Today marks another stunning, flawless, amazing edition of Throwback Thursday, where we here at the Mixtape turn back time and indulge in a nostalgia-fest. Last week, we took you back to the 1990s for a brief journey through a whole bunch of tunes that we loved while in middle school and high school. We're settling back into the 1990s again as we put on our combat boots, put a smirk on our face and pop a blank tape into our VCR to videotape some "Sick Sad World." That's right, everybody! Today, we're focusing our attentions on the classic MTV series "Daria" and the music from that program. "Daria" was one of our favorite shows as a teen as MTV constantly alternated between marathons of that and "My So-Called Life." But before we get to the Daria Dance Party, let us first get to some tea!
First up, Sarah Palin is heading to the movies. As being reported by Deadline, a film is being made of the book "Game Change" that chronicled the 2008 presidental election from the viewpoint of not President Obama's victory but from the losing side of McCain and Palin. Now with this film coming to HBO, we immediately had to wonder who they were going to get to play Sarah Palin. Of course, people would want Tina Fey to trot out her hilarious impression, but this is an actual serious film. Tina Fey may be hilarious, but we'd never really call her that great of an actress. Enter Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore, who will be donning the high hair, the glasses and the accent of indeterminate origins to play the Mama Grizzly that is Sarah Palin. In a just world, they'd cast Anthony Hopkins as John McCain and Julianne Moore and he could make amends for the stinkfest that was "Hannibal."
In dirty hipster news, the CEO of American Apparel has been hit with a big ole lawsuit that is going to leave his ironic moustache all in a twist. According to Stylelist, Dov Charney has been hit with a $260 million lawsuit alleging that back in 2008 he pressured a teenage employee to perform sexual acts on him for months in order for her to maintain her job. This isn't the first time that Charney has been accused of skeezy behavior as five years ago Dateline did a whole report on the antics that go on at American Apparel. The reporters at Dateline got a hold of deposition tapes when Charney was being sued for sexual harassment and the tapes had gems like this quote about American Apparel's underwear and his way of marketing them:
Charney (in deposition tape): I frequently drop my pants to show people my new product
And Charney also gave his view on the word "slut."
If American Apparel and Charney lose this lawsuit, we imagine their leggings are going to get even more over-priced than they are now.Fink (deposition): Did you ever, at work, refer to women as “sluts”?
Charney: In private conversations, where such language was generally welcome.
Fink: Do you view "slut" to be a derogatory term?
Charney: You know, there are some of us that love sluts. You know, it’s not necessarily—it could be also be an endearing term.
Fink: An endearing term. Is that something you call your mother?
Charney: No. But it’s maybe something that you call your lover.
In Lady GaGa news that doesn't revolve around a food group she's wearing or an artist she's ripping off for a new single, the Mother Monster has parted ways with Target after allegedly having growing concerns about Target giving money to anti-gay groups. Target released a statement saying, "We were very surprised and disappointed by the statements made by Lady Gaga’s organization related to her partnership with Target. Target remains committed to the LGBT community as demonstrated by our contributions to various LGBT organizations, our recently established Policy Committee to review our political giving and our respectful, inclusive workplace environment." GaGa, for her part, would have released a rebuttal statement but it's really hard to get an Internet connection while inside an egg.
And that's tea for today. Now let us keep reading and get our "Daria" on!
Oh "Daria," how we loved you and your snarky little program on MTV. Running on the network from 1997-2002, "Daria" would never fit into current MTV landscape as a lot of the trademarks of the programming now---vapid kids being assholes to each other while wearing fashionable clothes---were exactly the things that "Daria" went about deconstructing in hilarious and smartly written ways for years. First given life as a background player on the stupid/genius program "Beavis and Butthead," Daria soon found herself moving to the screwy town of Lawndale along with her pretty sister Quinn, her Type-A mother Helen and her perpetually befuddled father Jake. Over the course of five years, Daria lived, loved, laughed and broke out into song with her main cohort Jane Lane while trying to survive the cray cray Miss Lee's reign as principal at Lawndale High. Today, we celebrate the wonderful soundtrack that was on the original run of the show and has been cut in a lot of places on the DVDs that were thankfully released last year.
