The Sequel

Everyone is unhappy that I ran out of bad #1 hits to roast on this blog.  I can feel the discontentment and hear the clamor, and the clamoring has been keeping me awake at night.  I’m pleased to announce that there is a new project that will ease some of the pain:  The Bad Top Ten Hits.  This new blog focuses on the songs that peaked at positions #2 through #10 on the Hot 100, beginning in 1960 and continuing until we reach the point that “bad” and “good” become indistinguishable.  And it’s completely free – no paywalls, subscriptions, affiliate links, popup ads, or pleas for donations for needy children or other such b.s.  Please read it if you are so inclined.

The “Bad” #1 Hits – A Wrap-Up and Farewell (for now)

Our museum of the supposed worst #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 is complete with 75 entries.  Now it’s time to take a look at a few extra achievements in this field.

Worst Opening Line of a #1 Hit:  Quincy Jones was a genius as a producer, yet he couldn’t talk Michael Jackson out of starting “Bad” with “Your butt is mine.”  The lyric was so awful that it reportedly caused Prince to forgo a proposed collaboration with Michael.  Given the quality of most 1980s superstars duets, this may have been for the best.

Worst Geography Mishap in a #1 Hit:  The English band Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died” tells us of a gun battle that took place on the east side of Chicago – i.e., in Lake Michigan.  They should have asked someone from this side of the Atlantic to review their lyrics.  Even a city boy who was born and raised in South Detroit would have caught this error.

Most Defamatory Verse in a #1 Hit:  In last year’s chart-topper “Carnival”, Kanye West hinted that he had something in common with R. Kelly, Bill Cosby, and P. Diddy.  This was outrageously unfair to those three men, who have done nothing so awful as to merit being likened to Kanye.

Worst Overall Lyric in a #1 Hit:  There are so many candidates for this award that “Marconi plays the mamba” probably doesn’t even make the top fifty.  Ultimately, I must defer to noted bad song expert Dave Barry’s opinion on this matter.  The late Mac Davis wins the trophy for these two lines in “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me”:

Girl, you’re a hot-blooded woman child
And it’s warm where you’re touchin’ me

Most Pathetic Ballad of Lost Love to Hit #1:  Long before James Blunt and Lewis Capaldi, there was Billy Vera.  In “At This Moment”, Vera practically weeps while begging his woman not to leave him.  ”If you stay I’d subtract 20 years from my life.”  I think she’d be happier if he would just subtract two minutes from the song.

Best Save of an Otherwise Bad #1 Hit by a Featured Guest:  Charli XCX, for “Fancy”.  Does anyone doubt that this track would have been intolerable if Iggy Azalea had handled the whole thing by herself?

Worst Political Statement in a #1 Hit:  Nelly’s “Grillz”, which peaked atop the Hot 100 in 2006, contained a guest rap by Ali & Big Gipp that name-checked the junior senator from New York:  “Got a bill in my mouth like Hillary Rodham.”  This makes Jason Aldean’s social commentary seem almost Dylanesque by comparison.

Worst Song to Hit #1 Twice:  Songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King have the winning composition, and it isn’t a close contest.  “Go Away Little Girl”’s baffling return to #1 in 1971 left everyone asking serious questions about where we went wrong as a species.  The planet was under better stewardship when it was covered by twenty-foot-tall fungus.

Lifetime Achievement Award in the Field of Bad #1s:  New Kids on the Block existed in an era in which lousy #1s were sprouting up like hairs on a hog, yet their three chart-toppers still managed to lower the bar.  As if that wasn’t enough, they helped Tommy Page make it to #1 too.  They deserve a special place of honor in our Hall of Infamy.

Worst-Rated #1s by Decade

These are the #1 hits that Rate Your Music users hate the most.  The overall lowest-rated #1 song of each decade is denoted by an asterisk (*):

Worst #1s by Male Solo Acts

1950s (mid-1958 through 1959) – “Why” by Frankie Avalon
1960s – “The Ballad of the Green Berets” by SSgt. Barry Sadler (*)
1970s – “Go Away Little Girl” by Donny Osmond
1980s – “Rock On” by Michael Damian
1990s – “I’ll Be Your Everything” by Tommy Page (*)
2000s – “This Is the Night” by Clay Aiken (*)
2010s – “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi
2020s (through 2024) – “Try That in a Small Town” by Jason Aldean (*)

