#(I know the actual clips aren't 2005 don't @ me)

[deancasforcutie]

Wake up bro it's 2005, conspiracy theories now hitting teh interwebz are so funny haha... Threatening US democracy with fascism? Misinformation crisis led by foreign agents and artificial intelligence and our own whose "memes" distract from it all by pretending their illiterate "discourse" on tv matters/gets to deprive us of escapism and catharsis we'd sorely need? Sounds like you've been reading too much Weekly World News roflmao come on let's go watch Supernatural XD

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I have some previous posts that were about some other stuff that explain why I'm now going through my folder of Bugle clips I've saved for one reason or another, but these have nothing to do with those initial reasons, I've just found them and wanted to post them again.

First of all, am I the only person who finds myself frequently remembering the famous "confusing facts with emus" line, but forgetting its context? I feel like it's a famous line - is that wrong? I don't know why I think that, if I really have seen other Bugle fans reference it or if I just decided it was an iconic moment. But I remember the first time I heard that line, 81 episodes into the podcast, and thinking - this is the Zaltzman and Oliver sense of humour, distilled. It's also a joke that's equal parts Zaltzman-type humour as Oliver-type humour, even though it was just John who said it.

So now, when I'm going about my business in the real world, if the concept of "facts" comes up, I frequently find myself thinking - though not saying out loud - "You are once again confusing facts with emus." But when I remember that line, I don't usually think of the context that was around it:

And I also came across this post again, which I have definitely posted at least a couple of times before, but I'm sorry, I need to do it again. And I need to again tell my story, that I know something about this song!

Okay, okay, here's the thing about this song. And I've known this since long before I listened to The Bugle. I used to be really into following country music blogs - actual country music. Blogs by people who, like me, were fans of country music and significant anti-fans of pop music incorrectly marketing itself and country. The same way I feel about "professional wrestling". If you want to make entertainment that I don't enjoy for people who aren't me, then fine, whatever, go ahead and do that. But don't give it the same name as a thing I do like, especially if your thing is going to have far more broad mass appeal, to the point where it'll become the first thing most people think of when they hear that name. Leaving me saying "I like [thing] - no, no, not the commercialized manufactured bullshit that's also called [name of thing] and was was your first thought when I mentioned it, I mean the actual [thing]. Why the fuck do I have to clarify that? Why can't the people who make a completely different thing just give their thing a different name?"

Anyway. I hate "pop country" music quite a lot, far more than I hate other music that I'm just not into, but that doesn't call itself by the same name as music I am into. And I used to be really into blogs by other people who felt the same way.

I learned from those blogs about Jamey Johnson, the singer who put out a country album - an actual country album - that was very good, they thought. Or at least, it seemed good. It sounded good. It sounded like country music, and it sounded like good music. However, it was financed with the money that Jamey Johnson had made by co-writing a song called Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, and selling that song to Trace Adkins.

There was actually a huge debate in the country music blogs at the time, around 2006, and then again in 2008 when he released another album. Everyone asking - can we trust this guy? How could we trust this guy? He must be lying to us, claiming to be into country music. A spy, a traitor. I remember reading blog posts that would pick apart his lovely, quite traditional country songs, pointing out anything that could be read as secret signs of pop-country influence, to prove he was lying.

By the time he released his third album of lovely, proper country music, the controversy had mostly died down, and most people accepted him as a country singer. He did what he had to do. He wrote one shit song in 2005, and that gave him the freedom to make good stuff without worrying about money. Honestly, I'm surprised you don't see that sort of thing more often. I'm surprised I even associate this story in particular with Jamey Johnson, rather than it being so common that I don't even have any one name especially associated with the concept of people who write awful "pop country" songs so they can make good country albums. I'd probably do it, if I had that kind of talent.

Jamey Johnson is an absolutely beautiful singer and songwriter. The song Honky Tonk Badonkadonk was written by a guy who also wrote this:

He also wrote this, which have lyrics that go into the issues with commercialism and the tension between going along with it when he had to before ultimately rejecting it:

So that's the thing I know about Honky Tonk Badonkadonk. It actually caused a huge schism in country music blogs in 2006, with people disagreeing about whether they should accept Jamey Johnson as a legitimate country singer despite his previous resume. And I, as a teenager reading them all, was firmly on the side of "we can't hold a grudge against someone who did what he had to do to get this done, especially as that is far from the worst moral compromise I've ever seen someone make in purist of a greater goal." He made enough money to afford to make less commercially successful music. And then wrote several songs, including the two I posted above, explaining why he needed to do that.

Anyway, Honky Tonk Badonkadonk then became a running joke on The Bugle, starting in the audio clip I posted above from the last episode of 2009, but they continued to reference it for years. The frequently referred to it as being "by Trace Adkins", and never mentioned that Trace Adkins did not actually write the song. It's fairly silly that that annoys me, because I'm pretty sure Jamey Johnson doesn't want to be credited for that song. But still. The inaccuracy bugs me.

One reference I definitely did not get the first time I heard that Bugle clip is learning that that stupid song went around the Chocolate Milk Gang because Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn sent it to Andy Zaltzman, who sent it to John Oliver. All with insufficient information about who wrote it. Come on, guys? Do you really think Trace Adkins would be smart enough to write lyrics like "Lord have mercy, how'd she even get those britches on?/with that honky tonk badonkadonk/now honey you can't blame her for what her mama gave her"? Obviously it took a genius to write that.