Every NPR 'World Music' Segment Ever

He sucks

DJ Douchebag

We take you now to (Vietnam/Venezuela/Tibet/Burkina Faso) where an age old tradition is being giving new life. The music of (insert band name here) is a fusion of (traditional location’s) folk music and (lounge/“gives it a hip-hop-beat” /trance/swing/big band) to create an otherworldly new sound. With one foot in the old world, and one in the new, this music bridges the gap between history and the present.

[Cut to terrible track of music in language you can’t understand. Ideally includes guttural stops.]

We sat down with (artist with shitty foreign name) to learn more about this fascinating musical art form that is taking Vietnam and the New York underground by storm.

TERRY GROSS: Some people have criticized your commercialization of an iconic cultural art form. How do you respond to that?

[For the rest of the interview, pretend audience is actually invested in the purity of the Throat Singers of Tuva, or is upset about how it has been kept in a cultural deep freeze until this woman/bunch of dudes who listen to terrible American trance beats, saved it.]

The Radio Needs to Stop Trying so Hard

It’s always fun to learn about something new. And that’s why driving home from work last week, I was excited to tune my radio dial and hear: “Friday at 5:30! Friday at 5:30! Friday at 5:30! (the radio likes to repeat things). It’s time for a new mashup!”

“Wow a mashup!” I thought. “I’ve never heard one of those. What will they be mashing?” My guess was potatoes, as they’re the most famous mashy things of them all. I listened intently to hear how they’d broadcast a yummy food, and wondered if they’d discovered how to harness the power of carbohydrates to compete with satellite radio. Then the music started.

Ugh! Mashups aren’t delicious at all! Turns out they’re just a bunch of songs played on top of each with some guy who yells at you for not dancing hard enough. What was worse, I was already dancing as hard as I could!

Like we we’re not busy enough already, now we’ve got to listen to all our songs at the same time? And hey Mashup: maybe it isn’t such a good idea to “shake it, shake it, baby, shake it don’t stop,” when I’m already running a red-turning light just to make a left turn on Sepulveda. “No officer, I wasn’t on a cell phone, It’s just they mixed Nine Inch Nails with “Flight of the Bumblebee,” and bunch of vacuum cleaner noises and…” Then the officer starts dancing and he makes me dance and I don’t even know the same moves as him.

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m officially off the Mash Mix, and now I’m looking for better things. No more confusing fake-not-potatoes-disappointment for this guy. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll check out that new Tuesday Morning Zoo Show. I just love zebras.