Okay, to be honest, I haven’t seen Juno. I’ve heard good things and terrible things. It sounds like the kind of quirky indie movie I might very well enjoy. Then again, it might make me puke. Let me put it this way. I deeply and truly loved Rushmore, and I hated, hated, hated the piece of retarded garbage that was Garden State.

Here’s where my beef with Juno comes in. It has to do with the soundtrack, or more specifically, the main character’s musical tastes. Now, don’t get yer Kimya britches all bunched up in your nethers. I don’t really have a problem with her. Don’t love her either, but that’s not the point.

THE POINT IS THIS, and I don’t know quite where I obtained this information, but I think I read online somewhere that our precocious little Juno namedrops a certain overlooked ’70s band not only to prove how cool she is, but how cool the filmmakers are. And this band is indeed a fucking FANTASTIC band. One of the very best. And YES, they are overlooked, and YES, they are deserving of a lot more attention.
But not like this. Not this way. Not through some cutesy faux-indie Hollywood fictional screenplay concoction, not through the casual shoehorning of their music onto a hit soundtrack of an uber-trendy movie, not through a retro-hip Natalie Portman photocopy removing her headphones and imploring with doe eyes, “Listen to this. It will change your life.”

Because this band is Mott the Hoople. The great, tragically spurned, eternal bridesmaids of rock. They have an absolutely tremendous catalog with some of the greatest rock music ever created. "Sweet Angeline." "Roll Away the Stone." "Angel of Eighth Avenue." "The Ballad of Mott." "Saturday's Kids." Fuck, that's just for starters. The list goes on and on.

Okay, says I. Calm down, kind sir. Well, I'll just poke over to Amazon and take a looksee at the soundtrack listing, to find out what magnificent tune is being perpetrated onto the unsuspecting masses. Surely people will be educated and some good will come of this, right? Oh, here's the song listing, and here's the Mott track, and it's..... WHAT? Are you fucking kidding me? "All the Young Dudes"? The one lousy Mott the Hoople song that gets played on crappy classic rock radio every fucking half-hour? The one Mott the Hoople song everybody knows by heart, and is in every karaoke playbook known to man?

It's an insult. It's an insult to the band; they have numerous songs of equal or higher quality. It's an insult to Ian Hunter; he is one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and is underrated if not entirely forgotten; Hunter wrote many of Mott the Hoople's masterworks, but "Dudes" was the one song that David Bowie wrote - and lord knows he's not hurtin' for royalties. It's an insult to moviegoers, and the American public at large, to deny them easy access to Mott the Hoople's broad catalog of delight, instead barricading the way by playing the same song they've heard over and over. And it's an insult to you. Yes, you.

So, in order to atone for the sins of the foul filmmakers of Juno, I present to you some cleansing, healing Mott. Listen and behold.

MP3:
Mott the Hoople: All the Way from Memphis
Mott the Hoople: I Wish I Was Your Mother

Okay. I feel better. Have a nice weekend, everybody! Why not take in a movie? I hear that Juno movie is delightful! All the kids are talking about it!