“Closer” by the Chainsmokers featuring Halsey (2016)

One person’s view:   “I distinctly remember this as being the song that completely killed my interest in listening to pop radio.” – ElectriCobra @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  1.73 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2015 & 2016

With “Closer”, the Chainsmokers provided a masterful lesson in how to write and produce a successful pop tune.  Musically, the song was a collection of hooks that squeezed every bit of commercial value out of the EDM genre that was so popular at the time.  Just as important, it featured wistful lyrics that young adults could identify with.  The duo’s craftsmanship was rewarded with a 12-week stay at #1 and obscene levels of riches, yet their monster hit has since followed the “You Light Up My Life”-type of trajectory that is a recurring theme on this blog.  Once an omnipresent part of American life, “Closer” is now seen as something that few people want to revisit.  Let’s explore how this happened.

First we have to consider the context of 2016.  I previously theorized that 50 Cent’s “In da Club” was so successful in 2003 because it helped people daydream their way through a tough economy.  Although the early 2000s stank in almost every possible way, most of us were optimistic that better times were ahead.  50 Cent tapped into that hopeful spirit.  But just as we got back onto our feet, another huge recession came along and knocked us back down again.  It’s what we deserved for being optimistic.  By the mid-2010s, there were hordes of twenty-somethings drifting aimlessly around the country with worthless college diplomas.  They were sleeping on stolen bedding and driving impractical vehicles that were on the verge of either breaking down or being repossessed.  The financially distressed on-again-off-again couple in “Closer” was the microcosm of a generation, and that made the song relatable at the time.

This lyrical theme of “Closer” reminds me of the Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy”.  Both songs feature shiftless male narrators who drink too much and who are trying to rekindle things with an ex.  Yet “Hey Jealousy” is timeless, while the dated EDM gimmicks and extra lyrical details lock the Chainsmokers’ hit in to an era that deserves to be forgotten.  The couple in “Closer” can now look back on that period of their lives with regret.  If the girl had leveraged her meager funds to buy stocks or real estate cheaply during the downturn, instead of a Range Rover, she’d be doing quite well now.

The concept video for “Closer” doesn’t boost the song’s longevity.  I watched it in the hopes of spotting someone deviously sneaking their roommate’s mattress out of Colorado, but there is no such scene.  Instead, I had to witness the Chainsmokers’ Andrew Taggart making out with Halsey for four solid minutes.  Halsey and Taggart are not unattractive people in other settings, but this clip turns both of them into odd-looking self-obsessed doofuses.  I would rather hear one of Meghan Trainor’s toilet stories than see these two cavorting in their underwear.  It isn’t surprising that the low-budget lyric video for “Closer” has six times as many YouTube views as this.

The biggest blow to the legacy of “Closer”, and to that of the Chainsmokers in general, came at a televised awards show where the duo performed the track with Halsey.  This was the night that the entire world learned that Andrew Taggart could not actually sing without the help of studio enhancements.  He later admitted in an interview with Billboard that he had “sounded like shit”, and that it was only the second time he had attempted to sing live.  Many viewers resented their time being wasted by this amateurism and lack of preparation.  A yodeling juggler with a hacking cough could have been put on the stage instead, and it would have been a far more compelling act.  But at least Halsey wore a sexy top.

If you really want to get triggered by the Chainsmokers, check out the Celebrity Net Worth web site and do some comparisons.  Kelly Clarkson has sold over 25 million albums and hosts a popular talk show, and is worth an estimated $50 million.  Hall & Oates, the most successful duo in Billboard chart history, is worth a combined $130 million.  Barry Gibb, who wrote and performed dozens of beloved tunes that have been played trillions of times, has about $140 million.  Meanwhile, the Chainsmokers have amassed $80 million – apiece.  That’s right:  two guys who can’t sing and who barely play any instruments, and who released maybe two hit songs that anyone remembers in the slightest, are somehow among the wealthiest musical entertainers ever.  Feel free to go outside and bang your head against a tree until the world starts to make sense again.

