There are many ways that we get the creative muse on: we see a live show and get inspired, we jam with a new partner and get inspired to turn it up a notch, we discover a new technique and have to beat it to death ( Me! all the time!
), we discover this new tapping instrument that lets you play bass and guitar by tapping, that kind of thing. Or we discover fractals and get addicted and have to feed our addiction with creative output. Your creative mileage will vary. And then there is Inspiration by Rage (which is a pretty cool name for a band, project, or song title. Maybe that'll be my President's Day jam this weekend!) That's when you hear something that sucks so bad, that is so awful, yet has achieved some commercial or critical success, that you fly into a rage of creativity, determined to do better than that. Sometimes you see something that is so bad but does well that it frees you up to explore your own inner suckitude. Sometimes it's a singer who can't sing, or a one-note keyboard solo, or just a silly, stupid, 3-chord song with like 8 words that tops the charts for months. And every time you hear it, you say, "I can do better than that!!!"
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My 15-year-old daughter comes to me and says that 3 of her friends are going to see a concert and she wants to go. But the concert is an hour drive away and they need me to drive. I say I'm not hanging out in the car for 3 hours while the teen girls all go to a show, and the tickets are only $14 a piece. So I say that I'll take them all, but I want to go as well. Happy to stand well away from the teen girls, all by myself, just enjoying a live show. Papa will bring his wallet, and the T-shirts and sody-pop are on me.
So I Googled the band or group or guy that they all want to see, something called "Yung Gravy." And the reaction on my face as I discovered who and what Yung Gravy is was so awesome that my daughter whipped out her cellphone and recorded a minute of my facial expressions. And now I present to you the very inspirational-by-rage-at-his-success lame-ass white no-talent rapper known as "Yung Gravy." He has two hits out, and they are the lamest, non-rapping ability things I've ever seen in my life.
This guy raps over a 1958 song by the Chordettes, that you all know, Mr. Sandman. And not the cool Metallica version either. It's just looped and he lamely raps over it and that's it. He doesn't even play on his name "Yung" which (should) rhyme with "hung" or some other rapper bragging penis thing. Come on, guy! And then you're really mixing your metaphors by making a rap ode to Mr. Clean over the Mr. Sandman song.
Yung Gravy--Mr. Clean
https://youtu.be/yx2piPUudlE
And one more to torture you with. "Hey, now I'm gonna use that Mr. Clean imagery in a different song altogether that has nothing to do with that!" says Sir Gravy. (Maybe he did this video first, and then got the Mr. Clean inspiration for the other one.)
Yung Gravy--Splash Mountain
https://youtu.be/biiu8WE4AAQ
Guy is lame, unfunny, uncreative, has his shit produced entirely by others and even then it's lame recycling of 50's showtunes and looped. He is so wack that wack is pissed that his picture is next to it in the Urban Dictionary. (Someone called my music "wack" on YouTube for not being trippy enough for him to get off on the fractals with his LSD, so it's my new favorite word).
I've never been more inspired to do vocals and especially, to attempt to rap, in my life. If this guy can get several teen girls to want to pay their dad's hard-earned money for a regional tour of the US off of two lame-ass raps over loops, then surely I can do better. Nay, it's a crime against humanity that I've allowed my better taste and insecurities to keep me from pushing my own lame-ass vocals onto the world. If he can do it, anybody can fucking do it, and I'm anybody! I mean, somebody!
So, yes, INSPIRATION BY RAGE is a very real thing, and a very real motivator. May my own suckitude inspire others to do better!
Rage Against the Mr. Clean Machine!
--Steve Sink, My Gravy Gots Lumps, Punk!
