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…”
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