Worst #1s by Female Solo Acts

1950s (mid-1958 through 1959) – women were not allowed to have #1 hits without a chaperone
1960s – “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You” by Connie Francis
1970s – “You Light Up My Life” by Debby Boone
1980s – “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler
1990s – “Coming Out of the Dark” by Gloria Estefan
2000s – “A Moment Like This” by Kelly Clarkson
2010s – “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor
2020s (through 2024) – “Super Freaky Girl” by Nicki Minaj

Worst #1s by Duos, Groups, and Other Unfortunate Collaborations

1950s (mid-1958 through 1959) – “The Chipmunk Song” by the Chipmunks with David Seville (*)
1960s – “Hey Paula” by Paul & Paula
1970s – “(You’re) Having My Baby” by Paul Anka with Odia Coates (*)
1980s – “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever)” by New Kids on the Block (*)
1990s – “I’m Your Angel” by R. Kelly & Celine Dion
2000s – “Laffy Taffy” by D4L
2010s – “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (*)
2020s (through 2024) – “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” by Jawsh 685 x Jason Derulo x BTS

Best-Rated #1s by Decade

Just in case you’re tired of the negativity, I’ll leave you on a more uplifting note.  Here are the #1 singles with the highest Rate Your Music scores:

1950s (mid-1958 through 1959) – “Sleep Walk” by Santo & Johnny
1960s – “Penny Lane” by the Beatles
1970s – “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac
1980s – “When Doves Cry” by Prince
1990s – “Doo Wop (That Thing)” by Lauryn Hill
2000s – Tie:  “Hey Ya!” by OutKast ; “Ms. Jackson” by OutKast
2010s – “Somebody That You Used to Know” by Gotye featuring Kimbra
2020s (through 2024) – “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar

“Try That in a Small Town” by Jason Aldean (2023)

One person’s view:  “[H]ere you have these violent and evocative lyrics, and the composers couldn’t even bother to give them a musically exciting vehicle?  …  Jason could’ve just as easily been singing a love song with the exact same instrumentation.” – Torches @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  0.79 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of all-time

Some passage of time is usually needed before we can judge the merit of an endeavor.  On rare occasions, however, we don’t need this historical perspective to know how things are going to shake out in the long run.  For example, it was painfully obvious by 2005 that President George W. Bush’s visage was never going to replace Lincoln’s on the $5 bill.  After only three or four episodes had aired, it was already clear that The Simpsons was destined to outlast its bitter rival The Pat Sajak Show by many decades.  Likewise, it’s safe to assume that Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” will still generally be considered a bad #1 hit in 2050 just as it is in 2025.  While I would prefer not to include any songs released after 2020 on this blog, Aldean has earned an exception to this rule.

Many people have slammed this hit for being nothing more than a right-wing grievance ballad.  I don’t think this is an entirely fair criticism, because conservatives need protest songs too.  They deserve better efforts than this, however.  Even with four experienced Nashville songwriters helping him out, Jason Aldean ain’t exactly a match for Woody Guthrie.  Guthrie proudly adorned his guitar with the slogan “This machine kills fascists.”  If Aldean’s guitar ever kills anyone, it will be by stereotyping them to death.

Aldean’s earlier songs had established him as a defender of rural America.  “Amarillo Sky” was one of his first singles, and he put some passion into that performance.  He sounded like he wanted to punch Jesus in the face for cursing the farmers of the Texas panhandle with drought and damaging hail.  On an artistic and emotional level, “Try That in a Small Town” doesn’t give him as much to work with.  The clanging, dissonant guitar chord is a great beginning, but the rest of the track is a three-minute exercise in cashing a paycheck.  I can’t think of many other #1 hits that work better as a slogan or a meme than they do as a piece of music.  Indeed, you’re more likely to see someone wearing a “Try That in a Small Town” T-shirt than you are to hear the tune playing anywhere.  “Don’t Worry Be Happy” at least had a melody – this song barely does.