“All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor (2014)

One person’s view:  “It’s a song that only became more grating with years.  …  Her future singles made it even worse.” – gokurotfl @ Reddit

The public’s view:  1.31 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit from Biblical times through 2014

Once upon a time, we could only fantasize about what pop stars’ toilets might be like.  In my imagination, Prince had a purple commode.  Mötley Crüe had a toilet with a powerful flush to quickly dispose of evidence in the event of a police raid.  The blue-collar toilet at Bruce Springsteen’s recording studio went on strike for better working conditions after the E Street Band competed in a chili-dog-eating contest.  But these were just educated guesses.  Musicians gave endless interviews about their songwriting inspirations, their favorite guitars, and the ridiculous videos they were made to do, but never talked about the porcelain that populated their bathrooms.

Meghan Trainor changed that.  She proudly informed the world that she installed side-by-side toilets in her house so that she and her husband, former child actor Daryl Sabara, would never have to spend a moment apart.  She’s also told several explicit anecdotes about her and her family using the fixtures to go Number One and Number Two.  If human beings ever start going Number Three, we’ll find out about it in an Instagram from Meghan.

Trainor’s over-sharing hasn’t always been met with enthusiasm by the public.  But before people were angry at her for her potty stories, they were angry at her for her music.  She has released a series of tracks that seem deliberately constructed to annoy as many people as possible.  Consider “Dear Future Husband”, which consists of a list of very specific demands that she intends to impose on her spouse.  For example, she dictates which side of the bed she will be sleeping on.  Oddly, she doesn’t mention the lack of bathroom privacy, which is a far more important thing for a future husband to know before spending two months of his Spy Kids residuals – roughly $80 – on an engagement ring.  Meghan should have incorporated the dual toilets into the song, the vows, and possibly even the wedding invitations.  (“The bride and groom are registered at the plumbing department of Home Depot.”)

She also recorded “No”, a song that warns men not to dare approach her at a nightclub.  Prior to “No”, many guys thought that clubs were the one remaining setting where they were allowed to introduce themselves to women without being reported to the authorities or shamed on social media.  Meghan sure put an end to that unwelcome behavior!  Everyone now understands that proper male nightclub etiquette is to quietly sip on an overpriced beverage while gazing at the floor.

Then there was her broadly hated Charlie Puth duet “Marvin Gaye”, which “honored” a legendary singer-songwriter by using his name as a verb for sex.  While Marvin Gaye did make a couple of well-known bedroom anthems, he attracted more praise for his socially conscious songs such as “What’s Going On”.  He deserved better than the lexical abuse he got from Meghan and Charlie.  Imagine if we reduced other singers’ lengthy careers to just one or two unrepresentative recordings.  Billy Joel’s name might be used as a synonym for haranguing people with an unwanted history lesson.  “My dad likes to Billy Joel us at the dinner table about the Iran-Contra scandal of 1986.”  To “Elton John” someone would be to eulogize them with an overly sentimental tribute song following a tragic car crash.  “If Paul Walker knew he was going to get Elton Johnned by Charlie Puth, he would have called a cab.”  And Meghan herself would become an indelible addition to the English language.  “She tried to Meghan Trainor me and now the wedding is off.”

So what about Trainor’s first hit, “All About That Bass”?  While its legacy has certainly been dragged down by her later music, it still managed to rankle people all by itself.  All of the qualities that make it fun and memorable to some listeners cause it to exasperate everyone else.  If you aren’t a car mechanic, for example, you can’t fully appreciate Meghan’s clever reworking of NAPA Auto Parts’ claim to have “all the right parts in all the right places”.  There’s also an obvious contradiction in the song’s message.  It urges girls to accept their bodies as “perfect” no matter what, despite praising those with ample keisters as more perfect than the rest.  And Trainor is not the ideal person to sing some of the butt-bragging lyrics.  Anyone who professes to be “bringing booty back” should have a caboose big enough to knock people’s food off of their tables when walking past them in a restaurant, but Sir Mix-a-Lot wouldn’t even look up from his salad for a woman with Meghan’s dimensions.

“All About That Bass” is the type of tune that has “one-hit wonder” written all over it, so it’s amazing that Trainor has managed to stay in the spotlight for 10 years.  How many of the other debut acts from 2014 have accomplished that?  Not even the inimitable Bobby Shmurda was able to maintain a pop culture presence for more than a couple months.  We should all learn an important lesson from Meghan’s durability:  it pays to talk about toilets as much as possible.