And where better to begin than with the theme song:
As done by the band Splendora, the theme music was the perfect bit of dry wit that totally matched the tone of the show. Splendora also made the awesome tune for the first "Daria" TV-Movie "Is It Fall Yet."
One of our favorite episodes of the show was in season 2 when Daria and Jane had to make a film and decided to make a documentary of Quinn.
Daria, contrary to her nature and helped by a little guidance by her mother, can't go through with the total hatchet job of Quinn that she had intended. The ending montage of Quinn being all gloriously vapid while put to the music of the Go-Go's is a personal favorite. Below, the tune "Beautiful."
"Daria" had a very wide-ranging and almost always pitch-perfect soundtrack, something that you'll sadly not know if you only watch the recently released DVDs of the show has a large majority of the music has been replaced because it'd cost an arm, a leg and one of Snooki's poofs for MTV to have paid the rights for all of it. And while "Daria" liked to expose its audience to a huge spectrum of music, there were particular artists that they had a particular affinity for on the program.
On a show like "Daria," it's no surprise that Fiona Apple's first album "Tidal" was all over the place like her tune "Sleep to Dream"
Or "Shadowboxer."
We loved every bit of Fiona Apple's pretentious body when we were in high school as her music was the perfect background to all of our growing pains angst. Plus, we at least knew that we would never act as cray cray as she did on the MTV VMAs while accepting an award.
Anyway, the next artist is Jamiroquai. The people behind "Daria" really seemed to get a kick out of the house/disco vibe that they put down. Long before Mr. Dynamite was shaking his groove thing to "Canned Heat," the various characters from "Daria" were entering and leaving scenes to the sounds of things like "Cosmic Girl"
Or "Alright."
Before he was off being one of the voices of Gorillaz, Damon Alborn was fronting the band Blur, who found themselves frequently used on the show. We remember when Blur and Oasis were part of the big wave of British acts that washed ashore on American radio. If you had some sort of accent, they'd give you at least one spin. In the great Blur vs. Oasis war, we were at the time more fans of Oasis because "Wonderwall" is still a gorgeous love song but in retrospect we love the snotty quality to Blur with songs like "Boys and Girls"
And the inescapable "Song 2"
Beck was also an artist that was frequently used on "Daria." Only on 1990s radio could somebody like Beck spring up and be embraced as not some insider-y hipster artist but legit mainstream. We still occasionally listen to the fantastic "Odelay" album that featured songs like "New Pollution"
Or "Where It's At."
Another act that was all over "Daria" was Garbage. The band debuting a special version of their video for their song "Breaking Up the Girl" during the final episode of "Daria."
We miss this period of time when women like Shirley Manson of Garbage and Gwen Stefani of No Doubt were top icons of pop music. We used to obsessively listen to both "Tragic Kingdom" and "Return From Saturn" as a teen.
And who could forget the magic of "Simple Kind of Life."
We interrupt this mix with a history lesson from Mr. Anthony DeMartino.
Thank you so much Mr. DeMartino. Now back to the music! A lot of the "Daria" soundtrack was filled with 1990s one-hit wonders like Imperial Drag and their T-Rex rip-off "Boy or a Girl."
Or the gender-bending tune "Your Woman" by Whitetown, a tune that utterly confused my father every time we heard it in the car on z93.
The girl power of the group Bewitched:
You got to adore a girl group comprised solely of four Sporty Spices.
The trance of Sonique and her "Feels So Good."
Or the HOW THE HELL DID THIS EVER BECOME POPULAR that was Jimmy Ray:
Our love for "Daria" will always be unending as she will always be the wise observer we aspire to be. As always, we wish you love, peace and downloads! BRING ON THE ENDING CREDITS FROM DARIA.
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