In his 2012 country hit “Fly Over States”, Aldean derided two coastal city slickers who refuse to visit the wheat fields and funny-named villages of Indiana and Oklahoma.  Those two guys don’t know what they’re missing.  They will never see the two-headed calf at the Osgood farm, the 12-foot-tall egg beater outside of Debbie’s Daybreak Diner, or the plaque commemorating the birthplace of Orville Redenbacher.  But the “small town” described in Aldean’s later chart-topper is not a welcoming tourist attraction.  It is more like the setting of Deliverance.  This town is where your girlfriend’s best friend’s uncle mysteriously vanished after stopping for a drink at the local bar and asking if one of the TVs could be changed to a women’s soccer game.  The town sounds a siren at 6:15 every evening to warn anyone with red hair or a hard-to-pronounce name that it’s time to hit the road.  The speed limit here is 25 m.p.h.  Are you thinking of driving 26?  I recommend you don’t.  While “Try That in a Small Town” strikes a forceful blow against the flag-burnings and cop-spittings that are a daily hazard in large metropolitan areas, it fails to convince us that less populated locales are any safer.

This song’s effectiveness as a protest evaporates in the second verse when Aldean whines that Uncle Sam may someday try to confiscate the gun that his grandpa gave him.  Of all of the unlikely ways in which the government could trample on his rights, this is perhaps the unlikeliest.  Why not complain about one of the many things that the feds have actually taken from U.S. citizens?  Thanks to owl-coddling bureaucrats, I can no longer obtain the leaded gasoline that I need to keep my Edsel running or the DDT that I need to kill the ladybug that got into my kitchen.  I can’t purchase a box of Sudafed without presenting two forms of ID, a clean criminal background check, and a mucus sample that proves I am congested.  Worst of all, the safety-obsessed alarmists in D.C. have banned the sale of lawn darts, making it impossible to replace these enjoyable outdoor game sets after some of the darts get stuck in the neighbor’s kids.  Menthol cigarettes, high fructose corn syrup, and red dye #3 are the next everyday products that regulators have in their sights, but Aldean is more worried about the one possession that is specifically protected by its own constitutional amendment and hundreds of Federalist Society judges.  Paranoid much, Jason?

I will, however, defend the song from the accusations of racism that have been leveled against it.  Its video was filmed in front of a Tennessee courthouse where, in 1927, a violent mob hanged a young black man who had been misidentified as a rape suspect.  This has been a point of controversy for Aldean, as the lyrics seem to endorse this type of vigilante justice.  Also, the original version of the video included scenes of unruly Black Lives Matter protesters.  These segments were later removed for copyright reasons, and much of the remaining footage is of unrelated demonstrations in Toronto and Montreal.  Although these protest clips have nothing to do with the liquor store robberies and carjackings described in the song, they contain some of the most violent imagery ever to emerge from Canada outside of a hockey broadcast or the mosh pit of a Gino Vannelli concert.

Aldean says that he was unaware of the courthouse’s sordid history, and I believe him.  He selected this spot because it is where he renews his car tags, and he wanted us to feel the same joy that he does during that annual trip to the BMV.  (Maybe he’ll film his next video at his dentist’s office.)  He pointed out that there are no racial references anywhere in his song’s lyrics.  Aldean’s ideal small town is a color-blind utopia where lynching is an equal opportunity sport that can be enjoyed by people of all backgrounds and ethnicities.  And it isn’t like his video director could have found any footage of white Republicans assaulting police at a political protest, right?

This is the last hit that I will feature on this blog.  For those of you just now joining me, feel free to go back to the beginning and catch up on the history of “bad” #1 records.  Without the groundwork laid by Lawrence Welk, Tony Orlando, and Air Supply, we never could have had Lewis Capaldi, 6ix9ine, or Jason Aldean.

My rating:  2 / 10

“Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” by Jawsh 685 x Jason Derulo x BTS (2020)

One person’s view:  “‘Savage Love’ is the future:  artists trying dispassionately to predict the course of a soulless algorithm that is trying to predict the desires of millions of other humans.  Like 2020 itself, ‘Savage Love’ is a yawning chasm of meaninglessness.” – Sean Doyle @ Sean’s Newsletter, ranking “Savage Love” as the worst song of 2020

The public’s view:  1.13 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2020 to 2022

When I was in high school, I did my homework with the same technique that Jason Derulo uses to write songs.  I would begin by writing my name at the top of a piece of paper.  Satisfied that I had made some progress, I would play a video game for 7 hours before returning to the task.  Likewise, Derulo gets a good start on each set of lyrics by using his name as the first two words.  (This trait was noted by my favorite gospel group, the Toilet Bowl Cleaners, in their 2015 hymn “Jason Derulo Probably Announces His Name Before Pooping in a Public Bathroom”.)  Once you have a great opening line like “Jason Derulo”, recited as if it were an interesting trivia fact that had just been learned, the rest of the song writes itself.

