Today’s strip FINALLY gets to the point, if indirectly and dishonestly. Despite his protesting, Crazy doesn’t really want to be hip… He’s not sad that he doesn’t have the time or energy to keep up with what’s popular on the radio Spotify these days, he’s sad that listening to new music would require a modicum of effort from him. He’s sad because he has decided he wouldn’t enjoy listening to anything new even though he hasn’t even tried.
In short, he’s sad that what’s “hip” doesn’t conform to what he already likes.
Well if that isn’t this comic strip in a nutshell…
Son of Stuck Funky 
Well, Artificial Hip wasn’t even on the odds chart, so if you bet on that you’ll be cleaning up.
With his melancholy “hipochondriac” should have been in the running.
There’s still Saturday.
That’s a horrific thought.
In short, Crazy Harry listens to music to impress people. Well, hipless, hipless hooray for him!
Funny how you didn’t have any problem with playing an artificial guitar back in the day, Crazy.
The naturally grown guitars of Andalusia are much richer sounding.
Yeah, what he’s saying here is that complaining about not being hip was pretty much bullshit, as he doesn’t even really care in the first place. Way to totally obliterate yet another reasonable premise there, Pulitzer (nominee) Boy. “Crazy tries to get into contemporary popular music” is a premise plenty of “writers” could run with, but BatYarn opted to go with (drum roll) absolutely nothing instead. Everyone is exactly where they were when it started.
It’s amazing how the story’s climax is to undercut itself. If these unfunny “hip” jokes needed to run at all, it should have been one or two days in a miscellaneous week.
Batiuk’s insistence on six-day arcs is another useless conceit that an editor should have stopped long ago. He refuses to reject any ideas, and then insists on making everything fit into a rigid schedule. This is a recipe for poorly-written filler, and this week is a perfect example.
This would be a decent punchline if we hadn’t been subjected to 4 days of Harry & Funky blathering about boomer-defined “hipness” 😑
So Harry’s conclusion is “I’d be a fraud so what’s the use”? I guess TomBa would characterize this as coming to terms with aging but “What’s the use” could be the subtitle of the entire FW enterprise. The constant theme is one of negativity and failure.
Negativity, failure, and just plain giving up. I’m going to fail anything I try so why bother? When Funky Winkerbean isn’t holding up whiny quitters as tragic heroes (I’m looking at you, Lisa), it’s handing out cabinets full of awards to talentless hacks who never put in a drop of effort (Les, Dinkle, Pete, Darrin, Batton Thomas, Lillian, Mason Jarre, and probably others).
Batiuk’s just intentionally trolling us at this point, isn’t he? “I’ll give them half-assed stories, and then completely undercut even that minuscule effort! That’ll learn ’em.”
Hey Crazy, you know what is really hip? Liking what you like because you like it and forget what the rest of the world likes.
If you held a gun to my head and demanded I list 10 popular songs from the last 10 years, I would fear for my life. I could probably do it, but it would take forever. And I’m not even THAT old.
Come on Crazy, get CRAZY. Say something actually insane like, “Music peaked after Savage Garden’s first album, and I’ve never seen the need to listen to a single song released since then.”
Because I feel the same way about The Eagles ‘Long Road out of Eden’.
I guess this means Harry is a HIPocrite.
This might make a modicum of sense if Harry were trying to impress some specific person or group of people with his hipness. But he’s not. He isn’t even trying to broaden his musical horizons. He’s just whining mindlessly to a dimwitted pizza guy.
Also, great post title, BTS!
Why does Batiuk think that “current” and “hip” are synonymous? There are plenty of popular contemporary music acts that Old Man Klinghorn could immerse himself in, but knowing the latest chart-toppers from BLT, Blue Bunny, Marinara Grande, Olivia Rodriguez, or Rizzo (I got those names right, didn’t I?) doesn’t mean Harry’s cutting-edge, just that he’s following trends. This entire arc has been nothing more than TB thinking that continually mixing up the anatomical noun “hip” and the artistic adjective “hip” is innately hilarious.
This week’s arc needs hip replacement.
I figured Harry would have been a Tower of Power.
So being familiar with current music makes one “hip?” That’s it? I’m aware of some current music by hearing what my kids listen to. But it’s pretty forgettable. Their “cool” friends wear Nirvana T-shirts, not Billie Eilish. Go figure! And I haven’t heard the term “hip” since Tower of Power. And that’s 45 years ago.
Was thinking of Tower of Power this week too. They are still touring and were here in Cleveland back in March.
