“Crank That (Soulja Boy)” by Soulja Boy (2007)

One person’s view:  “‘Crank That (Soulja Boy)’ is one of the five worst songs to ever reach the #1 spot on the charts.  …  It’s just a bunch of random shouting that barely maintains a pitch, layered over lyrics that are entirely pointless.” – dagwood525 @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  2.60 / 5.00, in the bottom half of #1 hits of 2007

Soulja Boy’s fifteen minutes of fame have been forgotten by most people, but for me they were a life-changing moment.  This was when I first realized that I was officially old and that my tastes would never again be accommodated by the music industry.  There had been #1 hits that I didn’t quite appreciate, and some that I actively despised, but “Crank That” was the only one in my lifetime that left me completely baffled.  To my aging ears, it seemed to lack any positive qualities whatsoever.  Now I knew how my grandparents must have felt the first time that they heard Bobby Goldsboro.

After a few listens, however, I found one little thing to like about “Crank That”.  It was the line in the chorus in which Soulja Boy yells “Superman that ho!”  I had heard plenty of performers bragging of their toughness, and some who even maintained that they were fly or hot, but none of them had dared to insult the Man of Steel.  Unless Soulja Boy owned a kryptonite mine, he was gambling with his life.  I admired his bravery if nothing else.

But then I discovered that I had misinterpreted the lyric and that he was not really calling Superman a “ho”.  Instead, this line was an allusion to a bizarre and ungratifying sexual act known as “the Superman”.  The details are inappropriate for this G-rated blog, but I will say that the act ends with one of the participants wearing a cape and the other one calling the Daily Planet to tell Jimmy Olsen what just happened.  In my opinion, even Fergie’s stretched-out granny panties from “London Bridge” are more of a turn-on than the Superman.

Soulja Boy later denied that he meant anything lewd by the “Superman” reference, claiming that this was a myth propagated by “white people”.  The lyric actually came from a dance move that he and his friends liked to do, during which they called out names of comic book characters.  “Superman that ho!  Batman that ho!  Garfield that ho!”  This is a silly explanation but I believe him, especially because he’s casually lighting up a fat one in the interview in which he talks about it.  I would not be surprised to learn that recreational substances were also used during the grueling ten-minute-long songwriting and production session that gave us “Crank That”.

Although hatred of “Crank That” is abundant, the track has more defenders than you might expect.  One of them is Tom Breihan, who gave it a favorable review in his Stereogum column and even included a chapter on it in his book about #1 hits.  Breihan seems to admire Soulja Boy’s unconventional internet marketing efforts, which provided a roadmap for other unsigned acts to get noticed in the years ahead.  One of Soulja Boy’s tactics was to upload his songs to file-sharing services and mislabel them with the name of someone popular so that users would be tricked into listening to them.  Can you imagine the letdown that people experienced from double-clicking on a freshly downloaded Hanson MP3 and hearing Soulja Boy instead?  It’s like biting into a chocolate chip cookie and discovering that the chips are actually raisins.

Even if you don’t like “Crank That”, you have to admit that its associated dance is kind of fun to do.  Just be sure to sing along:  “Beetle Bailey that ho!  Hagar the Horrible that ho!  Jughead that ho…”

“This Is Why I’m Hot” by Mims (2007)

One person’s view:  “I wish he really had said nothing on this track.  I’d have enjoyed a hip hop version of 4'33" more than this festival of circular logic.” – Axver @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  1.95 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2007 & 2008

“This Is Why I’m Hot” purports to tell us why Shawn Mims is hot, but the explanation it provides is less than satisfying.  Mims asserts that he is hot because he is fly.  Everyone knows that flyness implies hotness, so this would seem to be a straightforward application of modus ponens.  The problem, however, is that Mims can offer only flimsy evidence of his flyness.  He tells us that there are unspecified Chicagoans who deem him fly based on his choice of clothing, but his reliance on anonymous hearsay suggests the possibility that he is neither fly nor hot and is simply blowing smoke up everyone’s butts.