This is where the similarities between Jason Derulo’s music and my homework end.  I didn’t have internet access in high school, so after writing my name I had to plagiarize the 1981 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica that I had won as a second-place prize in a spelling bee.  It was easiest to grab the first volume off the shelf, so I mostly did essays on things that started with the letter “A”.  Derulo, on the other hand, is a social media guru with 65.8 million followers on TikTok.  Whenever he is in need of a new idea, he can peruse that app for clips by random teenagers from New Zealand who probably won’t mind too much if he borrows their work.  Now that TikTok is on the verge of being banned, Derulo will require a new source of inspiration.  I suggest that he invest in a high-quality encyclopedia.  I’d love to hear a track about aardwolves or the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.

Jawsh 685 happened to be a New Zealand teen who dabbled in music on TikTok.  Derulo stumbled across one of Jawsh’s catchy beats and merged it with his own lyrics.  The combination of the two artists’ talents led to an incredibly infectious tune titled “Savage Love plus a gratuitous parenthetical part that I am not going to keep typing”.  After just one listen of this track six hours ago, I am still involuntarily hearing Jason’s music in my head.  Unfortunately, the earworm stuck in my brain is by a different Jason:  Mraz.  Yes, for whatever reason, Jason Derulo’s “Savage Love” reminds me so much of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” that I can barely keep them straight.  Despite that unwelcome resemblance, “Savage Love” is entertaining enough to deserve to peak at #7 on the Hot 100.  This would put it in the same league as such fondly remembered #7 chestnuts as Herman’s Hermits’ “Just a Little Bit Better”, George Michael’s “A Different Corner”, and Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight”.  Sure enough, “Savage Love” topped out at the #7 position in August of 2020 and then bopped around the lower reaches of the top 10 for the next couple of months.

At this point, I should be able to say “And we all lived happily ever after.”  However, this story was about to get really stupid.  According to Jawsh 685, his teams linked up with BTS’s teams and decided to collaborate.  I have no idea why an obscure 17-year-old TikTokker would have teams, and what the rest of us are doing so wrong as to reach middle age without having teams.  Regardless, the result of all that teamwork was that BTS recorded a new verse for “Savage Love” – in Korean.  When this gibberish was concatenated with Derulo’s English lyrics, the song became the sort of absurd non sequitur that would typically not exist outside of a weird dream or a Family Guy gag.  Jawsh’s new collaborators also refashioned that thought-provoking opening lyric – “Jason Derulo” – into the less compelling line “BTS”.

This BTS “remix” of “Savage Love” was demonstrably worse than Derulo’s original in every way.  Accordingly, it soared to #1 the moment that it appeared.  Some cultural critics viewed the remix’s success as a predictable backlash against pandemic lockdowns, the killing of George Floyd, and the unexplained arrival of dangerous Asian murder hornets in the Pacific Northwest.  The world had given young people nothing but bad news in 2020, and they retaliated by sending a uniquely unlistenable song to the top of the Hot 100 so that elder chart buffs like me would have to hear it.

So what do those incomprehensible new Korean lyrics actually mean?  With the help of Google Translate, I’ve found one possible answer:

Love is perhaps a listing of fleeting emotions
All conditions are attached, so what do I love?
The word eternity is perhaps a sand castle
It collapses helplessly in front of the gentle waves

However, Google assumes that BTS used the Seoul dialect of Korean.  I suspect that this is not really the case.  If we translate from the North Korean dialect, we get a slightly different message:

A balloon is perhaps landing in Bellingham, Washington
Murder hornets are attached, from Pyongyang with love
Yankee imperialism is perhaps a sand castle
It collapses helplessly in front of the stinging bees

My rating:  2 / 10  (the version without BTS is a 5 / 10)

“TROLLZ” by 6ix9ine & Nicki Minaj (2020)

One person’s view:  “While not as bad as GUMMO or FEFE, TROLLZ is still absolutely awful.  The beat is annoying, 6ix9ine’s voice is ear bleedingly bad, the lyrics are dumb, and it’s just an annoying, obnoxious experience.” – Jeremy @ Jeremy U’s Music Corner

