THAT'S NOT MY NAME! THAT'S NOT MY NAME! THAT'S NOT MY NAME!

Yes, we heard you the first time.

I think there's something uniquely insidious about The Ting Tings. Their particular brand of ear worm indie is likely not being pitched at my demographic; somehow, I find it hard to imagine marketing folks shutting off the demo and saying, "You know who would really go for this type of immature, super-repetitive mantra-pop? Black ex-raver/industrial heads suffering from acute musical nostalgia!" The fact that this is not my type of thing should come as no surprise to anyone who has spoken to me about music at any point in my life. I get that.

Why, then, do I find myself bopping around singing, "That's not my name!" to myself at incredibly embarrassing moments? (An example: last week, this popped into my head as I was walking past coworkers on my way to coffee machine. One, a nu-bluegrass freak, looked at me incredulously and said, "Oh my God, are you singing THE TING TINGS?" I, of course, burst into tears and ran away.) I thought this song was annoying when it is was a pitiful attempt to make Whitney Houston relevant to New Jack Swing; stripping out all of the blackness and replacing it with super-safe bouncy indie-dance doesn't really help anything. However, it is forcefully, offensively catchy. Somehow, it has wormed its way deep into my subconscious and staked a claim, shouldering aside infinitely more palatable things like "The Power of Lard" and "David" and hunkering down like an embarrassing, farty uncle. I hate it, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to sing it, but I can't stop thinking about it. The whole situation is hideous and I feel helpless in the face of it; in three months, am I going to be rocking back and forth in a straitjacket muttering "and the drums, the drums, the drums, the DRUMS, the DRUMS, THE DRUMS, THE DRUMS, THE DRUMS!" while my family sobs on the other side of the padded bars?

Oh Christ, I'm humming it right now. Please pray for me.

http://www.thetingtings.com (ps: fuck off)
http://www.whitneyhouston.com/ (lol crack)
http://www.gusgus.com/ (wau, it's 1997 again)
http://www.alternativetentacles.com/bandinfo.php?band=lard (I shouldn't be as pleased that I managed to get a Lard reference in here as I am, huh)