Although you can listen to “This Is Why I’m Hot” all day and still not know why (or even if) Mims is hot, that doesn’t mean it lacks all informational value.  The track reveals Mims’s chameleon-like ability to blend in with the local hip-hop community in any region of the United States, and it incorporates samples of other rappers to illustrate this special talent.  When Mims mentions L.A., we hear a melody that is associated with Dr. Dre and Snoop.  As he name-checks the Bay Area, a wisp of the beat from E-40’s “Tell Me When to Go” plays.  In his line about the Midwest, he references Houston (“The H”) and uses a warped voice to mimic the slow-tempo style of rap that is popular there.  Mims’s definition of the Midwest is a little loose for my tastes, but he’s a rapper, not Rand McNally, so I’ll cut him some slack.

It’s quite clear from these lyrics that Mims is a utility player in the world of hip-hop, a man known for his versatility rather than his originality.  This absence of a unique persona – along with his lack of any prior or subsequent hits – undercuts the effectiveness of his boasts on “This Is Why I’m Hot”.  For example, does anybody really believe that stores close to let Mims shop without other people around?  I’m wondering why this would even be necessary.  It isn’t as though Mims’s fly apparel, which is so admired by the residents of Illinois, is a closely guarded trade secret.  He wears it in his video that anyone can watch!  More likely, Mims wants the privacy so that no one sees his credit card being declined.

Perhaps I shouldn’t joke about Mims’s finances, because they are a sore spot for him.  He has spent much of the past 17 years complaining that Capitol Records cheated him out of almost all of his “This Is Why I’m Hot” royalties.  Kanye West probably made more money from the track than Mims did, because of the 6-second sample of “Jesus Walks” in the first verse.  But at least Mims is now recouping his losses by selling $40 T-shirts, the flyness of which is not guaranteed.

I can understand why “This Is Why I’m Hot” irked people.  No one wants to hear an obscure rapper with average skills crowing about how he’s hot and you’re not, and how he’s hogging all the women and how you can’t go to Walmart right now because he’s in there picking out a new baseball cap.  Yet, I think the song works if you consider it as sort of a parody of the brag-rap genre.  Maybe you disagree with me and believe that the lyrics are just too stupid and annoying to tolerate on any level.  If so, you’re really going to love the next exhibit in our museum of “bad” #1 hits.

“London Bridge” by Fergie (2006)

One person’s view:  “I think this song has gotten us all desperate, searching for weird roundabout ways in which this might have been ‘good’ in some strange sense of the word.  Anything but having to accept we let something so aggressively and unabashedly miserable rise to the top – and then ordered seconds.” – standbytheseawall @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  2.58 / 5.00, in the bottom half of #1 hits of 2006

Scholars at the Institute of Applied Fergalicious Studies have been debating the meaning of “London Bridge” since 2006.  One theory is that the “London bridge” in the song is a metaphor for Fergie’s underpants, which slide down in anticipation from under her skirt whenever her boyfriend is nearby.  The panties stop at her knees and form a “bridge” between her legs.  This forces her to waddle around like a person who has belatedly discovered that all of the toilet paper is in a closet on the other side of the house.  The “London” descriptor may be an allusion to the nursery rhyme in which the beloved London Bridge falls down in the same manner as the singer’s intimate apparel.  Or perhaps the panties form a “London” bridge because Fergie embroidered a caricature of the Queen on them in an effort to stimulate the boyfriend.  That guy is into some weird things.

The opposing view is that “London Bridge” is just made-up stupidity that was intended to ride on the coattails of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl”.  Like “Hollaback Girl”, “London Bridge” relies on a cryptic lyrical theme, an angry cheerleader-style chant, and the incessant use of the word “shit”.  Fergie does not, however, equate excrement with bananas as Stefani did in her song.  She didn’t want to permanently wreck her chances of signing a lucrative endorsement deal with Chiquita.

“London Bridge” has also been compared to Fergie’s previous single with the Black Eyed Peas, “My Humps”.  Both hits present themselves as sexy, yet any use of either song’s lyrics in an actual bedroom scenario is likely to result in involuntary abstinence.  (Praising your girlfriend’s skin tags and warts as “lovely lady lumps” is rarely taken as a compliment.)  Sociologists have measured a decline in sexual activity that began around the mid-2000s, and we can probably blame Fergie for this.  I think 50 Cent may have contributed a bit too, though, with “Candy Shop”.

The most surprising thing about “London Bridge” is that it isn’t hated more than it is.  The beat is catchy enough to earn it a number of devoted fans, some of whom praised the track on a Reddit thread.  However, no one leaped to the song’s defense when it was attacked on a message board for sports journalists shortly after it was released.  The best that any of the journalists said about “London Bridge” was that it was not as bad as Paris Hilton’s new song, but even that was not a unanimous opinion.  Eventually, the Fergie debate simmered down and the sports guys returned to arguing about whether baseball would be more exciting if it added a three-point line.