The public’s view:  1.54 / 5.00, the second-worst #1 hit of 2020

Would you like to hear about a male-female duet loaded with weak rhymes and with self-indulgent and vaguely threatening lyrics?  A song whose male performer is disliked to the point that some listeners actively wished for him to be put in prison?  A song whose brief domination of the Hot 100 was so baffling that it suggested the possibility of an unsavory chart manipulation scheme?  If so, I recommend that you read the entry for Peter Cetera & Amy Grant’s “The Next Time I Fall”.  But maybe “TROLLZ” fits the bill as well.

“TROLLZ” is a better song than “The Next Time I Fall”, but its back-story makes it difficult to defend.  6ix9ine is the kind of rapper whose Wikipedia article has lengthy sections titled “Legal Issues” and “Feuds” which completely overshadow the portion devoted to his musical talent.  Many of the lyrics of “TROLLZ” are disses directed at those who have run afoul of either him or Nicki Minaj at some point.  Almost everyone falls into this category, but at least we are fortunate that the song does not try to address all of us individually.  I’m thankful there’s not a verse about the cashier at CVS who refused to honor Nicki’s expired shampoo coupon in 2014.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with a good diss track.  Virtually every person in my demographic appreciates Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and its derisive slap at Neil Young.  “TROLLZ” could take a few lessons from that song.  Skynyrd was direct but not defamatory with their lyrics.  They never called Young a snitch or insinuated that he had V.D., as “TROLLZ” does with its targets.  More importantly, Skynyrd was responding to a perceived slight against the entire American South – not some gripe that no one outside of the band cared about.  “TROLLZ”, on the other hand, is all about paltry personal disagreements.  Am I supposed to be angry that Meek Mill offended 6ix9ine by giving him unsolicited advice?  Judging by 6ix9ine’s life choices, maybe he should have listened.

The week after it debuted atop the chart, “TROLLZ” became the first non-holiday song in Billboard history to drop all the way out of the top 30 from the #1 position.  Its flim-flamming of the public was just beginning, however, as 6ix9ine would then use the song to launch a line of NFTs.  An NFT is a virtual collectible – essentially a trading card that doesn’t actually exist in any tangible way.  It is a scam by its very nature, and yet the rapper allegedly made it even more of a scam by not delivering all of the imaginary stuff that was promised.  Who could be so lazy as to fail to provide a make-believe product?  Maybe someone lazy enough to rhyme “fuck” with “fuck”, then with “up”, and then again with “fuck”.

There is one very good thing about “TROLLZ” from my perspective.  After decades of waiting patiently, I was delighted that we finally had a second #1 hit that references a Sesame Street Muppet in its lyrics.  (The first was John Parr’s “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” in 1985, but you already knew that.)  Unfortunately, the relevant line in “TROLLZ” is this demand from Nicki Minaj:  “Yeah, eat it, Cookie Monster.”  I would have preferred something less sexual and more in keeping with the spirit of the Children’s Television Workshop.  Maybe “You’re a really good friend, Bert.”  Or “Hey Snuffy, it’s time for your rabies shot.”  Instead, I am left with the mental image of Nicki picking blue fur and cookie crumbs out of her nether regions.  It still beats listening to a Peter Cetera ballad.

My rating:  4 / 10

“Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi (2019)

One person’s view:  “A bland, drippy piano ballad that would have been boring if not for Lewis Capaldi bellowing every line like he's at the bottom of a well; unfortunately, that just makes it insufferable instead.” – Cosmiagramma @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  1.32 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2019

Every so often, the world’s eardrums are rattled by a white male singer-songwriter howling his lungs out while lamenting a lost love.  This type of ballad is just begging to be bullied.  You might as well dress it in a Cub Scout uniform, give it a My Little Pony lunchbox, and put it on a school bus with some guys from the football team.  “Someone You Loved” is probably expecting to get its head knocked in by this blog, but I’m going to let it off with just a wedgie.

