bottom 10 of the 00’s

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

        In determining the worst songs of the decade, the first thing you have to do is eliminate the stuff that wasn’t intended to be anything of intrinsic value. Sure, it would be easy to compile a top 100 if you went from that perspective. Novelty acts like Bob The Builder, Cheeky Girls, Fast Food Rockers, and Crazy Frog; manufactured acts like Pussycat Dolls and boy bands (not to mention solo singles by their individual members); all the singles by runners-up in the Pop Idol shows, and many of the releases by those same shows’ winners would certainly qualify. What we’re looking for here is the tunes that intended to be greater than they actually were, either having a message the writers/singers wrongly thought was relevant, having an intensity that seemed misplaced and sometimes embarrassing, being terribly repetitious, or leaving you asking “What the hell were they thinking?” The songs are intriguing just for being bad, no small accomplishment in itself.  

 

          So let’s begin first with the contenders, in no particular order:

 

  1. London Bridge — Fergie (2007)  Not much music, just a lot of double entendre. Stick with Black Eyed Peas.
  2. Jump In My Car — David Hasselhoff (2006) Are you kidding? Perhaps he was on one of his binges when he recorded this.
  3. Rockstar — Nickelback (2008) Joe Walsh had this same idea 30 years ago, and it was a whole lot funnier.
  4. My Neck My Back (Lick It) — Khia (2005) Unedited version has the lovely line “Lick my pussy and my crack.” A women’s lib anthem, then?
  5. If U Seek Amy — Britney Spears (2009) Couldn’t even find a clever way to have the pun “F-U-C-K Me” mean anything but….
  6. Blue (Da Ba Dee) — Eiffel 65 (2000) Typical Euro-disco where the point is made in the first 15 seconds, but they prolong it anyway.
  7. You See The Trouble With Me — Black Legend (2000) Four+ minutes of tedium, a tribute to Barry White that may have hastened his passing. 
  8. Leave (Get Out) — Jo Jo (2004) Singer was 13 years old at the time, yet making grown-up decisions like this? Don’t think so.
  9. Foundations — Kate Nash (2007) Still looking for a fourth note.
  10. Gimme The Light — Sean Paul (2003) Still looking for an intelligible word.

 These ARE in a particular order, and all except two hit #1 on UK charts: (sorry, US friends, but I’ve been in UK most of the decade)


 10. Be Faithful — Fatman Scoop feat. Crooklyn Clan (2003) Did you ever notice this song is just one 2 1/2 minute intro? Most of the time is spent urging different factions to get their hands up, beginning with running through all the available US currency (“you got a 20 dollar bill put your hands up”). When it appears all the possibilities have been used up, and the obligatory sample is repeated a few times, in this case Faith Evans’ “Love Like This,” this grotesque man, who believed it was sexy to take his shirt off and expose his obese belly every time he performed it on television, is forced to improvise. Oh, well, we could just repeat our name 20 times!   


9.All The Things She Said — t.a.t.u. (2003) The Russian lesbian duo who weren’t! And they may not have been RUSSIAN either. Hey, gotta have a gimmick, right?! Made for a nice song parody, too (“All we do in bed, all we do in bed, Is give each other head…”). And ouch, those voices!!

 

8. Call On Me — Eric Prydz (2004) This could have been where the art of sampling was bastardized to the point of ambiguity. What a great substitute for creativity! We’ll take a snippet from a long forgotten 80s tune, underscore with a disco beat, repeat it continuously for three minutes, and bang, it’s a hit! And all on a budget of about £3.78! So Steve Winwood’s “Valerie” becomes the victim here, but in the following year, such tunes as Hall & Oates “Out Of Touch,” Eddie Murphy’s “Party All The Time,” Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney’s “Say Say Say,” and Boy Meets Girl’s “Waiting For The Star To Fall,” (in two competing versions no less!) would all receive the same treatment. Prydz himself would later give Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall” a go, so he absorbs the blame here for the monster that was created.

 

7. You’re Beautiful — James Blunt (2005) First of all, James Blunt’s name has become Cockney rhyming slang. From the opening vocal false start, you know we’re in trouble. In the verse, he sings about a woman he’s never met, entirely in third person. Then in the chorus, he addresses her in second person. So WHO is he actually singing the song TO? That misconception, plus Blunt’s hoarse tenor, make it a chore to sit through, yet somehow Blunt accomplished what all had thought improbable: A British act topping the US singles charts. It’s happened twice since then, but there had been a 9-year gap before him. That doesn’t necessarily redeem it.