“London Bridge” was the first oozing tentacle of the Black Eyed Peas biomass to reach the #1 position on the Hot 100.  It served as a warning of what was in store for chart-watchers for the next four years.  I suspect that another Pea-affiliated song will eventually make an appearance on this blog.

“Do I Make You Proud” by Taylor Hicks (2006)

One critic’s view:  “The two craptastic songs that American Idol 5 finalists Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee performed Tuesday night were, unbelievably, the best two songs in a pool of 150 possibilities.  …  All five [of the writers of these two songs] deserve eternal scorn and shame, or at least membership in the Diane Warren Hall of Mediocre Pop Songs.” – Andy Dehnart @ reality blurred

The public’s view:  1.79 / 5.00, the second-worst #1 hit of 2006

Winning American Idol in the 2000s was like boarding a spaceship and blasting into the outer reaches of fame.  The champion soars through the atmosphere at Mach 10, watching through the window as the Earth’s mighty cities, mountains, and rivers bow down before his greatness.  He is living his dream for a moment, but then the booster rocket malfunctions as it is supposed to lift his celebrity status into a stable orbit.  He opens the door to the engine compartment to see what is wrong, and discovers that someone has emptied a trash can into the space where the ignition module is supposed to be.  Amid the gum wrappers and orange peels he finds the script for From Justin to Kelly and the sheet music for “This Is the Night”.  Gravity soon does its thing, and he ends his brief flight by splashing down into the Pacific.  He never quite becomes a pop star, but he goes back to his hometown and his job at Winn-Dixie with a great story to tell for the rest of his life.

Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood were able to avoid this scenario, as both of them escaped the shadows of the mediocre adult contemporary ballads they were forced to perform for their first singles.  However, neither had to contend with “Do I Make You Proud”, which was assigned to Taylor Hicks in season five.  This was debatably the worst coronation song for any Idol winner (or second-place finisher) up to that point, and it was some fairly heavy ballast to bring along on a career-launching rocket ride.

“Do I Make You Proud” starts out as a standard soft rock gewgaw, but then builds to a powerful chorus with a memorable hook.  Unfortunately, the reason the chorus is memorable is that it sounds like a previous #1 hit:  Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”.  Now, I am sure that music experts can point out dozens of ways in which the two songs are different.  “Taylor Hicks’s bass player employs an innovative left-handed tuning scheme that elevates the rhythmic feel of the piece.  Also, Hicks’s melody has a tilde over the A-flat in the second measure – a jarring contrast from Aerosmith’s arpeggio.”  But to my uninformed ears, these are essentially the same choruses with different lyrics.

Let’s talk about those lyrics, which focus on the singer’s one nagging concern:  he needs to know if the listeners are proud of him.  It’s unreasonable for him to expect that of us.  Unless I’m Taylor Hicks’s singing coach or his mother, why should I be proud that he got a trophy in a televised contest?  His fans may have felt contentment, relief, or even sexual pleasure when he won Idol, but I doubt that any of them truly took pride in an achievement that wasn’t theirs.  Perhaps he’s talking about pride of representation, as with Black Pride or Gay Pride.  Hicks isn’t black or gay, but he is an ambassador for the Men With Prematurely Graying Hair movement.  However, as a card-carrying member of the MWPGH community, I can report that we used up all of our representational pride on Steve Martin and Phil Donahue back around 1980.  We don’t have any left for Taylor Hicks.

The first verse contains the line “My heart is full of endless gratitude.”  Logically, I expect the next line to be “That I got to see you in the nude.”  (“And I’m a handsome gray-haired dude” would also work.)  Instead, the line is “You were the one, the one to guide me through.”  Maybe I should be pleased that the songwriters didn’t go for the obvious rhyme.  Instead I’m annoyed that they didn’t bother to rhyme the line correctly at all, yet still came up with something boring and trite.

Hicks’s performance on “Do I Make You Proud” gives me the sense that he is not just a technically proficient singer like all of the other Idol winners.  He also has some soulfulness and passion, and I might enjoy listening to him in another context.  Too bad that the song demotivates me from wanting to seek out his other music.