Technotronic, "Pump Up the Jam"

“Pump Up the Jam” is a classic, but the music video is almost embarrassing to watch. It looks like 1989 threw up all over YouTube. I mean, that shit is just wrong.

It does, however, remind me of jump rope. “Pump Up the Jam” and other Jock Jam favorites from the late-eighties and early-nineties were favorite tracks for Grant Wood’s famous jump rope troupe, the Jazzy Jumpers. (For whatever reason, Grant Wood always had an obsession with jump rope and high-energy music.) I was never a Jazzy Jumper, but saw enough of their performances and practices to have developed a taste for Eurodance. Now that I think about it, perhaps the Jazzy Jumpers and its coordinator, the incomparable Mrs. V, can be credited for my love of electronica.

The jump rope thing, though, fell to the wayside a long time ago for me.