“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!