EWA100 - #91. House of Pain - Jump Around

91. House Of Pain - Jump Around (Tommy Boy. 1992. From The LP House of Pain)

Raven Mack: It was 1992. The self-loathing white people into hip hop caused because of the Vanilla Ice debacle had finally subsided. Mickey's malt liquor started marketing both the widemouth stubby bottles in six-packs as well as the Molotov-cocktail perfect 22 ounce bottles. Cypress Hill's mind-twangy beats by whiteboy extraordinaire DJ Muggs had already captivated the white people crowd, because it was hip hop about drugs and it had what looked to be a Mexican dude, a black dude, and a white dude in the group, so hip hop was putting it forward that,"Hey, you white people are okay again, come on in, but be cool or we'll kick you out of the party like we did last time. So you take this perfect storm of conditions, take the Muggs sound and throw it behind some chump-ass white rapper who used to be down with Ice-T but had repackaged himself as an Irish dude with two other sort of Irish dudes, and then you spice it all with a Pete Rock remix, who was the hottest of the hotness at that moment, and BAMMM! You have a song that will be played at frat parties, minor league hockey games, and on mix CDs made by metrosexual homos for eternity. I, myself, must have drank a thousand double deuces in those days (including a personal high of 7 in one night), and may have never gotten along better with the ultra-violent skinheads of Richmond, Virginia, that I did during that "Jump Around" storm. Good times and good memories, and I'm glad I didn't get as many tattoos as I would've wanted back then.

Mike Dikk: I have this silent rule that I can’t like songs I previously liked if they somehow become cheapened by a kitsch or irony factor. I understand it’s because I’m white and into hip hop, so I always have to prove I’m Da Rillest, especially over the internet, and you can’t accidentally say you like a song if there is even an ounce of a chance that someone may think you heard that song for the first time in a commercial for frozen pizza and not on the streets while you were hustlin’.
I did love this song though, and I was nerdy enough even back then to know all about Everlast’s failed pretty boy rapper career he tried to start up before House Of Pain. So I knew the whole thing was a gimmick to begin with, which is rather obvious now. I dare anyone, even the most backwoods, out of touch white trash asshole that’s still wearing wrap-around Oakleys and has a Pantera tapestry hanging up in their living room to listen to this entire LP and not laugh at least 5 times at how ridiculous the whole thing is.
I’m assuming Muggs hooked up the beat and the dude was on fire back then. There could have been any type of nationality gimmick going on above this song and it would have turned out great. I did get a bit too over obsessed with this song and House of Pain as a whole though. When the single came out, The Source had House of Pain stickers inserted into their magazine, and I would go to the store and steal all of the stickers out of them just to have them. It was a pretty sweet logo though. I had all the maxi singles and the full lengths, and numerous T-shirts, because I was that into these guys, and I feel real ashamed in saying that now.
I’m sure a lot of white dudes were into them as much as I was, and there’s a good chance they were into them that much because they WERE white dudes and the song was really dope, but that was never a big factor for me, since I’ve always disliked the Irish, mostly because they smell like spermicidal lubricant and band aids when they sweat, and I'm pale and all, but people with transparent skin scare the fuck out of me. Plus House of Pain was like Cypress Hill Lite (Making Funkdoobiest, Cypress Hill Ultra Lite 100's and The Lordz of Brooklyn the generic brand of Cypress Hill Ultra Lite 100's), and I liked Cypress about ten times more. Well, until “Insane in the Membrane” came out. Then I hated them a whole bunch.
The real crappy thing about "Jump Around" is the fact that there was no actual pause between this song going from something respectable to play and get buckwild to, to something you ‘ironically’ listen to and make fun of. There was just a random day where every geek out there decided to make a mockery of this song and ruin it for everyone who loved it and had good intentions from the start. I’m sure it would take years of research to come close to an estimated number of how many shitty bar rock bands made attempts at covering this song, and I don’t even want to think about how many illegitimate children currently living in a trailer park were conceived while this was playing in the background on a Soundesign rack system with one speaker blown out.

Download: House of Pain - Jump Around, See Also: Jump Around (Pete Rock Remix)

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