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67. Cell Block Tango
Source: Chicago
Villain: The Cook County Jailbirds
Nominator: Inviso (2 left)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1qQCFQCneA
Villainy: 5
Characterization: 5
Melody: 5
Total: 15/30
"Single, he told me. Single, my ass. Not only was he married, oh, no, he had six wives. One of those Mormons, you know?"
This is a song that feels pretty drastically low for what is a pretty iconic villain song, and one of the only iconic group villain songs. However, it falls short on what are largely a handful of technicalities despite me liking the actual moment in the show.
First, the villainy. This is the toughest spot, because yeah, they're mostly all killers. Not like serial killers, just women who were mistreated by men, and who snapped and killed their husbands/boyfriends. Except the girl who shot her husband for popping gum, that does feel pretty drastic. But here we run into one of the issues with group villain songs, because this is a song about 6 convicted murderers... one of whom is entirely innocent, and says so directly in the song, but is only convicted because she's Hungarian and can't defend herself in English. It's hard to rank the villainy higher when one of them is just literally not a villain. (For the record, I wouldn't apply this reasoning to a villain song that features a duet with a hero/villain, this is a case where the innocent women is very directly considered one of the "Cook County Jailbirds", who are as a collective the villains of the song)
Anyway, then it's hard to rank musically very high, because even while it has some great peaks,
most
of the song is just talking with some gentle music in the background. It's an iconic storytelling technique, but makes the song less enjoyable to listen to on its own. And then, even though we're getting stories from all the different jailbirds,
again
it's held back by the size of the group, as we only get a brief synopsis of each woman; enough to get what their deal is, but not a lot more.
Khal Kirby
, warlord of the Super Star Khalasar
PSN/Steam: CheddarBBQ https://goo.gl/Diw2hs