“Someone You Loved” is one of the most basic, unsophisticated tunes to reach #1 in recent decades.  The instrumentation is mostly just a piano playing the same simple riff over and over again, varying only slightly during the bridge.  Likewise, the lyrics repeat themselves like a local TV newscast that tries to milk a city council meeting, a house fire, and a slight chance of rain for 90 minutes of air time.  Even a terrific top-of-the-crop singer – someone like Ann Wilson or Adele – would struggle to make this track interesting.  To catch the listener’s ears, it needs a performer who is a decent vocalist but who also sounds kind of weird.  Just as James Blunt’s odd bleating was enough to distinguish “You’re Beautiful”, Lewis Capaldi’s imprecise diction rescues “Someone You Loved” from oblivion.

Some have speculated that Capaldi was drunk when he recorded this song, but I have a different theory:  he was Scottish.  Of course, “Scottish” and “drunk” are listed as synonyms in some thesauri.  (It isn’t the Scots’ fault that their whisky tastes so good.)  Regardless of whether and what he may have imbibed, Lewis’s slurring tugs at our emotions:  “And you’re not here / To get me froo it all.”  I actually enjoyed his histrionics enough to listen to the song four times before hitting my lifetime limit.  In other words, I liked “Someone You Loved” less than “All About That Bass” but approximately four times more than “Shape of You”.

Lewis has said that the song is not directed to an ex-girlfriend, as most people assumed, but to his late grandmother.  This raises some uncomfortable questions about the level of intimacy that is suggested by the lyrics.  Maybe it’s best not to open that bottle of Glenfiddich single malt when Grandma Capaldi comes over.

Let’s abruptly change the subject to something more appetizing:  toilets.  Much like Meghan Trainor, Lewis Capaldi is brimming with anecdotes about everybody’s favorite variety of plumbing fixture and its usage.  My favorite is the time a grocery clerk recognized him and permitted him to relieve himself in a staff restroom that is normally off-limits to the public.  Capaldi realized at this moment that he was now a celebrity, and that the best perk of fame was that he could now pee wherever and whenever he wanted.  If you get a front row seat to one of his concerts, you might want to bring an umbrella.

With that, we are now done with the 2010s.  I bet you never thought we would get froo it all.  I’m running out of steam but I still have a few more “bad” #1s to subject you to before this blog calls it quits.

My rating:  5 / 10

“Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (2018)

One publication’s view:  “Cardi B’s verse is the only saving grace of this inexplicable chart-topper, which sounds engineered to soundtrack department-store commercials.” – Time

The public’s view:  1.09 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of the 2010s

I’ve relied heavily on Rate Your Music scores when deciding which songs to feature on this blog, and Maroon 5’s “Girls Like You” excels by this metric.  Its rating (1.09 at the time of this writing) is, by far, the lowest I have encountered up to this point.  I didn’t even know that a score this bad was possible to attain.  Ed Sheeran could remake “(You’re) Having My Baby”, with a minute-long armpit-fart solo after the first chorus, and still probably manage a 1.25.  Clearly, there is something about “Girls Like You” that gets under people’s skin.

But it isn’t just this one song that raised the collective dander of the universe.  Adam Levine and his anonymous bandmates had been careening toward this outcome for a decade.  Judging by the reviews that I’ve read, there are many people who adored the group’s early music but became disenchanted and even angry when hearing their later material.  If we’re going to pinpoint the moment when things started to go wrong, it was probably when the act changed its name from Kara’s Flowers to Maroon 5.  It was all downhill after that.

Yet Maroon 5’s commercial success has soared in inverse proportion to its critical reputation.  This is one of several paradoxes about the group and its leader.  For example, Adam Levine looks like he should be an MMA fighter but sings like a castrati.  He judges other singers’ vocal talent on a TV show despite smothering his own nasal falsetto with generous amounts of Auto-Tune whenever he records a track.  There are also stylistic contradictions in Maroon 5’s music.  This band has developed a recipe that awkwardly merges the bland ubiquity of adult contemporary with the edginess of rap and alternative rock.  “Girls Like You” is probably the purest incarnation of their hit song formula.

Adult contemporary’s goal is to appeal to ladies ages 25 to 54.  Radio advertisers love these household-heading females who buy tons of groceries and baby supplies, and who undergo expensive electrolysis treatments any time they grow a stray beard hair.  “Girls Like You” scored points with these women by addressing them directly, using the second-person.  None of them wanted to hear Levine singing about how some other type of girl runs around with guys like him.

