Today is national hot dog day, a celebration of perhaps the most American of food items, and a time for everyone to enjoy their "tube steaks" in whatever way they prefer (your correspondent, from Cincinnati, prefers his with chili, cheese and mustard). Although there aren't very many losers when it comes to eating hot dogs...there are plenty of losers when the food item gets tossed into music. Here are five examples of musicians failing to find musical inspiration in America's favorite pork byproduct, from Limp Bizkit to LMFAO.
"Hot Dog" by Elvis Presley (1957)
Elvis Presley was one of the most influential creators of popular music in history. His role as an actor was not nearly as acclaimed, although quite a bit of the problem could be explained by how vapid the plots were that Hollywood bigwigs presented to the rock 'n' roller with. One of the problems with writing a film for Presley to star in was coming up with new music for him to play as well...after all, nearly every role he took on required at least a few onscreen performances. There were some that were real-life singles, of course, but also a load of throwaway tracks that had no place on an honest record. "Hot Dog" was one of those for Presley. His second film, Loving You, featured Presley as an up-and-coming country-western performer. That career would have been shot down dead if he had to rely on tracks such as "Hot Dog" to get it done. You can see it in the apathetic playing of his band in the clip below, as well as in his own relatively bored performance.
"Hot Dog" by The Archies (1969)
You can argue that listing a song by a cartoon kitsch band is slightly unfair, but we're not taking any mercy on The Archies, a band inspired by the classic comic of the same name. There were plenty of such acts during the '60s, but at least The Monkees were a band in its respective media as well, and not just a commercial product spun off of an otherwise unmusical comic (and Jughead as a drummer? Please. He's such a bassist). Oh, right, but the song: Although everything turned out by The Archies should be ignored by society as a whole, this song is about as bad as it gets. We also found a Mickey Mouse and friends song about hot dogs but at least that was aimed at small children, not high-schoolers.
"Hot Dog" by Led Zeppelin (1979)
Led Zeppelin was not at the top of its game come 1979. Although some have given In Through The Out Door a more positive review in retrospect thanks to track such as "In The Evening" and "All My Love," it's largely a disappointment in comparison to the band's earlier successes. In defense of "Hot Dog," the song was written as absurdly as it sounds for the sake of making fun of Texas, but if you've gotten to that point in your career where you haven't got anything else to throw on a seven-track album, maybe it's time to quit. The band took a rockabilly approach to the track, with lyrics that were meant to indicate the simplicity of the Texan mind, with the title indicating the enjoyment of the American standard that Brits so enjoy (they like hot dogs about as much as they enjoy American beer). Plant would note during live performances that he "won't go back to Texas anymore."
Chocolate Starfish and Hot Dog Flavored Water by Limp Bizkit (2000)
If any disgrace were brought upon hot dogs by a musical act, it has to be Limp Bizkit's magnum opus, Chocolate Starfish and Hot Dog Flavored Water, which can be broken down into three essential parts: A) The concept of hot dog-flavored water is gross, B) the weird, Gollum-like characters on the cover of the album seem to be living in a nest made of hot dogs, further unsettling our stomachs and C) the track "Hot Dog," in which Fred Durst describes everything from the "f*cked up world" to "f*cked up AIDS from f*cked up sex" as, you guessed it, "f*cked up." You laugh now, but this was the fastest-selling rock album in nearly a decade and is still among this millennium's bestsellers. Shame on us all.
"Hot Dog" by LMFAO
Odds are that you won't be seeing special deluxe versions of LMFAO's two-album discography in the future. So if you want to hear the rarities and B-sides from the hip-hop duo's extensive catalogue, you'll need to buy the international version of 2011's Sorry For Party Rocking. That's where you'll find the gem "Hot Dog," as it didn't receive an American release. The song serves as a spinoff of "Sexy and I Know It," the single that somehow made it to no. 1 on the Hot 100. RedFoo and SkyBlu reminded us during that track that they work out...but this release reveals that they aren't shy about grabbing a loaded hot dog from a street vendor after a night out the club. The moral: You can eat delicious food and still be sexy (and know it).
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