(Note: Music That Sucks is the opinion of the author and the author is always right. Also: fuck Australia. Seriously, fuck those guys.)
So here I am, struggling to put this Helen Reddy induction together. It's been awhile you understand, about 3 years since I last inducted Kid Rock, and I have to find my groove. I and becoming perplexed as the self-imposed deadline on this approaches. I have to decided to smoke a bowl, wash my pussy and just get it over with.
Oh yeah, I've been listening to and studying Ms. Reddy's music so much it seems as though I have grown a vagina. It's fully developed and a tad bit itchy, hence why I am washing it. Let this serve as a lesson to the rest of you; prolonged exposure to the Helen Reddy catalog will cause Acute Male Vaginitis (AMV). I think after all of this is finished I am going to watch a Meg Ryan movie with my girlfriend and discuss our new lesbian life together whist we laugh and cry together. Oh great, a bottle of Twataway (TM) to help with my AMV. For all of your AMV needs use Twataway: restores balls good as new. Ask your doctor about it today. What? Don't look at me that; I have not sold out. Stupid new snatch...can't even be in a spot where I can have some fun with it...bah!
Paul Hogan. Yahoo Serious. Men At Work. Outback Jack. Olivia Newton-John (who could have an induction of her own). These are just some of the "imports" that have made Stateside from Australia, and these alone would be good enough reasons for a Declaration of War. Yet there is one more that is much more heinous than any of those above: Helen Reddy. Aussies must look at the US and think we are at best semi-retarded as a nation. After all, Ms. Reddy was nowhere near as big in her home country/continent as she was here. No, they sent her our way and laughed as we made a average-looking, somewhat frumpy single mother a fucking megastar.
Born into a family of Australian show business people Reddy had at first decided to rebel by becoming a housewife. Her first marriage lasted just a few months and produced a daughter so unfortunately for the rest of us that meant she needed to return to show business to make some scratch. Upon winning a talent show contest in Australia she was given the opportunity to go to New York and try out...and that the talent show tape was her tryout and it was a no-go. So there she is, estrogen embibed Helen Reddy, with a small daughter deciding to stay in the US and try to make it as a star. Let's poor it on a little more, shall we? She marries her future American manager and was living on scraps until she signed with Capital Records and recorded "I Don't Know How To Love Him" from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Aww isn't this harrowing? It gets me all gassy in the bowels. Her first single, which is a bland, milquetoast cover of a terrible song from a terrible musical (as if there's any other kind of musical) goes to #13 on the Top 40 chart in June of 1971.
We wouldn't have an induction if that was the end of it, now would we? Oh no, this is just the very beginning. Reddy's second song, I Am Woman was released in May of 1972 and was a monster of a hit. Inspired by the feminist movement around her, Reddy sety forth to write and record one of the most, sappy, insipid, soulless, trite soft pop singles in history. In fact, I'm pretty sure that you have heard the song that was voted "Best Song To Beat Your Skank To" by the National Alliance of Alcoholics With Battered Wives. I'm sure that right now, at some trailer park you can hear this song playing in the background while some redneck gives his Baby's Momma five across the eyes. I Am Woman even nets Reddy a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal and #1 status.
With her bland, ubiquitous looks and singing voice tailor made never to offend the sensibilities of anyone over 60, the "Queen of 70's Pop" (shudder) scored her second #1 hit in 1973 with a cover of a country song performed by Tanya Tucker, "Delta Dawn". With lyrics about some crazy dried up slunt from Brownsville, Tennessee who is waiting for some suitor that jilted her years earlier a second huge hit catapults her into the lilly white mainstream. I wish I were lying, but this bitch got her own variety show, a midseason replacement for Flip Wilson. You got that right; Helen Reddy was the replacement for Flip Wilson. Chew on that and let the vag juice soak in your pours.
"Delta Dawn" was followed up by "Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)", which was just your run of the mill bland muzak single that got as high as #3 on the charts. Two more Top 20 singles followed before she topped the charts again with the song "Angie Baby" in 1974; which is about a crazy or retarded girl who kidnaps the horny neighbor boy and traps him inside her radio to fuck her at nights. No, I'm not bullshitting you and it's not the sticky-icky-icky talking; that's really what the song is about. The crazy woman whose parents keep locked away from society at large traps the neighbor boy who wandered over looking for some strange inside her radio to fuck as she pleases. ERA now people! It's less LSD than it sounds and more Clitorial Empowerment.
Finally the public at large became burned out from the whole Helen Reddy experience. She never had a major hit after "Angie Baby" as many men headed to their local OB-GYN to obtain some Twataway to treat their cases of AMV. It was a major epidemic of Acute Male Vaginitis back in the mid 70's as any Baby Boomer will tell you as they hang their heads in the shame. It's a shame that the name of the person who invented Twatway has been lost to time when it should be remembered alongside the likes of Jonas Salk. Speaking of which, I hope my meds kick in soon; I'm brewing enough yeast to start my own chain of bakeries.
Helen Reddy....Music: that sucks!