Both sonically and lyrically, Maroon 5’s hit is reminiscent of a chart-topper from 11 years earlier:  Akon’s “Don’t Matter”.  This evokes nostalgia for the happy-go-lucky time before the 25-to-54-year-old listener had four lazy kids, two worthless ex-husbands, and a stressful position as a Senior Restroom Break Timer in the HR department of a mid-sized bank.  Akon recognized the similarity to his work, and responded by making his own version of “Girls Like You”.  This was kind of a smart-ass move, albeit entirely justified.

But a successful AC song can’t have any indelicate content that will drive away all of those timid radio advertisers, and Maroon 5 likes to push the boundaries.  They usually toss in a profanity or two, and “Girls Like You” also suggests that Levine and his woman will “roll that Backwood”.  A Backwood is a brand of cigar whose purchasers frequently discard the tobacco filling and replace it with a more potent herb – just as Akon threw out most of Maroon 5’s lyrics and replaced them with better ones.

Cardi B’s rap is the most risqué part of “Girls Like You”, but it did not stop the song from topping Billboard’s adult contemporary airplay chart for a stultifying 36 weeks.  I’m not sure why her jarring remarks about playing with herself weren’t a deal-breaker for AC radio.  Censoring the rap interlude wasn’t a viable option, because it is generally considered to be the best part of the song.  Any listeners who sit through four minutes of Adam Levine’s coma-inducing prattle are going to be pretty darn upset if they don’t get to hear 30 seconds of Cardi near the end.  They might even sue.

Although Maroon 5’s formula was overused by this point, I am impressed that they adhered to it with such professional rigor.  They calibrated all of the parameters perfectly to maximize this song’s chart endurance.  It reminds me of how McDonald’s uses the ideal amount of calcium lactate to extend their food’s stay in the human digestive system.  Much like a McNugget plodding through the large intestine on a weeks-long trek, “Girls Like You” got stuck in the slow-turning gears of American radio for far too long.  Even with Cardi B’s spicy dipping sauce helping to make the experience more bearable, most people were glad when the track finally completed its voyage and came out the other end.

My rating:  3 / 10

“Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift (2017)

One critic’s view:  “This sounds like the Black Eyed Peas.  And not one of the middling [songs] either, one of the really bad ones.” – Todd in the Shadows

The public’s view:  1.71 / 5.00, the second-worst #1 hit of 2017

Highly respected, generation-defining musical talents are not immune from making an appearance on the Bad #1 Hits blog, because there’s always the risk that one of their hits will later be deemed unbearable by a public that once adoringly accepted it.  For example, Elton John is a pop music legend, but that doesn’t mean that people want to hear “Island Girl” anymore.  “Go Away Little Girl” is probably the reason that Donny Osmond has never been nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  And Taylor Swift will be remembered a millennium from now for “Blank Space”, “You Belong to Me”, and the 522-minute long Taylor’s version of Taylor’s version of “All Too Well” that she plans to release in 2036, while “Look What You Made Me Do” will be but a sad footnote in the history books.

In my last post, I said that I didn’t enjoy writing about someone as over-exposed as Ed Sheeran.  So, you can imagine how I feel about this entry.  While I have welcomed maybe a dozen of Taylor Swift’s songs into my MP3 library – which is an incredibly high honor for her – I pay little attention to her love life, her political pronouncements, or the stunned facial expressions that she exhibits upon winning a trophy for Best Female Video That Cost More Than The International Space Station.  I am really not a very good Swiftie.  Therefore, my opinion of this chart-topping single comes from a certain level of detachment that may not perceive all of the nuances involved.

With its atonal chorus, “Look What You Made Me Do” is devoid of the pleasant melodic qualities that usually characterize a Swift tune.  It didn’t cruise to #1 on the basis of musical superiority over its competition.  Its primary appeal is that it poses a mystery for the listener.  The lyrics are clearly about a conflict between Taylor and some unspecified person, but we are left to wonder who she is singing about.

A few onlookers have suggested that “Look What You Made Me Do” is about Kanye West, because Taylor and Kanye got into some kind of argument back around 2009.  No one really knows the details of their dispute, but I think it had something to do with footwear.  Apparently, Swift loathes people who promote overpriced sneakers.  It’s the same reason why she and Donald Trump don’t get along, and why Michael Jordan was never invited on stage during the Eras Tour.  But do you really believe that she would hold this grudge for eight years?  Or that listeners would care enough about it after all that time to send a single to #1 on that basis?  Pop culture is pretty stupid, but is it that stupid?