Or you could just… listen to contemporary music because you might enjoy some of it and thereby enrich your own life and broaden your range of experience? I’m almost 50 and I like Kpop. That does not make me hip. If anything, it accomplishes the exact opposite. But I get to listen to music I enjoy and not whine about it. Crazy could try that, but no, if it’s not for the sake of validation from others then there’s no point.
I just turned 50, and lately I’ve been listening to music mixes with “wave” in the title. Retrowave, Synthwave, Chillwave, and so forth. Even Sovietwave, despite it being a little gauche for 2022. I don’t know the difference among the styles, and don’t care much. They’re good workday music, and different enough to be interesting.
As for Harry, it’s just another example of everyone in this strip being eternally in high school. “Oh, I want to be cool again.” Which is even worse coming from Harry, because Harry never cared about being cool before. He lived his life the way he wanted, and everybody liked him for that. Now he’s fishing for validation? From Funky, the human embodiment of First World Problems?
Those frozen pizza strips were actually pretty funny! He could throw a pizza on the turntable to get his groove back. I’ll even allow it could be a Montoni’s pizza, sure, whatever. That would be a cute wrapup for this, but there will be no wrapup.
Yeah, really! This story just completely ignores Harry’s past, while at the same time trying to invoke nostalgia about it.
Over the last few years, my listening habits have been formed using an app, like Shazam, to identify a song I like. The tune could have been discovered in a coffee shop or a grocery store. I’ve even used tunes from television commercials. I then find that song’s video on YouTube and turn on the autoplay function. If I like the next tune, I let it play, if not, I’ll skip it. This method has led to the discovery of several enjoyable musical groups that I probably never would have heard otherwise. My favorite music over the last few years has been Rammstein, Type O Negative (goth metal), and Project Pitchfork (dark wave). Probably not quite the list of musical groups most people would expect for a 60-year-old woman.
My husband seems set in his ways. He listens primarily to British progressive rock bands from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. He’ll go into his study (formerly known as the third bedroom), play an LP on the turntable, put on his headphones, turn off the lights and recline in his chair. If it makes him happy, who am I to judge. Has anybody here ever heard of his favorite band, Marillion?
Alternatively, I’ve encountered people who listen exclusively to songs on The Hot 100. They’ll make a playlist using that list as a guide. Listening to that music is fine by me, but using the list as justification that your taste in music is better than mine is utter nonsense. There are a lot of factors that go into the making of those lists. How do they know they’re not just listening to what the recording industry wants them to? The recording industry says, “Buy me. Buy me.” The sheep goes, “Baa baa.”
Rammstein FTW.
Rammstein was actually an out-of-left-field recommendation notification by my YouTube Music app. The recommended tune was ‘Engel (Live from Madison Square Garden)’. Oh my, the pyrotechnics. I was hooked. Let’s watch it again on the big screen in the living room.
They’re a bunch of oppressed former East Germans who grew up behind the iron curtain, cutting loose. Sometimes they do get a bit offensive. My favorite tune is probably ‘Ich Tu Dir Weh’.
Listening to Rammstein led me to Type O Negative. They’re known as the “Drab Four”, a play on “Fab Four”. If interested, see ‘Everything Dies’.
I don’t remember how I got there, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Project Pitchfork lately. For a good listen, I recommend ‘Rain’.
Also “Kayleigh” is one of the most devastating pop songs ever made. It’s a crime that it isn’t better remembered.
You’ve heard of Marillion? Cool. I can remember when my husband discovered Fish was leaving the band. He was utterly devastated. He even called off sick from work.
How about ‘Gentle Giant’? Another of my husband’s favorites. They seem to be an acquired taste for most people.
I’m totally lost on what point Batty is trying to make with this week’s arc. Lord, he’s become a ramblin’ man (apologies to the Allman Brothers).
Most people don’t care what music you listen to, and most people don’t care to hear your opinion of their music.
Whenever I think about the enjoyment of music, my mind always goes back to one specific memory. A long time ago, I was arriving for work at a time when I wasn’t particularly enjoying my job. As I exited my car in the parking lot, a tall young man walked past me in long strides, almost strutting. He had his ear phones in, and he was singing along. He noticed me looking at him. Rather than be embarrassed, he gave me a big smile and a nod of his head as if to say, “Good morning, how’s it going?” While I was looking forward to another cup of coffee, he was energized and ready to kick ass. He had a song in his heart and that made him happy.
To me, that’s what music is for. To engage your feelings and make you happy.
TB and his mouthpiece characters are stuck somewhere between boomers and hipsters. On the one hand they want to believe that their media/entertainment choices make them perceptive, enlightened and special (hipster) but on the other they want those choices to be validated by being immensely popular (boomer) which makes them no longer special and rare.
I feel as if this ties in somehow with his comic-book obsession, and possibly the Geek Social Fallacies.