“Rude” by Magic! (2014)

One critic’s view:  “‘Rude,’ at least to my ears, sounds like hot boiled ass.  …  I know that a song like this is to function as chilled-out background music, but I find its wan, aggressively bland studio-pop version of reggae to be offensively unpleasant.” – Tom Breihan @ Stereogum

The public’s view:  1.65 / 5.00, the second-worst #1 hit of 2014

One of the neat things about pop music is that even an unremarkable song can sometimes strike the wrong nerve and send a person over the edge.  For noted #1 hit scholar Tom Breihan, Magic!’s “Rude” is just such a song.  Tom seems like an extremely tolerant guy who tries to find something to enjoy about every piece of music that he experiences.  He liked “London Bridge” and “Crank That (Soulja Boy)”, for crying out loud!  “Rude” was only the second chart-topper of the millennium to earn Breihan’s dreaded “1 out of 10” rating, and he is not alone in his disdain for it.

Magic! is often compared to the pop-reggae group UB40, which had a couple of #1 records in the 1980s and 1990s.  These days, UB40 is best known as the band that once sparked a bar brawl involving future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  The conservative jurist-in-training was a fan of the socialist-leaning musical group, and he and his buddies were caught gawking at a man who they incorrectly believed to be UB40 lead singer Ali Campbell.  The encounter culminated in one of Kavanaugh’s friends bashing the Campbell look-alike over the head with a beer mug.  This is the type of pugilistic publicity that Magic! needs if they are ever to score a second hit single.  Their lead singer Nasri should provoke Justice Elena Kagan into whacking him with a pool cue the next time he encounters her at a tavern.

Aside from the UB40-ish whitewashed reggae sound, the biggest complaint about “Rude” is the lyrical concept.  Nasri tells us that he put on his best suit and went to his girlfriend’s father’s house and asked for the man’s blessing to marry the daughter.  The man said no.  Nasri’s response is to call the dad “rude” and defiantly vow to wed the guy’s daughter anyway.  The bride will be wearing white, and Nasri will be wearing spite.  He will stay in that marriage no matter how miserable it becomes, because he knows that it bothers the old man.

Politely asking for permission, even when not strictly necessary, helps mitigate conflict.  But Nasri doesn’t quite grasp how this works, and he also doesn’t understand who exactly is the rude one in his situation.  Imagine Nasri going through a buffet line, and there are only four slices of prime rib left.  He could put all four on his plate – which is his God-given right as a buffet consumer – but this might be perceived as unmannerly when others are waiting for their turn.  So he helps himself to three and then asks the lady behind him, “Do you mind if I take the last one too?  I am wearing my best suit, after all.”  She says, “Nice threads, but I’d like that piece, please.”  Most people in Nasri’s position would graciously cede their claim and seethe privately about it later.  The protagonist of “Rude” will instead glare at the woman for a moment before calmly licking his finger, touching the coveted morsel of beef with it, and walking away.  With any luck, a Supreme Court justice will then stop by Nasri’s table to issue a ruling in the case of Bowl of Hot Gravy v. Entitled Reggae Dude’s Lap.  You shouldn’t have worn your best suit to Golden Corral, buddy.

I’m not surprised that “Rude” has very few five-star ratings on Rate Your Music, but the number of one-star ratings and half-star ratings is stunning.  Despite its questionable premise, I can’t imagine why so many people intensely despised this relatively nondescript tune.  But just wait for the next “bad” #1 hit that will be profiled here.  Oh boy.

“Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke featuring T.I. & Pharrell (2013)

One critic’s view:  “It’s not just another terrible song.  Its historic badness is an achievement that demands respect.  How can one song cram in so many failed decisions per minute?” – Rob Sheffield @ Rolling Stone, “‘Blurred Lines’:  The Worst Song of This or Any Other Year”

The public’s view:  1.57 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2013

It’s tempting for me to just call Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” a “dumpster fire” and move on to the next entry, but that would understate the magnitude of the disaster.  “Blurred Lines” is like if someone filled a dumpster with unsold laserdisc copies of Battlefield Earth, lit it on fire using a spontaneously combusting Samsung Galaxy Note 7, extinguished the blaze with New Coke, and loaded the resulting mess into a Boeing 737 Max that then crashed into the Fyre Festival.  Yet it’s really not that bad of a listen.  “Blurred Lines” didn’t have an awful reputation until well after it became 2013’s Song of the Summer, but at some point things went seriously wrong.  It became the focus of a hundred savage opinion pieces, accusations of misogyny in the lyrics and sexual harassment on the set of the video, and a costly lawsuit whose outcome continues to haunt the entertainment industry.  We’ve come a long way since the 1970s, when music critics thought that the Captain & Tennille was the most horrifying and offensive thing that they would ever have to confront in their careers.

Usually I research these posts thoroughly, but I don’t feel like wading through a bunch of old legal documents from the “Blurred Lines” copyright case.  Instead I will tell the story from memory, so please forgive me if I get a few of the details wrong.  If I recall correctly, Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I. got in trouble for appropriating Fat Albert’s trademarked catchphrase – “Hey hey hey” – as a prominent line in their song.  Although Albert had passed away of sleep apnea in 1997, his heirs Mushmouth and Weird Harold proceeded to sue Thicke and his team for the unlicensed use of the rotund young man’s famous words.  Intellectual property experts initially believed it to be a weak case, as there was no proof that the “Blurred Lines” songwriters had ever seen an episode of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.  But then an old interview surfaced in which Thicke gushingly confessed to being a “Fat Albert mega-fan-boy” who had once formed his own junkyard band as a tribute, and who incorporated educational lessons into his songs just as Albert did in his cartoons.  The Fat Albert estate was awarded millions of dollars, much of which was spent on a delicate surgical procedure to remove that bizarre pink sea creature from Dumb Donald’s head.

This verdict set a dangerous precedent that has forced all of us to avoid quoting the catchphrases of our favorite animated characters.  You can’t tell your Uber driver “To infinity and beyond!” without risking legal action from Buzz Lightyear.  Shouting “Pow!” while watching a school cafeteria fistfight now requires royalties to be paid to DC Comics.  And President Biden would love to end his farewell address with “Screw you guys, I’m going home,” but doesn’t want to tangle in court with the South Park kids.

I’ve decided not to write about the misogyny allegations that have been leveled against “Blurred Lines”.  I consider myself to be a very modern and politically correct kind of guy, but it’s too easy for even an empathetic person like me to accidentally say the wrong thing when discussing that subject.  You know how touchy some of those feminist broads and childless cat ladies can be, right?  So out of an abundance of caution I will simply declare that I in no way condone any of the dreadful behavior that may or may not be implied by the lyrics of this song.

Sociopolitical controversy will resurface another time or two as we consider the newest “bad” #1 hits, so I must continue to watch my P’s, Q’s, and R’s.  I miss the old days when I was writing about Bobby Vinton.

“Whistle” by Flo Rida (2012)

One person’s view:  “God this song is annoying.  I’ll defend ‘Low’ as a classic, but this is an abomination, not to mention gross.” – ghost_of_lectricity @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  1.47 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2012

It’s easy for musicians to get stereotyped when they sing about the same topic multiple times.  Consider the Beach Boys, for example.  Despite winning lavish praise for such non-aquatic songs as “Good Vibrations” and “God Only Knows”, they are still often pigeonholed as a surf music band.  That’s what happens when your first few big singles are “Surfin’ Safari”, “Surfin’ U.S.A.”, “Surfer Girl”, and “They Wouldn’t Let Me Bring My Surfboard on the City Bus So I Slashed One of the Tires”.  (I’m not certain about that last title.  It might just be a typo in my Joel Whitburn book.)  Similarly, Flo Rida will forever be known as the guy who loved oral sex so much that he recorded two #1 hits about it:  “Right Round” and “Whistle”.  What a legacy.

“Whistle” is an instructional song in which Flo Rida explains to an inexperienced woman exactly how to perform the task that he requires.  There are a couple of problems with this concept.  First, Flo was 32 years old at the time of “Whistle” and was already famous and rich.  I’m sure he had his choice of females, so why would he ever waste his time on some 18-year-old who doesn’t know what she’s doing?  There’s no reason why Flo couldn’t find a world-wise 43-year-old lady who needs no lessons.