Of course it is, but there’s a detail that undermines the Kanye hypothesis:  the unknown person in the song once asked Taylor for a place to sleep.  Kanye isn’t exactly homeless, so I don’t think this could have been him.  This sounds more like one of the minor celebrities whom Swift has dated.  It’s a relatable complaint that she is expressing, because every successful woman has had a similar uncomfortable moment with an impoverished boyfriend at some point.  It’s always awkward when Tom Hiddlehopper, or whoever, asks to borrow one of your spare penthouses or beach mansions because he can’t afford a room at the Days Inn.  However, it would be quite uncultured and gross to write a song that publicly airs petty quibbles about an ex, and I find it hard to believe that Taylor would operate in that fashion.

Regardless of who the target of this track is, I take issue with the idea that anyone has made Taylor Swift do anything.  She is among the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world.  If she commits some vengeful act that is detrimental to all parties involved, it is because she wants to do it – not because some lesser personage is forcing her.  I would respect this song more if it was called “Look What I Felt Like Doing and So I Did”.

People still ask Carly Simon and Alanis Morissette who they were singing about in their mystery records, decades after the fact.  I doubt anyone asks Taylor Swift about “Look What You Made Me Do”.  The song just isn’t memorable enough for anyone to care who it was trying to embarrass.

My rating:  3 / 10

“Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran (2017)

One person’s view:  “Ed on this song sounds like when he gets in bed with this girl, they are having sex on a racecar bed with Batman sheets.” – blendernoob64 @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  1.43 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 2017

I made a pact with the devil when I started this project.  I knew that I would have fun at first, but that I would eventually be forced to say something about Ed Sheeran.  Ed is someone who sparks no emotions in me whatsoever, either positive or negative.  Worse still, everything that could possibly be written about him has already been written.  Multiple critics have already commented on his Muppet-like appearance, so even my usual Sesame Street comparisons won’t break any new ground here.  By necessity, this will be a brief post.

“Shape of You” annoys many people with its pseudo-reggae sound.  Some listeners find it inappropriate that Sheeran – the least Jamaican person ever to be born outside of Greenland – is profiting (albeit in a highly attenuated manner) from the legacy of Bob Marley.  Others have a more practical complaint about the song.  Its first few notes are nearly identical to the opening of Sia’s “Cheap Thrills”, which was a #1 hit just a few months prior to it.  Try playing “Shape of You” at a party and watch what happens ten seconds into the track when Ed’s half-hearted attempt at rapping begins.  Everyone inevitably groans in unison upon realizing that they are not about to hear Sia.

The lyrics, however, are the bigger problem.  Sheeran opens by boasting about his technique for picking up women at bars, as though he has a lot of experience in this area.  But in the rest of the song he comes across like a guy who has just had sex for the first time and is making weird observations about the incident.  For example, he marvels that his bed sheets now smell like this woman rather than his own usual stench.  Maybe it’s time to finally wash them?  Then there’s the verse about the couple going to the all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant, feasting as if it’s their last meal, and sneaking more food home in the girl’s purse.  One suspects that the shape of her body – the shape that Ed loves so much – is quite round, and that the odor in his bed is a mix of soy sauce, garlic, and post-buffet flatulence.

There is one thing I like about “Shape of You”:  its video, or at least the last minute or so.  The clip depicts the 5’8” Ernie-headed balladeer as an improbably gifted athlete who is, in the thrilling conclusion, tossed around like a Frisbee by an enormous sumo wrestler.  The video’s payoff almost justifies the laborious build-up.  If the video for “Separate Lives” had featured a sumo wrestler beating the stuffing out of Phil Collins, I would have given that song a far better review than I did.

“Shape of You” spent 12 weeks at #1.  Its unfathomable success marks the moment at which pop music completely ran out of original ideas that were worth expressing in a song.  Billboard should probably have discontinued the Hot 100 at this point, but it did not.  Thus, this blog will regrettably stumble onward for a few more entries.

My rating:  3 / 10

“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.

My rating:  4 / 10

“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.

My rating:  8 / 10

“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.

My rating:  5 / 10

“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.

My rating:  7 / 10

“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!

My rating:  4 / 10