lip Gloss" yes, "Vans" no? Or vice versa? Or both? Do I pick a hyphy track? (Jonathan Bradley says no, and especially not "Ghost Ride It" -- I say yes, and especially "Ghost Ride It": Ghostbusters sample, self-reference of fad, description of illicit activity as instruction manual. And yet...he's right, which hyphy songs DON'T include some approximate version of that stuff?)

Which tracks do I pick by which comedy artists, whose work has never really had a rise-to-the-top consensus favorite (Flight of the Conchords, say, or Lonely Island)? I'm just choosing the ones I think are best, whereas I wouldn't necessarily choose a Julie Brown track over "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" even if I liked it more.

Which one-hit-wonders do I pick? Which dance crazes? "Soulja Boy (Crank Dat)" somehow doesn't feel right, yet I'm picking "Da Stanky Legg"? Do I need a jerkin' track? A snap track (I have one anyway)? How do I deal with Internet memes? Why doesn't it feel right to include "Chocolate Rain" but it feels imperative to include the "Numa Numa" song? Am I wrong, or is it getting a lot harder to figure out what novelty actually means? Is the world getting smaller or am I just casting a wider net?

List your theories, contradictions, and favorites below...