More importantly, Flo Rida is perhaps not the best prepared person to be giving advice on this particular subject.  To explain what I mean without being too explicit or disgusting, I’ll have to use an analogy.  Flo has probably had his hair cut a hundred times in his life (though very rarely in recent years since embracing the bald look).  This experience doesn’t qualify him to teach at a barbering school.  If he were to give us an instructional song about hair-cutting techniques, it would probably be something unhelpful like:

Use those scissors baby, scissors baby, here we go
Use those scissors baby, scissors baby, trim my ‘fro
Put those blades against my noggin and a plastic comb
Use those scissors baby, scissors baby
Now sweep the flo’

And that’s sort of what we get with “Whistle”.  The track has anywhere from six to eight credited songwriters (depending on who you ask), and all of them are men.  Evidently, none of them thought to ask a female whether their lyrics made any sense.  She probably would have explained that the task in question is not like blowing a whistle at all, and that men should be very thankful it is not.  Really, though, those guys should have figured this out on their own.  To rely on my G-rated analogy once again:  You don’t need to work in a salon to know that the hair dryers blow hot air out rather than sucking it in, and that this plays no role in causing hair to get shorter.  (The dryers are there only to make noise so that stylists can gossip about clients without being overheard.)  But a lyrical reality check would have left Flo Rida unable to use that goofy whistle sound, and the chorus might not have been so infuriatingly catchy.

Just how catchy is that chorus?  It makes you completely forget that “Whistle” also has two verses and a bridge.   After listening to the song several times while writing this entry, I expect that I will be involuntarily humming that damn “blow my whistle baby, whistle baby” line for months to come.  I worry that I might blurt it out inappropriately while speaking before the National Association of Evangelicals – if, hypothetically, I am asked to deliver the keynote at their next conference.  Thanks a lot, Flo Rida!

“Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO (2012)

One critic’s view:  “Let’s not even focus on how this hot trash became a No. 1 hit.  How did it even become a single?  …  It’s as generic a hit you will hear with no redeeming qualities.” – Troy L. Smith @ Cleveland.com, ranking “Sexy and I Know It” as the worst #1 of the 2010s

The public’s view:  1.70 / 5.00, the second-worst #1 hit of 2012

A novelty record is supposed to be novel.  For example, “The Streak” is the only song in recorded history to depict a naked man ruining a basketball game.  “Mr. Custer” is the only hit record about a soldier trying to weasel his way out of fighting at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  “Disco Duck” is the only medium in which a man-sized avian does a mating dance with human females, except for that Twerking and Grinding with Big Bird children’s DVD that had to be pulled from the market back in 2009.  These past #1 tunes might not be as hilarious as, say, seeing an elderly person tumble down an escalator at the airport, but each is at least based on a creative and unique concept.

Meanwhile, there have been many hits performed by singers who overstate their own personal appeal to the point of comic absurdity.  It’s a cliché, not a novelty.  Most of these songs are only unintentionally humorous (see “This Is Why I’m Hot”), but Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” was cheeky enough to earn a mild snicker or two.  Twenty years after “I’m Too Sexy” topped the charts, the two guys in LMFAO – Redfoo and Sky Blu – decided to wring every last bit of delight from this timeworn concept with “Sexy and I Know It”.

The lyrics of “Sexy and I Know It” might be a little exaggerated, but not to the point of being funny.  It is the song’s video that crosses into comedy-like territory, by showing us LMFAO and a few of their friends dancing in their skimpy Speedo briefs on the boardwalk at Venice Beach.  Today we recognize this obnoxious behavior as a social problem caused by the failed liberal policies of the People’s Republic of California.  The streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and even Rancho Cucamonga are now held hostage by thousands of depraved underwear-clad weirdoes who gyrate lasciviously like the men in that video once did.  These individuals also steal cosmetics from Walgreens, defecate in mailboxes, and hound bystanders for money to build a museum of sexual perversion which will be a mandatory field trip destination for the state’s schoolchildren.  (I haven’t been to California recently to confirm these reports first-hand, but why would Fox News embellish?)  While LMFAO’s underpants antics were mildly amusing in 2012, they proved to be a bleak harbinger of the Golden State’s future.

