Simon Reynolds writes about bands who sound like everything they've ever listened to as "record collector rock" but there's another world of musicians who reference the poplife they inhabit in ways that are even more interesting to me: music parodists and metasong writers. While Weird Al is the most famous and best example (of both but more famous for parody than metasongs), the world of popular music has been so self-refrencing and inside joke ridden for ages, maybe always. Like the bloated artrock band who makes a concept record about a bloated rock band, so thousands of pop musicians turn on the odd world they inhabit for inspiration, but metasong writers serve as some kind of zeigeist-catching scene-oversouls, nee they are in some ways the native ethnographer of their scenes, catching things that outsiders might never know as absurd, out of line, random. This is a post in praise of the metasong writers, those folks who wink into the crowd just as we rock writers wink to each other occasionally in our print.

First I offer this Decibel post with embedded nu-metal metasong with the caveat that I do not endorse the unironic use of either raw emotionalism or the recieving of anal sex as markers that a band is full of "pussies." As much as one can say "despite" (can you? probably not ), this has moments of nativist humor.

Then I begin my list of pop metasongs, songs that self-reference, reference the community from which they come or the larger music life in some way, hopefully clever. Visitors please suggest your favorite metasong for the list, you will be credited:

(SWR-songwriting reference, CR-community reference, MIR-music industry reference, MHR-music history reference)

"Flagpole Sitta" Harvey Danger (CR)

"Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle" Cake (CR)

"Losing My Edge" LCD Soundsystem (SWR and CR also art-school mention)

"Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen (SWR)

"Please Play This Song On The Radio" NOFX (MIR)

"Generic Uptempo Folk Song" the Limeliters

"Life During Wartime" Talking Heads (CR)

"I'm Too Sexy" Right Said Fred (SWR)

"Earache My Eye" Cheech and Chong (MIR - thanks to C. Weingarten)

"I Like Short Songs" Dead Kennedys (thanks CW)

"The Metal" Tenacious D (thanks CW)

"Write A Song" Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (thanks CW)

"Song for Dennis Brown" the Mountain Goats (thanks to Toby Carroll)

"Gimme Indie Rock" Sebadoh (thanks to Amy Phillips)

"This Is Why I'm Hot" Mims (thanks AP)

"Freedom 90" George Michael