The summer of 1999 – as befits the last year of the millennium – has seen American music reach the acme of its form. American music pervades the globe, providing billions of uneducated and contraceptively-challenged people with a glimpse of a glamorous world they can never attain – as well as a booty-shakin’ 120 beats per minute. It’s been this way since Elvis first gyrated his hips in 1957. Americans created it all: rock ‘n roll, doo-wop, motown, disco, R & B, techno, hip hop. In a way, it’s like evolution. Just as man evolved from a primitive ape who could hardly get a groove on into today’s species of bad-ass, ravin’ urban sophisticates, so modern American music evolved from the awkward stylings of Little Richard and Marvin Gaye into the hip flow of Green Day and No Doubt.It’s just gotten better and better. The 1960s (4 Tops, Creedence) were better than the ’50s (Elvis, Buddy Holly). The 1970s (Bee Gees, Shocking Blue) were better than the 1960s. The 1980s (Starship, Guns ‘n Roses) were, in turn, better than the 1970s. And the 1990s – Wow! It’s a great time to be alive. Turn on the radio today – to 97.9 FM, say – and you’ll realize it’s even better than it was in 1990. None of that Nirvana or Vanilla Ice crap. The past year has seen the emergence of the best of the best. We’re talking, of course, of overwhelming talent like the silicon-enhanced Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, N’ Sync, B*Witched, Dixie Chicks (for you rural types), TLC, Vitamin C, K-Ci & JoJo, 98 Degrees, and the well-endowed newcomer Christina Aguilera. When has Billboard’s Top 40 ever seen such a profusion of musical greatness? Big Al is sure that, like Michael Jackson, they will be popular for years and years.Some sobby nerd-types have accused modern music as being degenerate and unoriginal fodder served mechanically to somnolent worthless, shallow, flaky and gonorrhea-infected masses. Primarily middle school white girls – society’s lowest common denominator. Those pompous intellectuals obviously don’t know what it’s like to grind with an impressionable chick to the beat of “Genie in a Bottle.” We do.But this discussion of modern music just begs the question: Who is the Best of the Best? The answer is the hot new boy group Fresh Step. Harmon K. and Big Al saw Fresh Step perform on Letterman. They were really cool. They could do nifty dancing and wore baggy, neon clothes. And, before you ask: No. They were nothing like New Kids on the Block. Really. They are just five pretty boys from Florida who can sing in five-part soprano harmony better than anyone else. The song they were singing was their big hit: “Don’t Talk to the Hand (Girl, Talk to the Heart).”You can really hear the passion in their voices. Fresh Step isn’t faking this one. We’re sure the boys (Corey, Jeremy, Jamie, Brad and DJ) have experienced the pain of relationships they sing about.(Interesting Fact: According to the Fresh Step webpage (www.fresh-step.com), Corey’s favorite Fresh Step moment was meeting Mariah Carey.)But we can’t do justice to the music of Fresh Step. The song features no less than 13 different uses of the word “fresh.” That’s genius. Lyrics like “I was in a billion pieces, but you freshed me whole,” and “we’re only fresh together, we can’t fresh apart.” Big Al had the theme of “you’re right by my side, when fresh comes to shove” stuck in his head for days. But the best line in the entire song is this jewel: “I know all your friends / say I’m wrong for you / But I’m full of flavor / just like beef stew.”Don’t delay! Listen to the song in Real Audio at the Fresh Step webpage and call Carson Daly on MTV and demand he play Fresh Step! The boys need all the recognition they can get. We just can’t wait until their follow-up song, “Ya Gotta Be Fresh,” hits the airwaves.And we’re not making this up.
Harmon K is a senior history and zoology major and Big Al carries on into his second year of a CIS major. The Brothers Vred are from Upper Arlington.