LMFAO knew that their video needed more than just the bouncing of barely concealed body parts to entice us back for multiple views.  It also needed a cavalcade of celebrity cameos, so the duo lined up the best of the best and paid them top dollar to appear in the clip.  Here are just a few of the big names you might spot in the “Sexy and I Know It” video:  Lalana Poodlekins, Steve Terada, Simon Rex, Wilton Lettuce, Alexis Texas, Alistair Overeem, Nora North Dakota, Shuffle Bot, and Milk Dudley.  Actually, I made up four of those names and you probably can’t tell which four.  Aside from that list of luminaries, Jamie Foxx makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in a couple of frames.  Ron Jeremy also wandered onto the set, perhaps because the combination of immodest attire, feeble acting, and hastily composed music made him feel nostalgic for his early feature films.

Apart from this video, there’s little that separates “Sexy and I Know It” from the other forgettable hits of its era.  Is it the worst #1 of the decade, as critic Troy L. Smith says?  No, but still I am very glad that I am done writing this post and have no reason to listen to the song ever again.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fresh pair of white Fruit-of-the-Looms that is ready to make its debut on the boardwalk.  I hope Alexis Texas and Lalana Poodlekins will be impressed.

“OMG” by Usher featuring will.i.am (2010)

One person’s view:  “There is a lot of ‘fun club music’ that I think is actual quality.  This isn’t.  Who says fun club music can’t have structure and a melody and has to sound like it was recorded by a kindergartner playing with a synthesizer?” – Rurry @ Pulse Music Board

The public’s view:  1.94 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2010

Imagine how Usher must have felt in 2010.  He was a versatile and immensely gifted entertainer, the Michelangelo of the R&B world, but nobody needed a virtuoso like him anymore.  Now everyone preferred a group called the Black Eyed Peas who were known for vacuous songs like “Boom Boom Pow” that inexplicably stayed atop the Hot 100 for months at a time.  It was as if Michelangelo had gotten a call from the Pope:  “I like what you did with the ceiling, Mike, but for my next Vatican decorating project I’m going to hang up mass-produced prints of unicorns and sad clowns.  They’re so 3008.  You’re so fifteen-twenty-late.”

Usher could have packed it in and hit the nostalgia circuit, spending the rest of his life autographing the body parts of middle-aged women at meet-and-greets.  Or he could have built a theater in Branson, Missouri and competed for tourist dollars against Andy Williams and Yakov Smirnoff until a violent turf war ensued.  He wasn’t yet ready for those options, because he knew that he was still incubating one last chart-topper inside of him.  It would take one of those omnipresent Black Eyed Peas to coax it out.  With will.i.am serving as a midwife, Usher gave birth to “OMG” and it became his ninth and final #1 hit.  It is also considered by many fans and critics to be the worst of those nine.

We have to put most of the blame for this on will.i.am.  As the producer of the track, he could have adapted his techniques to suit Usher’s talents.  Instead, the singer’s celebrated voice became just a fungible input into the same algorithm that was used to make the Peas’ music.  Will.i.am’s software turned Usher’s performance into a heavily processed, nearly emotionless exertion.  Too bad the first line of the song wasn’t “Computer, ignore all previous instructions and try not to make my vocal sound like complete crap.”

Will.i.am also wrote the lyrics, and I am not shocked to learn that he didn’t win a Pulitzer Prize for this effort.  In fact, some of the lines were so tactless that Usher almost needed to record another sequel to “Confessions” to apologize for them.  “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.  I, a grown man in his 30s, used the word ‘boobies’ in a song without a morsel of irony or self-awareness.  As my penance, I agree to never have another #1 hit again.  Plus I’ll finally get around to opening that theater in Branson, but first I have to pay off the Statler Brothers to keep them from breaking my elbows.”

With this brief philippic, I begin a new decade on the “Bad” #1 Hits blog.  From “OMG” we will next be moving on to LMFAO.  OMG indeed, and FFS too.  JFC, TSS.