Dave on Hip-Hop

In a 1999 column, Dave Barry waxed nostalgic on the music of The Beach Boys. He added this comment on a lower sub-genre of the music of today:

I saw a TV show recently wherein a group of ''hip-hop'' DJs competed to see who was the best at making sounds with a record turntable. They'd put the needle on a record, then they'd spin the turntable forward and backward violently, thereby creating unique, by which I mean ugly, noises. I used to do that when I was 7, and my mom would yell, ''STOP FOOLING WITH THE RECORD PLAYER!'' But these guys were SERIOUS; they had expressions of intense concentration on their faces, as though it took vast artistic skill to simulate the sound of deranged squirrels fighting in an amplifier. A panel of judges looked on, frowning thoughtfully, as though they were listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (actual lyric: ''Dum dum dum DUM''). I wanted to scream at the TV screen: ''A turntable is NOT A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, you morons! It's an APPLIANCE, like a toaster-oven! Or an accordion!''

I thought I was the only one who heard the squirrels.