Musical Schizophrenia

The FX network has been running commercials for the season premiereof The Shield this week and their main teaser features Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nail's 'Hurt'. It's a great song and it fits the show perfectly, and it continues the show's tradition of using great music, like The Von Bondies' 'Come One, Come On'.

... and then there's the other commercial. The one that uses 'Bad, Bad Man' by WWE superstar John Cena. Oh the humanity. It's like going from... well... Johnny Cash to John Cena. I really can't think of two artists that would be farther apart on the musical integrity scale. A musical legend and a wrestler that fancies himself a rapper. How bad is he? Check out these lyrics:

"Give it to me straight - ain't no chasin it
Check yourself in the mirror - ain't no facin it
Cause you, playin the role and you plannin to fold
This the masterplan, we got the planet on hold
We all over the streets like your favorite sneaker
Breakin up your sound like a drive-through speaker
Everything that I be spittin is strong
After I rock, fast forward through the rest of the song"

Lyrical genius I tell ya. Right up there with Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark, who happens to be a fine actor, but not such a great rapper.

Comments

[sirjorge wwe]

worst rap song ever, i admit it.

[joshua]

Tsk. Tsk Tsk. The song of Cena fit perfectly. You guys need to get over the stereotypes of wrestlers. Cena is a decent rapper. He's just getting flack because he's a wrestler.If people weren't so judgemental they would see it too. Wrestlers are entertainers and some of them are very versatile ( The Rock for instance.) Same goes with Cena,he actually put out an album that's better than 90% of the mainstream garbage that's out there.

Also, you are misleading with your quotes. To actually, understand the lyrics,one needs to read the whole song, not just the part you selected. You are truely biased.

[Sam Ford]

The music crossover with The Shield and Cena is an interesting one. I wrote a piece about it on the MIT Convergence Culture Cosortium Weblog here. Always enjoy your perspective, Ben, and I think your thesis, even if unpublished, added a needed perspective to the literature on pro wrestling. Next semester, my endeavor is to launch a Web site about research on pro wrestling and to include an annotated bibliography of the work that has been done, both published and unpublished. I would love to have your input or your presence on the site in some form. Hope things are going well.