i can't imagine that anyone that posts here or reads here doesn't know who tilly and the wall is.
they are the middle american white bread band -- cut the crust off my bread -- i'm all white -- kids
just in case you don't know, here's the wikipedia text on them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_and_the_wall
i was supposed to see them open for bright eyes some time ago, and i missed it. i saw fucking coco rosie instead.
so bad education is this great song. what makes it great is a weird combination of urban style and white bread music.
you may not think there is anything urban about the song, but there is, it's the percussion.
an urban dance form is really really popular here in the schools where i teach and has been for about ten years or more -- it's stepping.
the schools have this weird mix of urban kids and rural kids -- most of them poor, but very different. if i didn't know how stupid and backwards the administration out here are, i'd think it was a sociological experiment, but they are way too stupid for that -- it's just a zoning accident. so the thing about the step teams is that everyone EVERYONE including the let me wear my dixie outfitters, carharts, and cami's kids likes to watch and listen to the step team
if you've never seen a step team perform live you are missing out.
a few years ago i saw fifth graders perform a routine in a talent competition that they themselves had choreographed and composed by stomping and clapping their hands and thumping their chests--i was like this is fucking great! it was a good education moment. of course they lost to some group of kids who had professionally made props out the ass, costumes that were unbelievable and a dance routine that was obviously created by an adult, but you know that's the american way, money beats talent. the fifth graders were better off getting that bad education early -- it doesn't matter if your competition is more annoying than ten sparkle nations a la donnie darko -- they look expensive. to an american that means they're top notch.
so the song bad education -- the beat is clapped and stomped out. of course the one chick is tap dancing it, which is a little different, but not really; really it sounds very similar and it is a very similar technique, with just a little white bread modification.