TV Party for Friday, July 8th

Tonight we head for the "plus" side of "three plus hours". Yes, you get a bonus hour of TV tonight, and to make up for that extra hour on the couch I'm removing the need to change channels – other than that convulsive commercial-break surfing. Yes, both of tonight’s picks are on one channel, and that channel is VH-1.

Start off the night with a Movie that Rocks, taking a trip back to the glory days of Grunge with 1992’s “Singles”. Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, Singles tells the tale of a group of 20-somethings wending their way through the post-college singles scene in early-90s Seattle. Where Richeard Linkletter’s film “Slacker” and Douglas Copeland’s book “Generation X” defined the post-boom generation on a global level, “Singles” brought it all home and made it pretty. Possibly more importantly, it helped blow out the “Grunge” look, attitude and music across the nation, finally making those flannel shirts and Doc Martens as cool in Des Moines, Iowa as they were in Des Moines, Washington.

For you Seattle Rock historians, Singles features appearances Alice in Chains performing in a bar, Pearl Jam (as Matt Dillon’s backup band ‘Citizen Dick’), Chris Cornell of Sound Garden, and Tad, and includes music by Soundgarden and Mudhoney. In addition to Dillon the cast features Cambell Scott, Bridget Fonda, Kyra Sedgwick (sporting an amazing spiral perm that made Mrs. Chicken insanely jealous), Eric Stoltz and Jeremy Piven. While "Singles" may have sounded the death knell of the "Seattle Scene", it's still a funny and touching movie and worth a couple hours of your time.

At 9 stay on VH1 for “40 Awesomely Bad Breakup Songs” What is the most awesomely bad break-up song ever? The one that makes you cringe when you hear it, but you just can't turn it off. What break-up song makes you shake your head, roll your eyes, laugh, gag, shed a tear, or just punch something because it's so horrendously great. that you love to hate it? Well, VH1 is counting down 40 of them in this 2-hour special that will celebrate fantastically cheesy lyrics, the best and worst metaphors, awkward and confusing themes, and of course, those strange, misguided flukes from our favorite artists. The VH1 team of experts – which we can only assume is the same panel of comedians and musicians that are involved with EVERY VH1 count-down show – help explain why we've deemed these songs so (un)worthy.

That’s your TV Party for Friday July 8th. For Northwest Indy Radio I’m Scott Chicken.