Audio Train Wreck of the Month: Hold On Tight

I knew I couldn't hold myself to posting just one song per month! But, before you get too excited, this is something a bit different ... as you may have noticed by the title of this post. I almost called this series "Audio Root Canal", but then I remembered that a root canal is something that is genuinely painful and unpleasant, and that people wholeheartedly want to avoid at all costs. A train wreck, on the other hand, is one of those things that, while also unpleasant, one can't help but want to see -- out of morbid curiosity of how bad it can get, perhaps? That's the idea with these songs I've dubbed "Audio Train Wrecks" : they're bad, but in such a way that you just have to listen to them -- sometimes more than once, just to truly appreciate the way these artists have (usually unintentionally, I grant you) elevated awful to an artform. Let's face it ... how can we appreciate the really good music out there without occasionally subjecting ourselves to the really bad? Besides, if you ask me, music is kind-of like sex: even when it's bad, it's still pretty good! So, come on ... you know you want to download it ... I dare ya.


"Hold On Tight"
Edward Furlong
from the compilation "Cut Tunes From New Release" (Pony Canyon/Japan, 1992)

Yes, that lovable future-doomsday-warrior of "Terminator 2" fame, Edward Furlong, recorded a handful of songs at the height of his popularity in the early '90s. And, no, the results weren't pretty.

Edward sounds noticeably uninterested in singing the lyrics to this otherwise cute pop song, which brings an almost surreal air of intrigue to it for me ... was he somehow roped into doing a pop record, or did he actually want to do it and end up having not a musical bone in his body? Presuming that one of the above is true, then the sorry results are no fault of his own and thus we can't be too hard on the guy.

I found this little ditty on a Japanese promotional CD, and it's so curiously terrible that I've actually been thinking about hunting down the full album so I can see what other beautifully crappy sonic oddities are waiting to find me. Does that make me a glutton for punishment? Probably.

By the way, I've only got a limited number of Audio Train Wrecks to share with you, so this feature will eventually be replaced with a second "Song of the Month".