“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.

“Crack a Bottle” by Eminem, Dr. Dre, and 50 Cent (2009)

One critic’s view:  “‘Crack A Bottle’ wasn’t the first terrible Eminem song, but it does find wild, psychedelic new ways to be terrible.” – Tom Breihan @ Stereogum

The public’s view:  2.19 / 5.00, in the bottom 25% of #1 hits of 2009

Bleach, vinegar, and napalm are useful products on their own but should never be mixed together.  In 2009 we endured the hip-hop equivalent, with Dr. Dre and 50 Cent joining Eminem to make a track that was supposed to leave everyone in awe of the triple dose of charisma.  The awe wore off within minutes.  Today, “Crack a Bottle” is mostly regarded as a blot on the catalogs of all three rappers.

Collaborations such as this are, of course, very common in rap, but “Crack a Bottle” relies on the look-at-us-we’re-stars approach a little too heavily.  Eminem announces each of the rappers’ verses as if he’s emceeing a variety show, and he calls himself and his friends “the platinum trio”.  Too bad he didn’t write some platinum-level lyrics for this event.  The main plot of “Crack a Bottle” is that the trio (or perhaps just Eminem) is riding in a Chevy Tahoe that is jammed full of naked women who are offering themselves up.  It’s a sex brag that is led by perhaps the only top-shelf rapper who is inherently incapable of pulling off a successful sex brag, and somehow it gets stretched to almost five minutes.

Rather than reviewing the track in detail, I have a better idea.  I’m going to envision an alternate scenario in a parallel universe, one in which Eminem decided to give this rap away to a different trio who had already scored a major hit together.  I’m talking about Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting.  The ill-advised combination of these three superstars led to one of the most poorly rated #1 hits of the 1990s, “All for Love”.  Let’s imagine them reuniting in the studio to record “Crack a Bottle”.

Bryan:  Guys, thanks for coming back to Vancouver for the “Crack a Bottle” project.  This song is a little different from the last one and I don’t think we can scream in unison this time.  We’re going to have to divvy up the work.  Rod, this line is for you:  “With a record of 17 rapes, 400 assaults, and 4 murders, the undisputed most diabolical villain of the world!”

Rod:  What the bloody hell?  I get in one bar fight and now I’m the Boston Strangler?

Bryan:  Sting, I want you to handle the part about the bitches in the Tahoe.  The key lyric is “Now where’s the rubbers?  Who’s got the rubbers?  I noticed there’s so many of ‘em and there’s really not that many of us.”  You’re going to have to emote on that line.

Sting:  Indeed, I shall imbue some melancholy.  It is disconcerting that the quantity of promiscuous females has surpassed the supply of prophylactics, but it is just as Malthus foresaw.

Bryan:  Whatever you say, dude.  I call dibs on this line:  “Kiss my butt / Lick fromunda cheese from under my nuts.”  That’s exactly the emotion I was trying to express in “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?”, but I couldn’t find such graceful words.

Sting:  Bah!  That verse is mere Hallmark card sentimentality!  I prefer the more elegiac allusions to fromunda cheese in the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Christina Rossetti.

Rod:  Another shite song for another shite movie.  Ah well, at least Disney’s checks always clear.

You have to admit, you’d tune in to hear what those three musketeers could do with “Crack a Bottle”.  On the other hand, a version of “All for Love” by Eminem, 50 Cent, and Dr. Dre would be really, really bad.