Paula Irmschler on “Malcolm in the Middle”, “Scrubs”, The Strokes, Massive Attack, Tom Waits & more.
This morning a playlist brought A-Ha’s “Take On Me” to my attention. Heard it a thousand times, nothing happened a thousand times! The thing was completely overplayed – on radios and on indie dance floors that weren’t all that indie, far too often accompanied by something and mocked by someone. There was never a time when you could approach “Take On Me” with an open mind, to look at the number unsullied – it was always super tainted, super well known, super done. But this morning I thought: Well, man. Maybe now. Maybe for the 1001st time. Suddenly I thought: This is a pretty good song. It wasn’t enough to do more than that, I didn’t jump out of bed and dance or anything like that, but at least there was the idea that you should never stop giving things a chance that maybe a lot of people love for good reason.
Unnecessarily long preface to the topic that – as I only realized afterwards – had been bothering me all week. I didn’t really have time to consume culture. But then you only realize what’s important to you when you strike and leave everything behind. Because even though I didn’t have time, the stacks of books were piling up like monsters, my friends were getting impatient and the list of new and old films that interested me was getting longer and longer, I still found a few minutes for the suddenly most important events in the world.
The reboots of “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Scrubs”
Scream! The average Millennial who had no friends immediately feels like he’s back in the children’s or teenager’s room, the school backpack has been thrown somewhere else, the little tube TV is tingly, the biscuit packet has been torn open, Pro7 is turned on. You’re not the boss of me now, you′re not the boss of me now, you’re not the boss of me now … No, I know I’m no Superman, düdüdüdüüü, I’m no Superman!
I don’t know why or on what occasions this happened again and again, but it has become established in my head that reissues, new editions, reunions – you name it – always have to be viewed with particular skepticism. This seems to have been instilled in me by Gen-Xers who have a fetish for first times. Who always believe in very special moments where things were best at 16, the first girlfriend was always the greatest and that’s why this one record by The xyzs was the craziest ever – and the first season of Bla was of course the best, the sequel to the brilliant film was total rubbish and so on.
But when I saw the announcement of these two series sequels, there was nothing but joy in the house. And why should you be disappointed at all? Nothing is taken away from you by the old man. And the cookies taste good even if the series is bad. So I went in. Only in the new four episodes of “Malcolm…: Life’s still unfair”:
… and then into the nine new ones from “Scrubs”:
It only took a few minutes for both of them to feel the first tears in their eyes. On “Malcolm…” because Lois and Hal’s crazy sweet love affair was brought into focus the way fans wanted – the 40th wedding anniversary is coming up! -, plus a lot of completely broken, exaggerated and completely wrong things around it, perfect. And with “Scrubs” because it is so incredibly good and funny and “just like before”, but still new. “Scrubs” also focuses on one of the greatest love stories of the pop era, here that of Turk and JD, who comes back and Dr. Cox replaced. Otherwise there is a lot of melancholy, intergenerational misunderstanding and sadness.
Noughties nostalgia and political tones
I immediately fell into absolute noughties nostalgia – almost only Keane, The Fray and The Shins were playing here.
And the Strokes! Even though they weren’t on the “Scrubs” soundtrack. But at this year’s Coachella…
That alone, like Coachella in general, wouldn’t really matter to me now, even though I used to be a Strokes fan. But this performance was surprisingly political for this hollow, boring event, perhaps because of that. During their song “Oblivius,” the band had video montages playing in the background that recalled atrocities committed by the United States, particularly by the CIA, in recent decades: murders, attacks, cover-ups.
These are no longer the Strokes that I saw at the Hurricane at the end of the noughties, when Julian Casablancas ended the set with the words: “Fuck you” – and then just ran off.
Massive Attack and Tom Waits: The political pop event
Speaking of Hurricanes and Zeros: Massive Attack! I think I saw them at the same festival back then, and they already had the blatant political statements against the Western political rulers – back then they ran text boards during certain songs. I then lost sight of them for a while, but they probably remained true to themselves: in terms of being anti-war and contempt for state power. And they continue to associate with people with badass voices. Recently with Tom Waits. Not a hero of my generation, but over at Rolling Stone everything is full of him. Despite the Strokes thing, the joint song with Massive Attack called “Boots On The Ground” is, in my opinion, the current political pop event – and despite the beloved series reunions, it is the thing that has recently touched me the most.
No more words needed here, just listen to it:
What happened so far? Here is an overview of all the pop column texts.
