This is the thread where we talk about how stunningly fantastic "Nothing Bad Ever Happens" by Oingo Boingo is

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Set aside what you think of the other Oingo Boingo material or Danny Elfman's soundtrack work and marvel at this song. Feel those slinky guitar riffs rolling over your shoulders like a tropical waterfall, the synth stabs acting as the glinting ripples spreading out across the water and the chorus smacking into you like the aftershock of having cold water poured down your neck. Chuckle at the blatantly bitter lyrics that frantically dial 911, only to tell the ambulance to go fuck itself once it makes it to the scene. Dig those 80s vocals crawling up and down the track in parachute pants and a hypercolor t-shirt.

Don't even get me started on the video...

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 21:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I've always liked this song. Now I want to see the video. This one's on Good For Your Soul, isn't it? I think that was their best album. I still have it on cassette somewhere.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 21:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, that's the album. Man, I haven't heard that whole thing in years (my brother had it on cassette).

It's funny how this song distills 80s production values into a completely timeless package. The arrangement in particular is genius; letting the rhythm guitar carry most of the verse with that heavy synth chord muscling in on the third and fourth beat of every other measure is FANTASTIC.

There's a really amazing moment in the video where the family described in the last verse is served the heads of the non-Danny band members on silver platters and, on the last "Why should I care?" they all pick up their forks and dig in. CREEPY.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 21:42 (twenty-three years ago)

eleven months pass...

I am reviving this because not enough people commented on the song the first time around. (Maybe that should be a hint.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

You need more Southern Californians to notice, since you and Bob Fingerman are the only two people outside that area that seem to like them.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

That's not true! Count me as one NYC area fan. (Though an ex-Southern Californian, true.)

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 17:26 (twenty-two years ago)

MY POINT.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 17:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Oingo Boingo! C or D ??

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

My brother likes (liked?) them too! And so did many of my high school friends!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I love(ed) Oingo Boingo. They were the first band that I liked that didn't get (regular) radio airplay and that I had to do a little work to track down their recordings (it was tapes back then...) leading me down a path of saddo record-store-groupie-ism.

P.S. Southern Californian.

― tylero, Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

PROOF!

(Dan, you and your family and cohorts transcend.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I have no idea what Southern California tylero lived in where Oingo Boingo didn't get regular airplay. I heard that shit ALL THE TIME on KROQ, 91X etc.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Oingo Boingo are fan fucking tastic. How's that proof now, Ned?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 22:29 (twenty-two years ago)

FROZEN NORTH REPRAZENT

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 22:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Awwwww yeahhhhh

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 22:36 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

Boingo is my favourite band, fisrt song i heard was stay
on a various artists cd back in 87 ... i now have a boingo obsession
and search e-bay weekly .. "nothing bad ever happens" is 1 great song out of soooo many ! (current fav is "what you see")
greetiings from australia ! :)
grump ...

― Grumpthehermit, Saturday, 10 April 2004 00:46 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

fuck yeah, dan!

― chaki, Thursday, 26 July 2007 06:06 (eighteen years ago)

boingo are great!

― Curt1s Stephens, Thursday, 26 July 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)

Nice surprise to see this thread revive. I've actually been listening to Boingo for the first time in a long time recently, since I found a used CD of Dead Man's Party at an FYE store for $4. It sounds better than the old cassette I used to have. It seems like they slicked up their sound and aimed a bit more mainstream in places - but they are still refreshingly magpie sonically and macabre lyrically. Definitely a mid-80s record - they almost sound like Duran Duran on the more straightforward rock tunes like "Stay" and "Just Another Day". But they still had that Boingo sound - a kind of weird mixture of West African pop and carnival music - on the title track, the big radio hit, and a few other tunes.

This might also be of interest to Boingo fans:

http://www.ncarts.edu/pressreleases/Releases2007/June07/dannyelfmanspeech.htm

- the commencement address that Danny Elfman gave at an arts college last month. This is where I got the West African pop connection - I guess it should have been obvious.

― o. nate, Friday, 27 July 2007 14:44 (eighteen years ago)

"Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me" was my favorite Oingo Boingo song for about a week...Now my fave by them is "Private Life".

― Aja, Friday, 27 July 2007 18:24 (eighteen years ago)

'private life' and 'on the outside' are nerd hermit anthems.

― chaki, Friday, 27 July 2007 19:13 (eighteen years ago)

"Insects" is a great song.

― Trayce, Saturday, 28 July 2007 05:23 (eighteen years ago)

HI DAN!

God I love(d) this band.

― John Justen, Saturday, 28 July 2007 05:26 (eighteen years ago)

'private life' and 'on the outside' are nerd hermit anthems.

-- chaki, Friday, 27 July 2007 19:13 (Yesterday) Link

Hmm...that actually makes some sense...

― Aja, Saturday, 28 July 2007 06:19 (eighteen years ago)

sixteen years pass...

This is a good, self-aware episode of "What's in My Bag" with Danny Elfman:

https://www.amoeba.com/whats-in-my-bag/detail/1066/

If I had to pick 3 albums that combine with a drop of magic to form the sound of Oingo Boingo, esp. in their early years, it would be hard to do better than these Elfman picks:

XTC - Drums and Wires
Madness - One Step Beyond..
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

― o. nate, Monday, 7 August 2023 21:28 (two years ago)

Yeah, that's pretty spot on. Ska + "nervous" rock + theatrics.

― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 8 August 2023 20:07 (two years ago)

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