 

6. I Kissed A Girl — Katy Perry (2008) The only other in this list besides the James Blunt tune to top charts on both sides of the Atlantic. This wasn’t even an original idea. Back in 1995, Jill Sobule, a Canadian folkie, got some fair airplay with a tune of the same title, but with a much more comme çi comme ça attitude. Sobule’s song said “Woops, I screwed up” whereas Perry’s song seemed to say “Oh, no I’m going to hell.” It’s not a goddam crisis, Katy! You were a bit tipsy, hey, shit happens. Give it a rest! And when she says “I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it,” well, only if he didn’t get to watch!

 

5. Real To Me — Bryan McFadden (2004) Obviously, when McFadden left Westlife, there were many unresolved issues, so he chose to put them on his debut solo single. Perhaps he wanted to be the next Robbie Williams, but this wasn’t gonna do it. Guess you can’t disagree with his assertion that family is more important than stardom, but there’s never been a more poorly-written way of expressing it. The “highlight” is the middle section where he talks about “having friends over for English tea, Then I raise up my finger and watch FOOTBALL ON TV!” Whew, what a rebel you are! And until now, I haven’t mentioned that in this family life he was glorifying, he was married to one of the luckiest women in show business, Kerry Katona, who’s shown no visible talent except to not be shy in front of cameras. The marriage died right after this song hit. Coincidence? Westlife haven’t exactly suffered without him!! 

 

4. American Pie — Madonna (2000) Imagine the scene: Madonna has just called a meeting of all her record company executives. She says she has something new she’d like to play for them. It’s her lightweight remake of Don McLean’s “American Pie,”  a song better left alone. Whatever enthusiasm the original had is quelled by this rendition. When it’s done, she asks for feedback. Since they’re all yes-men, the reaction is a unanimous, “Oh, Madonna, it’s great, love it.” She then says, “Well, guess what? This is a piece of shit, and you’re all fired!” While that scenario is fantasy, what’s really more unbelievable was that Madge, who’s been so successful in perceiving public taste, could so badly misfire. Had anyone else tried it, it would have never received airplay. UK didn’t follow America’s example of ignoring this one.  

 

3. I Like The Way — Bodyrockers (2005) You get a repetitive guitar lick that probably The Kinks could sue over. The lead singer, and we use the term loosely since he only sings roughly seven notes on three occasions, runs over the list of things he likes about her. “The way you sing along, and always get it wrong” is about the most we get to know about the object of his affection.  Finally, as the band crescendos, he wails “but most of all, most of all….. I like the way you move!” THAT’S IT???!!  You’d expect at least a more outrageous euphemism for “have sex,” since “Move” is not exactly a climax. That in itself wasn’t anything new either, given that only a couple years earlier, OutKast had said it better with “The Way You Move.” This one didn’t hit #1, but it got used in enough commercials to compensate. Big waste of time and energy!  

 

2. I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) — Sandi Thom (2006) Just the title alone shows how misguided this effort was. “In 77 and 69, revolution was in the air.” Well, she was almost half right. The hippie “flower power” revolution is most attributed to the “Summer of Love” which took place in 1967. By 1969, the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco was a junkie ghetto, and most of the remaining hippies had either dropped further out, overdosed, or dropped back in. The Punk Rock movement, which was really only a backlash against Disco and corporate Rock, began in 1976, but reached its peak a year later, so we’ll excuse her on that one, Then she says “I was born too late…” which is obvious, because if she’d lived through either “revolution,” she’d know they have nothing in common, and not try to couple them together. Inaccuracies aside, this is just an unpleasant listen whether in its original a cappella version or with low organ drones dubbed in later mixes.


1. Jenny From The Block — Jennifer Lopez (2002) Didn’t hit #1 on the UK chart, but topped THIS one! She’s trying to assert that even though she’s rich and famous, she’s still down with her peeps, she’s still “street.” Wrong on so many counts! Once you leave the ghetto, J-Lo, you don’t relate to it anymore. She’s had multiple career successes, and when she says she hasn’t forgotten where she came from, that may be true, but success DOES change you, so don’t say you’re still the girl from the projects when you’re most decidedly not!  And if the point isn’t driven home enough, there’s about 25 repetitions of the chorus, ending with an a cappella one to a cold ending, leaving the frustrated DJ forced to let it play through. 

 

So those are my ten. Agree? Or not?

October 28th, 2009



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