Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 10:38am | COMMENTS (28)
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LOL…as much as it’s easy to make fun of Essex County, I would hardly define it as America’s armpit. What about Camden? Chester, PA? Yuba City? There are places far worse than West Orange, NJ. If they wanted to get their point across, they should have filmed their video near the Bayway Refinery, not in Stagg Park.
West Orange isn’t great but it’s not exactly East L.A. or Detroit.
“West Orange isn’t great…”
West Orange is a big town. Depends on where you mean. You have Llewellyn Park and you have Tory Corners.
WOW!! Young men in a rock group think their town sucks???
I haven’t heard that one before.
And why is this a shock?
Most of the great rock records were about getting out of “this” town.
Born to Run among the best of ‘em.
A gated community doesn’t fit into my definition of a great place to live. Works for some, not for others.
“Most of the great rock records were about getting out of ‘this’ town.”
But none about West Orange—yet.
One of the first and the best — “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, gotta love Eric Burdon.
I actually thought this was a good song. I played it twice.
The Monkees hit, Pleasant Valley Sunday, was co-written by Carole King about a street in West Orange, NJ.
Now, that’s a clever song about life in the Essex County suburbs.
Oh, joy. Nothing like upper middle class Jewish kids from West Orange talking about “life on da streets.”
“West Orange isn’t great…”
Why, because it has a Big K instead of Church St.? Montclair condescension at its finest.
“Oh, joy. Nothing like upper middle class Jewish kids from West Orange talking about “life on da streets.”"
You got that right.
Actually the melody wasn’t bad. But, why do all rappers swing their arms that way?
Pleasant Valley Sunday…. clever, but hardly a tribute. ….. “here in status symbol land….” looks like Carole captured right even in the 60′s….
Thanks for really good song.
Essex County has some arm pit areas that could leave us all depressed regardless of your race religion etc…
It’s a rap video people we’re not re-inventing the musical wheel simply a well crafted rap song.
It’s not easy to write a well crafted song but, we’d be happy to judge your music just post a link to it.
Otherwise, it sums up a bit how I’ve felt in my youth growing up in “A Town Without Pity”.
With lyrics like ‘there must be something about a place that has all these avant garde kids trying to start [stuff]‘, the song is funny. clearly essex county and west orange are not armpits. the shots of the nice large colonial style house show that and i think that’s part of the humor of the song. i like it.
I liked this song too!
If you’re going to praise “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” (which I heard about as much in Nam as “Okie From Muskogee” and ‘Fightin Side of Me’), jerseygurl, then give credit where it’s really due. Not to the ever-loutish Eric Burdon but to the original songwriters, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Even if he’s traditionally very slow to give such credit, you shouldn’t be.
No, too, West Orange is not Camden or Gary, Indiana or SHreveport, LA or Youngstown, Ohio. But Newark and East Orange and Irvington are surely equivalent to such places. Essex County in general, in other words, isn’t all that great. And those other places probably have much lower taxes.
I totally like this beat. I’m glad others like it, too.
The benches by the Stagg Field basketball courts, aftah school ya’ll.
You’re right Cathar. But it wasn’t released by Mann and Weil, and the Animals recording is the hit we all know and love. It was the pretty much the theme song for the armed forces in Nam.
Y’all don’t know what it’s like, being male, middle-class and white.
It’s pretty good. Good sample.
I liked the beat and gave it a six, but it was hard to dance to.
I wonder what Dionne Warwick, The Houston sisters and Whitney Houston would think about this song.
Loved the drinking and driving bit. Perhaps they could murder someone on camera too.
Calling Essex County an armpit is preposterous.
Yes – CariAnnv — I agree with you — why “promote” a video on any sort of level that shows drinking and driving as something cool to do? NOT COOL!
Oy, how can you call it the “Armpit of America”?
Look at Brookdale park, in Bloomfield/Montclair;
Verona Park with its boathouse & lake
South Orange’s Cafes, the Entertainment Center, the Duck Pond and the rolling Hills,
The Livingston Mall & Short Hills Malls for shopping,
The West Orange Cody center and a terrific Zoo next door,
The South Orange / Millburn Nature Preserve and Resorvation,
and dozens of Historic Landmarks, and this is the Armpit of America? Newark, Irvington, East Orange and Orange are only 19-percent of Essex County.
…also worth mentioning – pretty much every house and tree in Essex Fells and Glen Ridge.