Besides my currently functioning laptop, I have an old Gateway laptop that was my high school graduation present from my parents. If I had to give an approximate breakdown of its lifetime usage, it would be:
10%- Writing papers & speeches about the '92 Dream Team and/or Tupac faking his own death
10%- Sending 5,000-word emails full of mostly bullshit to keep Easy E, ADawg, and their squad entertained while they were in Iraq
80%- Downloading music
The vast majority of my songs on this laptop were downloaded freshman year of college, back in the days when you'd queue up about 30 songs to download before you went to bed, then wake up in the morning to a brand new cache of hot jams, for free! All you kids out there legitimately purchasing your music on iTunes nowadays, don't get it twisted-- illegally pirating music was fucking awesome.
This old laptop has been dying for a few years now. Even when it's plugged in, I can only get it to turn on every few months or so, and it only stays on for about 15 minutes, during which I make a mad dash to scroll through my old Morpheus/Kazaa/Limewire to steal as many songs as I can before the computer quits. During my latest run-through, I was taken aback at how much shitty music I had on there.
Before we go over some of my favorite finds, a disclaimer: Some of the rubbish can be explained by the fact that everyone always downloaded songs on each other's computers during dorm room parties....kinda like STD's for a laptop. So I'm sure I only downloaded most, not all, of the following examples-- but the fact remains, they're still on my computer. So at the very least, I didn't go and buy the MP3 version of the special shampoo for crabs, for which I need to take some blame. ANYWAY....
- My collection of Nelly songs- Country Grammar, Batter Up, Hot in Herre, #1, etc.
(Don't worry, this is the SFW version, not because I care about curse words in your place of employment, but because I want you to hear one of my favorite radio edits of all time, right in the opening three seconds. HOTDISH!)
Nelly didn't age well for me personally, as I made my transition to hip-hop snob (we'll get to that later.) When it comes to "Party" rap, which sets up an entirely different evening than Gangsta Rap, I'm not sure why I gave Ludacris a pass, but started referring to Nelly as a little bitch (nevermind, I remember why.) Regardless, I hadn't listened to Nelly in years, and some of songs were pretty sweet upon re-listening. Country Grammar is just a straight-up fantastic Party Rap song. And thanks to Nelly, I wore a band-aid on my cheek on more than one occasion for Halloween. So there's that.
- Debbie Does Dallas theme song
We went through a phase freshman year during which we would download songs from some of our favorite pornos. I blame Lane and his roommate, the incomparable Logan Stoner.** To this day I still think this song is baller, even when you're not watching Bambi Woods get railed in a sporting goods store. I was listening to this song the other day while I was shaving, Teens heard it from the other room, and we had this exchange:
Teens: What is this?
Me: The theme song from Debbie Does Dallas...
Teens, deadpan: What.
Me: Pretty cool bass line, isn't it?
~ Teens walks away ~
Me: Hey, you could've said no when I proposed! This is your life now!
**Normally I don't use real first and last names on the blog so you can't get put on blast by Google, but I want Logan to google his own name, read this, and somehow have it lead to him hanging out with us again. What a tremendous random roommate he turned out to be for Lane. I lived with Paul in the dorms, so we knew it would be awesome, not to mention homoerotic. We took the element of chance out of the equation; signing up for a random roommate was a risk we didn't want to take. Sometimes it didn't work out, like when Russell got the kid with three first names that studied all the time and sneered at us every time we tried to get him to put down the books and come party with us, but sometimes.... sometimes you got lucky like Lane and drew a magnificent bastard like Logan Stoner. Holler at me, Logan.
- Prozzak- www.nevergetoveryou
Presented without comment.
- Pink- Get The Party Started
A girl that I had a crush on at various points in college LOVED this song when I was a frosh and she was a sophomore, ipso facto, I loved it too. Paging Dr. Ikes. Dr. Yee Ikes, you have a telephone call up front.
- R. Kelly- 'Ignition'
Somewhere along the way, I turned into a hip-hop snob. It's important for me to stumble across songs like this one, or 'The Thong Song', or anything by Ja Rule, and remember that I wasn't nearly as cool as I later portrayed myself to be when arguing about the state of rap music. On the other hand....
- Lil Bow Wow- Bounce With Me
....If I was always cool, I might not have songs as delightfully brutal as this one.
- John Mayer- Your Body is a Wonderland
One of my least favorite songs of all time. I hate John Mayer with a burning passion. I don't even care that he was on Chappelle's Show once, fuck that guy. However, this song did give our friend group a great running joke for a few months:
"James, grab me a beer while you're up!"
"I'd be happy to, Fundy. I mean, your body IS a wonderland and all."
or
"Ike, we're not ordering Chinese, you know I hate that shit. Let's get pizza."
"Quit being such a pussy all the time and just eat Chinese for once."
"Screw you, I just hate Chinese food, it's the one thing I won't eat!"
"Hey, can I tell you something right now without you getting angry at me?"
"WHAT!"
"Your body....it's a wonderland."
- Brutal Songs, HOT GIRL DIVISION:
Kylie Minogue- Can't Get You Out of My Head
Nelly Furtado- I'm Like a Bird
Shakira- Whenever, Wherever
Goodness gracious, I hadn't thought about Shakira in a while. Do you guys remember when she was gloriously released to the world? My wet dreams do.
- Man, I Loved Ruining Songs For People Sometimes (And Still Do)
Fuel- Hemorrhage (In My Hands)
I think this song sucked, but a lot of people loved it. I have very fond memories of singing this chorus as loud as I possibly could, not knowing the words and not caring, and annoying the crap out of people. If you made a list of activities that I enjoyed the most in calendar year 2002, and I'm kinda spitballing here, it would probably look something like this:
1. Getting drunk
2. Getting laid
3. Playing Madden
4. Ruining that stupid Fuel song while my friends are trying to enjoy it
5. Arts & Crafts
"LEE LA BLEE DA IN MY HANDS! IN MY HANDS AGAINNNNNN! LEEEEE LA BLEEEE DAAAAA IN MY HANDS!" Classic.
- Songs That I Have Ripped On For Over a Decade, Only To Just Now Realize That They've Been On My Computer This Entire Time:
Crazy Town- Butterfly
Nickelback- How You Remind Me
Creed- Higher
If my old laptop never turns on again, at least he gave me one last gift. Sleep well, sweet prince.
