Let’s just dive into it, shall we? Some injustices have been done here, people, and I will no longer stand for it. Memes are fabulous, and I love them as much as the next person, but there are so many artists that don’t deserve to go down in history as “that person who played that one song from that one video”.
Imogen Heap
This article started out as me ranting to my boyfriend about how Imogen Heap is so much more than a meme, and honestly I was originally going to call this whole thing “Imogen Heap Deserved Better”. Hide And Seek’s use in the season 2 finale of The O.C. cemented it into pop culture, but when The Lonely Island and a young Shia LaBeouf got their hands on it in the SNL writers room, this happened and the song has never been the same since.
Bag Raiders
Shooting Stars became the soundtrack of the first big meme after Vine died (RIP). Videos of people leaping off stuff, and frequently injuring themselves in the process, soundtracked by Shooting Stars was… way funnier than it should be. The Aussie duo have heaps more bangers though, if you Google further than the meme.
Simon and Garfunkel
You knew this was coming. The Sound Of Silence is a gorgeous, haunting song about feeling crushingly isolated. And I can’t listen to it without thinking of cats pulling sad faces, goddamnit.
Smash Mouth
I feel like Smash Mouth needs to be mentioned because they’ve been letting everyone on Twitter know for years that they’re actually more than “that band from Shrek”. Seeing as Shrek is basically just a 1hr 35mins long meme anyway, they have an uphill battle ahead of them.
Darude
Look, I’ll admit that I don’t actually know any Darude songs other than Sandstorm, but nobody deserves to have their song remind an entire country of Tony Abbott in speed dealer sunnies.
Rick Astley
The OG musician that doesn’t deserve to be remembered as just a meme song. He had a ton of number 1 hits before the internet was even a thing, let alone memes. He’s never gonna give you up, he’s never gonna let you down, and he’s sure as hell never gonna be able to forget Rickrolling. Poor dude.
